DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

3.3] FORCE OR RELIGION? 63
containing gold, silver, jewelry have come to light. The great houses
have massive thief-proof walls of burnt brick; the house entrance is
almost invariably in a narrow side-lane, with some sort of doorkeeper’s
lodge immediately within the entrance. With the wells in the
courtyard, the houses were the owners’ fortresses. But there is a
remarkable absence of decoration, monuments, inscriptions, large
statuary, even ornamental brickwork, tiles, painted plaster or other
manifestations of the spirit of public display to be expected from a
conqueror’s megalomania or new-rich trader’s cheerful vulgarity. The
treasures were a strictly private concern. Town planning did not go as far
as a surface of brick or slag on the streets, which must have been
impassable after what little rain there was. Finally, the tools of violence
were curiously weak, though nothing is directly known of their social
mechanism for wielding force, which we call the state. The weapons
found in the Indus cities are flimsy, particularly the ribless leafblade
copper spearheads which would have crumpled up at the first
good thrust. There is nothing like a sword in the main Indus strata.
Archers occur in the ideograms, arrowheads of stone and copper have
been discovered. The bow. would be a survival of the hunting age. Of
course, iron was not known, so that a few weapons in the hands of a
small minority might have sufficed’; but the contrast with the excellent,
sturdy though archaic, tools proves that the use of weapons was not very
important. Therefore, the state mechanism whatever it was, must have
had some powerful ‘adjunct that reduced the need for violence to a
minimum. The cities rested upon trade, not fighting; but if the army or
police were not very strong, what helped the trader maintain his unequal
sharing of profit ?
The answer seems to lie in religion. Though there are no great
statues of the gods, what has been called the ‘ citadel’ mound
undoubtedly corresponds to the temple-zikkurat structures in
Mesopotamia. The whole construction was on a brick platform at, least
30 feet high, safe from floods; the nexus of buildings was walled, even
used as a fortified area in later times. Nevertheless, the complicated,
wide entrance stairs, useless for defence, are explicable only as of
ceremonial purpose. The Harappan site has been devastated by brickrobbing,
while at Mohenjo-daro, what must have been the ruins of a