DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

[3.3
LIVING CULTS 64
major building in the sacred enclosure are covered by a Kusana stupa. But
the adjacent ‘ Great Bath’ at Mohenjo-daro (filled with water drawn
laboriously by hand from a special adjacent well, beautifully constructed
with bitumen waterproofing between brick layers, a drain for
emptying, and surrounded on three sides by cells) must have been a
ritual tank, because of the beautiful and well-used bathrooms in every
private house which distinguish the city from anything in proto-history, or
Mesopotamia, or Egypt. Even a bather from the citadel could easily
have descended the steps in the wall which led down to the river. I have
explained this as the prototype of the sacred lotus pond [puskara; of.
JBBRAS. 27. (1951). 23-30] which survived in later times. Indian kings
of whom we know anything were not’ anointed’ as in Europe but’
sprinkled’ at such holy spots. I further suggested that the spot was dedicated
to mother-goddess worship : part of the fertility ritual was to consort
with her living hierodules at’ the puskara, which corresponds to sacred
prostitution in the temples of Ishtar in Mesopotamia. Doll-like images
of bird-headed females, evidently dancers or similar persons of sacred
office wearing a special mask head-dress, are found in profusion in the
ruins, and in those of parallel cultures of much less developed type, as at
Kulli. The living representatives of a long-preserved cult would help
explain the absence of cult statuary. The evidence is a bit mixed because
the stamp seals contain nothing but cult-figures of male animals; the few
human figures on the seals, when identifiable, seem also to be male.
Among the latter is a bearded three-faced deity which has someof the
attributes of the later Hindu god Siva. For that matter, iconotropic seals
from the Indus may explain many legends of later Hinduism, as say that
of Trisanku. 13 The pipal (Ficus religiosa) tree worshipped in India today
is shown on the seals with its unmistakable leaves (fig. 11), hence was
Fig. 11. “The Sacrifice”an
Indus stamp-seal.