DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

3.3]
DOMINANCE OF RELIGION 65
a cult-object five thousand years ago. However, we have to explain the
duality of mother-goddess figures and male totemic cult animals in no
way associated with each other. The seals had a special purpose besides
that of cult worship, namely to impose a protective tabu upon
merchandise. 14 If the trader developed his own property, independently
of the temple goddess and temple property, it would explain why he
found a different type of figure for protection.
These seals have some connection with Ice Age art. The primitive
artists utilized ‘ sketch-sheets’ (hardly larger than the Indus seals)
from which animal figures were carefully duplicated on European
cave walls as far as 200 miles apart (AIA fig. 138-9). From copying
the sketch to stamping it directly on clay is a simple advance in
cultic activity. In AIA fig. 140, we see several animals on the stone
plaque ‘ sketch-sheet’ which form an excellent first step to the chimaeras
and hybrid monsters of India through the ages.
Dominance of religion would explain the changelessness of the
culture over at least five hundred and more probably three times that
number of years. From the earliest Harappan settlement on the site of
a pre-Indus hamlet, to the period of violent destruction, we may note
decay, but no essential change. This is also a feature peculiar to Indus
cities, in contrast to Mesopotamian or Egyptian. The pottery forms and
technique remain static till the last period of conquest by foreign raiders
; the bronze tools also retain the older forms unchanged, as for example
bar celts (fig. 12) for axes and adzes, without a shaft-hole.
Fig. 12. Fig. 13.
Fig. 12. Bronze tool from lower levels at Mohenjo-daro; same scale as Fig,
13.
Fig. 13. Bronze shaft-hole axe-adze ; evidence of foreign occupation, upper strata,
Mohenjo-daro.