Indus-Valley People
The Indus-Valley is a region that stretches from the Himalayan Mountains to the Arabian Sea and is mostly where Pakistan is today. Where these inhabitants originally came from and the details of their lives are a mystery since experts are still unable to decipher their writings. They did however; leave behind many artifacts that give us clues and theories about their lives. The disappearance of the people of the valley is a mystery. There are many theories about why they left the area and where they went. Some believe that they were absorbed into the Aryan culture once the Aryans took over the area and others believe that they went south and are the ancestors to the Tamils of South India. The study of their religious beliefs provides a significant amount of evidence to support the theory that the Indus-Valley people became the Celts of Central and Western Europe.
Evidence of the Indus-Valley civilization was discovered by archeologists in 1920. Engraved seals with a pictographic script were found at a place called Harappa in Pakistan. Archeologists date the civilization from around 3000BCE to 1500 BCE (Rahman). Experts have not been able to decipher the pictograph writing which makes most of what we know about the civilization based on artifacts found, their construction of buildings and dwelling and speculation to what it all means by historians and archeologists. The Indus-Valley inhabitants seemed to have a thriving metropolis. There is evidence of an economy built on agriculture and trade. Indus-Valley engraved seals were found in Mesopotamia, showing that they traded with that region (Geocities).
Since we do not know how to translate their language we need to rely on the many artifacts found to determine the religious beliefs of the Indus-Valley people. There have been many artifacts found to give us some idea to their beliefs. We know that they were polytheistic. Polytheistic means that they had a belief in many Gods and Goddesses. Their main worship seemed to be of the Goddess. Many statues of a Mother Goddess have been found indicating that they worshipped the divine feminine (History of India). From the many engraved seals we can see that they also worshipped the male divine and nature. There are depictions of a male-horned God figure. Sometimes the male God is surrounded by animals. Gods and Goddesses depicted as half-animal, half-human were also worshipped. The belief that they worshipped nature is in the evidence of certain trees that were shown on artifacts, trees such as the Papal tree (Info-tech). The bull also seems to have been held as a sacred animal and worshipped. The Indus people believed in reincarnation. Experts know this by the fact that pottery and personal items were found buried with the dead.
There isn’t any evidence of temples or places of worship so we do not know how they worshipped their Gods and Goddesses. There is a theory on religious practices due to a large public building found at Mohenjo-daro. It appears to be a public bath. It is believed that this was used for ritual purposes since private dwellings were found to all have their own elaborate private bathrooms (Harris). The great bath would have been used as a place of ritual cleansing for everyone before the public ceremony. The Indus-valley people based their lives around commerce, and religion. The Indus-Valley civilization was a thriving society, so how did it all end?
The Indus-Valley would have been susceptible to flooding, decrease in trade and urban sprawl. Flooding would have caused crop decimation. Flooding would have affected their waste disposal system and the spread of disease would have been inevitable (Kostman). The ruining of crops and the growing population of the valley would have led to a decrease in trade and a growing need for food for the inhabitants of the cities. People would have started to suffer from within. The standard of living would have started to decrease and people would have started leaving the urban areas in search of better land and opportunities. The decline started around 1500 BCE and would last till around 1200 BCE when the Aryan Invasion into the area took place (Kostman). It is around this time period that archeologists find the first signs of the Celts in Central Europe.
The origin of the Celts is also a mystery. It is believed that a mixture of Greek, North African, and South Asian peoples make up the race. The Celtic people were not white and fair-haired as we like to picture them. They were a dark-haired race with dark skin. Recent archeological digs in Eastern Europe and Asia Minor have shown that the Celts were not native to Europe. The evidence from the digs indicates that the original Celts were primarily a dark haired people with ‘swarthy’ complexions (Mitchell).
It wasn’t until the race started mixing with Norse and Anglo-Saxons that the fair-haired and pale skinned Celts of England and Ireland appear. The earliest record of Celtic peoples is in 1200BCE. It is recorded that Celtic tribes invaded Spain around that time (TIC). Archeologists have also found artifacts in Central Europe and Asia Minor dating back to 1200BCE that are from Celtic tribes. The history of the Celts is mainly based on oral histories passed down through generations and recorded later by early writers of history (Blamires). No written language has been found. At first this may seem to disqualify the Indus people as the Celts since they did have a pictograph written language. However, there is a possible explanation for this. As the Indus people left the valley they moved throughout Central Europe and took up everything they came in contact with all the way up into Western Europe and eventually into the north. They not only took over the lands but took up wives and customs of the people they invaded. This caused a mixture of different races with different languages. As they moved through Europe, settling briefly in various places, they were not stable enough to develop a new written language. They led nomadic lifestyles, always looking for ideal land. As they moved about and absorbed more and more of a mixture of races there would have been many different dialects present in the group. They also broke into different tribes, migrating to different parts of Europe. The fragmented society would not have a written language because there would have been several different languages spoken within the same group. This is what caused the Celts to be separated into many small tribes with each tribe having their own language and customs. The Celts may have been fragmented due to their language but they were united in their religion. It is the religion of the Celts that gives us the biggest amount of proof that the Indus-Valley people were indeed among the people of the Celtic race.
The Celtic religion is a polytheistic religion. The Celts worshipped many gods and goddesses. Like the Indus-Valley people the Celts had no religious structures erected for us to know for sure how the worshipped. Like the Indus-Valley people they did not build any temples. We also need to rely on the evidence found on artifacts in order to understand what and how they worshiped. The Celts worshipped both the female and male divine. Pictures of a horned male God is found among the many Celtic artifacts. Just like the Indus God he is depicted surrounded by animals and nature. He is also pictured with trees. The Mother goddess was the center of Celtic worship; she was worshipped as Mother Earth (Hinds). Goddess worship was the most important worship for the Celts just like it was for the Indus people. Their lives surrounded the cycles of the Earth and Moon. The mother earth gave them life, brought death and rebirth. They relied on her being pleased because they too were an agricultural people and relied on the production of crops in order to survive. The cycles of the moon brought weather patterns that could destroy their land or make it prosper. Both aspects of the mother goddess were necessary for their survival. Although there are no Celtic deities represented as half-human and half-animal, most of them are associated with an animal and statues of the animal were sometimes used as a representation of the deity. The Goddess Boann was the ‘White Cow Goddess,’ Brigit was often seen with or depicted as a sheep and the Mother Goddess, Ceridwen was often seen with the sow (Hinds). There are three aspects to the Goddess: Maiden, Mother and Crone. Each aspect is represented in the Moon. On many of the artifacts found of the mother goddess there is carved upon it the moon in its different cycles. The waxing crescent moon represents the Maiden, full moon represents the Mother and waning crescent moon represents the Crone. Ceridwen is the Crone aspect of the Goddess and she brought death and rebirth. Ceridwen was not only often depicted with a pig, but she had the ability to transform into any animal she chose (Hinds).
Trees were also sacred to them. The tree had been recognized by the Indus people and the Celts as a symbol of life and regeneration of sacred knowledge. To them the tree was a source used in all aspects of life. Its wood built shelter that protected them from the elements as well as weapons and heat for fire, its fruit sustained life, and its bark helped them produce clothing and tools. The Oak tree was the primary symbol of worship among the Celts just like the Papal tree was among the Indus. Trees in general were believed to have been the God on earth. Kings, Queens, Emissaries, Priests and Priestesses all carried branches of Oak as symbols of their authority. The Celts believed that the first human beings were descendant from trees. The Indus people also shared these beliefs about trees, “… [they worshiped] trees and animals in the belief that they are abodes of spirits, good or evil. They regarded some trees as givers of wisdom and life. There were two forms of tree worship – one in which tree itself were worshipped in its material form, and the other in which the tree was personified and endowed with human shape and attributes (Saila).”
The Celtic Druids, the clergy of the tribes, worshipped in sacred groves and believed that trees and animals were sacred to the Gods. Just like the Papal tree that was worshipped in the Indus-Valley, the Celts worshipped food giving trees like the Oak and Hazel tree (Collins). In both their beliefs the tree was considered magical because of its roots. The roots extended beneath the earth and beneath the earth was a place of mysteries. This was the place of the God. The trees also have branches that bear fruit and spread up into the skies which were another place of great mystery. The heavens were the place of the Goddess, where the physical aspects of both the God and Goddess could be seen in the Sun, Moon and Stars. Then there were the birds that nested in the branches. Birds were thought to be the messengers of the gods and they often nest in trees to rear their young, so the trunk of the tree itself became a bridge between the worlds (Blamires). In Indus valley artifacts there are many depictions of man with the beak of a bird and in the Celtic artifacts there are depictions of men carrying great birds on a pedestal.
The Celts, like the Indus people believed in reincarnation, “It was around the first century AD that both the Greek and Roman writers were surprised by the fact that the Druids, a priestly caste of the Celts, believed in reincarnation. The Greek writer Diordus Siculus (c. 60 BC - 30 AD) noted that the Druids believed "the souls of men are immortal, and that after a definite number of years they live a second life when the soul passes to another body." The Greek philosopher Strabo (c. 63 BC - 21 AD) observed the Druids believed that "men's souls and the universe are indestructible (Hefner)…” We know that the Indus-valley people believed in reincarnation as well because of graves found in the cities, “They believed that there was life after death because the graves often contained household pottery, ornaments and mirrors which might have belonged to the dead persons and which it was thought he or she might need after death (Info-tech).” Just like the graves found in the Indus-valley, Celtic graves were also found to hold personal belonging and pottery, Items like, ceramic vessels, like bowls and cups, razors, weapons that were bent or broken, bracelets, pendants and pins, amber or glass beads, animal bones, usually pork, sometimes gold rings or sheets and in some cases miniature wagons. (NOD). In both peoples graves we see a long list of similar items that indicate that both had a belief in reincarnation.
The Indus-Valley people did not disappear and they were not just simply incorporated into the Aryan culture. The Indus people, due to natural events and evolution of the land, migrated to Europe and became the people known as the Celts. The changes in some of the religious aspects only show how the Indus-Valley religion evolved and may have incorporated some of the beliefs of the other races they mixed with. The similarities of the culture and religion of the Celts and Indus-Valley people show that the Celts could have originated from that race. The Indus-Valley civilization was an organized and advanced society and they carried their knowledge into Europe. The Celts were not barbarians as the Romans depicted them as. We know that the Celts had a hierarchy society, similar to that of Indus-Valley society, had Clergy to perform public ritual and built elaborate cities out of stone similar to that found in the Indus-Valley. The two shared the same beliefs and the same gods and goddesses. They were both polytheistic and worshiped many gods and goddesses. They worshipped the Mother Goddess, a horned God and found God incarnate in the form of trees and nature. The fact that the Celts were dark-skinned and dark-haired proves that they originated not from Europe but from South Asia and the North African continent. The only fair-skinned Celts that were found were in Northern Europe in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Great Britain. It wasn’t until the Celts were pushed into these areas and mingles with the Anglo-Saxons that history starts to see light-skinned and light-haired Celts. There are some changes and differences in the comparison to the religions, and culture, however, the basis is the societies were the same and the evidence clearly shows that the Indus-Valley people were not absorbed into the Aryan race but migrated north into Europe and became a part of what we know as the Celtic race.
Bibliography
Blamires, S. (2005). Magic of the Celtic Otherworld. Llewellyn Publications.
Collins, E. (1999). Celtic Sacred Trees and Wood. Retrieved 8 26, 2009, from http://www.wicca.com/celtic/celtic/sactrees.htm
Geocities. (n.d.). Geocities. Retrieved 8 25, 2009, from Pakistan-Cradle of Civilization: http://www.geocities.com/pak_history/Indus.html
Harris, D. A. (2004). The Development of Civilization and Religion in India and its Influence on the World Society. http://www.appiusforum.com/book.pdf.
Hefner, A. (2009, 09 24). The Mystica. Retrieved 09 28, 2009, from Reincarnation: http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/r/reincarnation.html
Hinds, C. M. (2005). Magic of the Celtic Gods and Goddesses. New Page Books.
History of India. (2009, 01 20). Retrieved 8 25, 2009, from India Netzone: http://www.indianetzone.com/18/religion_indus_valley_civilization.htm
Info-tech. (2008). Indus-Valley Civilization Religion. Retrieved 8 25, 2009, from History Tuition: http://www.historytution.com/indus_valley_civilization/religion.html
Kostman, C. J. (2009). The Demise of Utopia. Retrieved 8 26, 2009, from Adventure Corp: http://www.adventurecorps.com/archaeo/collapse.html
Mitchell, E. (2002). Essortment. Retrieved 09 28, 2009, from Ancient Celtic History: http://www.essortment.com/all/celtichistorya_rmog.htm
NOD. (2006). Celtic Death and Burials. Retrieved 8 26, 2009, from The New Order of Druids: http://www.druidcircle.org/avalon/index.php?option=com_alphacontent§ion=6&cat=17&task=view&id=138&Itemid=126
Rahman, D. T. (n.d.). Peoples and Language. Retrieved 8 25, 2009, from Peoples and Language of Pre-Indus Civilization: http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html
Saila, t. (2009, 07 12). Youth Internet Ministries. Retrieved 09 28, 2009, from Socio-Religious Practices of the Indus-Valley Civilization: http://youthim.com/index.php?phek=thuthar&pid=5&cid=5&nid=264
TIC. (2009). History of Spain Timline. Retrieved 8 26, 2009, from Globelink International: http://www.globelink.co.uk/articles/country-information/spain-travel-insurance/history-of-spain-timeline.html
