Which were the main gods of the Indus valley civilization?

[Rakovsky]

The Indus Valley Civilization is one of the world's oldest, lasting from prehistory to 1500 BC. It had a huge population spread along the Indus river and neighboring regions in modern Pakistan and northwest India. Scholars tend to think it was basically Dravidian in its main language and that it basically preceded the coming of IndoEuropeans, who arrived as Arians. Yet scholars are hardly unanimous on these points. Nor have they agreed on a decipherment of its alphabet, although a few have claimed success in their own efforts, which is disputed.

They do agree that Hinduism is at least a version of continuation of Indus religion. Can we establish what any of their deities were?

The "Hindu website" (http://www.hinduwebsite.com/history/indus.asp) proposes:

Indus people probably worshipped Mother Goddess, in addition to male and female deities. They worshiped a father God who might be a progenitor of the race and probably was a prototype of Siva as the Lord of the Animals...

They believed in some kind of a tree of life, which is depicted in the seals as a Pipal or Acasia tree, defended by a guardian spirit against an evil force symbolized as a tiger. In seals, the guardian spirit is depicted variously as a bull, a snake, a goat, a mythical creature or animal. They worshiped fertility symbols such as round stones and pierced stones, a practice that probably preceded the worship of Siva and parvathi in the form Sivalinga.

According to Prof Spyridon Marinatos the Indus civilization was probably similar to that of ancient Greece. Both worshiped Mother Goddess and the Bull played an important role in their religious lives.

I think scholars might be able to do better than just assert that they worshiped a mother goddess, which is as far as this goes. It seems to me that we might be able to compare mother goddess statuettes from the Indus with goddesses of Hinduism and reach an educated guess. Also, I don't know how it knows that they worshiped a "father god". It doesn't seem obvious to me from the tablets I've seen that this was their understanding of one of the gods. It seems rather to me that this is a guess by the author.

The ancient.eu website proposes a more specific identification of one of the figures with the male Shiva, after mentioning the suggestion that the proposed mother goddess symbolized fertility:

One famous seal displayed a figure seated in a posture reminiscent of the lotus position, surrounded by animals. It came to be labelled after Pashupati (lord of beasts), an epithet of Shiva. The discoverer of the Shiva seal (M420), Sir John Marshall and others have claimed that this figure is a prototype of Shiva, and have described it as having three faces, seated on a throne in a version of the cross-legged lotus posture of Hatha Yoga. Yogi's p---- is erect... The precise placement of both heels under the ------- is an advanced Tantric Yoga technique known as Bandha, meaning knot or lock. It is normally used to sublimate and redirect sexual energy and can endow the practitioner with spiritual powers.

Shiva Pashupati

http://www.ancient.eu/article/230

Let me make a few comments - I have read an alternative theory by Dubyansky that this figure on the tablet is not a proto-Shiva. He says that Shiva, although associated with a bull, is not depicted with horns as a human. His alternative theory is that this was a local non-Aryan Indus deity who got changed and absorbed into the Hindu pantheon after the Aryan conquest. One possibility he considers is that this was actually the deity Mhasoba associated with a bull, or else it was a deity who became remythologized as a bad asura, namely the Bull-Asura Mahishasura who fought Indra, the famous Indo-european god.

The site further comments on the surrounding animals:

A large tiger rears upwards by the yogi's right side, facing him. This is the largest animal on the seal, shown as if warmly connected to the yogi; the stripes on the tiger's body, also in groups of five, highlight the connection. Three other smaller animals are depicted on the Shiva seal. It is most likely that all the animals on this seal are totemic or heraldic symbols, indicating tribes, people or geographic areas. On the Shiva seal, the tiger, being the largest, represents the yogi's people, and most likely symbolizes the Himalayan region. The elephant probably represents central and eastern India, the bull or buffalo south India and the rhinoceros the regions west of the Indus river.

Let me note a competing theory - another one I read is that each of the four animals represents some major part of the world, so that here the god's rulership over the world is symbolized. That is, the intent was not just to depict rulership over India.

Next, it associates this figure not just with Shiva, but with Shiva- Pashupati in particular:

The most important depiction of an imagined Hinduism god is seal number 420. .... The deity is wearing a headdress that has horns, the shape being reminiscent of the crescent moon that modern image of Siva shows on his forehead. What are thought to be linga stones have been dug up. Linga stones in modern Hinduism are used to represent the erect male phallus or the male reproductive power of the god Siva. But again, these stones could be something entirely different from objects of religious worship. Even today, Siva is worshiped in both human form and that of the phallus. The deity sitting in a yoga-like position suggests that yoga may have been a legacy of the very first great culture that occupied India.
http://www.ancient.eu/article/230/

I agree that the yoga position can be a suggestion of yoga's role in Indus society. The thing is, even if we accept an Aryan invasion scenario in 2000-1500 BC, it's still noticeable that yoga is special to India, whereas then-current meditation among other Indo-European peoples does not seem to have reached the same amount or spread, even though of course shamanism existed.

I am eager to continue this conversation, so please write back with your ideas.

 

[Vinayaka]

Just so you know, new data has totally derailed the AIT, nearly to the same pile as Flat Earth. Only old people unwilling to read new research, or those attached to it's implications still subscribe to it.

 

[Aupmanyav]

I confess I am a die-hard 'Aryan Migration' fan. These are the latest related threads from me:
http://www.religiousforums.com/threads/yajurveda-“this-battle-is-the-source-of-thy-prosperity-hence-we-goad-thee-to-that-battle”.189446/page-8#post-4891428
http://www.religiousforums.com/threads/aryan-journeys-according-to-vendidad.190824/#post-4892824

It is absolutely without proof to consider than Indus valley civilization and Saraswati Valley civilization was in anyway wholly Dravidian. Perhaps the Aryans were already there and were a part of life. The language and the script has not been deciphered. As for deities, the Mother Goddess, the Ascetic with its close resemblance to Pashupati Shiva, and the bull were surely important. I can also agree to the idea of tree worship which has continued in Hinduism. There is no reason to think that there was any break, no indication of an invasion or war. Change in climate, change in river flows due to tectonic reasons seems to be the main reason for the decline of the civilization. Why should we take tiger as a symbol of evil? Tiger is the mount of the Mother Goddess, could easily have been the same in Harappan times also. These ideas have been concocted without any proof. I do like the idea of animals representing the four directions and the Ascetic/Shiva's dominion over all, I would say possible.

I will make a point. The earliest civilizational archaeological finds in India are from Mehrgarh in Balochistan. That is 7,000 BC. And what we find there is not much different from what we find later in Indus Valley civilization. Aryans probably stayed in Kandhar, Lashkar Gah and Khuzdar regions during their wanderings (check in my maps) and considered River Arghandab (Harahvaiti) to be Saraswati. It is quite possible that the Aryans migration is that old.

Aryan entry into India was not a tsunami, it was not a Mongol of Hun invasion. They were next-door neighbors in Afghanistan. A few came and settled in India. That was no cause for worry to Indians.

 

[ShivaFan]

 

[Rakovsky]

Just so you know, new data has totally derailed the AIT, nearly to the same pile as Flat Earth. Only old people unwilling to read new research, or those attached to it's implications still subscribe to it.

This is a big, interesting topic, mostly for another thread. The "Indo-European homeland" must be northwest of India, because so much of Sanskrit and Hinduism is unique to the Subcontinent, rather than broadly Indo-European. At some point they migrated into Hindustan in large enough numbers to create a demographic basis for having their own Brahmi script by c. 1500 BC and make up 37% of Pakistan's DNA today.

I have seen current genetic studies of the current Subcontinent populations from Harvard and Stanford come down on opposite sides of how recently this occurred (especially regarding the Indus society). I note that on one hand even today a big majority of Pakistanis and North Indians are non-Indo-European, and on the other, Indus religion has a major cross over into Hinduism.

My best guess is that Harappan script relied on Dravidian. I recommend Asko Parpola's decipherment attempt at the Harappan script that uses Dravidian as a base and looks to me like it is going in the right direction, as with his notice of the cognates of fish and star (meena) and their use as a sign for the gods: https://www.harappa.com/script/parpola0.html

Spoiler: Dravidisms in Sanskrit

There are several structural and lexical Dravidisms even in the Rgveda, the earliest preserved text collection, pointing to the presence of Dravidian speakers in Northwest India in the second millennium B.C. The 25 Dravidian languages spoken at present form the second largest linguistic family of South Asia. Until recently, about one quarter of the entire population has spoken Dravidian, while the speakers of Austro-Asiatic, the third largest linguistic family of long standing in South Asia, numbered just a few per cent. The Indus language is likely to have belonged to the North Dravidian sub-branch represented today by the Brahui, spoken in the mountain valleys and plateaus of Afghanistan and Baluchistan, the core area of the Early Harappan neolithic cultures, and by the Kurukh spoken in North India from Nepal and Madhya Pradesh to Orissa, Bengal and Assam.

My conclusion on the "Aryan invasion" question is that they will have to do DNA tests on many remains at Harappan sites to conclusively get a sense of what portion of Harappans were Indo-European.

 

[Rakovsky]

Thank you, but in the thread I am asking about artefacts from the Indus Valley civilization that ended about 1500 BC in Pakistan and India.

 

[ShivaFan]

But the civilization didn't really end. It goes way back. And the Devatas and Devi were in many areas much more wide of a region and people(s), not just the Indus. In some parts of the world, weather has a greater effect in turning everything back to "dust", in other areas they may "decay" more slowly. Humans have been much more advanced than people imagine - and for much longer time. Just because one thing is found here but not there means nothing.

The "Gods" are from a long, long time ago. Today we may use the word Hinduism (which very well may be a description of a REGION rather than a religion), but that is ok. What was before, is still here.

 

[Aupmanyav]

The "Indo-European homeland" must be northwest of India, because so much of Sanskrit and Hinduism is unique to the Subcontinent, rather than broadly Indo-European. At some point they migrated into Hindustan in large enough numbers to create a demographic basis for having their own Brahmi script by c. 1500 BC and make up 37% of Pakistan's DNA today.

Brahmi came up around 500 BC. Homeland is a far cry, depending upon how far you go back in history. If we go by Vendidad, then FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Agency in Pakistan) is their last stop. That is the general location where Panini lived (Salutara, identified as modern Lahur, not Lahore). There were fourteen stops between Samarkand (Sukh Da, Sugdha, Sogdiana, Samarkand) and Rasa (Rangha, FATA). Who knows how many stops were there before Samarkand? Yes, over milleniums, a large number of Aryans had migrated to India (just like the migration of Punjabis to other parts of North India after Indian partition). Six of the 15 homelands were perhaps within the boundaries of Pakistan and India: 7. Vaereketa 9. Verkana 12. Raya 14. Varena 15. Sapta Sindhu and 16 Rangha. That makes me say that ancestors of Zoroaster were definitely in India at one time. Why otherwise Vendidad will include six Indian locations in its list?

 

[sayak83]

The Indus Valley Civilization is one of the world's oldest, lasting from prehistory to 1500 BC. It had a huge population spread along the Indus river and neighboring regions in modern Pakistan and northwest India. Scholars tend to think it was basically Dravidian in its main language and that it basically preceded the coming of IndoEuropeans, who arrived as Arians. Yet scholars are hardly unanimous on these points. Nor have they agreed on a decipherment of its alphabet, although a few have claimed success in their own efforts, which is disputed.

They do agree that Hinduism is at least a version of continuation of Indus religion. Can we establish what any of their deities were?

The "Hindu website" (http://www.hinduwebsite.com/history/indus.asp) proposes:

I think scholars might be able to do better than just assert that they worshiped a mother goddess, which is as far as this goes. It seems to me that we might be able to compare mother goddess statuettes from the Indus with goddesses of Hinduism and reach an educated guess. Also, I don't know how it knows that they worshiped a "father god". It doesn't seem obvious to me from the tablets I've seen that this was their understanding of one of the gods. It seems rather to me that this is a guess by the author.

The ancient.eu website proposes a more specific identification of one of the figures with the male Shiva, after mentioning the suggestion that the proposed mother goddess symbolized fertility:

http://www.ancient.eu/article/230

Let me make a few comments - I have read an alternative theory by Dubyansky that this figure on the tablet is not a proto-Shiva. He says that Shiva, although associated with a bull, is not depicted with horns as a human. His alternative theory is that this was a local non-Aryan Indus deity who got changed and absorbed into the Hindu pantheon after the Aryan conquest. One possibility he considers is that this was actually the deity Mhasoba associated with a bull, or else it was a deity who became remythologized as a bad asura, namely the Bull-Asura Mahishasura who fought Indra, the famous Indo-european god.

The site further comments on the surrounding animals:

Let me note a competing theory - another one I read is that each of the four animals represents some major part of the world, so that here the god's rulership over the world is symbolized. That is, the intent was not just to depict rulership over India.

Next, it associates this figure not just with Shiva, but with Shiva- Pashupati in particular:

I agree that the yoga position can be a suggestion of yoga's role in Indus society. The thing is, even if we accept an Aryan invasion scenario in 2000-1500 BC, it's still noticeable that yoga is special to India, whereas then-current meditation among other Indo-European peoples does not seem to have reached the same amount or spread, even though of course shamanism existed.

I am eager to continue this conversation, so please write back with your ideas.

Without deciphering script and without excavating something that looks like a place of worship, all is speculative.

 

[ShivaFan]

 

[Rakovsky]

the Ascetic with its close resemblance to Pashupati Shiva, and the bull were surely important.

What do you think about theories that it is not basically Shiva? Sokolova, a Russian scholar noted that bull horns are rare for Hindu gods and not part of Shiva when he is as a humanoid. An alternative theory by Dubyansky discussed by says the figure was a local deity of bulls like the horned humanoid Mahsoba, or like Mahishasura who was in this theory a local deity transformed into the "bull asura" and seen as bad, battling the incoming Aryans' famous Indra.

Doris Srinivasan has argued that the figure does not have three faces, or yogic posture, and that in Vedic literature Rudra was not a protector of wild animals.[112][113] Herbert Sullivan and Alf Hiltebeitel also rejected Marshall's conclusions, with the former claiming that the figure was female, while the latter associated the figure with Mahisha, the Buffalo God and the surrounding animals with vahanas (vehicles) of deities for the four cardinal directions.[114][115] Writing in 2002, Gregory L. Possehl concluded that while it would be appropriate to recognise the figure as a deity, its association with the water buffalo, and its posture as one of ritual discipline, regarding it as a proto-Shiva would be going too far.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilisation#Religion

Why should we take tiger as a symbol of evil?

Maybe this is the tablet the writer meant when he mentioned a woman supposedly defending a tree from a tiger:

Also, one Sumerian tablet model shows Gilgamesh fighting two lions, one on either side of him. In a corresponding Indus tablet, a woman is fighting two tigers on either side of her instead.
I don't know that this makes tigers essentially considered evil, as you said. "These ideas have been concocted without any proof."

 

[Rakovsky]

It goes way back.

I understand that Hinduism has old roots. However, consider that religions can change. In the Vedas we hear a brief mention of Dyaus Pita, the Father God, who birthed the gods, and whom I find to be a very interesting figure. And yet he is not discussed much in the Vedas and even less in later major literature. Feel free to prove me wrong on that. Had we been missing that part of the Vedas, maybe we would never even know about him directly in Hinduism and would have to make guesses.

That is why in this thread, Shiva Fan, I want to focus primarily on what can be shown directly from Harappan civilization itself, with only support at most from post-Indus Hinduism.

 

[Rakovsky]

Brahmi came up around 500 BC.

There are claims of it existing before then and claims it was based on Indus script.

The image above is a photo of a pot fragment found by Indian archeologist S. R. Rao from the submerged site of Dwarka. The fragment was dated to 1528 BC by thermoluminescence dating. From right to left, it reads 'ma-na-ja-ndra-na-y-y' (Manajandranai, a woman's name which means 'having beauty like Indra's wife'). The first three letters are Brahmi script, and the rest are Indus script.

=======

https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-evi...ahmi-script-was-derived-from-the-Indus-script

Six of the 15 homelands were perhaps within the boundaries of Pakistan and India: 7. Vaereketa 9. Verkana 12. Raya 14. Varena 15. Sapta Sindhu and 16 Rangha. That makes me say that ancestors of Zoroaster were definitely in India at one time. Why otherwise Vendidad will include six Indian locations in its list?

It will be hard to say definitively how many Harappans or Hindustanis of that time were IndoEuropean until they test many remains for DNA. Otherwise people can think of lots of competing ideas. For example, to answer your question above, someone can imagine that some IndoEuropeans did come as a trickle at first , and the six locations refer to places in that trickle. Then only later, after or during the Harappan decline, did the basic mass of the Aryans migrate in.

I really hope the scientists do the DNA tests, Aupmanyav. The Archaeological Survey of India government organization would be the kind of organization responsible if it wants to try.

 

[Kirran]

Just so you know, new data has totally derailed the AIT, nearly to the same pile as Flat Earth. Only old people unwilling to read new research, or those attached to it's implications still subscribe to it.

Who is it that tells you this?

I know it's the stance of Hinduism Today and the Sangh Parivar, as well as a number of Hindu historians, but do you also hear it elsewhere?

 

[Rakovsky]

Good info. Yes, I think both cases are using the model of Gilgamesh and the two lions - in Harappa I think it's the same model with the two tigers.

 

[Rakovsky]

Who is it that tells you this? While I don't see the issue as of any overwhelming import, I do find it odd how most scholars are confident that the Indigenous Aryans thing is long gone, then there's this minority so sure of the opposite.

Yes.
One explanation is that it has to do with the two main competing layers in Hindu society of Indo-Europeans (tending to the Upper castes) and the Dravidians. In this explanation, both sides are biased to see their own roots as being the main one for Harappa's great civilization. And since the question at this point is not definitive any more than we know, say, where the IndoEuropeans' homeland was (eg. Turkey or Russia), both sides have room to make arguments and feel strong in their positions when they put all of one side of arguments together.

 

[ShivaFan]

Actually, I have no proof of anything. All I know is "Hinduism" was (and is today) much more pervasive in the world than people think. I also think there are only five or six "root languages" and Sanskrit is the Mother of Languages that span from India to Europe to Iran to Turkey and so on. There are too many words the same. Romanian has startling exact Sanskrit words. I think a vast population is related to each other. I think human civilization is much, much older than most think, and humans have had "cities" for a long, long, long time. I think many of the "fables" are in fact remembered history with embellishments. I think peoples roamed all over the place over vast territory. I think the Mother Goddess goes way, way, way back. I think Shiva goes way, way, way, way back - I think some of the very early Murtis were made from meteorite material when observed falling from the sky. I believe that certain very early iron weapons were made from metals obtained from meteorites. I believe tribes came from the hills and mountains with the first proto-type chariots. I believe we all have much more in common than different. I think our DNA will one day show just how much we are all related to each other. I think very soon, if not already, there will not be a single "pure" race - we all have each other in each other.

But I could be wrong.

 

[Rakovsky]

Let me here discuss subsequent ideas in the Ancient.eu article. There have been findings of the swastika sign at Indus valley sites and the article relates it to Brahma, although I think it intends to mean Brahman.

In Hinduism, the Swastika in two drawings symbolizes two forms of the creator god Brahma. Facing right it signifies the evolution of the universe; facing left it typifies the involution of the universe. The swastika is one of the 108 symbols of the Hindu deity Vishnu and represents the Sun's rays, upon which life depends. It is also seen as pointing in all four directions (north, east, south and west) and thus implies stability. Its use as a Sun symbol can first be seen in its image of the god Surya. The swastika is used in all Hindu yantras and religious designs.
http://www.ancient.eu/article/230/

I think the essay is wrong to call the swastika a sign of the "creator god Brahma", as I think it probably intends to mean the Hindu principle of Brahman. Wouldn't you agree?

Wikipedia says about the Swastika:

It is also said to represent God (the Brahman) in his universal manifestation, and energy (Shakti). It represents the four directions of the world (the four faces of Brahma). It also represents the Purushartha: Dharma (natural order), Artha (wealth), Kama (desire), and Moksha (liberation).
The Arya Samaj is of the opinion that 'Swastik' is 'OM' written in the ancient Brahmi Script.

Wikipedia seems to be making the same mistake by calling Brahman "God", whereas the sign seems more to represent the principle of Brahman, right?

Steven Knapp associates the Swastika overall with the principle of Brahman and some aspects of it with the creator god Brahma:

The Swastika appears as a cross with branches bent at right angles, pointing in a clockwise direction. In essence, it represents well-being for all, and the circular nature of its points represents the repetitive nature of reincarnation, and also indicates the all-pervasiveness of the Absolute and the eternal nature of the Brahman, the spiritual dimension. If you draw a circle around it, it also symbolizes the Sun-god, Surya, as the ultimate source of light, heat and the energy of the universe that flows in all directions. The four arms of the Swastika stand for the four main directions, namely North, South, East, and West. The central point of the Swastika also represents the navel of Lord Vishnu from which Lord Brahma originated. This also indicates the expanding nature of the universe from a central point. The Swastika also represents the constantly changing world which evolves around an unchanging center, which is God.

The four branches of the Swastika represent the fourfold principles of divinity, which include: 1) Brahma, as the four-faced secondary creator of the universe who spreads the sacred knowledge in four directions; 2) the four Vedas, namely the Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva; 3) the four aims of life or Purusharthas, namely, Dharma (righteousness or sacred duty), Artha (acquiring wealth), Kama (fulfilling desires), and Moksha (liberation from any further cycles of birth and death); 4) the four ashramas of life which make the latter possible, namely Brahmacharya (student life of self-control), Grihastha (house-holder life), Vanaprastha (retired), and Sannyasa (life of renunciation); and 5) the four Varnas, or Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra.
http://www.stephen-knapp.com/swastika_its_real_meaning.htm

The Ancient.EU website continues by proposing that Mohenjo-Daro's name in ancient times contained the words "Brahma" or "Brahman":

One more narration in this regard was in the travel record of Hwen Tsang in 630-635 AD. He saw a palisade (stupa) of Mauryan times. It was one hundred feet high. Cunningham said of this pillar:

• The principality of Middle Sind, which is generally known as Vichalo or ‘Midland’ is described by Hwen Tsang as only 2,500 li or 417 miles in circuit. The chief city, named ‘O-fan-cha’ was at 700 li or 117 miles from the capital of the upper Sind, and 50 miles from Pitasala, the capital of lower Sind. As the former was Alor, and the latter was almost certainly the Pattale of the Greeks or Haiderabad, the recorded distances fix the position of O-fan-cha in the immediate neighbourhood vicinity of the ruins of an ancient city called Bambhra-ka-Thul or simply Bambhar. This, according to tradition, was the site of the once famous city of Brahmanwas or Brahmanabad...

The Chinese syllable fan is the well-known phrasing of Brahma. Hence, both O-fan-cha and Hermetalia is a direct wording of Bambhra-ka-thul or Brahma-sthal. From all these discussions, it seemed certain that what Hwen Tsang visited was the city of Mohenjo-Daro and its real name was Brahma-sthal or Brahmanabad. The meaning of the name Mohenjo-Daro is ‘Heap of the Dead’. Such a name seems peculiar for a prosperous city like this.
http://www.ancient.eu/article/230/

So in the passage above, the writer is implying that Mohenjo-Daro was not the original name because it sounds peculiar for the name of the prosperous city it had been.

 

[Aupmanyav]

ShivaFan, You are not wrong. We do have each other in each other even in a biological DNA sense. I do not deny that there could have been influences from Sumer. Aryan deities were majorly forgotten in India with the exception of Vishnu, Rudra and Saraswati. In the case of first two because of their merger with indigenous Gods. Vedic Saraswati and Vac coalesced to give us modern Hindu Saraswati who became a form of Mother Goddess. Who know what was the Shiva iconography 5,000 years ago, perhaps he had horns which changed into the crescent? Anything beyond this will be conjecture. However:

"Stone lingams have been found in several Indus Civilization sites, varying in size from 3 feet in length to very small pieces. These are found to be of steatite, sandstone and burnt clay. Some among these are unmistakably naturalistic in their rendition." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallus#Ancient_India

Swastika is not related to Brahma and Brahman cannot be represented with any symbol. It is the unknown. So, the idea is not correct.

And yes, there was a city known as Brahmanwas/Brahmanabad (to Muslims who sacked it) in Sindh (must have been a nice city because it had a lake near it according to Xuanzang)*, but you must realize that perhaps there are a thousand Brahmanwases in India (Bamanwas in Rajasthan), villages where there were a lot/majority of Brahmins or which were initially established by brahmins. To me, the correct name of Mohanjodaro is "Moyan-jo-dero) in the local Multani/Saraiki language which means 'the camp of dead'.
Moyan - Dead, jo - of, dero - camp

* 'Ancient Geography of India' by Maj. Gen. Alexander Cunningham, First Surveyor General of Archaeology in India:
Alexander the Great quitted his fleet at Alor and rejoined it at Brahmana. Ptolemy was seriously wounded here in shoulder by a poisoned sword. Diodorus says that it was the last town of brahmins on the river. It was later named as Mansura after the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mansur.
History sure is an interesting subject. I am somewhat sorry that I did not complete my Masters in History.
"Now, Harmatelia' is only a softer pronunciation of Brahma-thala, or Brahnanasthala, just as Hermes, the phallic god of the Greeks, is the same as Shiva, the original phallic god of the Indians."

Oh, it is still known as Brahminabad in Pakistan after 2,400 years and sure, there is a water body bordering it.

 

[Rakovsky]

To sum up theories of supernatural beings they conceived of:

• Mother goddess symbolizing fertility;
  
• horned proto-Shiva as Lord of Animals doing yoga; maybe father god
  
• alternative theory of this yoga figure: Mhasoba or Mahishaasura or a water god version of proto-Varuna
  
• a guardian spirit fighting an evil tiger (Aupmanyev is skeptical that the tiger is evil)
  
• a guardian spirit as bull, snake, goat;
  
• fertility symbols of round stones and pierced ones - proto Sivalinga,
  
• swastika with Brahman