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17. SAIVISM
This claim has not fared well with some modern academics. Gavin Flood characterizes these views as "speculative", saying that while it is not clear from the seal that the figure has three faces, is seated in a yoga posture, or even that the shape is intended to represent a human figure. Historian John Keay is more specifically dismissive, saying:
...there is little evidence for the currency of this myth. Rudra, a Vedic deity later identified with Shiva, is indeed referred to as pasupati because of his association with cattle; but asceticism and meditation were not Rudra's specialties, nor is he usually credited with an empathy for animals other than kine. More plausibly, it has been suggested that the Harappan figure's heavily horned headgear bespeaks a bull cult, to which numerous other representations of bulls lend substance.
Keay, John (2000). India: A History. New York: Grove Press.
Other indications claiming the Siva's Indus origin are are the seals that shows bulls since Bull is the vehicle of Siva.
OVI
Evidentle those who see these as proofs of Siva worship in Indus Civilization is using their imagination to run wild. We are not in any way near to decoding the Indus Valley script and any attempt in this direction will be guess work which are evidently imposing meanings on otherwise unknown symbols. However we should not be unaware of the fact that once the Siva as Supreme God came to be popular many earlier cults flowed into it. As it was in the case of Vishnavism so also we find similar cultic mergings into Saivism. the modern religions of India known as Hinduism is an outgrowth of various religious experiences not only of the Aryans and of the Dravidians but also of other ethnic and tribal groups like the Negritos, the Australoids (Khasis and Jaintias), the Bodos (the Garos, Kacharis, Chutiyas and Tipperahs), the Mongoloids, and the Kiratas of India through the ages. In that sense we can always trace back some tinges of Vishnu or siva or for that matter any other god among them. So one should not be surprised to see Pre-christian symbolisms that came to be attributed to Siva.
Monier-Williams continues this logic:
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