Indian Antiquary Vol 61

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 109

MAY, 1932)
SIR AUREL STEIN IN GEDROSIA
97
striking as to suggest to Sir Aurel the question whether we may not have to recognize "the influence of an ancient cult established already in pre-Aryan India": but, as he cautiously adds, this is a question to which only further discoveries and researches may in time permit of an answer. The burial remains and funerary deposits found at this site are of exceptional interest, a striking peculiarity of the funerary ware being the restricted range of shapes and motifs as compared with the ordinary painted pottery of this and other sites in Makrån of approximately the same age. An exact parallel to this contrast seems to be furnished by the painted pottery found in the earliest zone at Susa.
At Kulli-damb trial excavations were carried out for about a week, resulting in a variety of important finds, including an abundance of painted pottery of superior quality, terracotta figurines of humped bulls (66) and of a female (5) described by Sir Aurel, for rea. song referred to below, as the goddess,' funerary remains and stone-built structures. The pottery and figurines and other objects disclosed similarity with finds in the early strata at Shahi-tump and at sites in the Zhob and Loralai valleys and in Sistân. Sir Aurel considers that this site, the largest known to him in Makrån, would on extensive and systematic excavation be likely to yield further valuable results. At Siah-damb, near Jhau, the limited exploration possible sufficed to attest prolonged early prehistoric occupation and cultures of the types noted at Kulli.
Some five days were spent in trial excavations at Mehi-damb, which proved to be an. other early prehistoric site, yielding a mass of early painted pottery of various types resem. bling those found at many other prehistoric sites in Makrån as well as in Zhob and Loralai, besides burial deposits, cinerary urns, numerous terracotta figurines, copper objects and remains of structures built of unhewn stone. Evidence was here found of simple burial after cremation as well as of the deposit of remains in cinerary urna. Specially remarkable perhaps was the abundance of terracotta figurines recovered, comprising 199 specimens of the humped bull, exclusive of fragments, and 92 of the goddess. The large number of humped bulls obtained at this one site and the uniformity of the type found throughout all chaleolithic sites of Makrån and Jhalawân makes it “difficult," Sir Aurel writes, “not to believe that this animal was like its Indian counterpart, the Brahmani bull,' an object of popular reverence, if not of actual worship. If this assumption is right the temptation is obviously great to seek some connexion between that prehistoric worship of the population which occupied the extreme western marches of India before the 'Aryan 'invasion of Vedic times, and the great role played by Siva's bull in Indian cult from a very early historical age. There is scarcely any indication of such a cult to be found in the oldest Vedic literature. This might lead us to infer that it was an inheritance from much earlier times to which the autochthonous population of northern India with its deeply rooted archaic bent has clung notwithstanding the great transformation brought about in its civilization, racial constitution and language by the triumphant invasion of its northern conquerors. But the sub. ject touched upon is too wide and at present too speculative to be pursued here further in what is meant for a plain record of antiquarian facts." Equally interesting is the problem raised by the female figures found in such quantities at Mehî and other sites. Sir Aurel draws attention to the fact that all these figurines wherever the lower portions survive, invariably erd below the waist in a flat base, showing that they were meant to be set up, presumably on some stand or platform. Variety is introduced mainly in the treatment of the hair dress and of the ornaments, often of a particularly ornate character, around the neck and breast. No indications of dress are attempted. Similar figurines found in the Zhob valley led Sir Aurel to the surmise that they perhaps represented a female goddess of fertility, the 'mother goddess,' whose worship is so frequently to be found in widely distant parts of Asia and Europe in historical times. He points to the connexion which in early mythologi cal belief often appears between that mother goddess' and the goddess of the earth, and