Indian Antiquary Vol 61

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

Page 260

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[DECEMBER, 1932
In his interesting article, Remains of a Prehistoric Civilization in the Gangetic Valley,' Dr. Banerji-Sâstrî has given an account of terracottas of the chalcolithic period found in his excavations at Buxar. The figurines are of females and are of two types, (a) finished and (b) crude, the former wearing the hair in a variety of fashions, with elaborate head-dresses, and heavy ornamental ear-rings, etc., some presenting in head-dresses of volute-like smooth horn type a resemblance to examples from Harappå. "The cruder types are highly characteristic of the Mohenjo-daro and Sumerian types." There is a female figure with a child at the breast. Dr. Banerji-Sastrî says of the Buxar terracottas : "A study of these terracottas may suggest a clue to the ultimate cradle of the Sumerian and later civilizations of Western Asia. Of the two predominant types, the crude Series B, Nos. 1-7, may be compared with the crude figures in Sumer and Sindh; the highly finished and subtle types of Series A, Nos. 1-20, with pre-Sumerian, Eridu and the Egean. The Buxar and Ægean Art, so sharply contrasted with the Sumer and Sindh simplicity, can be traced back to an earlier epoch: and the Asura may be equated with the pre-Sumerian Accad people of Assyria...."
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Numerous terracotta figures representing nude females with elaborate head-dresses and ornaments have been discovered in the ruins of Mohenjo-daro. Sir John Marshall says: "They can hardly fail to be identified with the figures of the Mother Goddesses familiar in Mesopotamia and countries further to the west." Many similar objects, some of them of symbolic significance, discovered at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa link these places in a civilization of the chalcolithic period styled the "Indus civilization." Sir John writes: "That the Indus civilization described above extended over Baluchistan and Waziristan as well as over Sindh and the Panjab has now been established; and there is evidence to show that it extended eastward over Cutch and Kathiawar towards the Dekhan. Whether it embraced Rajputana and Hindusthan and the valley of the Ganges remains to be proved." The finds at Buxar, Basarh and Patna seem to supply the evidence.
The burit of the mother-in-law in the tank somehow suggests to me the figure of a female outlined on a small gold leaf found in the deposit of human bones and charcoal in a burial mound at Lauriya-Nandangarh opened by Dr. Bloch. He identified it with the burial mound (śmaśana) described in the Vedic ritual, and the female figure with the Earth Goddess referred to.in the Vedic burial hymn, "but both this interpretation and the date (seventh or eighth century B.C.) hazarded by the explorer for these mounds must be regarded as tentative only."8 I doubt if there was any Vedic ritual involved; but even if there were, the influence at work seems to be pre-Aryan, for in the Vedic theology goddesses play little part, and Pṛthivî is a faint character. There is evidence of the existence in Champaran of the cult of the Mother Goddess. What is more striking are the names, Lauriya-Nandangarh, where the mound was opened, and Lauriya Araraj, probably associated with the laur, or phallic or pillar cult. The Asokan pillar at Basarh is also similarly associated, as I learnt from inquiries from a man on the spot in 1927. The association of the Asokan monolithic pillars with the phallic cult seems to suggest the earlier existence of this cult in India. Dr. J. H. Hutton, in his lecture on 'The Stone Age Cult of Assam,' delivered at the Indian Museum, Calcutta, in 1928, suggested that "the erection of the prehistoric monoliths takes the form of lingam and yoni." He thought "that the Tantrik form of worship, so prevalent in Assam, is probably due to the incorporation into Hinduism of a fertility cult which preceded it as the religion of the country."10 In the course of examination of the Sanskrit words langala, langula and linga, which he traces to Austro-Asiatic sources, Prof. Przyluski remarks: "It is more probable that the Aryans have borrowed from the aborigines of India the cult of linga ae well as the
7 Journal of the Bombay Historical Society, vol. III (1930), pp. 187-191.
8 C.H.I., p. 616; A.S.I.A.R., 1904-1905.
9 C.H.I., p. 105.
10 Pre-Aryan and Pre-Dravidian by Dr. P. C. Bagchi (Calcutta University Publication, 1929). Intro., pp. xvii-xviii.