UPSC Notes / Ancient Indian History / Chapter 3
Chapter 3 of 24

Indus Valley Civilization

Town planning, economy, society, and the still-unresolved script and decline of the Harappan Civilization — one of the world's earliest urban cultures.

📖 ~15 min read 🏺 Ancient Indian History

Introduction

The Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilization (c. 3300-1300 BCE, mature phase c. 2600-1900 BCE) was one of the world's earliest urban civilizations, contemporaneous with Mesopotamia and Egypt, spread across present-day Pakistan and northwest India — remarkable for its planned cities, standardised weights, and (still undeciphered) script.

Discovery and Chronology

  • First identified by Daya Ram Sahni at Harappa (1921) and R.D. Banerji at Mohenjodaro (1922), under the overall direction of Sir John Marshall (Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India).
  • Three phases: Early/Pre-Harappan, Mature Harappan (urban peak), and Late Harappan (decline/de-urbanisation).

Key Sites

SiteLocationDistinctive Feature
HarappaPunjab, Pakistan (Ravi river)First site discovered; granaries, cemetery evidence
MohenjodaroSindh, Pakistan (Indus river)"Mound of the Dead"; the Great Bath and Great Granary; largest Harappan site
DholaviraGujarat, India (Kutch)Unique three-part city division; sophisticated water conservation/reservoir system; a large signboard with Harappan script
LothalGujarat, IndiaBelieved to have a dockyard, indicating maritime trade; bead-making industry
KalibanganRajasthan, IndiaEvidence of a ploughed field and fire altars
RakhigarhiHaryana, IndiaOne of the largest Harappan sites; significant DNA studies conducted here
BanawaliHaryana, IndiaBoth radial and grid town-planning patterns found

Town Planning

Flowchart — Typical Harappan City Layout
City divided into two parts
↓
Citadel (Upper Town) — granaries, Great Bath, administrative/religious structures, on a raised platform
Lower Town — residential area, grid-pattern streets crossing at right angles, covered drainage system

The Harappan drainage system — covered drains, soak pits — was remarkably advanced and unmatched by contemporaneous civilizations.

Economy

  • Agriculture: Wheat, barley, cotton (Harappans were likely the first to cultivate cotton); use of the plough.
  • Trade: Standardised weights and measures (based on a binary system); evidence of trade with Mesopotamia (Harappan seals found there); Lothal's dockyard suggests maritime trade.
  • Crafts: Bead-making, seal-carving, bronze/copper metallurgy (though iron was not used), pottery.

Society, Religion, and Script

  • No clear evidence of a centralised monarchy or grand palaces/temples, unlike Egypt/Mesopotamia — suggesting possibly a more corporate/oligarchic form of governance, though this remains debated.
  • Worship of a Mother Goddess and a "Proto-Shiva" figure (Pashupati seal); reverence for animals (bull) and trees (pipal).
  • The Harappan script remains undeciphered to date — it is pictographic/logo-syllabic and written boustrophedon (alternating direction); this is a major gap in our understanding of Harappan society.

Decline of the Civilization

TheoryKey Argument
Aryan Invasion (older theory)Once popular but now largely discredited due to lack of definitive archaeological support
Climatic ChangeWeakening of monsoons, aridification, leading to decline of agriculture
Tectonic/River ShiftsChanges in the course of the Indus and Saraswati (Ghaggar-Hakra) river systems
Ecological DegradationOveruse of resources, deforestation, and flooding
⚖️ Current Consensus: Most historians now favour a combination of climatic and ecological factors over a single invasion event, with decline being gradual rather than sudden.
✅ UPSC Focus: Site-feature matching (Great Bath-Mohenjodaro, dockyard-Lothal, water reservoir-Dholavira) · Discoverers of Harappa and Mohenjodaro · Grid-pattern town planning and drainage · Undeciphered script · Current theories on decline.

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