Were Harappans Buddhist or Hindu?

A Critical Examination of Marshall, Banerji, and Misread Artifacts

Well, “Harappan” may be misleading here since much of the premise that the folks of the Indus Civilization practiced Buddhism, comes not from Harappa but from a single structure more than 400 miles to the South in Mohenjo-daro. But while a Harappan is technically someone from Harappa, the term has also come to be used as a demonym for the entire civilization, so that’s the term we are going to stick to.

In 1922, Rakhal Das Banerji began excavations on the northwestern mound of Mohenjo-daro, the site’s loftiest elevation. His work, later continued in 1925–26 under B. L. Dhama and directed by John Marshall, revealed a Buddhist complex that Marshall documents in detail. At its core stood a quadrangular courtyard dominated by a central stupa and enclosed by monastic cells, rebuilt several times at progressively higher levels. The original stupa, over fifty feet wide, included an elaborate eastern stairway and a prominent image niche that once housed a seated Buddha. Although its dome has disappeared, the circular drum survives to a height of eight feet, while earlier treasure-seekers had disturbed its hollow core and uncovered fragments of an alabaster reliquary.

Banerji suggested that the monument was designed as a hollow structure, plastered and painted within, yet Marshall questioned this interpretation. Finding no clear traces of interior decoration, he argued that the stupa, like others in India, was more likely filled with debris and capped by a dome, with only a modest relic chamber at its heart. Constructed of reused bricks set in mud mortar, the monument displays rough workmanship compared with the earlier Indus remains it overlies. Still, it stands as evidence of the long persistence of Buddhist activity at Mohenjo-daro, imposed upon the ruins of the city’s prehistoric past.

Or does it?

So, for the longest time, Mohenjo-daro was a desolate wasteland with nothing but arid dirt and earth covering whatever might lay underneath. Its “citadel” jutted out of its surrounding like an invitation to archaeologists to dig it out of centuries of neglect, but the Archaeological Survey of India had its hands full with Harappa, a site it had started digging only months before. The unusual outcrop, after which Mohenjo-daro or “Mound of the Dead” got its name, was casually read as a stupa from the Kushan era. These rulers, especially after Kanishka, were heavily into Buddhism and ruled the area roughly between 75 and 250 AD. In fact, the region had been under Buddhist influence even before the Kushans arrived. The Parthians, the Greeks, the Maurya, had all ruled the area before the Kushans and all of them patronized Buddhism in their own way. Therefore, the theory of an ancient Buddhist stupa in the region had no reason to invite scrutiny.

Banerji had surveyed the area in 1919 and was keen on digging. But he only got the chance in 1922 when he finally put the trowel to the mound with a team of excavators. Worth reiterating and bearing in mind here is that the mound was assumed to be a stupa long before its excavation. This is important. Banerji’s boss was none other than the ASI Director-General John Marshall.

Before we proceed with the nature of the “stupa,” it’s important to establish the necessity of such establishment. Ideally, it would be a mere subject of curiosity and exploration, but as most things Indian, this one too comes with a great deal of political and ideological baggage. IVC is where the Indian society took roots. Hence, there’s much to be gained ideologically from appropriating its cultural and more importantly religious legacy. Whichever religion the Harappans practiced automatically becomes India’s primary religion. There are two major contestants right now, Hinduism and Buddhism. It’s the classic “alien versus sons-of-soil” argument. Of course, this also fits neatly within the Indian “Left versus Right” discourse where the Left gains from a Buddhist IVC and the Right from a Hindu or Vedic IVC. The third alternative that it could be neither, given that we’re yet to crack its code, is far less glamorous and finds few takers in this ideologically charged debate. The attempt here is to, as always, stick to the verifiable and discard the unverifiable. Let’s continue.