History of Ancient India

Lecture-15
By Manikant Singh
Growth of Science and Technology in
the Harappan Civilisation:
• Apart from their achievements in other
areas, Harappans were particularly
advanced in the field of science and
technology.
• On the basis of archaeological evidences,
mathematical and geometrical knowledge
of Harappans appears to be quite
advance.
• Before, Ashokan inscriptions were considered
to be the earliest evidence of acquaintance of
Indians with the numerical system. But, the
discoveries from Harappan civilisation prove
that the Harappan people were aware of the
numbers.
• They used multiples of 16 in their calculations
and measurements.
• They had developed a standardized system for
measurement and weighing. For weighing
things, they used cubical weights made from
chert, chalcedony and black stone. The system
is binary in smaller weights and decimal in the
higher weights.
• They used scales for measuring length. We find
scales made from shell, bronze and ivory from
Mohenjo Daro, Harappa and Lothal
respectively.
• Geometrical knowledge of Harappan people is
noteworthy. Their advanced town planning
gives a hint of an advanced geometrical
knowledge. Their bricks had a uniform
proportion of 4:2:1.
• Harappan had descent knowledge of astronomy.
They were aware of planetary and stellar
movements. On a Harappan seal, ‘seven lines’ are
drawn behind a ‘fish’. This seal shows that the
Harappans duly noted the cosmic activities.
• Apart from that, they were acquainted
with copper and bronze smelting. They
made bronze by mixing copper with tin.
Apart from tin, they could add Nickel,
Lead and Arsenic in different proportions
to copper to make stronger alloys.
• They also knew how to make copper and
bronze sculptures. They used ‘lost vex’
technique in making metal sculptures.
• Sophisticated stone implements have
been recovered from the factory sites of
Sukkur and Rohri Hills from Sindh.
• Harappan achievements are visible in the
area of medicine also. Two child-skeletons
with surgical marks on their skulls have
been found from Kalibanga and Lothal.
• Two stone sculptures discovered from
Harappa illustrate that the Harappan had
keen sense of human anatomy.
• The rational perspective of Harappans is
expressed in their scientific town planning.
• In this way, Harappans made a remarkable
journey in the field of science and
technology.
Different theories for the explanation
of the decline of Harappan
Civilisation:
• From the start, debates on the origin as
well as the decline of Harappan
Civilisation have been contentious. They
remain unsettled partly because of the
lack of sources of study.
• Mortimer Wheeler tried to explain the
decline of Harappan Civilisation in the
context of an Aryan Invasion.
• He gave some archaeological and literary
evidences to bolster his argument. The 26
human skeletons strewn in Mohenjo Daro
and the presence of an alien ‘Cemetery H’
culture at Harappan were cited by him.
Similarly, he refers to the terms,
‘Hariyupia’ (or Harappa) and ‘Purandar’
(breaker of the forts i.e. ‘Indra’),
mentioned in Rig Veda.
• But, his archaeological evidences are out
of context and literary references are
dubious.
• Then, the debate moved from the external
factors to the environmental problems. It
was argued that the same rivers that had
fostered the Harappan Civilisation
eventually failed it.
• In this context, R. M. Sahni and R. L.
Raikes have a slightly different view. They
believe that it was not any usual flood but
it was a massive deluge caused on account
of tectonic shift.
• H. T. Lambrick didn’t find this
argument convincing. He believed
that even if such a physical barrier
was created in the path of river due
to some tectonic upheaval, it could
have simply created a new path for
itself. He believed that the cause of
decline lay in the shifting of rivers’
course and desiccation of Ghaggar
River.
• In recent decades, different environmental
explanations are being proposed. On the
basis of pollen analysis from dry beds of
some Rajasthan lakes like Sambhar,
Didwana and Pushkar, a palaeobotanist
named Gurdeep Singh has tried to link the
decline of Harappan Civilisation with the
onset of a dried climate from c. 1800 BCE.
• On the other hand, Mr. Walter Fairservice
linked the decline of civilisation with an
ecological imbalance due to the excessive
exploitation of environmental resources.
• Recently, Sheeren Ratnagar has
underscored the decline of
Mesopotamian trade and called it a
major factor behind the decline of
Harappan Civilisation. But, there is
no data to support this hypothesis.
• We need to consider two factors
before we reach any conclusion.
• First, different Harappan cities declined
due to different causes and over a
different time scale. Harappan
Civilisation was spread over a vast area
from Baluchistan to Ganga-Yamuna
Doab. Therefore, there should not be only
one reason behind the decline of such a
vastly spread out civilisation. There
should be different causes for different
areas.
• The urbanisation of Harappan
Civilisation was based on a fine balance.
Socio-political factors must have played
key roles in it. Any radical change in the
socio-political institutions could have
brought the urban landscape under
stress. But, this argument can’t be
conclusive settled in the absence of
literary evidence which is the main source
of information of socio-political issues for
any period.
 End
Lecture-15

-Manikant Singh