MOHENJO-DAKO — MACKAY 437 



as a saucerlike ear with a central hole. One must then be content to 

 wait the finding of a cemetery or some other more definite evidence 

 before speculating too closely on the race that inhabited these ancient 

 cities. 



Concerning the religion of the Indus Valley people, we find our- 

 selves on rather surer ground. For though there are so few statue 

 heads in stone, the large number of the terra-cotta female fig-urines 

 that have been found — mostly too well made to be children's toys, and 

 all alike in dress and headdress — suggests that a mother-goddess was 

 worshiped. Her figure may have stood in its little shrine in every 

 house. This mother-goddess, if so she be, invariably wears a wide 

 girdle and several necklaces of beads, represented by pellets of clay 

 stuck on before the figurine was baked. Of her headdress, it may be 

 said that if that of Queen Shub-ad of Ur was strange and complicated 

 with its ribbons of gold, and beads, and lofty comb, the mother-god- 

 dess of Mohenjo-daro had just as strange a one. On either side of the 

 head was a pannier held in place by a broad fillet round the brows; 

 above stood a lofty fan-shaped arrangement, and, in addition, a 

 curious conical, hornlike projection hung down in front of each ear. 

 This mother-goddess may quite possibly be one with the goddess 

 already familiar to us as Ninkharsag of Sumer, Ishtar of Babylon, 

 Astarte, Isis, Aphrodite, and Venus of the later religions of the 

 early East, and Greece, and Eome. 



But there were also typically Indian features in the religion of the 

 ancient Indus Valley. On one of the earliest seals found there is a 

 seated four-faced figure with legs in the yogi-like posture associated 

 with the state of contemplation. Around him stand four beasts — the 

 bull, the elephant, buffalo, and rhinoceros; and it is impossible to 

 avoid the conclusion that Siva was worshiped in the aspect of 

 Pasupati, Lord of Beasts. 



An animal of some kind also occupies the place of importance in 

 the middle of each of the square stamp seals, with very few excep- 

 tions: The so-called unicorn, the short-horned and Brahmani bulls, 

 the elephant, tiger, buffalo, rhinoceros, fish-eating crocodile, or 

 some mythical beast. In many cases, some kind of cult object is asso- 

 ciated with the animal, which suggests that the gods of the Indus 

 Valley were worshiped in the aspect of some animal, as was Isis in 

 the form of the cow in ancient Egypt. On a small prism-shaped seal- 

 ing of pottery the cult object associated with the unicorn is even seen 

 carried on a pole by one of four men in procession, just as were the 

 '' nome " ensigns of early Egypt. Clearly, then, a regular pantheon 

 of gods was worshiped in India before the coming of the Aryans, to 

 which can be traced several features of the Hindu religion of to-day. 



