440 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 32 



sizes and shapes, whose uses can only be surmised. The remarkable 

 thickness of the outer walls of this great building, whose external 

 faces have a pronounced inward slope like the containing walls of 

 the Egyptian temples, strongly suggests that there were other rooms 

 above, j)ossibly opening onto a gallery round the tank. The latter 

 was probably open to the sky, though perhaps it was covered by an 

 awning. 



The purpose of this very unusual building was in all probability 

 religious ; as in modern India, it was perhaps customary to perform 

 ablutions before entering the temples of the gods. The great tank 

 building is close beside the stupa mound ; and it is not unlikely that 

 the mass of ruins on which the Buddhists built their stiipa — the 

 highest mound of the ancient city — was once itself a temple. For 

 all through the history of the world sacred places have tended to 

 retain their sanctity from generation to generation. 



Though as yet no building that can definitely be said to be a 

 temple has been cleared, among the number that are obviously not 

 dwelling houses there are several that might be, if only the char- 

 acteristics of a temple of those days in the Indus Valley were known. 

 Of images that might be those of deities, however, none have been 

 found complete, save a somewhat battered, crouched figure of a 

 man, whose mouth is apparently wide open as if to sing or shout. 



It has been suggested that the great tank may have been used for 

 keeping sacred fish, or even crocodiles, as in the precincts of various 

 temples and shrines in India to-day ; but the available evidence is in 

 favor of its having been used for ablutions. For it is one of the 

 most remarkable features of Mohenjo-daro that personal cleanliness 

 was clearly something of a fetish : To every house its ablution pave- 

 ment with but few exceptions — a well-paved floor, where water was 

 poured over the body from a water jar, sloping gently to one corner, 

 whence a drain hole through the outer wall of the house carried 

 away the water into the street drain without. In the poorer quarters, 

 the water ran into a big earthenware jar outside, from which it 

 percolated away into the soil, leaving any solid matter to be removed 

 by the city's scavengers. 



In the main streets, the drainage system can only be described as 

 elaborate; it marks a high degree of civilization. Well-laid brick 

 channels run down either side of each of the wider streets, receiving 

 tributaries from the narrower lanes at right angles, and also the out- 

 flows from the houses. These drains did not lie open, as do the 

 channels in many parts of the modern towns of Sindh. They were 

 covered over with bricks, laid flat, on edge, pentroofwise, or at a 

 slant. The particularly large and deep street drains in the vicinity 

 of the great tank building were roofed with big blocks of stone, that 



