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Indus zoomorphism and its avatars

With a classification of seal-impressions* based on a design logic and genealogical figure charts

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Abstract

This paper re-classifies over 2000 seal-impressions with at least one zoomorphic element drawn from the Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions Volumes 1 to 3.2 (Joshi & Parpola, 1987; Shah & Parpola, 1991; Parpola et al., 2010, 2019). The classification is presented as supplementary data, S1. Tables 1, 2 and 3 explain the organisation of the data in S1. The tables and 8 figure charts reveal that Indus iconography is based on six principles of production design—formative, additive, extractive, subtractive, orientative, and associative. The associative principle illustrates the dynamics between the animal icon, the object in front, and other icons in a group or en file. The additive and extractive principles feed off each other, the latter being a device to deconstruct a compound design unit, the final product of an additive expression, and use that component-avatar in isolation or in a different context, in a way that the component and the compound recall each other. The compound-component genealogy is illustrated in figure charts. The classification yields at least 139 design units. 43 units have a singular expression on seals. The remaining 96 obtain from additive compounds on seal-impressions, hitherto not organised as such, even if recognised. The labels assigned to the component-avatars are non-interpretive and purely descriptive. However, there are a few instances where a label forces an interpretation and these are discussed case by case.

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Fig. Chart 1
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Notes

  1. This is sometimes inconvenient and clumsy. CISI goes by the primacy of text and labels the text-face of an object as the first face.

  2. For an exhaustive summary of Indus corpora, see Parpola (2018, p. 3916).

  3. Throughout this paper, I cite one example per design unit by its CISI number and append to it a ‘+ similar’ when there are multiple examples. Every CISI number cited features in a Figure chart. The others (+ similar) are listed in S1.

  4. The label ‘pipal pot’ forces an interpretation, discussed later in this paper. Also note that it may be equally valid to present this avatar as the second generation of the standing deity.

  5. This category and the next may be placed under buffalo rather than bison. This ambiguity is one of the main reasons that the bison and buffalo have been figure-charted together.

  6. This limitation is illustrated in Fig. charts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 with genealogical links shown as bidirectional. The limitation is analogous and abiding to Possehl (2008, p. 141), paraphrased: In serialising multiple scenes, ambiguity of event chronology is inevitable.

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Acknowledgements

I thank the anonymous reviewer’s suggestion to expand the scope of this paper. The classification of the iconography in relation to the object in front (Fig. chart 1) is a direct result of this suggestion. I thank Ms. Bahata Ansumali Mukhopadhyay for sharing material; Dr. Andreas Fuls who permitted access to ICIT (https://www.indus.epigraphica.de); Mr. Omar Khan who permitted liberal use of material from harappa.com; Professor Ram Ramaswamy for his friendly guidance; Dr. S K Venkatesan who encouraged my research throughout and contributed to converting the tabulation of the iconography into a machine-readable format; Professor E. Annamalai for his views on an early version of the manuscript; Dr. V. Suresh who urged me to an online talk session in October-November 2019 in honour of Padmashri Iravatham Mahadevan, but for which I may have never revisited Indus.

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  1. Plot No. 4, 2nd Cross Street, Ramappa Nagar, Perungudi, Chennai, 600096, India

    M. V. Bhaskar

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Correspondence to M. V. Bhaskar.

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Dedicated to Iravatham Mahadevan who showed the way.

*The hyphenated expression ‘seal-impressions’ includes stamp and mould seals and their impressions on any medium, and excludes any expression that is not directly involved in the reproduction or mass production of Indus iconography. By definition, it excludes “miniature seals (that) were meant to be read direct”, Vats (1940, p. 325), and media that is referred to as incised. All seal imagery in this article faces as impressed.

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Bhaskar, M.V. Indus zoomorphism and its avatars. Indian J Hist. Sci. 57, 175–194 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43539-022-00052-2

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