Long before religious conflict divided South Asia, the region was dotted with civilizations major and minor, all subscribing to faiths whose provenance is lost to history, but whose remnants persist in the form of unearthed artifacts and archaeological sites.
Throughout prehistory—before the invention of writing around 3400-3200 BCE—proto-civilizations spanned South Asia, making deities from their surroundings. Whether Neolithic farmers, Indus Valley traders, or the first of the Dravidians, they rooted their spirituality in the earth, forming pantheons to address their woes: gods of rain and abundance, of bulls and serpents, of river and flame. They treated the sacred as immediate and palpable, grounding themselves in mystical security.
Among the earliest civilizations discovered across South Asia is Mehrgarh, a Neolithic archaeological site located on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan in present-day Pakistan. Excavation of six mounds at Mehrgarh found the earliest settlement was a small farming village from 7000 BCE or 5250 BCE. Excavations have found remains of rudimentary huts containing figurines of women with exaggerated features and mellow expressions, decorated with paint and diverse hairstyles and ornaments. Burial sites in the region show more goods left with females than males, suggesting faith in a female deity, a representation of the earth itself, guardian of the womb, bringer of harvest, keeper of seasons. She was not as dignified as later iterations popularized by Hinduism—Lakshmi or Parvati—yet appears to have welcomed bounty into what was likely an otherwise volatile life.
This culture, per expert Asko Parpola, eventually migrated into the Indus Valley, becoming the Indus Valley Civilization of the Bronze Age. By 2600 BCE, the Indus Valley civilization stretched across much of present-day Pakistan and Northwest India. The figurines found in Mehrgarh were refined, with artisans using terracotta to carve seals and deities, including the Pashupati Seal discovered at Mohenjodaro. Depicting a horned figure seated cross-legged with stern conviction, sometimes surrounded by wild animals, many consider the seal a prototype for Hinduism’s Shiva. Others see it as a shamanic protector, a deterrent to those seeking to subjugate nature. Yet another view notes its calm posture, suggesting meditation or an early form of yogic practice.
Near the Pashupati Seal, excavators have found countless mother sculptures, many standing or posed maternally. Believed to be a fixture of everyday homes, their presence suggests worship as a part of daily life. Bulls are another common subject, often shown mid-stride on seals or in copper casts. Archaeologists believe they represented strength and resilience, perhaps even the cyclical rhythm of agriculture, a constant reminder of sow and plow, of respect for the life-giving ground of early agrarian societies.
A key fixture of Indus Valley civilizations was their reliance on the element that nurtured them. Historians hypothesize that the Great Bath of Mohenjo Daro represents a worldview in which water not only cleanses, but also serves as communion, perhaps serving as precursor to Hinduism’s river goddesses, such as Saraswati and Ganga. The fig tree, similarly, holds sacred value in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, with its roots believed to dwell in the underworld, its trunk in the human plane, its leaves reaching the divine, and the whole representing the collective. The apparent belief of the ancient civilizations in sustainability and respect for the elements carries its own lessons for the present, where man’s follies have triggered climate change, the result of centuries of seeing nature as a mere tool rather than a form of sustenance.
In Kalibangan and Lothal, located in present-day India, archaeologists have found fire altars, suggesting a worship of flame that predates the Vedas and would eventually come to be known as Agni in Hindu scripture. Serpent deities, likewise, have long been revered as spirits of fertility and water. Yet, once revered as gods, they lost favor at some point in prehistory, emerging as the Nagas, with the Mahabharata, one of Hinduism’s most important epics, starting with a purge of snakes from the earth.
The ancient denizens of the subcontinent also saw man surviving as a spirit beyond death, with burial sites containing ornaments, pottery, and sometimes even food, indicating a transition from the physical to the spiritual plane, rather than a severing of life. The belief in reincarnation within the Hindu and Buddhist faiths is a likely evolution of this view, with spirits returning to the physical plane in a cycle.
If the deities of the Indus Valley Civilization had names, they have long since been lost to time. Yet, their influence and worship persists—albeit altered by the millennia—through Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, forming a lasting link between the past and present.