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IGNOU HISTORY NOTES : India Earliest Times to the 8th Century A.D - Society and Religion

IGNOU HISTORY Study Notes for IAS, UPSC Exams

India Earliest Times to the 8th Century A.D

Society and Religion

Structure

8.0 Objectives
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Society
8.2.1 Dress Styles
8.2.2 Food Habits
8.2.3 Language and Script
8.2.4 Warfare
8.2.5 Main CraftslOccupations
8.3 Who Ruled Them?
8.4 Religion and Religious Practices
8.4.1 The Places of Worship
8.4.2 Objects of Worship
8.4.3 The Burial of the Dead
8.5 Let Us Sum Up
8.6Key Words
8.7 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises

8.0 OBJECTIVES

After reading this Unit, you will be able to understand the different aspects of society
and religious practices of the Harappan people. Particularly you will be able to:

know about their dresses and food habits
discuss the controversy about their script and language
list their main occupations
understand the nature of the ruling classes
recall their religious practices and prominent gods and
know about their burial practices.

8.1 INTRODUCTION

In the earlier Units of this Block you studied some significant features of Harappan
Civilization. In this Unit we will discuss the society and religion of the Harappans.
One might ask what the Harappans looked like? Did they wear clothes of the same
kind as we do? What did they read and write? What kinas of jobs did the townsfolk
do? What language did they speak? What food did they eat? Did they have cups of
tea with chips of potato? Did they play games and did they fight? Who ruled over
them? What were their temples and gods like? Were they like us?
These are some very simple questions which the scholars find difficult to answer. This
is because of the nature of sburces available for knowing about that period. The main
sources available are in the form of archaeological findings excavated from different
sites.
Answers to many of the questions related to the realm of ideas and feelings are
difficult to provide with our_ present knowledge about this civilization. Even an
innocuous question like whether a Harappan was feeling a sense of pleasure while
making a carmelian bead cannot be answered. In this Unit we will try to derive some
answers from silent objects lying abandoned for thousands of years.

8.1 SOCIETY

The archaeological finds ftom Hatappan sites hdp us in reconstructing the society of
he period. We get an idea about their dress styles and Fad habits. We also get