My Perspective on the Story of the Indus Valley Civilization

Introduction

While watching and reading the Bresnan Chapter 1: India Before the Vedas and Indus: The Unvoiced Civilization, I have learned much from these two sources about the Indus civilization. The author of the  book, Patrick S. Bresnan sure did informed us a lot of knowledges from the start of the Indian subcontinent all the way to the different elements of culture between different regions of the subcontinent, but the video Indus: The Unvoiced Civilization also introduced us smoothly with the interesting facts about the cities, the rivers, as well as the antiques. In a compare and contrast form, I'd say both did provide the same amount of interesting information.

Information I Learned About

Part of the excavated site in Dholavira-Wikipedia 

Something I have learned about in the video Indus: The Unvoiced Civilization that did not appeared in the book by Bresnan in Chapter 1: India Before the Vedas was the information and details about ancient city of Dholavira, a city which managed their water resources unbelievably well, and the structure of the city was divided clearly such as urban district was separated with fortress and reservoirs. 

"The city stretched 780 meters east-west, and 630 meters north-south. It is estimated that one time, nearly 20,000 people lived in the urban district of Dholavira. The city was divided into two sections--the urban district and the fortress. The fortress was surrounded by 50 meters high walls. There were four gates facing north, south, east and west. The main gate was the north gate, looking on the square where ceremonies were held. The fortress was the center of Dholavira's political and economic acitivity. There were many public facilities, and the area was lined with aqueducts."(Indus: 15:00-16:13)

Although we understood that in the book these technological advantages were also mentioned, but not as detailed as the video did, especially not the city of Dholavira, which it changed my perception towards the the video to be a little more outstanding in telling the stories about the ancient technologies and strcutures of the Indus Valley civilization.

In that exchange, I also learned something that the book did informed me a lot with but not the video, and that is the caste system, which was a explained heavily within the chapter one of the book, Varna: The Caste System, which is a system in society that gives importance to the early Indian civilization.

 

Brahmana as the priests, Kshatryias as warrior nobles, and the Vaishyas as the artisans and tradesmen. "These three classes ('castes,' if you will)—the Brahmana, the Kshatryias and the Vaishyas—together constituted a privileged elite known as the arya-varna. Members of the arya-varna reffered to themselves as the dvija, 'twice-born,' meaning that young men underwent a "coming of age" ceremony by which they were initiated into manhood and full pariticipation in the spiritual life of their caste."(Bresnan 12)

Brahma and the origins of caste-BBC

At the first time reading this I was impressed by such an organized order within their culture, and this system also lasted long. This caste system was not mentioned a lot by the video, but the book covered a great mount of it to let the readers know about this system within the early Indian societies. This knowledge from the book changed by perception about the topic more impressed by it, especially with the orders like the caste system stabilized the societies,which gives a deeper layer to the Indus Valley civilization.

How They Treat The Topic

Now I have introduced us what I learned from these two sources, I should analyze how they treat our topic differently based on their information and texts they offered. Based on our Indus Valley civilization topic, I would say that the book of Bresnan, Chapter 1: India Before the Vedas offered us a more comprehensive view from both geography of and the different origins of Indian people, a more real start to understanding the entirety of the Indian subcontinent. 

Some examples of this book treat the topic comprehensively, you can already tell from the introduction about the continents. "Inida has not always been a part of the Eurasian continent. Many millions of years ago all of the present-day continents were joined into one great landmass. At that time, India was an integral part of what would become both Africa and Antarctica."(Bresnan 3) Then it goes down to the origins of different regional people such as the Dravidians and Indo-Aryans.

Ghaggar river in Panchkula-Wikipedia

How the video treated the topic differently than the book is that the video introduced us the information from a mysterious perspective, which involves a lot of exploring and telling some of the still unknown points about the Indus Valley civilization, with exploring the ancient city ruins, the Indus characters from their seals, and the relics that had been uncovered, as well as the river that no longer exist today—Ghaggar-Hakra, which was also asked in the video. "The legendary river, Ghaggar-Hakra, mentioned in the folk songs of the region--what happened to this river? Flowing through the land which brought forth gold."(Indus 20:53)

Works Cited

Bresnan, Patrick. Awakening : An Introduction to the History of Eastern Thought. New York, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.

“Dholavira.” Wikipedia, 9 Jan. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dholavira. Accessed 4 Feb. 2021.

BBC news. “What Is India’s Caste System?” BBC News, 20 July 2017, www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35650616.

“Ghaggar-Hakra River.” Wikipedia, 7 Aug. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar-Hakra_River. Accessed 4 Feb. 2021.

“Indus: The Unvoiced Civilization.” Films On Demand, Films Media Group, 2000, fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=237206&xtid=11655. Accessed 5 Feb. 2021.