Pashupati seal

Post-excavation history

The finds from Mohenjo-daro were initially deposited in the Lahore Museum, but later moved to the ASI headquarters in New Delhi, where a new "Central Imperial Museum" was being planned for the new capital of the British Raj, in which at least a selection would be displayed. It became apparent that Indian independence was approaching, but the Partition of India was not anticipated until late in the process. The new Pakistani authorities requested the return of the Harappan pieces excavated on their territory, but the Indian authorities refused. Eventually an agreement was reached, whereby the finds, totalling some 12,000 objects (most sherds of pottery), were split equally between the countries; in some cases this was taken very literally, with some necklaces and girdles having their beads separated into two piles. In the case of the "two most celebrated sculpted figures", Pakistan asked for and received the Priest-King figure, while India retained the Dancing Girl, and also the Pashupati seal.

Interpretations

Marshall's identification with proto-Shiva

The first description and analysis of the seal's iconography was that of the archaeologist John Marshall who had served as the Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India and led the excavations of the Indus Valley sites. In addition to the general features of the seal described above, he also saw the central figure as a male deity as three-faced, with a possible fourth face towards the back and, as ithyphallic, while conceding that what appeared to be the exposed phallus could instead be a tassel hanging from the waistband. Most significantly he identified the seal as an early prototype of the Hindu god Shiva (or, his Vedic predecessor, Rudra), who also was known by the title Pashupati ('lord or father of all the animals') in historic times. In a 1928–29 publication, Marshall summarized his reasons for the identification as follows:

My reasons for the identification are four. In the first place the figure has three faces and that Siva was portrayed with three as well as with more usual five faces, there are abundant examples to prove. Secondly, the head is crowned with the horns of a bull and the trisula are characteristic emblems of Siva. Thirdly, the figure is in a typical yoga attitude, and Siva [sic] was and still is, regarded as a mahayogi—the prince of Yogis. Fourthly, he is surrounded by animals, and Siva is par excellence the "Lord of Animals" (Pasupati)—of the wild animals of the jungle, according to the Vedic meaning of the word pashu, no less than that of domesticated cattle.

Later, in 1931, he expanded his reasons to include the fact that Shiva is associated with the phallus in the form of linga, and that in medieval art he is shown with deer or ibexes, as are seen below the throne on the seal. Marshall's analysis of the Indus Valley religion, and the Pashupati seal in particular, was very influential and widely accepted for at least the next two generations. Herbert Sullivan, who had significant disagreements with it, recognised in 1964 that Marshall's analysis "has been accepted almost universally and has greatly influenced scholarly understanding of the historical development of Hinduism".

Writing in 1976, Doris Srinivasan introduced an article otherwise critical of Marshall's interpretation by observing that "no matter what position is taken regarding the seal's iconography, it is always prefaced by Marshall's interpretation. On balance the proto-Śiva character of the seal has been accepted." Thomas McEvilley noted, in line with Marshall, that the central figure was in the yoga pose Mulabandhasana, quoting the Kalpa Sutra's description "a squatting position with joined heels" used with meditation and fasting to attain infinite knowledge (kevala).

Alf Hiltebeitel noted in 2011 that, following Marshall's analysis, "nearly all efforts at interpreting the [Indus Valley] religion have centered discussion around [the Pashupati seal] figure". A lot of discussion has taken place about this seal. While Marshall's work has earned some support, many critics and even supporters have raised several objections.

Herbert Sullivan interpreted the figure as a female goddess on the grounds that the so-called erect phallus actually represents the dangling end of a waistband or girdle, a feature found on many undoubtedly female terracotta figurines, and ambiguous on some other seals, including DK 12050 (mentioned above). Marshall himself had admitted this was possible. In the terracottas, males are always nude; in addition, the jewellery worn on the Pashupati seal is characteristic of female rather than male terracottas.

Doris Srinivasan's reinterpretation

Doris Srinivasan, a professor of Indian studies, raised objections to Marshall's identification, and provided a interpretation for the figure, where she postulated the lateral projections were cow-like ears rather than faces, which had already been suggested by Sullivan and others. In 1975 or 1976, she published a journal article titled 'The So-Called Proto-śiva Seal from Mohenjo-Daro: An Iconological Assessment' in the academic journal Archives of Asian Art. In 1997, she reiterated her views in a book titled Many Heads, Arms, and Eyes: Origin, Meaning, and Form of Multiplicity in Indian Art.

According to her, the two extra faces could be reinterpreted as possible ears, and the central face has predominant bovine features. She has drawn similarities between the central figure of seal 420, and other artefacts from the Indus Valley such as the horned mask from Mohenjo-Daro, the terracotta bull from Kalibangan, and the depiction of a horned deity on a water pitcher from the archaeological site of Kot Diji. She has also noted that the yogic posture of the figure is repeated on a number of other seals and sealings, some of which indicate that the figure receives worship. On the basis of these observations, she suggests that the figure of seal 420 could be a divine buffalo-man.

Dravidian Interpretations

Scholars who consider the Indus Valley civilisation to be associated with a Dravidian rather than Vedic context have offered other interpretations. Expanding on a mention by D. D. Kosambi in 1962, Alf Hiltebeitel thought the horned figure could be a prototype of Mahishasura, the buffalo demon enemy of the Hindu goddess Durga. He has also argued that the tiger depicted in the seal could relate to the goddess Durga who is often depicted as riding a tiger (or a lion) in the Hindu pantheon. He also suggested that the surrounding animals could represent the vahanas (vehicles, mounts) of deities for the four cardinal directions.

Where Marshall's description had "the head is crowned with the horns of a bull", Hiltebeitel is emphatic that the figure has the very different horns of a buffalo, and that IVC people familiar with both species would not have confused the two species: "One might imagine a "proto-Siva" with bull's horns as a prefiguration of Siva's connection with his vahana or riding vehicle Nandin. But a "proto-Siva" with buffalo's horns would take too much explaining to retain credibility".

The American archaeologist Walter Fairservis tried to translate what he considered to be a Dravidian inscription, and was of the view that the seal could be identified with Anil, the paramount chief of four clans represented by the animals. The Finnish Indologist, Asko Parpola has suggested that the yogic pose could be an imitation of the Proto-Elamite way of representing seated bulls. He attempted to translate the inscription which he considers to be an early form of Dravidian, and found that the figure represents a servant of an aquatic deity. He finds that the animals depicted on the seal best resemble those associated with the Hindu god Varuna who could be associated with the aquatic themes which are prominent in the Indus religion.

Vedic Interpretations

M.V.N. Krishna Rao identified the figure with the Hindu god Indra. He argued that the tiger could be ignored since it is much larger than the other animals, and the two deer could also be ignored since they were seated under the table. Then he combined the first phoneme of each of the animals, and the word 'nara' meaning man, and arrived at the term 'makhanasana' which is an epithet of Indra.

Not determinable

Some 21st-century scholars have urged caution in interpretation. The American Indologist Wendy Doniger wrote in 2011 that while "several generations of scholars" had taken up Marshall's suggestion, and while there was "a general resemblance" between the figure on the seal and later Hindu images of Shiva, and while the people of the Indus could have had "a symbolism of the divine phallus", all the same "we cannot know it, [and] it does not mean that the Indus images are the source of the Hindu images, or that they had the same meaning." The scholar of religious studies Geoffrey Samuel wrote that the multiple interpretations "certainly cannot all be right". Since, further, there was no obvious method for choosing between the interpretations, and little was known with certainty about Indus Valley religious practices, "the evidence for the yogic or 'Tantric' practices is so dependent on reading later practices into the material that it is of little or no use for constructing any kind of history of [such] practices".