Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilisation: Sites, Town Planning, Economy, Religion and Decline (UPSC Notes + PYQs)

Background: India’s first cities

Until the 1920s, Indian history was thought to begin with the Vedas. The excavation of Harappa by Daya Ram Sahni in 1921 and of Mohenjo-daro by R.D. Banerji in 1922, under John Marshall as Director-General of the Archaeological Survey, pushed it back by more than a millennium. The civilisation is called Harappan after its first excavated site, a convention archaeologists follow. It was a Bronze Age culture, contemporary with Mesopotamia and Egypt, and larger in area than both combined. Its mature phase is usually dated to about 2600-1900 BCE, preceded by an early Harappan phase of farming villages and followed by a late phase in which cities faded and rural cultures continued. Because its script is still undeciphered, we know it entirely through material remains: brick, pottery, seals, beads, bones and the layout of settlements.

Discovery and spread

Daya Ram Sahni excavated Harappa in 1921 and R.D. Banerji Mohenjo-daro in 1922, under John Marshall’s ASI. The civilisation spread from Sutkagen Dor (Balochistan) in the west to Alamgirpur (Meerut, UP) in the east, and from Manda (Jammu) to Daimabad (Maharashtra) in the south. Most sites in India lie along the Ghaggar-Hakra.

Sites and what they are known for

Town planning and economy

Cities were laid out in a rough grid, with a raised citadel and a lower town, covered drains and baked bricks in a fixed 1:2:4 ratio. Farmers grew wheat, barley, peas, cotton (among the earliest anywhere) and some rice at Lothal. Trade reached Mesopotamia, where texts mention “Meluhha”. Weights followed a binary-then-decimal system.

Religion, art and script

Terracotta female figurines suggest a mother goddess; the “Pashupati” seal shows a seated figure with animals; fire altars at Kalibangan and Lothal. Seals carry an undeciphered script written mostly right to left. There is no clear evidence of temples or palaces, a puzzle for historians.

Harappan architecture: what Mains asks

Harappan architecture was practical rather than monumental. There are no palaces or grand temples, which is one reason scholars debate who held power. Key features:

• Planned layout: streets running roughly north-south and east-west, dividing towns into blocks; many cities had a raised western citadel and a larger lower town, while Dholavira had three parts.
• Standard bricks: burnt and sun-dried bricks in a ratio of about 1:2:4, used across a vast area.
• Drainage: covered drains along streets, with soak pits and manholes, connected to house drains; bathrooms in many homes.
• Houses: built around courtyards, doors opening onto side lanes for privacy, some with wells and upper storeys.
• Public structures: the Great Bath and the so-called granary at Mohenjo-daro, the dockyard at Lothal, and huge water reservoirs at Dholavira.

Why it declined

No single cause fits all sites. Theories include shifts and drying of rivers (Ghaggar-Hakra), floods, a weaker monsoon around 2200 BCE, decline in Mesopotamian trade, and ecological strain. The “Aryan invasion” theory is no longer accepted; cities faded and people moved east and south into smaller settlements.

Trade and contacts

Harappans traded within the subcontinent for raw materials: copper from the Khetri area of Rajasthan, lapis lazuli from Shortugai in Afghanistan, shell from the Gujarat coast, and carnelian from western India. Long-distance trade with Mesopotamia is well attested: Mesopotamian texts mention Meluhha, generally identified with the Indus region, and intermediate stations called Dilmun (Bahrain) and Magan (Oman). Indus seals and beads have been found in Mesopotamia, and a Persian Gulf type seal at Lothal. Trade was probably barter, as no coins have been found, and standardised cubical weights based on multiples of 16 show careful regulation.

Harappan and Vedic cultures compared

Legacy and recognition

Many features survived in later Indian life: the use of bullock carts, the bangles and the parting of hair with vermilion seen in figurines, worship of trees and animals, yoga-like postures, and the standardised weights. Dholavira in Gujarat was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021, the first Harappan site in India on the list; Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan has been on the list since 1980. Rakhigarhi in Haryana, one of the largest Harappan sites, has also yielded ancient DNA studies that have fuelled debate about the population history of South Asia.

Indus Valley Civilisation: UPSC angle

Indus Valley Civilisation UPSC PYQs (Prelims)

Questions UPSC has actually asked, from the official papers. Pick an option to check yourself.

Mains PYQs on this topic

Questions from the official UPSC Mains papers (2023-2026 in the Battle IAS Mains bank), newest first. Each links to a model answer.

1. UPSC Mains 2025 · GS Paper I · Q1 · 10 marks

   Discuss the salient features of the Harappan architecture.

   Model answer and approach

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Image: Saqib Qayyum, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0