I want you to start off today by closing your
eyes just for a second. Imagine an object that
is incredibly small. Like really small. Yeah,
exactly. We're talking about something that is
precisely 3 .56 centimeters by 3 .53 centimeters.
So basically a tiny square. Right. And it is
a mere 7 .6 millimeters thick. If you are trying
to picture that, it is actually smaller than
a standard matchbook. Barely the size of a postage
stamp, honestly. Yeah. But yet, this tiny, unassuming
little square has managed to spark almost a century
of intense, sometimes downright fiery academic
debate. Oh, absolutely fiery. It has fundamentally
influenced how we understand the historical development
of a major world religion, and it even became
a literal geopolitical prize. Which is wild,
a point of serious contention between two newly
formed nations. Welcome to today's Deep Dive.
Our mission today is to thoroughly explore this
tiny 4 ,000 -year -old carving known as the Pashupati
seal. Also known as the Mahayuki or the Proto
-Shiva seal. Exactly. It was uncovered in the
ancient ruins of the Indus Valley civilization
city of Mohenjo -daro. And we are going to examine
the physical artifact itself, trace its rather
dramatic modern history, and really dig into
the fiercely debated and, frankly, completely
contradictory interpretations of what exactly
the figure on this stone represents. And as we
get into this, I want you to imagine the visual
backdrop for our conversation today, transitioning
from the dusty, ancient, sun -baked brick ruins
of the Indus Valley to the towering, endlessly
complex bookshelves of modern academic institutions.
I love that image. Because for you, the listener,
understanding this seal is deeply relevant. I
mean, we live in a world of constant information
overload. We are bombarded with data every single
day. After data. Right. And this tiny stone seal
serves as an absolute masterclass in how different
people looking at the exact same piece of evidence
can come to entirely contradictory conclusions.
It is a phenomenal case study in human perception,
bias, and the stories we tell ourselves. Okay,
let's unpack this. Let's start with the physical
artifact itself, because the amount of detail
squeezed into this tiny piece of stone is frankly
mind -boggling. It really is a masterpiece. It
dates back to around 2200 BC, and it is made
of steatite. Which is a type of easily carved
soapstone. Right, soapstone. So carved right
in the center is a human figure. This figure
is seated on a dais, or a raised platform, facing
straight forward. And the posture is incredibly
specific. The legs are bent at the knees, the
heels are touching, and the toes are pointing
straight downward. It's a very deliberate pose.
Very. The arms are extended outward, resting
very lightly on the knees, with the thumbs facing
away from the body. And the adornments, the arms
are completely covered in bangles. Like, entirely
covered. Yeah. Eight small ones and three large
ones. The chest is draped in what appear to be
elaborate necklaces, and there's a double band
wrapping right around the waist. But the most
striking feature has to be the headdress. Oh,
the headdress is iconic. It's this tall, intricate
fan -shaped structure right in the middle, flanked
by two massive striated animal horns. The level
of craftsmanship required to carve those details
into a piece of steatite that small is remarkable.
And you really have to look at the periphery
to understand the full scope of the image. There's
more going on than just the central figure. Way
more. Surrounding the central figure are four
very distinct wild animals. On one side, you
have an elephant and a tiger. On the other side,
a water buffalo and an Indian rhinoceros. It's
a whole menagerie. Exactly. And just below the
platform the figure is sitting on, there are
two smaller animals, deer or ibexes, and they
are looking backward over their shoulders so
that their curved horns almost meet in the center.
That is so specific. It is. Finally, squeezed
in at the very top of the seal, there are seven
distinct symbols of the Indus script. The final
symbol is actually slightly displaced. Oh, right.
Pushed downward. Yeah, pushed down seemingly
because the carver just ran out of horizontal
space. It is like an An ancient high stakes game
of Tetris trying to fit all that in before you
hit the edge of the stone. That's a great way
to put it. Now, fast forward a few millennia.
How did this thing actually see the light of
day again? Well, the discovery takes us to 1928
or 1929. The seal was uncovered by an excavation
team directed by Ernest McKay and Mohenjo -Daro,
which is located in modern day Pakistan. Deep
underground. Quite deep, yeah. At a depth of
3 .9 meters below the surface. They documented
it. and numbered it 420 in McKay's official report.
Which is why you will sometimes hear it referred
to simply as Seal 420. Precisely. But the story
gets incredibly tense after it was pulled from
the earth. The finds were initially moved to
the Archaeological Survey of India headquarters
in Nideli. But as we know, the partition of India
was approaching in 1947. A hugely turbulent time.
Extremely. And a massive logistical and cultural
dispute arose over who got to keep what. Right,
because Pakistan naturally requested the return
of the Harappan artifacts excavated on their
territory. But the collection had already been
moved to Delhi. How do you even begin to divide
up a collection of that magnitude? It was an
arduous process. They had to negotiate an agreement
to split roughly 12 ,000 excavated objects equally
between the two new countries. 12 ,000 objects.
Yeah. And I want you to really picture how literal
this division was. It wasn't just you take this
crate, we'll take that one. It was so strictly
enforced that in some cases, individual bead
necklaces and girdles were literally taken apart.
Wait, really? Yes. With the beads separated into
two piles, one for India, one for Pakistan. That
is wild to think about. A 4 ,000 -year -old piece
of jewelry being dismantled bead by bead just
to satisfy modern borders. It highlights how
much cultural weight these artifacts carry. When
it came to the most celebrated sculpted figures
from the excavation, they couldn't just cut them
in half, so they had to make hard choices. Who
got what? Pakistan asked for and received the
famous Priest King figure. India, in turn, retained
the bronze Dancing Girl statue, and they kept
the Pashupati seal. It resides today in the National
Museum of India in Delhi. So the artifact itself
survives the split intact. But let's dive into
the core of the debate, the interpretation. Because
for generations, there was essentially one theory
that absolutely ruled the academic landscape.
The paradigm. Right. This theory came from John
Marshall, the director general of the Archaeological
Survey of India. He looked at this seal and declared
it an early prototype of the major Hindu god
Shiva, specifically his Vedic predecessor, Rudra.
What's fascinating here is how methodical Marshall's
argument was. He built a very compelling case
resting on four main pillars. Brink those down
for us. First, Marshall looked at the face. He
argued the figure was three -faced, with the
possible fourth face implied in the back. In
historical portrayals, Shiva is commonly depicted
with three or five faces. Okay, that makes sense.
Second, he pointed to the horned headdress. He
saw a resemblance there to the trizula or trident,
as well as to bullhorns, both of which are classic
emblems of Shiva. Okay, three faces and a trident
-like hat, I get. But how does sitting cross
-legged immediately jump to a definitive identification
of Shiva? That brings us to Marshall's third
pillar, the posture. It is a highly specific,
typical yoga attitude. Later scholars, like Thomas
McEvely, specifically identified it as Mulabandhasana.
Yes. This is critical to the argument because
Shiva is traditionally revered as the Mahayogi,
the absolute prince of yogis. Finally, the fourth
pillar revolves around the animals. The central
figure is completely surrounded by wild beasts.
Right. The tiger, the rhino, the elephant. Exactly.
Historically, one of Shiva's primary epithets
is Pashupati, which literally translates to the
lord of animals. So Marshall puts the faces,
the horns, the... yoga pose and the animals together
and concludes this is definitively a proto -Shiva.
But Marshall also pointed out something else
that sparked a whole separate debate regarding
the anatomy of the figure. The anatomical ambiguity.
Yeah. He observed that the figure appeared to
be ethyphallic, meaning it had an erect phallus.
This creates a very strong connection to Shiva,
who is deeply associated with the Linga in later
Hindu traditions. Though, to be fair to Marshall,
he did concede a bit of doubt here. He did. He
admitted that what looked like a phallus could
potentially just be a tassel hanging down from
that double waistband we mentioned earlier. Despite
that slight anatomical ambiguity, his overall
theory became the absolute paradigm. For at least
two full generations, this interpretation was
universally accepted. It was essentially treated
as fact. It deeply influenced scholarly understanding
of the historical development of Hinduism. Any
subsequent scholar writing about the religion
of the Indus Valley civilization basically had
to start their work by referencing Marshall's
Proto -Shiva theory. It was the definitive lens
through which this entire ancient culture was
viewed. Here's where it gets really interesting.
Because in academia, paradigms are made to be
challenged and are the skeptics, bringing a wave
of entirely competing interpretations. And the
first major rebellion flips the entire script
on its head. Oh, completely. We move into what
we could call the anatomical skeptics. Herbert
Sullivan came along and argued that the figure
isn't a male god at all. He proposed it is actually
a female goddess. Sullivan zeroed right in on
that anatomical ambiguity you just mentioned.
He argued that the so -called erect phallus is
unmistakably just the dangling end of a waistband
or girdle. Just a tassel. Just a tassel. And
his reasoning was comparative. He pointed out
that this exact same feature is found on many
terracotta figurines from the region that are
undoubtedly female. That's a strong point. Furthermore,
in the art of the Indus Valley civilization,
male figures are almost exclusively depicted
nude. But our figure on the seal is covered in
heavy jewelry, those bangles and necklaces. In
the context of Indus art, that kind of heavy
ornamentation is highly characteristic of female
figures, not male ones. A goddess. That's a massive
pivot from the supreme male yogi. But the anatomical
scrutiny doesn't stop there. By the 1970s, Doris
Srinivasan brings a whole new perspective. She
takes a much closer look at those three faces
Marshall saw. And she sees something entirely
different. She essentially says, wait a minute,
those lateral projections on the sides aren't
human faces at all. Those are cow -like ears.
She argues that the central face itself has incredibly
predominant bovine features. Srinivasan built
an excellent iconological assessment. She didn't
look at the seal in isolation. She connected
it to the broader material culture. She drew
parallels between the figure on seal 420 and
a horned mask discovered in Mahanjodaro, a terracotta
bull from Kalabangan, and a water pitcher from
Katdiji that also depicts a horned deity. Looking
at the wider context. Exactly. Her conclusion
was that this central figure is not a human god
or goddess. but a divine buffalo man. A buffalo
man. Which naturally leads us straight into another
layer of this debate, where scholars start looking
at the cultural and linguistic roots. Because
Alf Hildebeitel expanded on this buffalo imagery
and suggested something fascinating. The demon
theory. Yes. He argued this figure might be a
prototype of Mahishasura, the famous buffalo
demon, who is the archenemy of the Hindu goddess
Durga. Hildebeitel's logic relies on a very keen
observation of the local fauna. He is emphatic
that the people of the Indus Valley civilization
were intimately familiar with both bulls and
water buffaloes. They knew the difference. They
weren't just drawing generic horned animals.
No, not at all. The horns carved onto the headdress
of our figure are definitively buffalo horns.
They are sweeping and striated, not the horns
of a bull. Why does it matter so much if it's
a bull or a buffalo? That seems like such a minor
distinction to hang a whole religious theory
on. It matters immensely because it is a massive
blow to Marshall's proto -Shiva theory. Shiva's
traditional mount, his Vahana, is Nandi, the
bull. If this is an early Shiva, why would he
be wearing the horns of a buffalo? Ah, I see.
Hiltabedl argues it would require too many logical
leaps to retain credibility. Furthermore, he
points out the prominent tiger on the seal, which
could very well relate to the goddess Durga herself,
who is classically depicted riding a tiger or
a lion. So if it's not a god, not a goddess,
and maybe not even a demon, what else could it
possibly be? Did anyone look outside of religion
entirely? Actually, yes. This is where we see
scholars attempting to decode the seal through
a secular or purely linguistic lens. The American
archaeologist Walter Fair Service viewed the
script on the seal as an early Dravidian language.
Okay, focusing on the text. Yes, and he interpreted
the central figure not as a deity, but as a paramount
human chief named Anil. According to Fair Service,
the four wild animals simply represented four
distinct clans that this chief ruled over. That
brings it completely down to earth. A political
leader rather than a religious icon. Then you
have the Finnish Indologist Asko Parpola, who
offers yet another Dravidian interpretation.
Parpola suggested that the yogic pose itself
might not be native to the region, but rather
an imitation of the Proto -Elamite way of representing
seated bulls in art. So, borrowing artistic styles.
Right. After attempting to translate the inscription,
Parpola concluded the figure represents a servant
of an aquatic deity. He noted that the animals
shown best resemble those associated with the
Hindu god Varuna. aligning with the prominent
aquatic themes we know existed in the Indus religion,
given their massive public baths. Okay, we have
to mention one more theory, the Vedic interpretation
by MVN Krishna Rao, because it is just quite
the mental gymnastic routine. It really is something.
It's like a modern -day conspiracy theorist standing
in front of a corkboard connecting random photos
with red string. Rao looked at the seal and decided
it represents the Hindu god Indra. But to make
this work, he essentially had to edit the physical
evidence on the fly. Just ignore what doesn't
fit. Exactly. He argued that we should just ignore
the tiger because it is carved much larger than
the other animals. Then he said we should also
ignore the two deer at the bottom because they
are sitting under the table. So convenient. Right.
So having arbitrarily removed three of the animals
from the equation, he took the first phoneme,
the starting sound. of the remaining animals,
combined them with the word Nara, meaning man,
and spelled out Makhanasana, which happens to
be an epithet for Indra. It is a textbook example
of confirmation bias. You have a theory, and
you selectively prune the data until it fits
your desired outcome, discarding whatever contradicts
you. You can't just ignore the giant tiger in
the room because it ruins your acronym. That
is not how archaeology works. So what does this
all mean? How are you, the listener, supposed
to make sense of a male god, a female goddess,
a divine buffalo demon, a human gland chief,
and an aquatic servant all supposedly existing
within the exact same three and a half centimeter
carving? If we connect this to the bigger picture,
it requires us to pause and listen to the more
cautious voices in modern academia. Scholars
like the American Indologist Wendy Doniger have
pointed out a crucial reality check. We need
one of those. Yes. There are undeniable general
resemblances between the figure on the seal and
much later Hindu images of Shiva. And yes, the
Indus people might have had a symbolism of the
divine phallus. But as Doniger writes, we simply
cannot know it. Because the distance in time
is just too great. Exactly. A visual resemblance
does not automatically mean the Indus images
are the historical source of those later Hindu
images, nor does it guarantee they held the same
cultural meaning. Right. It's like finding a
modern stop sign 4 ,000 years from now and assuming
it was an object of religious worship simply
because it's red and octagonal and placed at
crossroads. The context is entirely missing.
And the scholar Jeffrey Samuel hits the nail
completely on the head. When looking at this
massive pile of competing theories, he plainly
states that they certainly cannot all be right.
There is no obvious, objective method for choosing
one interpretation over the other. Because we
know so little with absolute certainty about
the actual religious practices of the Indus Valley
civilization, interpreting this seal has become
an exercise in projection. As Samuel warns, the
evidence is so dependent on modern viewers reading
later practices backward into the ancient material
that it makes constructing a definitive, factual
history nearly impossible. It's essentially a
century -long academic Rorschach test. A scholar
trained in Vedic traditions looks at the seal
and sees a Vedic god. A feminist historian looks
at it and sees a goddess. A linguist sees a linguistic
puzzle. They're all projecting their own expertise
onto this blank slate of a stone. This raises
an important question for anyone trying to learn
about history, or really anyone analyzing data
in their daily lives. For nearly 100 years, brilliant,
dedicated scholars have looked into that tiny
piece of carved steatite and seen their own academic
backgrounds reflected back at them. The seal
absorbs it all. A mirror for the academics. Truly.
It shows us that when the context is lost, the
human mind will inevitably rush in to fill the
vacuum with its own stories, its own biases,
and its own desired outcomes. It really is a
fascinating testament to human curiosity and
our desperate need to find patterns and meaning,
even when the data is incomplete. A massive thank
you for joining us on this deep dive into the
Pashupati seal. We've explored the incredible
artistic detail of the Indus Valley civilization,
the chaotic history of its modern discovery,
and the passionate, sometimes completely contradictory
nature of how we try to understand our past.
But I want to leave you with one final, provocative
thought to mull over on your own. Something to
keep you awake tonight. We just spent all this
time debating the faces, the horns, the posture,
and the specific animals. We debated cow ears
versus human faces and bull horns versus buffalo
horns. But remember... Those seven indescript
symbols squeezed at the very top of the seal,
the ones the carver had to squish down just to
fit them in, that entire language, that script,
remains completely undeciphered to this very
day. What if, after almost a century of experts
projecting their own beliefs, their own complex
theories, and their own cultural biases onto
this tiny stone, the actual creator of the seal
carved the definitive simple answer right there
at the top, and we just don't know how to read
it? Thank you for listening, and we'll catch
you on the next deep dive. Thanks, everyone.