Gharial god and Tiger goddess: Saṃyoga depicted in the seal, H-180 from Harappa
Summary: Tantra aspects of Indian religion has ancient roots. Gharial (Indian river crocodile) god mating (saṃyoga) with Tiger goddess seal is an important evidence of 4000+ years old Tantra. I wrote about the Indus religion in 2007 using several glyptic seals and tablets, and presented it in the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. I quoted the book, Indian Art by Philip Rawson, 1972. But P. Rawson has written earlier about it in his 1968 book also: Figures 10 and 11, Erotic Art of the East, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London. In the subculture of the 1960s, P. Rawson’s academic lectures in the Museums and books by him must have been quite popular. Leaving out the "plant sprout" guessed by John Marshall in 1931, Sir Mortimer Wheeler wrote that H-180 is possibly a scorpion or crocodile (1953). Then in 1968, P. Rawson settles for the gharial as depicted in H-180. Most recently, Prof. Asko Parpola’s book, The Roots of Hinduism (2015, OUP) has a complete explanation of this important Indus civilization seal, H-180.
In the Post-Harappan times, the Crocodile cult is seen in the Anthropomorphic Axe bronzes in the Indo-Gangetic plains in North India and afterwards, South India as huge monolithic sculptures at Mottur, Udayarnatham, Sitthannavasal etc., in the Megalithic period. In these Post-Harappan art, gharial god merges with Varuṇa of the Veda. On the Crocodile (Makara Viṭaṅkar) symbolism representing the Pole star in Indian Astronomy and Religion for 4700 years:
(1) Gharial god and Tiger goddess in the Indus valley: Some aspects of Bronze Age Indian religion https://archive.org/details/IVCReligionByNagaGanesan2007
(2) Divine Couple in Ancient Indian Astronomy from Binjor to Adichanallur: Makara Viṭaṅkar & Kolli/Koṟṟavai. https://nganesan.blogspot.com/2021/02/divine-couple-binjor-amulet-to.html
Dr. Max Dashu wrote about this essay in her Facebook page: https://d.facebook.com/333661528320/photos/a.423118913320/10158170441908321/?type=3&source=48
1.0 Gharial
God of Indus Civilization:
Fig. 1 Gharial God “Paśupati”
(M-304 & M-1393)
In
Mohenjo-daro seals (M-304, M-1181), a deity wearing buffalo horns and sitting
in a yogic posture is depicted. It has been called as Proto-Paśupati because of
the surrounding animals: a tiger, an elephant, a water buffalo, and a
rhinoceros. Gharial crocodile is used
as an exact equivalent for Proto-Paśupati (Figure 1). This gharial as a
horned deity is often portrayed in a variety of mass-produced seals, M-439, M-440, M-441, M-1393, M-1394, and M-1395
showing it is a pan-Indus religious deity. Gharial
is shown wearing the horns of bison bulls (Bos gaurus) which form the cultural
equivalent for the wild buffalo of the Paśupati seal. Rhinoceros, elephant and
tiger are also shown. The back-turning tiger in the Gharial seal below the
“priest” sitting on the bough of the tree has connections with the scenes in
seals (Figure 2). The four animals around Gharial-Paśupati may represent the
four cardinal directions (Alf
Hiltebeitel, The Indus Valley "Proto-Śiva", reexamined through
reflections on the goddess, the buffalo, and the symbolism of VĀHANAS, Anthropos,
v. 73, 1978, pp. 767-797). These four
animals are shown in a row above which there is a gharial in the sky in the M-489
tablet.
Fig. 2 Man on a tree with tiger below (M-309)
In widely attested depictions in the Mature Harappan culture (M-309, K-49, H-163, H-176), a priest on a tree and a tiger, possibly as a hierophany of the Indus mother goddess, are shown (Figure 2). In this important motif, the head of the tiger is turned backwards so that it can pay attention to the man on the tree. The person on the tree in Figure 2 is possibly male since he wears the double hair bun, comparable with the double hair bun worn by warriors. Also, the double hair bun of the shaman is visible on the man on the tree who is facing the gharial in the Gharial-Paśupati seals.
Excavations in Harappa in the year 1997 have revealed the
pan-Indus religion again. See the woman grappling two standing tigers, the horned
yogi, his representation as a gharial in the sky (Pole star), a buffalo
sacrifice below (Figure 3). https://www.harappa.com/indus/89.html
Philip Rawson correctly identified the Indus Creation mythology in an Indus seal. My paper in 2007, compares H-172 amulet's shortened body of the gharial with that of H-180 saṃyoga scene. Now we have additionally, the evidence from 4MSR Pre-Harappan amulet also. See in 2006, Max Dashu writing about my explanation on the samyoga seal which we discussed in e-lists. https://www.suppressedhistories.net/Gallery/indus/tigers.html
"Here she is in two other seals. The woman with
tigers at right, like the first example at top, has clearly marked breasts. The
tigers are more ambiguous, but note the teeth and claws, especially on the
front paws.
Here the rampant tigers face each other. A female
figure is still present in the panel, at right. She has often been interpreted
as giving birth to a plant, but Naga Ganesan has made a convincing case that a
(rather distorted) gharial crocodile is depicted here, comparing it with more
realistic representations on numerous other seals." (Max Dashu, 2006)
Fig 4. Gharial mating with female (from P. Rawson, 1968 book)
Earlier, John Marshall did not understand the
mythology of this important seal, and mistook the gharial as a “plant sprout”. In the next stage of interpretation, Sir Mortimer Wheeler wrote in 1953: The
Indus Civilization, “The second sealing bears on one side a central
group of pictographs with two rearing and confronting animals (probably tigers)
on one flank and, on the other, a nude woman upside down giving birth to what
has been interpreted as a plant but may equally be a scorpion or even a
crocodile.”. Leaving out the plant or scorpion identifications, it was Philip Rawson who first identified the gharial in the H-180 seal.
Now, we know much better due to later excavations such as (i) HARP team’s excavations in Harappa (Figure 3) (ii) the 4700 years old amulet with the gharial and blackbuck, symbols of the Pole star and the Goddess from Pre-Harappan 4MSR site near Binjor, Rajasthan. Asko Parpola, Roots of Hinduism, 2015, Oxford University Press, page 182: “The Indus seals and tablets often depict the long-snouted fish-eating crocodile of north Indian rivers (Fig. 15.5). Known as the gharial, this crocodile is in danger of becoming extinct, because it has been hunted for the swelling protuberance on the tip of the male gharial’s long snout, which is thought to represent a phallus and is believed to be an aphrodisiac (Fig. 15.6a). An Indus tablet from Harappa appears to represent the gharial in the act of fertilizing a woman by pushing its snout into her vagina (Fig. 15.6b). According to Marshall (1931:52) in this tablet “a nude female figure is depicted upside down with legs apart and with a plant issuing from her womb,” this being a “striking representation of the Earth Goddess with a plant growing from her womb.” Marshall’s interpretation has been often quoted ever since, although already Mortimer Wheeler (1968:106) thought that “what has been interpreted as a plant … may equally well be … even a crocodile.” Giving the photo an adult gharial with a pot at the tip, and H-180 seal, A. Parpola says: “FIGURE 15.6 The fish-eating river crocodile (gharial) and fertility. (a). The snout of the male gharial. Photo Bo Link 2006, Wikipedia Commons. (b) A gharial depicted as fertilizing a human female on a moulded tablet H-180 (649, NMI 32) from Harappa in the collection of the National Museum of India, New Delhi. After CISI 3.1:398. Photo EL, courtesy NMI.”
3.0 Crocodile sign in Indus “script”
Iravatham Mahadevan has identified an important Indus sign as Muruku sign representing Proto-Murukan-Kartikeya. He explained this sign as an emaciated old man or a corpse. However, Muruku is a youthful person and Devasenapati in the Indian tradition and so, Iravatham Mahadevan’s Muruku identification as Murukan in not correct. Dr. R. Nagaswamy (1930 – 2022) was emphatic that this is not Muruku-Subrahmaṇya at all, and possibly the Makara sign after reading my essays.
A. Parpola has written an extensive article on the
crocodile cult in Indus civilization. He has correctly said I. Mahadevan’s
“Muruku” sign actually represents the crocodile of Harappan religion. Makara
being a generic name for all three species of crocodiles in India, and Viṭaṅkar
specific to Gharial, and we can call this crocodile sign as Makara Viṭaṅkar
sign. The Makara Viṭaṅkar sign occurs in pottery sherds excavated from
megalithic period sites of Tamil Nadu including Keeladi near Madurai. Parpola’s paper on Indus
civilization’s crocodiles: https://www.harappa.com/content/crocodile-indus-civilization-and-later-south-asian-traditions From this article (pg. 48), see
Fig. 6. Indus sign number 87 (Crocodile – identification by Parpola)
There is one significant reason why the identification of Indus Crocodile sign is correct. In the Indus civilization, monumental buildings in the cities had roofs horizontally. But the villages had mostly wattle-and-daub construction to build small homes and huts (Ref.: J. P. Joshi, Harappan Architecture and Civil Engineering, Contributions to History of Indian Science and Technology Series. 2008). The roofs had wooden or bamboo beams and rafters. Much like today’s India, these had slanting, conical, inverted-V or inverted semi-circle roofs covered by grasses and palm leaves. In Indus sign sequences, we see the crocodile sign next to which is a man with a spear. Often this man is shown within a curvy river. Another important sign sequence is the crocodile sign and his reed house. Even though the house construction of the common people was using the wattle-and-daub method, religious places of worship with the reed house sign shown near the crocodile sign is exactly the same as the reed house appearing on the seals of river boats. This sign sequence really confirms that the crocodile deity living in the rivers is what is shown in the gharial sign. There is also realistic portrayal of the reed house in (i) “temples” near the horned “yogi” tablets and (ii) on the river boat seals.
4.0 Philip Rawson (1924 – 1995)
His publications, as listed by his son, Piers Rawson:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100331094751/http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000491.html
Tantra: enlightenment to revolution was on
show in the Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery at the British Museum until 24
January 2021. The accompanying book, Tantra: enlightenment to revolution is by
Imma Ramos, Thames & Hudson. https://web.archive.org/web/20220129211226/https://the-past.com/feature/tantra-from-ecstasy-to-enlightenment/
N. Ganesan, Indus Crocodile Religion as seen in the Iron Age
Tamil Nadu, 16th World Sanskrit Conference Proceedings, Bangkok, Thailand,
2016. https://archive.org/stream/IVCReligionInIronAgeTamilNaduByNGanesan-2016-16thWSC/IVC_Religion_in_IronAge_TamilNadu_by_NGanesan_2016_16th_WSC#page/n0/mode/2up
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