History

The course explores a rather interesting and a curious subject called spiritual archeology and mainly focuses on the Indian subcontinent. This will help you to understand the evolution and the various developmental stages of religions in brief. The language used is simple so that you could get the zenith level of information about the subject .

Religion is always closely related to other realms of life, such as economic activities. These relations are partly direct and partly mediated by social forms. The latter are, on the one hand, at least partially dependent on economic conditions; on the other hand, social structures influence the formation of religious phenomena and often serve as models for their elaboration. In a negative sense, then, it is often possible to eliminate certain religious phenomena as inappropriate to a particular society. It is inconceivable, for example, that the religious conception of simple hunters and gatherers included an elaborately organized hierarchy of gods with detailed division of labour between the individual figures. Similarly, it is a mistake to attribute to hunters and gatherers conceptions that are bound up with agriculture and the fertility of fields. In a positive sense, however, certain economic and social conditions will encourage the development of certain corresponding religious conceptions.

The Indus Valley Civilization ensued during the Bronze Age (3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE). It mostly spread along the Indus and the Punjab region, extending into the Ghaggar-Hakra river valley and the Ganga-Yamuna Doab, surrounding most of what is now Pakistan, the western states of modern-day India, as well as extending into south-eastern Afghanistan, and the easternmost part of Baluchistan, Iran. The religion of the Indus people had some interesting aspects. There is an absence of any temple among the remains of the Indus Valley. Some scholars like to believe that the large buildings found at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were in fact temples. It was widely suggested that the Harappan people worshipped a Mother goddess symbolizing fertility. A few Indus valley seals displayed swastika sign which were there in many religions, especially in religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. The earliest evidence for elements of Hinduism is before and during the early Harappan period. Phallic symbols close to the Hindu Shiva lingam was located in the Harappan ruins. One famous seal displayed a figure seated in a posture reminiscent of the lotus position, surrounded by animals. It came to be labelled after Pashupati (lord of beasts), an epithet of Shiva. The discoverer of the Shiva seal, Sir John Marshall and others have claimed that this figure is a prototype of Shiva, and have described it as having three faces, seated on a throne in a version of the cross-legged lotus posture of Hatha Yoga.A large tiger rears upwards by the yogi's right side, facing him. This is the largest animal on the seal, shown as if warmly connected to the yogi; the stripes on the tiger's body, also in groups of five, highlight the connection. Three other smaller animals are depicted on the Shiva seal. It is most likely that all the animals on this seal are totemic or heraldic symbols, indicating tribes, people or geographic areas. On the Shiva seal, the tiger, being the largest, represents the yogi's people, and most likely symbolizes the Himalayan region. The elephant probably represents central and eastern India, the bull or buffalo south India and the rhinoceros the regions west of the Indus river. The people of the Indus Valley also appear to have worshipped a male god. The most important depiction of an imagined Hinduism god is present in seal number 420. Many other seals have been found depicting the same figure, but not in the same detail as number 420. The deity is wearing a headdress that has horns, the shape being reminiscent of the crescent moon that modern image of Siva shows on his forehead.What are thought to be linga stones have been dug up. Linga stones in modern Hinduism are used to represent the erect male phallus or the male reproductive power of the god Siva. But again, these stones could be something entirely different from objects of religious worship. Even today, Siva is worshipped in both human form and that of the phallus. The deity sitting in a yoga-like position suggests that yoga may have been a legacy of the very first great culture that occupied India.