The Seated Figure of Mohenjo-daro
Buried three meters deep in the ruins of a Bronze Age city, a small stone seal shows a man crowned with horns, ringed by wild beasts — and no one has ever fully agreed on who he is.
In 1928 or 1929, archaeologists from the Archaeological Survey of India were digging through Block 1 of the DK-G Area at Mohenjo-daro, a major urban center of the Indus Valley Civilisation in what is now Pakistan. At a depth of 3.9 meters, they uncovered a small steatite seal, just 3.56 by 3.53 centimeters and 7.6 millimeters thick. It would become one of the most debated artifacts of the ancient world.
Ernest Mackay, who directed the excavations, catalogued the piece as seal number 420 in his 1937–1938 report, giving it the alternate name of the Mahayogi or Proto-Śhiva seal. He dated it to the Intermediate I Period, a span now placed around 2350 to 2000 BCE. What made the object stand out among the thousands of Indus seals recovered was its unusual composition: rather than the animal-centered designs typical of the civilization, this seal placed a human figure at its heart.
The figure sits cross-legged on a raised platform, facing forward, heels touching, toes pointed down. Its arms rest lightly on its knees, thumbs turned outward, and are covered in eight small bangles and three large ones. Necklaces cover the chest, a double band wraps the waist, and atop the head sits an elaborate horned headdress with a fan-shaped crest between two large striated horns. Some scholars, including Jonathan Mark Kenoyer as late as 2003, have argued the figure is ithyphallic, though this reading has been widely questioned.
Surrounding the seated figure are four wild animals: an elephant and a tiger on one side, a water buffalo and an Indian rhinoceros on the other. Beneath the platform, two deer or ibexes face backward, their curved horns nearly touching at the center. Above it all run seven symbols of the undeciphered Indus script, the final one pushed downward for lack of space.
The first serious interpretation came from John Marshall, Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India and leader of the Indus excavations. Marshall proposed that the figure was a prototype of the Hindu god Shiva, or his Vedic predecessor Rudra — both known by the epithet Pashupati, 'lord of the animals.' He based this on four observations: the figure's possible three or four faces, echoing later depictions of Shiva; the horned crown resembling Shiva's trishula and bull-horn imagery; the yogic seated posture, fitting Shiva's later role as mahayogi, prince of yogis; and the surrounding animals, matching Shiva's title as lord of wild creatures.
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