Kalibangan

"Kalibangan . . . is strategically located at the confluence of the Sarasvatī and Drishadvatī Rivers and must have played a major role as a way station and monitor of the overland communications of the Harappan peoples."

"The study offered 'the first stratigraphic evidence that a palaeochannel exists in the sub-surface alluvium in the Ghaggar valley. The fact that the major urban sites of Kalibangan and Kunal lie adjacent to the newly discovered subsurfacefluvial channel body ... suggests that there may be a spatial relationship between the Ghaggar-Hakrapalaeochannel and Harappan site distribution' (Sinha et al., 2013)."

"Such a conclusion had been reached by archaeologists long ago, since Kalibangan, for instance, shows no evidence of independent water supply; unlike Mohenjo- daro, it had very few wells, and unlike Dholavira, no reservoirs, yet it was continually occupied for several centuries: for its water supply through the year, it must therefore have depended on the Sarasvati, on whose left bank it lay, with entries into its fortified enclosures facing the riverbed."

"A remarkable discovery ... at Kalibangan was that of a ploughed agricultural field.... This is the earliest agricultural field ever brought to light through an excavation anywhere in the world."

"Marshall identified certain stone objects ... as lingas and yonis... [At Kalibangan] has been found a terracotta specimen which is clearly identifiable as linga-cum-yoni."

"The fire-altars of Kalibangan and Lothal are so far without parallels at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. Indeed, it has been asked [by Raymond and Bridget Allchin]: "Fire- worship being considered a distinctly Indo-Aryan trait, do these {ritual hearths of Kalibangan] carry with them an indication of an Indo-Aryan presence even from so early a date?" This hypothesis new seems quite plausible to me, if "Indo-Aryan" here is understood to refer to carriers of the Bronze Age culture of Greater Iran, who had become quickly absorbed into the Indus Civilization, culturally and linguistically. It is supported further by the cylinder shape of the famous Kalibangan seal showing a Durga-like goddess of war, who is associated with the tiger. The goddess on the Kalibangan cylinder seal is said to be similar in style, especially the headdress, to one depicted on a cylinder seal from Shahdad [in Kerman on the desert of Lut in Iran, a major centre of the Bronze Age cultural tradition]. Seated lions attend to a goddess of fertility on a metal flag found at Shahdad."

".,. the so-called-'citadels' at Indus cities were taken to be the seats of government but B.B. Lal (1981) has now conclusively proved that at least at Kalibangan it was not at all so; it was possibly the place where collective religious ceremonies were held around the 'fire altars'. Inother words, underlying the mature Indus Civilization or Harappan Culture was a great deal of social change, all of which is not easy to comprehend but without which the cities would not have emerged on the Indus plains. Social changes and cultural changes keep on interplaying variously at various levels (Gupta 1974)."

"Such "ritual hearths" are reported from the beginning of the Harappan period itself. It has been suggested that they may have been fire altars , evidence of domestic, popular and civic fire-cults of the Indo-Iranians, which are described in detail in the later Vedic literature. It may then be an indication of culture contact between an early group of Indo-Aryans and the population of the still-flourishing Indus civilization."