Chapter Nine - Letting the Pictures Speak: An Image-Based Approach to the Mythological and Narrative Imagery of the Harappan World

Summary

The iconography of the Harappan world, particularly as seen in the seals, sealings, and molded tablets found at sites in the Indus Valley and beyond, includes a number of mythological characters and narrative scenes that have to date defied interpretation. Past attempts to deal with this material have tried to relate the imagery to contemporary Western Asian iconography or to later Hindu mythology, but with limited success. This chapter attempts to deal with the mythological and narrative iconography of the Harappan world on its own terms, not necessarily with the aim of interpreting it, but rather to understand the role that visual imagery may have played in embodying and propagating the belief systems of the Harappan world. By combining standard art-historical approaches with current theories of narratology, as well as with models provided by recent scholarship on fantastic and mythological creatures in antiquity, this chapter first defines the cast of characters found in Harappan iconography and then proceeds to examine the scenes in which they interact with each other or with the inhabitants of the “known” world. While many of these scenes have little meaning on their own, taken together they may provide hints to the narratives that underlay the mythology of the Harappan world, and how they were used within the Harappan system.