The History of the Indus Valley Civilization

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Intro

After watching the video called the Indus: An Unvoiced Civilization and reading Chapter 1: India Before the Vedas of the book called Awakening: An Introduction to the History of Eastern Thought by Patrick S. Bresnan, I felt that I had a better understanding of the Indus people and how much it had intrigued me. However, from both the video and the text there were small details from each of them that provided different information regarding the Indus Valley. As the freelance journalist that I am, it is my job to decipher these differences. 

A Main Comparison

In the video, one thing that was mentioned that I noticed wasn't in the text was how the Indus people lived during the rainy season in July when the floods would submerge the mainlands. 

Trades and Transportation in the Indus Valley
During the summer season from June to October, as the water level rises and floods the mainlands, the people of Pakistan didn't mind it at all as "the floods enrich the land, and as a result, the people enjoy a good harvest" (Indus 31:12). 

The Indus people would also use boats during this time for trades because "Compared to transportation by land, more goods can be transported faster by water. The river was a highway system for the ancient people" (Indus 33:14). 

To them, this was there way of transportation for more than 4,500 years and to this day it has not changed since.

For how the Indus people lived during the summer season, it changed my perspective because the Indus people used these resources to their advantage.

Differences of Explanation

From the text and the video, there was one issue that was treated differently and that is how the water and drainage system in the urban cities of the Mojeno-daro was explained. 

In the text, the water and drainage system had a more simpler explanation. The text simply described how the Indus people "were especially clever in the technology of water management, with municipal drainage systems that surpassed anything in the world would see again until the Roman times" (Bresnan 6).

In the video, however, the drainage system had a more detailed explanation of how it is used. In the Mojenjo-daro, their water and drainage system can be used as a flush toilet system whenever water from a bath was poured into the gutters to flush the waste.

The Indus people would also use the water system to wash themselves in a great communal bath as they believed that the bath was sacred to them.

For the Indus people, water was important as it was managed in a way that it had "a wide network of gutters covered the entire city" (Indus 5:01).




Works Cited

Indus: The Unvoiced Civilization. Films Media Group, 2000, Films on 

Demand, https://fod.infobase.com/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=11655. Accessed 13, Sep. 2021.

Bresnan, Patrick S. Awakening: An Introduction to the History of Eastern Thought, 6th ed., 

Routledge, 2018.

"Trade and Transportation." Harappanindus, https://bcindusvalleycivilization.weebly.com/trade-and-

transportation.html. Accessed 13, Sep. 2021.

Carl Schnell. "Indus River Valley Sewage and Water System." https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=gpLbRr5Efcg. Accessed 13, Sep. 2021.









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