Does Geography Determine Destiny?

Organized Religion

Whether or not the Indus people practiced any sort of an organized religion is a question that is as mysterious as the civilization itself. It is likely that they practiced some form of organized religion, but it may have been very different from the evidence found in the other River Valley civilizations. While the Egyptians built grand pyramids to their god-kings and the Mesopotamians constructed statues of their leaders and Ziggurats to serve as the houses of their gods, there is none of that in the Indus civilization. There are no statutes or depictions of any rulers or any types of gods. Some of the most interesting pieces come from the small stone seals found throughout the Indus Valley and even in Mesopotamia. Some feature depictions of typical animals while others portray imaginary animal mashups. Is it possible that these have something to with a religion or belief? We may speculate about this more in a later chapter when we examine one of the world’s major religions that eventually developed in this region.