The Story of the Indus Valley Civilization

   Today I will be comparing and contrasting two sources of media talking about the Indus Valley Civilization. One of these sources is a textbook named "Awakening An Introduction to the History of Eastern Thought" by Patrick S. Bresnan. I will be using the first chapter, India Before the Vedas, for the comparison and contrast. The first chapter of the textbook talks about how the Indus Valley people began, their mark on Indian culture, their technological miracles, their downfall, and eventually their replacement. The other source is a video documentary, called Indus: An Unvoiced Civilization, of cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. 

Ruins of an Indus Valley Civilization called Mohenjo-Daro

https://www.worldhistory.org/Indus_Valley_Civilization/

    A fact that I learned from the video that I did not learn from the text is that the early civilizations showed no signs of war and even children toys signifying they lived in peace and harmony within themselves and neighboring cities. "The ruins of the Indus do not show even the slightest to war. There are no signs of fire or destruction" (Indus: 35:08). They even traded with one another  indicated by the seals they used on their artifacts. "There was active trading between the cities of Indus. These seals were used by the merchants during business transactions" (Indus: 33:29). The video goes in depth on how the early civilizations thrived while the text talks about them briefly and does not indicate what the video goes over. The information provided by the video is extremely breathtaking compared to the civilizations that come after the earlier ones as the earlier ones lived in harmony with their people, while the later ones lived in a extremely unfair caste system. 

Area of the Indus Valley Civilization(Including Excavation Sites)

https://www.worldhistory.org/Indus_Valley_Civilization/

    The text of chapter one briefly goes over the history of the early civilizations and mainly talks about the decline of them which Bresnan describes as the Harappan Period and a new period of the later civilizations called the Vedas. This age was taken over by "A non-indigenous population of Sanskrit-speaking Indo-Aryans whose not-so-distant ancestors had migrated into North India during the early part of the second millennium BCE" (Bresnan 13). These migrants eventually laid claim to these now free lands. While some natives existed in these lands the Indo-Aryan migrants were able to gain a dominant social position throughout most of North India. These people eventually created a caste system, which compared to what we know of the early civilizations of the Indus Valley is extremely harsh and unfair. The caste system went Brahmins, who were the priests, Kshatriyas, who were the warrior nobility, Vaishyas, who were the commoners, artisans, and tradesmen, and even far below them were the Shudra. Everyone besides the Shudra were theorized to be descendants of the Indo Aryans. This was the reason why they were treated so harshly as they were theorized to be the descendants of the surviving indigenous population. "The Shudras were referred to as the “once born,” meaning simply that they were not entitled to a ritual second birth and were thus forbidden to have any part in the Aryan religious sacrifice. Shudras were not allowed to study the Vedas. In fact, if a Shudra were even to overhear the chanting of Vedic hymns, the penalty could be death. The Shudras enjoyed very little in the way of rights; members of the arya-varna castes could even kill a Shudra without penalty under law" (Bresnan 15). Compared to what we know about the early civilizations of the Indus Valley, these later civilization seem inhuman and extremely horrid.