Standing tall, brave, proud, unyielding, the Dancing Girl of Mohenjo Daro, a 2,500-4,500 years old, 10.8cm bronze statue, has managed to hold a never-ending fascination. Who is she? What does her posture tell us about her? What does it indicate about her status? The statue has drawn scholarly attention since its discovery in 1926. She has come symbolise the Indus Valley culture.

The statue is one of the most enthralling artefacts. Ernest Mackay discovered the bronze sculpture it in 1926. Archaeologists and anthropologists considered the statue a cultural artefact reflecting the aesthetics of a female body as conceptualised in that historical period.

When Sir John Marshall, the key archaeologist in the discovery of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa, saw it for the first time, he found it hard to describe it as prehistoric because it shattered the prevalent notions about early art and civilisation. He believed that there may have been an error is estimating its age as such posturing was unknown in the ancient world until the Hellenistic period. Archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler stated that the subject is a girl utterly confident in herself. He said there was nothing like her in the world of antiquity. Gregory Possehl described the figurine as the most captivating piece of art from an Indus Valley site. He doubted that the girl was dancing but added that she was clearly good at what she did and knew it.

The discovery was seen as a breakthrough shining a spotlight on the cultural and artistic expression of that time.

The dancer

It is unclear why the archaeologists who discovered it call her ‘the dancer.’ Some social scientists believe that the period coincided with a movement against dance culture that had started in the 1930s with the spread of the English education system. An Indian petit conformist class had emerged and was reimagining itself under the influence of Western ideas and tradition and disconnected from their original cultural heritage. This new class was appeasing the foreign spectators, who misjudged the Indian heritage of dance as a representation of lust and condemned it as immoral and despicable. Because of their Orientalist gaze, these foreign observers were biased against the Indian dance culture. Some of them made no distinction between an accomplished classical dancer and a sex worker.

After Ernst Mackay and DR Sahni found the figurine and named it, Sir John Marshall authenticated it with his famous quote: “A half-impudent posture, and legs slightly forward as she beats time to music with her legs and feet.”

While on one hand, there was the move to discredit the Devadasi culture, on the other hand, discovering this figurine politically reified dance, gave it antiquity, transported it 5,000 years back and made it a ‘national heritage’. It found an important place in the National Museum and helped in the ‘invention’ of a tradition. Suddenly, Indian dance was seen as 5,000 years old. Until then, evidence for Indian dances was derived from Ajanta frescos or temple sculptures seen as 2,000 years old.

Nude, except for a necklace and a sequence of bangles that almost wholly cover one arm, her hair styled for the occasion, she exudes complete confidence in herself and the world, standing in a provocative pose, with one arm on her hip and a skinny leg half bent. The young woman has an air of lively pertness, quite unlike anything in the work of other ancient civilisations. Her thin body, together with those of the mother deities, demonstrates that the Harappa people had entirely different standards of female beauty than those of later India. According to some, this ‘dancing girl’ represents a class of temple dancers and sex workers that existed in contemporary Middle Eastern civilisations and was an important feature of later Hindu culture.

It is said that women of the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation used to enjoy a status equal to men. The artist manages to bring out a few of her attributes in the sculpture. The head is held high and speaks of a proud character. She has her place in society and is aware of it. So are the people around her. If one looks closely at her fists, they accentuate the affirmativeness. She knows she is beautiful and has taken care to adorn herself with a trendy hairstyle. The hairstyle and bangles show a continuity of culture as women of some tribes in Thar, Rajasthan and Gujarat still wear similar bangles. The hairstyle too is similar to mindhi worn by women in many parts of Thar in Pakistan and Rajasthan in India.

The goddess

In no region in the world has the worship of the divine mother been so deep-rooted as in the subcontinent. According to Marshall, such goddesses were the prototype of the power that developed into that of Sakti. Numerous world-renowned archaeologists believed that the goddess cult was the dominant socio-religious force. Some argued that the Dancing Girl of Mohenjo Daro was one of them. Every figurine has been found well-preserved in an old-fashioned cabinet that can still be observed in many villages in the subcontinent. Their purity can be judged by their nudeness, overloaded by a cornucopia of sanctified jewellery. These representatives of the goddess were kept in homes as tutelary deities. According to some, the Dancing Girl is considered the guardian of the house and village. The mother goddess of present-day India is perhaps more revered than any other Hindu deity.

Religion was the centre point of everything in the Indus Valley civilisation. If women were indeed the dominant force, it follows that women were held in high esteem in daily life.

An image of Parvati

In January 2017, Professor Thakur Prasad Verma claimed that the Dancing Girl found at Mohenjo Daro is an image of Parvati, the Hindu goddess of fertility, love and devotion; as well as heavenly might and mightiness. Known by various names, she is the compassionate and caring avatar of Shakti and one of the Shakta sect’s major goddesses. Professor Verma offered his interpretation in a piece titled Vaidik Sabhyata ka Puratattva, (Archaeology of the Vedic Civilisation), a 36-page essay.

Professor Verma’s essay argued that Puranas should be studied to comprehend the Harappan civilisation as they speak of a million-year-old past. He also argued that the Harappan script is critical to comprehending that there was a Western effort to prevent anyone from clearly stating that it was a Vedic society.

A Nubian

A Dutch archaeologist, Caspers suggested in 1987 that the Dancing Girl was an exemplification of a Nubian. This claim stirred a considerable debate. Caspers said that the Dancing Girl’s broad nose, large membranous lips, the anterior projection of the tooth-bearing portion of the face, and the linearity and proportions of the upper and lower extremities suggested that she was Nubian. Earlier, another archaeologist, Piggot in his book, The Chronology of Prehistoric North-west India, 1950 had written that: “when we are describing the Harappa culture, I think I recognise I recognise a Kulli girl in a “foreign city”. He thought that her hairstyle was like that found on terracotta figurines of the Kulli peoples.

Such claims and suggestions resulted from several historical and scientific evaluations of Western archaeologists’ notions about South Asian material and visual culture with the ancient population movements and commercial contacts between the prehistoric Harappans and African populations during the Indus Age (2500-1900 BC).

Many experts have said that Dancing Girl’s body structure did not match the popular material representation of other discovered female figurines of the time. She is thus thought to be an outsider, imported or nostalgic material from someone’s past life. Her petite body was not desired, as early descriptions of female figurines found in the region included “exaggerated hips” (Marshall 1931) or broad hips, as well as “prominent” breasts (Mackay 1938). Moreover, in most figurines, the waist is not overly small, nor other feminine parts of the body (Gordon and Gordon 1940; Mackay 1938: Wheeler 1968).

A Warrior

Indian art historian Naman Ahuja, shared another theory in 2017 calling the Dancing Girl a warrior. He said the archaeologists who discovered it in the 1920s were misled by the gender bias that did not allow them to consider this role for women. He argued that while the figure’s left arm is bangled the right arm is bare, like that of any working person. An ornamented left arm and an unadorned right arm available for work or combat? If she were a professional dancer, he argued, both arms would be decorated. With her confident standing posture, one arm on her hip, her head thrown back and the way her hand is carved, one might assume that she was holding a spear. Is she a figure of valour? Could she be a military official?

The figurine is the most potent representation of the human body from the Indus Valley civilisation, a civilisation with no encrypted text and just a few large-scale depictions.

Her presence holds clues about materiality, subjectivity, agency and representation in the Indus Valley civilisation. She is proof of the colourfulness and diversity of the civilisation and a source of stimulating insights, despite the lack of success so far in deciphering its script.

The writer is an educationist, scholar of cultural studies and a documentary-maker. She is currently teaching at the Lahore School of Economics