Religion

Some Indus valley seals show swastikas, which are found in other religions worldwide, especially in Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

One seal shows a horned figure seated in a posture reminiscent of the Lotus position and surrounded by animals was named by early excavators Pashupati (lord of cattle), an epithet of the later Hindu gods Shiva and Rudra.Writing in 1997 Doris Srinivasan said that "Not too many recent studies continue to call the seal's figure a "Proto-Siva," rejecting thereby Marshall's package of proto-Siva features, including that of three heads.

She interprets what John Marshall interpreted as facial as not human but more bovine, possibly a divine buffalo-man. According to Iravatham Mahadevan symbols 47 and 48 of his Indus script glossary The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables (1977), representing seated human-like figures, could describe Hindu deity Murugan. In view of the large number of figurines found in the Indus valley, some scholars believe that the Harappan people worshipped a Mother goddess symbolizing fertility, a common practice among rural Hindus even today.

Figures of nude male deities excavated at Indus Valley civilization are interpreted as Jain yogi.Various seals from Indus Valley Civilization bear resemblance to Rishabha and extensive use of the symbol of Bull might show the prevalence of Jainism in Indus Valley Civilization.

Mahadevan and Kamta Prasad Jain.Recently, Acarya Vidyanadji tried to prove the prevalence of Jainism in ancient India through detailed research on various artifacts, seals and other relics from Indus Valley Civilization. Not only the seated deities on some of the Indus seals are in Yoga posture and bear witness to the prevalence of Yoga in the Indus Valley Civilisation in that remote age, the standing deities on the seals also show Kayotsarga (a standing or sitting posture of meditation) position.


source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization