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Unicorn in Mythology and on Indus Seals

Out of all the animals engraved on the seals unicorn is most prominent and mostly it appears facing an unidentifiable object. It has been suggested by some that the object is an offering stand used in some kind of sacrificial ritual. 

Although Unicorn is considered to be a mythological animal and yet it has been described as a real animal in some accounts. Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador in the Mauryan court describes unicorn as a powerful animal. Early archaeologists associated the Indus seal unicorn with the one mentioned in the Greek records. Both, Sir John Marshall and Sir Mortimer Wheeler state that the unicorn is an animal of Indian origin and has been mentioned by Aristotle and Ctesias. At the same time, these archaeologists doubted that perhaps, what appears as a unicorn on the seals is an animal with two horns but one is hidden behind the other. 

Because of the ridges on its horns, Marshall had ruled out the possibility of the unicorn being an ox as it was originally thought. However, because of his strong physique, he is still compared with the ox and antelope or a composite of these two animals. Marshall finds the unicorn eye as the most prominent feature which looked to him in some images like a cow’s eye and in others like a camel‘s eye. 

Asko Parpola in his extensive study also draws parallels between Indus and the Mesopotamian unicorn mentioned in the Gilgamesh epic. He quotes an account on the medicinal qualities of the unicorn’s horn “…the Indians make this horn into a cup, for they declare that no one can ever fall sick on the day on which he has drunk out of it, nor will any one who has done so be the worse for being wounded, and he will be able to pass through fire unscathed, and he is even immune from poisonous draughts which others would drink to their harm. Accordingly, this goblet is reserved for kings, and the king alone may indulge in the chase of this creature.” Unicorn in this way is associated with immortality as according to a dialogue in this account, when a character is asked if he believes in the story of goblets, another said “I will believe it, if I find the king of the Indians hereabout to be immortal.”

Parpola refers to the three-headed animal image on a seal and suggests that the unicorn is portrayed as a composite animal, first inspired by west Asian art motifs later it was modified to the image of an Indian animal. Kenoyer, on the other hand, suggests that the image of unicorn on the seals is of a bull.

According to John Marshall, “The unicorn was, of course, a familiar creature of Indian folk stories, and Vishnu’s title of Ekaśriṅga (one-horned) may conceivably embody some memory of this prehistoric beast.” I am reminded of the Hindu communities of Sindh who name their boys-Narsingha, the prefix ‘nar’ means masculine. Perhaps, naming animals after the quality or the number of their horns may have been common, for barasinga (12-horned) is yet another animal named after the number of its horns. We can only conjecture that in the ancient past the myth of a one-horned animal was rife and it echoes in the subcontinent from Vishnu’s title to the ordinary names and most prominently in the unicorn images engraved on the seals. 

Marshall had no convincing explanation for the markings on the neck and the shoulder of the unicorn. One of the explanations is that since animals are caparisoned in the Indian subcontinent, this tradition may be a continuation of the Indus civilization. The markings on the unicorn images could be a decorative fabric or leather spread over its back or could be the colored decoration such as the one done on sacrificial animals during the Muslim festival of Eid. 

The tradition of ornamenting cattle and riding animals can also be very ancient and continues in the form of cowrie-shelled and beaded necklaces, bells, embroidered and tasseled fabrics and other accessories. Thomas Postans in his “Personal Observations on Sindh” mentions that blue beaded necklaces were worn by horses because these were also protection against evil eye. Originally these may be the lapis lazuli beads as the tradition, much modified, continues in painting this stone with the eye icon.  These icons can be found in many homes in Pakistan and Iran to thwart the evil eye. This observation lends some support to Parpola’s suggestion that the ‘dot with a circle around’ appearing on Indus seals represents the eye.   

Varuna is also known to be the keeper of the soul and the donor of immortality. This attribute is also associated or confused in Mesopotamian mythology with the unicorn or its horn as seen in Parpola’s quote above. It also illustrates the point that words and concepts can get confused. The Sindhi word for manger is Ahura hence the object in front of the unicorn may be a manger. But the name of a Persian deity Ahura Mazda used for a mundane object hints at the sanctity attached to it. In the ancient past mythology, religion, rituals and art were rolled together and now it is difficult to sift one from the other. We do not know how the names get confused and how the words loose their original meanings and how some of them survive in isolated regions like Sindh and how many are lost like the name of the unicorn.

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The symposium of 1978-79 was also a part of the Save Mohen jo Daro campaign and was organized by the federal government of Pakistan in collaboration with UNESCO. I was the only Pakistani woman to present a paper on that occasion and I was the youngest. The only other woman who presented her paper was the British archaeologist Bridget Allchin. She along with her husband Allchin had been working on very important sites including the flint tools industry of the Rohri hills. Allchins were an impressive British couple, I will be meeting them almost two decades later in Ithaca, New York.

Kenneth Kennedy, the well known physical anthropologist and Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell, was hosting a meeting of the Harappa Society at Cornell and I wanted my daughter Jehan to attend one session in which I was presenting an update on my research. Surprisingly she enjoyed the proceedings and att ended throughout, later Kenneth invited her also for the dinner at Antlers. It was at the other end of the table where she was conversing with the Allchins and where I overheard that they were setting up a library and had moved into a beautiful house they had built to celebrate their retirement.

Back at the UNESCO symposium I was also provided with the opportunity of meeting those who were involved with Indus Civilization-the British, French, Italian, American, Afghan and Indian archaeologists and the Pakistani officials of the Department of Archaeology and Museums. I also met two other notables, Hamida Khuhro, director of the Pakistan Studies Centre, University of Sindh, Jamshoro and  N.A.Baloch, a former vice chancellor of the same university who at that time was heading the distinguished Council of Historical and Cultural Research.  Baloch generously offered me the position of a research associate at the Council, which I regretfully declined as I was not prepared to move to Islamabad. 

When I look at the black and white group picture taken on the last day of the symposium I rejoice seeing myself clearly in the front row. Few others that I can still recognize in that row are Salma, a curator at the National Museum, whose last name I forget, F. A. Durrani of Peshawar University; B.B.Lal, the director general of the Department of Archaeology, India, B.K.Thapar also from India, Ishtiaq Khan, director general of the Department of Archaeology and Museums, Pakistan.  In the second row behind me stood my husband Suleman, others recognizable are Rauf Khan of Karachi University, George F. Dales of the University of California, Berkeley, Rafiq Mughal and S.M.Ashfaque of the Department of Archaeology. In the third row I can only recognize Bridgett and Raymond Allchin of Cambridge University and Richard Meadow of Harvard University. 

My meeting with George Dales had turned out to be the most productive as he accepted me as a volunteer  to work with his team. George was the last archaeologist to excavate Moen jo Daro in 1964, it was just before the government imposed a ban on further excavations. Fourteen years later he had returned to examine the artifacts collected from Moen jo Daro, these were bagged and  stored at the Excavation and Exploration Branch of the Department of Archaeology and Museums in Karachi. 

George’s first visit to Pakistan was in 1960’s when he was at the University of Pennsylvania. He had been a student of Samuel Noah Kramer, one of the foremost authorities on Sumerian literary works of Assyriology. Kramer is known to have drawn the attention of Indus archaeologists towards a distant source that could help in the reconstruction of Indus’ story. ‘There is, however, one possible source of significant information about the Indus Valley Civilization which is still untapped: the inscriptions of Sumer,’ he wrote while translating a Sumerian text that spoke of a ‘flood story’ and a Sumerian ‘Noah,’ who after the ‘Deluge’ was transported to a land called Dilmun where he lived as an immortal among the Gods. Dilmun, according to the text, was located somewhere in the East of Sumer and was described as a ‘blessed, prosperous land dotted with great dwellings.’ Kramer theorized that Dilmun, the paradise on earth, was a reference to ancient Indus cities. I found Kramer’s account very encouraging, it was an inspiration to explore more seals. If the ancient cuneiforms of Sumer can provide information on the distant Indus Civilization; Indus’ own symbols can provide even more. Kramer even visited Pakistan to test his hypothesis but eventually, it was George who got inspired to undertake a hectic search for the lost paradise. Accompanied by his wife Barbara, Rafiq Moghul, and two camels George surveyed the Makran Coast in Balochistan. He describes the details of his exploration in his account Exploration of the Makran Coast: A Search for Paradise.

Sindh, as compared to Balochistan, is a paradise but despite all the blessings there has always been something malignant lurking over this happy land. Sir Charles Napier on his conquest of Sindh punned ‘I have sinned.’  Sir Richard Burton refers to a few prophecies pointing to the end of Sindh; The great Pir of Giror predicts that DoomsDay will befall Sindh forty years earlier before it strikes the World; And in 1830 when Alexander Burnes, was allowed to sail through Indus, a faqir had exclaimed ‘Alas Sindh is now gone since the English have seen the river.’ The apocalyptic legacy continues and can be trivialized. At the UNESCO Symposium, during a tea break, I watched a Pakistani official standing next to the poster of ‘Save Moen jo Daro,’ facing a few international scholars he was forecasting that the efforts of the world would fail in saving a civilization that had been destroyed by the wrath of God!

In 1979, I worked five days a week at the Exploration and Excavation branch of the Department of Archaeology and Museums. It was inspiring to be in a place surrounded by ancient artifacts, my job was to label these with black ink.  Hundreds of potsherds, figurines, toys and unidentified objects passed through my hands. It was ‘the most intensively studied body of pottery from Mohen jo Daro,’ George wrote later in his book. For me, one of the best things in his book was the inclusion of my name in the acknowledgments. I came to know Barbara, George’s wife and Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, his student during this period. 

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