The Unicorn Seal of Mohenjo-Daro is the most ubiquitous artefact of the Indus Valley Civilisation and a source of considerable fascination. It is one more Indus Valley Civilisation enigma to unravel. Since the initial discovery of the unicorn seal, it has been the subject of much scientific dispute and curiosity. Regardless of the results, it is clear that unicorn had an important role in the culture of the Indus Valley Civilisation.
In antiquity, stamp seals served as marks of ownership and social standing. Hundreds of square-shaped stamp seals were uncovered during excavations of the Harappan culture's key urban sites. They bear engravings of domesticated or wild animals, humans, fanciful creatures, and possibly deities. In the unicorn instance, the creature is represented in the traditional tight profile while standing before an altar-like building. On its shoulder is a colourful blanket or harness in the shape of an upside-down heart. Most square stamp seals are engraved on the upper edge.
Most unicorn seals discovered at the Indus Valley Civilisation sites are moulded from steatite, a compressed talc substance. The seals were created by softening talc, compressing it into a square shape, carving the animal and writing, and then burning it to increase its hardness and whiteness. According to the American archaeologist Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, who is engaged in an ongoing research on the Indus Civilisation in the Indian subcontinent as well as in neighbouring regions such as Oman and Afghanistan, copper tools were used to cut the material, which was a popular activity at the time among affluent individuals because copper was abundant in the region. Talc, used to produce steatite, was a plentiful natural resource in the Indus River Valley. This prehistoric creature was the inspiration for the legend of the unicorn. When the civilisations of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were in their heyday, inhabitants of the Indus Valley may have seen this mythological creature along the rivers, or they may have remembered it vividly because it was so difficult to find, especially its grain. Perhaps the hunting in this region was responsible for the extinction of the species.
Since its discovery, portrayal of unicorns on seals has been the most prevalent among ancient sites uncovered in the Indus Valley. This suggests that this animal was undeniably significant to the culture of the Indus Valley Civilisation. The most plausible, unambiguous, and scientific interpretation is that these seals depict the extinct Elasmotherium, an ancient genus of giant rhinoceros native to Eurasia. Although it is likely that in isolated settings—valleys or mountains—certain species of Elasmotherium were still thriving during the Indus Valley culture, Elasmotherium was probably extinct during that time. Ctesias the Cnidian, a Greek author and physician who served the Persian king Artaxerxes II, was the first to mention unicorns in ancient India about 400 BCE. In his work titled On India, Ctesias mentioned the unicorn, which he referred to as the wild ass of India due to its horse-like proportions and a single horn. It also had medical virtues, as its horn was an antidote to poison, and people who drank from it were immune to harm.
In 1872, one of the early findings related to the Indus Valley Civilisation was a seal with a unicorn pattern that was initially misunderstood. When Major General Sir Alexander Cunningham (1814-1883), a British Army commander who later became interested in the history and archaeology of India, visited the site of Harappa in 1872–1873, he acquired a weathered and rounded Indus seal that had been retrieved by his associate Major Clark. In 1875, Cunningham wrote, "The seal is a smooth, unpolished black stone. On it is deeply etched a bull without a hump, facing right, with two stars under the neck. Above the bull is an inscription composed of six characters that I do not recognise. They are not Indian letters, and since the bull accompanying them lacks a hump, I assume the seal is foreign to India."
The pattern was the traditional Indus unicorn, despite Cunningham's description of it as a "bull" without a hump. Two earlier tales of unicorn seals were obtained from antiquarians. One was purchased in Cairo in 1912; it may have come from antique sellers in Damascus. The second was acquired in Punjab during the same time by Professor H D. Griswold, who gave it to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1929. The single horn extending from the back of the skull and arcing forward over the head was the distinguishing feature that identified these carved sculptures as unicorns. The animal's overall body and other physical attributes were startlingly similar to those of other, better-known species, such as the ox or antelope, which the Indus seal carvers also depicted, making identification challenging.
Sir John Marshall, the author of the first book on the Indus Civilisation, viewed it as a unicorn. Marshall was the director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India from 1902 to 1928. He was an English archaeologist who oversaw the excavations of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, two of the principal towns of the Indus Valley Civilisation. He says that Indus engravers were capable of showing two horns when required. "In light of this, I feel we are bound to infer that a one-horned creature is intended to be interpreted on these seals, and unless the ancient Indian legend of a one-horned ox is real, we must regard this creature as imaginary." (Marshall 1931, Vol. 1: 68-9). In the text's footnote, he mentions Ctesias whose original writings are lost but portions have been preserved in later sources, and he is believed to have returned to Greece around 398 BC (Shepard 1978).
Those interested in the Harappan archaeology are acquainted with the Indus "unicorn" image. Sir John Marshall feels that it is evident that the concept of a single-horned ox predates the reign of the Achaemenians (Marshall 1931, Vol. 1, 69). He then describes the iconographic difficulties in identifying this animal, which he guesses is male. In some respects, body of the always-male animal resembles that of a heavy-set antelope, such as eland or oryx, and in others, that of an ox. The tail may belong to either class. Occasionally, the horn is smooth, and sometimes it contains transverse ridges. In the latter scenario, it is ruled out that the creature is an ox. Long, pointed ears are another distinguishing feature of the antelope. Perhaps we are looking at a fantastic species that is a hybrid of the ox and the antelope. And yet, to the untrained sight, there is nothing remarkable about it as there is about the heraldic unicorn, which is a composite of many animal parts. However, it should be emphasised that the conventional unicorn is said to have originated in India.
Ernest John Henry Mackay (1880–1943) was a British archaeologist renowned for his excavations and studies of Mohenjo-Daro and other sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation. He maintained that the single horn is an aesthetic standard for two horns in profile. Gregory Louis Possehl (1941-2011) was an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. He also observed, "There are a few seals with bulls that resemble unicorns and have two horns."
Several examples from Farmer's treatment of the topic illustrate that there are no such occurrences in the corpus of the Indus seals. One of the specimens, however, is identifiable as a "unicorn-type bull" due to its two horns and characteristic "pipal leaf" shoulder decoration. Therefore, we may contradict Possehl's claim by demonstrating that the artist could accurately create two horns if he so desired. The finding of one-horned, three-dimensional figurines proves that the concept of a unicorn existed in the Harappan society.
Unicorn Seal Visual Representation
Unicorns were very certainly created to represent male animals. In truth, most animals shown on the seals have a prominent pizzle, although several of these species, such as the rhinoceros, lack a prominent penis beneath the belly. This artistic convention demonstrates that animal motifs on seals were meant to represent masculinity and, presumably, strength of male animals.
Compared to the enormous torso, forelegs and hind legs are relatively small, with well-defined knees, fetlocks, and hooves; however, it cannot be determined whether the hooves were split or single. Typically, the tail is depicted as originating from the top of the rump, flowing down the back of the leg, and ending in a long, bushy tuft resembling that of cattle. In conclusion, the unicorn cannot be matched to a single extant animal species since it possesses the physical characteristics of numerous animals that the Indus painters would have encountered locally and were familiar with.
Horse is one animal not found on the Indus, but it may have been known through commerce with Afghanistan and Central Asia over great distances.
Invariably, the unicorn is depicted with an offering stand or cult object placed in front of its body and right below its head. Numerous academics have extensively analysed the function of this offering stand (Mahadevan 1985, 1994; Parpola 1994), although it is not crucial to interpretations of the unicorn because it is also shown with other species. The Indus writing on the seals is generally carved above the body and occasionally above the horn's tip. Since all seals are carved in reverse, and the unicorn is typically represented facing left on seals, unicorn's impression would be on the right. Nonetheless, there are examples of right-facing unicorns on seals, indicating that the impression would be to the left. The animal's orientation has an effect, but no discernible pattern suggests that different unicorn styles face different directions.
Unicorn as Source of Indian Myths and Legends
As with several artefacts recovered at the sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation, it may be possible that the unicorn inspired many post-Vedic Indian fables and myths but indeed, not the Vedic period. According to widespread views among Vedicists, the Vedic literature may be believed to have been composed between 1500 and 500 BCE. The Rig Veda can be associated with Harappa's late or post-urban period, but not the mature phase. In his 1978 manuscript The Indo-Aryan Hypothesis, Indian archaeologist and former director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India B B Lal makes the fundamentalist argument that the Aitareya Brahmana refers to the shifting of the vernal equinox from Mrgasiras to Rohini. That occurred around 3500 BCE, and thus places the Rig Veda in the fourth millennium BCE.
Plants and animals of the Rig Vedic and Harappan cultures are distinct. Pipal and nim are Harappa's sacred trees. The term nimba does not appear in the Rig Veda, however, the term pippala does appear in its first mandala. The only agricultural product mentioned in the Rig Veda is barley, but Harappa also grew wheat, sesame, and peas. It is important to clarify that tila or til, which signifies sesame, is either Munda or Dravidian. Although camel bones have been discovered in Mohenjo-Daro, neither seals nor terracotta depict camels. In 1700 BCE, they first appeared in Pirak in the Kachi plains of Balochistan.
Rhinoceros is an essential mammal. Unicorns or animals with a single horn make up the vast bulk of animal symbols in seals and sealings. However, this most beloved Harappan mammal is not mentioned in the Rig Veda. Sanskrit uses the names ganda or khadga for rhinoceros, ekasringa for both unicorn and rhinoceros, but none of these terms appear in the Rig Veda. Both Ganda and Khadga have Dravidian roots.
An Indian “unicorn” (Ekasrnga): the Rsyasrnga legend
Since 1875, the European lore of capturing the unicorn by means of a maiden, which dates to the Physiologus, has been connected with the Indian Rsyasṛnga legend. The principal variants of this legend are found in the Mahabharata (3,110-113), the Ramayaṇa (1,8-10), the Padma-Asko Parpola-134-Puraṇa (Patala-khaṇḍa 13), the Skanda-Puraṇa, Ksemendra's Bharatamanjari (3,758-795), the Alambusa-Jataka (Jataka no. 523), the NalinikaJataka (Jataka no. 526), the Mahavastu (141-152), the Bhadrakalpavadana (33), Kṣemendra's Bodhisattvavadanakalpalata (65), the Kanjur (IV, Dulva, fol. 136-137), and the Jaina legend of Valkalacirin in Vasudevahindi (16,16-50,2, quoted verbatim in Avasyaka-Curṇi 456-460), found also in the Avasyaka-niryukti (1164), and in Hemacandra's Sthaviravalicarita, Parisistaparvan (1,90-258). There are also numerous short passages in various texts and Chinese translations of Buddhist texts. Several extensive and penetrating studies of the Rsyasrnga legend exist.
The Hindu holy text has contained many references of unicorn. Ekasrnga “having one horn” is a Sanskrit soubriquet that is found particularly in association with Varaha, boar as Avatara of Viṣṇu, as in MBh XII.330.27: "Having assumed, in the past, the form of a boar with a single horn, of a divine aspect, I raised this (submerged) Earth. Therefore, I am the Unicorn."
In Hindu mythology, unicorn is a legendary animal connected with rain—the unicorn of the Bundahisn (19.1-12, cp. Yasna 42.4, West 1880: 67-69; Panaino 2001: 162-173; Parpola 2012: 131-133). It is a gigantic three-legged ass with one horn living in the world-ocean, helping Tistrya (the star Sirius), the deity of rain, to take water from the cosmic sea Vourukasa, purifying the water by urinating in it, and impregnating by his cry all good creatures.
O'Flaherty (1973:50) proposed a relationship between the single horn of Rsyasnga and the unicorn of the Indus Valley seals. She also relates the sage with two horns to the 'Pasupati' seen on a seal from Mohenjo-Daro as a seated human with horns, ithyphallic, surrounded by animals. She continues, "The horns of the beast-ascetic are symbolic of his sexual powers: horned animals (bulls, rams, he-goats, and deer) are known for their sexual energy, and the horns on the ascetic's head represent the protuberance of the seed that he has drawn through his spinal column." According to this theory, the horn would be a visible indication that he is Urdhvaretas, who "keeps the sperm above."
The Mahavastu, an old Buddhist scripture, contains another Ekasrnga. In the book, there is a Rsi named Ekasrnga, whose tale is a transparent version of the story of Rsyasrnga, which also appears in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Rsyasrnga translates to "horn of the Rsya." The scientific name for Rsya is Boselaphus Tragocamelus, also known as blue bull or nilgai in the subcontinent, due to its resemblance to a bull and its iron-blue colouring. Similar to Rsyasrnga in one context and Ekasrnga in another is the character Ekasrnga. Offspring of a Rsi is born in the wild to a female antelope or doe, Mrgi, who has consumed water or urine containing Rsi's sperm. The Hindu book MBh III.110.17 describes him as having one Rsya horn on his head, which is the origin of his name.
In the Chinese version of the Buddhist Mahayana book Mahaprajnaparamitasastra, the unicorn character has one horn on his head, much like the Mahavastu. In several versions of the story, this character is distinguished by his relationship to rain, drought, and birth of sons.
Rsyasrnga/Ekasrnga was an anthropomorphization of the original animal nilgai. This animal is as sacred to Hindus as the cow, and it was also the form assumed by Prajapati in the myth of Aitareya Brahmaa III.33, which explains the constellation's origin, Mrgasiras, which is a component of Orion. In this context, it may be notable that Orionis or Betelgeuse is referred to in Sanskrit as Ardra “moist”, probably due to its association with the rainy season.