Review on Indus Valley Civilization and its Rivers

Exploring the enigma of the Indus Valley Civilization and its classification

Abstract

The term ‘Protohistory’ in Indian context is somewhat complicated because of the fact that though the Indus civilization was fully literate yet its records are not intelligible till date and hence, this phase has been placed in the category of protohistory. On the one hand, British archaeologists have no doubt in their mind that the Indus civilization should form part of the Indian Prehistory but on the other hand, H.D. Sankalia thinks that it would not be proper to regulate the Indus civilization which was fully literate to the status of a pre-historic community. According to him, ‘it is not their fault that we cannot decipher their records.’ Subba Rao (1958 38) was first to use the term ‘Protohistory’, but its usage gained wide currency in the writing of Sankalia (1962).