Analysis Of The Relevance And Ideas Behind The Dancing Girl Sculpture: An Ancient Representation Of Women's Rights

Introduction

According to cambridge Dictionary the word sculpture means the art of forming objects that represent a thing, ideas, person etc. here in this research we shall be talking about a sculpture called 'The Dancing girl'which was dicovered at mohenjodara. As a student of history we all must be aware about Indus valley civilisation. Indus valley civilisation is one of the oldest civilisations in the world along with that of Mesopotamia,

Ancient Greece etc and numerous schoolars have had worked on it already and so many of them are interested in this and are working on its various domain like:

1. Was harappan civilisation urban?
2. What kind of polity prevailed in that period
3. How did Indus valley civilisation vanquisghed?
4. What was the status of women in this period
5. Gender roles in indus valley civilisation
6. Were there any property rights enjoyed by women?

In india research on indus valley civilisation has been done by so many pertinent scholars like Upinder singh, Irfan habib etc there contributions to to the topic is extremely important for all the student of history and we all are gratefful to them Now let us come back to the topic of the research 'The Dancing Girl' and you might be knowing that the topic of our research was in news few years back as it claimed that this 'Dancing Girl' was none other than indian goddess Parvati There exist extremely polarity of opinion among scholars regarding the same and there is no general consensus about the same as well also. we shall talk about this succintly in the subsequent part of this essay. Now coming back to the research here we shall be talking about1 ) its background ) 2) what does it represent ) material and technology being used etc in the subsequent part of the essay'

Representation, Purpose and Material Being Used

This sculpture was found by in 20th century and was found in a small house. and was. This sculpture depicts a light weight women standing with her right hand on back of hip, her posture and gesture were that of girl who is willing to dance hence the name of the Statue is 'The Dancing Girl'however we are not sure whether this depict she being a professional dancer infact John Marshall who gave her this unique name was not sure about she being Professional dancer. She is adorned with jewels like bangles, necklace, rings etc all these are considered epitome of feminism however it should be noted that also she was depicted as being naked. This sculpture was made of bronze. Sculptures like this help us in tracing socio economic aspects of the society prevalent at that time.

Depiction of jewellery in sculptures tell us that jeweellery was enjoyed by women of that time and this further might force us to think that here could be possibility of social stratification in the society so the questions that pops in our head is that 'to which extent indus valley civilisation was divided on the lines of wealth. Interstingly wknow stratification in the society could be infered from burials and whether there were elements of jewellery being left in the graves if there evidences of ornaments it suggested that a deceased person belonged to affluent family Another import thing that we can infer from this is that she was found in a small house so there were maximun chances of the owner being not so affluent in other words we can say that there were chances of downtrodden sections of the society getting excess to sculptures they could have been within their easy reach as well also.

Another pertinent thing about dancing girl is that she is not shown as curvaceous as compare to other depictions of the women fron the same period and this is very peculiar as well also what was the reason behind this strategy. Another interesting thing about this is her scintillating eyes which are full of confidence and can mesmerize anyone like it did for me. like i said that this 'the dancing sculpture'was in news and according to a paper published by compotent institute this girl could be parvati. They said that as we well all know shiva had his share of ardent devotees in indus valley civilisation and there is pictorial representation of him as well also so why cant this sculpture be called that of parvati. It is also brought to the notice that all naked figures are sacred and there was some kind of religious elements involved in that so this could possibly be parvati. Every other day we come across articles like these which smells rightist ideology and a strong will to alter history as per their political agenda.

Relevance of Time Frame of This Period

The period of this sculpture is Bronze Age as people started producing bronze and in india indus valley civilization was part of Bronze age only. let us talk about bronze Age in indus valley civilisation. They had their own script called cuneiform however this script is still cryptic and enigmatic and scholars still now are not being able to decipher the language had they been able to do so many important aspects of indus valley civilisation would have been known to us as well. They used to trade in jewels like lapis lazuli and other expensive jewels as well. People used to trade in goods as well also. it had large architectural buildings as well also. The site of mohenjodaro and harappa has been labelled as cities. when we talk about cities as a history student one thing that came to our mind is v. gordon childe and his criterion for being a city.

They were like:

1. big populastion
2. trade
3. craft specialisation
4. advent of writing
5. taxation system
6. advent of science etc
7. uniformity
8. surplus production

So in emergence of cities these factors played a crucial role and this infact is true for indus valley civilisation as well also. we also know they used to produce sculptures in that period. Bronze Age without any doubt has been really important for the study of history it is like a roof of the building upon which the structures/homes are being made so we all as a student of history must be well aware in domains like:

1. prehistory
2. protohistory
3. paleolithic age
4. mesolithic age
5. neolithic age
6. chalcolithic age
7. bronze age

To wind up ancient history is really important and need not to be relinquished for being boring than medieval and modern history. one of the biggest problem faced by scholars working on indus valley civilisation is nature of the script being enigmatic and very hard to understand

Conclusion

According to me 'The Dancing girl' depicts feminism, eroticism, nonchaltant attitute on the other hand it depicts that this woman is not under societal norms and this sculpture is somehow giving off the vibes that do whatever makes you happy however it should be noted that this is my personal interpretation and not everyone will agree with me some might find here evidences to support patriarchy or their political agenda but that totally depends on their respective persception Apart from that we came to know that how sculptures in bronze were being made in period and its specific details as well also.