[willwinger]

As an ancient civilization with an undeciphered script, Indus Valley Civ. is mired in controversy and claims

Religion wise though article claims an Egyptian link which is new to me, it has some clear Hindu associations like the Pasupathinath seal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashupati_seal

Script wise the contention and claim also comes from Tamil and Sanskrit. TED talk on this below

https://youtu.be/kwYxHPXIaao

[19f191ty]

Pashupati is much, much older than modern concept of Hinduism. Many cultures around the time had a "Master of Animals" motif depicted l in their cultural artifact https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Animals

You could call Rudra/Shiva as modern versions of that motif. But calling the figure in Pashupati seal as depecting a Hindu deity is probably not correct. IVC was pre-vedic after all. No doubt later cultures adopted IVC deities into their own pantheon. But IVC religion was likely very far from what we recognize as Hinduism. And probably closer to religions in Mesopotamia at the time. Egypt does seem further culturally than Mesopotamia to me though. So I find the Egyptian connection a bit tenuous as well.

[bergenty]

Hinduism is Vedic + IVC + other indigenous belief systems

[dhruval]

Not sure why this is getting downvoted. This is called the “Hindu synthesis”.

[random314]

Because there is no clear IVC integration and the integration of Buddhism is rejected by practicing buddhists.

There has been historic and ongoing synthesis which very often follows embrace, extend, extinguish pattern, so the GPs characterization is misleading.

[dhruval]

Buddhism is not mentioned by GP, but there are many big differences between vedic religion and modern hinduism. for eg. animal sacrifice vs vegetarianism.

These ideas probably gain traction from the Sramana traditions which also gave rise to Buddhism and Jainism.

It is hard to tease apart the influences exactly, esp in the case of IVC where very little is known about the culture. But some iconography bears a striking resemblence iconography found in indian religions at a later date.

[random314]

In particular pashupati is not mentioned in rgveda