“Hitherto it has commonly been supposed that the pre‐Aryan peoples of India were on an altogether lower plane of civilization than their Aryan conquerors … Never for a moment was it imagined that five thousand years ago, before ever the Aryans were heard of, the Panjab and Sind, if not other parts of India as well, were enjoying an advanced and singularly uniform civilization of their own, closely akin but in some respects even superior to that of contemporary Mesopotamia and Egypt. Yet this is what the discoveries at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro have now placed beyond question. (Marshall, 1931: v)”