Indian Symbols / The Jiva Logo

A group of 6 students from Class VI spilled into my office during their lunch break today. Each of them was armed with posters they made featuring symbols used in India during the Indus Valley civilization. Their subject teacher thought I would be interested to see the creative work that they did.

Indeed I was. After appreciating their work, I began asking them lots of questions--what were these symbols? Who made them? Why do you think they made them? Some of these queries seemed to escape them...so I tried to contextualize things a bit.

I asked them what a symbol was, and after a while they agreed that it was some pictoral/graphical representation of something. I gave some examples of symbols--including alphabets (symbols for sounds) and numbers (symbols for quantities of something). We pulled out a newspaper and began scouring it for other symbols. We found an ad published by the government of India which bore the Ashoka emblem, and I asked what it represented? "Lions represent power, courage, and kingliness". They got that easily. But what about the pillar...hmmm, that was a bit tough. I told them to turn their bodies into pillars--and they stood erect, tightening all their muscles..."Ah, strength and straightforwardness!". We continued our exploration finding all sorts of symbols of in the paper, and around my room on books, trophies, and electronic gadgets, and did a similar study on each.

I then pointed to their sweaters and asked them what symbol was there. "The Jiva logo," they replied. I asked them to analyze it--what is it, what does it represent, etc. "A flower." Yes, but which? "A lotus." Correct. But why a lotus? And it also represents something else--a chakra. "Yes, yes, it's a chakra too." But why a chakra? (Puzzled faces on the verge of an explosive Aha moment.) But waiiiiiit!! Don't tell me now. I want you to think about it. These are your homework questions...

So the group is coming to meet me tomorrow 8.00am with their analysis. In addition to telling me about the Jiva logo, they will then address the first question I asked, "Who made those ancient symbols and why." Let's see what our Junior anthropologists turn up tomorrow morning!