Reassessing Public Architecture in the Indus Civilization: Evidence for Ceremony, Assembly, and Urban Planning

The Indus Civilization represents one of the earliest large-scale urban traditions of the ancient world, characterized by standardized construction practices, rectilinear street systems, and integrated drainage networks.While scholarship has extensively examined planning and infrastructural coordination, the structural role of large non-domestic architectural spaces within Indus cities remains insufficiently synthesized across sites.This study reassesses public architecture in five major urban centers: Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Kalibangan, Dholavira, and Rakhigarhi, through comparative analysis of published excavation reports and architectural documentation.Employing a qualitative, site-based comparative methodology, the research evaluates large architectural features according to scale, formal organization, spatial segregation, and integration within urban layouts.Structures were considered within the analytical scope when they exceeded domestic architectural norms and demonstrated substantial construction investment or deliberate spatial positioning.No primary excavation data were introduced; analysis was restricted to documented archaeological evidence.The results demonstrate recurring patterns across geographically dispersed settlements.Elevated platforms, bounded enclosures, large reservoirs, and formally organized interior spaces are consistently differentiated from residential architecture in scale and configuration.These features are integrated within rectilinear street systems and fortified sectors rather than situated peripherally, indicating deliberate incorporation into urban planning frameworks.Although the archaeological record does not permit definitive functional attribution, the architectural recurrence and spatial integration of these large structures suggest systematic allocation of labor and material resources toward non-domestic built environments.The findings indicate that Mature Harappan urbanism incorporated structured collective spaces as part of its planning logic.Monumentality within the Indus context appears to have been articulated through horizontal scale, enclosure, and infrastructural integration rather than through vertically dominant dynastic architecture.By situating Indus architectural evidence within broader discussions of early urbanism, this study contributes to understanding alternative material expressions of organized civic space in early complex societies.