India is the land of religion, where many deities were adored from the time immemorial in a variety of forms. Some of them, though have their genesis in the remote past, but have reached the modern times in one or the other form, while some of them disappeared from the Indian religious scene as rapidly as they had mushroomed and still others lost their relevance with the passage of time. This is not the case with the Brahmanical deities alone, but is also applicable in respect of the deities of Jaina and Buddhist faith. In the present work an effort has been made to highlight the deities emerging from the pre-historic as well as Chalcolithic sites, the adoration of some of whom was continued upto the dawn of the historical period in India. These deities include: i. Mother Goddess in a variety of forms like the pregnant mother, nursing mother and the mother with child, in addition to her depiction as Sakti, Earth Mother, Sakambhari, Tree Goddess, Lajja Gouri and Eye Goddess. ii. The male deities include Siva-Pasupati, Yama and Siva in the form of Linga. iii. There had been composite forms besides the sacred animals trees under worship, mythological deities, forces of nature like the sum, fire, water and Svastika. "Besides the above, some of the deities found in the Chalcolithic sites in the sub-continent have also been interpreted to represent Trimurti-Siva, Manasa, Kali, Saptamatrikas, Camunda as well as Sitatala. Scholars have also tried to trace the genesis of the cult of Ganesa, who is conceived as the remover of obstacles in the modern Hindu ideology, from the finds of the Harappan artefacts. One thing that stands out clear and unmistakable at the Chalcolithic sites is that Harappan civilization hitherto revealed not an incipient civilization, but the one which was fairly ancient, stereotyped and well developed on Indian soil with colossal human endeavour behind it, the importance of which has been highlighted in this work.
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