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Reading The Indus - Sarasvati Script precursor of all Indian Scripts
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Published March 1, 2018
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November 7, 2021
Book: Reading The Indus - Sarasvati Script precursor of all Indian Scripts
Author: Rajat Pal
Publisher: Kunal Books
Language: English
Hardcover: 265 pages
Price: 689/-
To begin with, yours truly must confess that he has faced a major dilemma in seeking to write an appraisal of this book. This is not a solitary tome but an amnalgamation of at least five, fitted into a span of 260 odd pages.
In chorus, it needs mention that the writer has by his fundamental machinations and avid grasp of the subject, managed to bring the core narrative of the text to the level of child’s play almost. It gets so lucid by the end that even the lay reader can assert ample authority over the topic.
Discovered from almost 4,000 primeval inscribed objects, together with seals, tablets, ivory rods, pottery shards, etc., the Indus inscriptions are one of the most inscrutable legacies of the Indus Valley civilization which have not been deciphered attributable to the deficiency of bilingual texts, tremendous conciseness of the inscriptions, and unawareness about the language(s) encoded by Indus script.
We know that in the colonial period, there was the delicate endeavour to claim the far-flung kinship of Indo-Aryans to the European (British) Aryans. Tropes of linguistic substantiation were marshaled to establish that Sanskrit had numerous commonalities with Latin and Persian and other European languages.
The a priori hypothesis was that the Aryans were outsiders—they were extrinsic to South Asia, were trespassers or drifters and had come from outside and displaced the native occupants. To an extent such a construal sounded conceivable. All the succeeding invasions of India had indeed come from Greece, Central Asia, Iran and Afghanistan and even the Middle East.
Therefore an even earlier Aryan invasion or migration seemed to fit the overall pattern of large-scale movements from the parched centre of Asia and afar into the lush alluvial plains of South Asia which generated massive surpluses and wealth to attract raiders and intruders. The Aryan invasion/migration paradigm had thus been an overriding premise of colonial historiography that became tremendously acutely deep-rooted and embedded in our psyche.
What are the simple and straightforward facts that we have had to contend with up until the recent past? There is a marked similarity between the Indo-European groups of languages.
And we are faced with other associated questions: -
1) What explains this similarity?
2) What are its implications?
3) What was the original nature of this proto Indo-European language?
4) Were the Aryans foreign invaders or immigrants? Or were they indigenous?
More of late historians have suggested a fundamental turnaround of the logic for the profound similarities between the Indo-European groups of languages. Plus a few more questions have cropped up:
1) Is it probable that the Indo-Aryans were inhabitant and aboriginal people of the Indus-Sarasvati tract?
2) Was it a case of out- migration rather than in-migration?
3) Was the Harappan civilisation a home-grown civilisation?
There is such an astonishing quantity of cultural connection between the Harappan civilisation and the succeeding Indo-Aryan Hindu (Sanatan) civilisation in the North and Western India that we are forced to ponder intensely today upon the substitute hypothesis.
Let us take a step back.
The 18th and 19th centuries witnessed the primary flourish of globalization, ushered in principally by enormous sailing ships that made worldwide voyages and enabled cross-cultural trade and linkages.
It was in due course realized that the Aryans of India, Iran, Ireland, Central Asia and Europe etc. had an unanticipated deal of commonalities in their languages. These seem to have emerged from a universal proto Indo-European language as it were.
This was first realized in 1786, when Sir William Jones noted that there are striking similarities in the vocabulary and grammar of Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, Celtic and Gothic. David Frawley’s ‘The Search of the Cradle of Civilisation’, worked on the salient similitude between keywords in these languages.
Jones’ discovery led to the creation of a whole new scholarly discipline. This was a foremost exodus from the conventional Judeo-Christian heritage that regarded Hebrew as the surrounding substance of all languages.
At the outset, the historical explanations offered for the similarities between various Indo-European languages were rather unsophisticated and highly speculative. By the middle of the 19th century however, the idea that all Indo-European languages derive from a much older Proto-Indo European language gained considerable momentum.
Scholars now sought to reconstruct not only that ancient proto language but also the culture associated with it. What is even more important is the fact that this led them to a quest for identifying the original homeland of this Proto Aryan culture.
In the late 19th century, David Frawley elaborates that these linguistic culture considerations were swiftly overtaken by strident racial overtones.
It was 1874-75. Cunninghum laid his hands upon some unidentified seals from Harappa of Beluchistan region. The marks and representations inscribed on those seals were entirely alien at that time. Though he had published his theory on them in the journals, he had but a little idea that it would lead to the gates of a treasure trove in the world of ancient history.
The treasure-hunt was in point of fact started in 1921 by R. D. Banerjee and D. Sahani under the direction of John Marshall, the then Director of the Archaeological survey of India. Lots of theories and calculations have been laid down during the last 90 years by scholars and amateur researchers regarding the type of this civilization.
Mehrgarh excavation has given the hint of the primary habitations of the pre-Harappan people and different Kot Dizi-an sites have produced several evidences of the existence of Vedic documents in the time of this civilization.
New sites are being found on the banks of the possible course of the extinct River Saraswati (Gaggar-Hakra). Researchers like B. B. Lal, Dales, Danino, Kenoyer are stating new points in favour of identifying this civilization as Indus-Saraswati civilization. Though there remain differences in opinions, but one thing is for sure that, the script of the inscriptions could not have been deciphered yet.
Pal clarifies several points, apropos the nomenclatural debate. At the outset, prior to 1947, this civilization was named either as Harappan civilization or Indus valley civilization (IVC) or Indus civilization. It was only subsequent to independence, that frequent archaeological sites being discovered by the side of the projected Sarasvati River, some historians preferred to name this as the ‘Sarasvati civilization’. To avoid disagreement some scholars like to mention it as the ‘Indus- Sarasvati civilization’.
In the same vein, the Script is identified as the ‘Indus script’, ‘Sarasvati script’ and/or ‘Indus-Sarasvati script’ by different people. The term ‘Proto — Indian script’ is also used by several scholars.
The thirty-two chapter book has been divided into three subsequent sections.
Part I, christened ‘Accumulating information so far and our deduction thereof’ has the following sections:
1. Problem of Decipherment
2. People of Indus Civilization: A Mythological Deduction
3. Evolution of Writing
4. Contemporary Evolution at Sumer, Egypt and Indus Valley
5. Some Factual Information
6. Indus Signs in India after 1700 BC
7. Indus Similar Signs Found at Places outside India
8. Indus the Precursor of Indic Scripts
9. Language and Signs
Part II, named as ‘Reaching the Phonetic Values of Indus Signs’, contains the following sub-sections –
1. Acrology /Acrophony
2. Evolution through Time: Basic Indian Signs
3. Basic Indus Signs and their Phonetic Values
4. Consonants, Added with Vowels (Diacritic Marks)
5. Conjunct
6. Indus Numerals
7. Unit of Measurements
8. Single Letters with Magical and Other Occult Values
9. Indus Signs and Its Valuations
10. Coinage
11. King Sign: Royal Monogram
The concluding Part III, named as ‘Our Reading of the Indus Inscriptions’ contains the following chapters:-
1. Principles Followed in Deciphering Indus Script
2. Single Letter Inscriptions
3. Measuring
4. Reading
5. Inscriptions in Pottery and Tablets
6. Names
7. Unit Signs (Denoting measurements of Preciousand/or Other Items)
8. Paatra (vessel)
9. Vanika (traders)
10. Determinatives
11. Miscellaneous Words
12. Dholavira Sign Board
Pal has followed the subsequent twelve phases to reach to the decipherment of the Indus Script: -
1st stage: Evolution of writing throughout the world has been referred to
2nd stage: Writing in three contemporary major civilities including Indus has been mentioned
3rd stage: Indus signs found outside India after the timeline of the so-called fall of Indus Civilization, has been shown
4th stage: Indus signs found in India after so called collapse of Indus script have been assesed
5th stage: Letters have been identified through acrology/acrophony
6th stage: Signs similar to Brahmi have been identified
7th stage: Letters for measurement units have been identified
8th stage: Valuations of other letters have been identified
9th stage: Names have been identified
10th stage: King signs have been identified
11th stage: Pottery and Tablets inscriptions have been read
12th stage: Seals and other texts have been read
In Pal’s book the reader finds the practice of using Indus signs much after the Harappan era, when Indus civilization is believed to have been ended. The book also discusses the uses of Indus signs (letters/syllables) outside India, at Late Harappan period and thereafter. Pal discusses the use of Royal monograms in Indus, plus in Maurya, Kushan and Gupta Era and also outside India [Greece] and the proximity of the Monograms therewith. The use of Acrology/Acrophony was very much crucial in determining letters not only in Indus, but Egypt too.
At the last stage of the book, the author has discussed about the names and other words found in Indus seals and inscribed on other items.
At the very end, Pal presents his readers with a series of ten concluding bullet points. What I particularly enjoyed reading therein, were points I, IX and X, where the author states: -
I. We have discussed about the main signs used in Indus-Sarasvati Inscriptions, keeping many signs un-deciphered.
IX. The notion of identifying Indus Script as logo-syllabic and Brahmi as syllabic and as a result denying any relation between them has no proof at all. Through natural evolution Brahmi letters were shaped from Indus signs.
X. There are some signs which remained non-valuated, for further research.
Nowhere in this book has the author sought to claim total decipherment. He has merely presented facts and analyzed them like a detective of history.
He has observed, hypothesized and made his inferences. In point II of his finale he states that he accepts Rao’s premise of omitting some composite signs in later period and accordingly he has not tried to read those signs at all.
Indus signs are found in practice all through India (Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Central India etc.) for more than 1500 years after the ostensible plummet of Indus Civilization, which gives us the intuition of the use of Indus signs before and during the use of Brahmi letters. Some Indus signs were in fact modified to become Brahmi letters. The employ of Indus signs outside India proves that those letters were reached to Western Asia and Europe through trade relations. It has also been found that other civilizations had used many Indus signs without knowing the source of them after the supposed Harappan period.
Latest archaeological discoveries are forcing us to deem that a larger than speculated civilization existed in India starting from 7000 BC, the area of which was beyond the Indus-Sarasvati river basins, influencing up to Kerala, Tamil Nadu to the south and Orissa, Bengal to the east.
We can never overlook that the Indus-Sarasvati civilisation dwarfed the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisations in sheer size and scale of its spread. It predated them by a thousand years.
What is more noteworthy is its amazing diligence over time, its sheer cultural continuity. Where those ancient civilisations have since vanished from the face of this earth, the Indus Civilisation continues more or less unbroken in essential shape and form right down to the current era in India.
The Indus Valley script has not so far been deciphered but a plethora of terracotta and copper figurines and steatite seals, the plastic arts of that era, provide us a visual language of sorts that has accurately recorded that ancient era. It today provides us astounding insights into that antique civilisation.
Ancient Indian History must unwrap itself to construals that stem from new research in manifold fields. A multidisciplinary advance is the ultimate answer in addressing such complex questions that deal with the key issues of our Sanatan identity. Thus it is almost visionary in tone, when Pal wraps up saying, “To reach to the actual history of it we must shed our inhibition of Aryan-Dravidian debate as well as theories like Aryan Invasion and/or migration….”
Our search for knowledge shall continue.
A highly pleasurable and recommended book!! Grab a copy if you choose.
Author: Rajat Pal
Publisher: Kunal Books
Language: English
Hardcover: 265 pages
Price: 689/-
To begin with, yours truly must confess that he has faced a major dilemma in seeking to write an appraisal of this book. This is not a solitary tome but an amnalgamation of at least five, fitted into a span of 260 odd pages.
In chorus, it needs mention that the writer has by his fundamental machinations and avid grasp of the subject, managed to bring the core narrative of the text to the level of child’s play almost. It gets so lucid by the end that even the lay reader can assert ample authority over the topic.
Discovered from almost 4,000 primeval inscribed objects, together with seals, tablets, ivory rods, pottery shards, etc., the Indus inscriptions are one of the most inscrutable legacies of the Indus Valley civilization which have not been deciphered attributable to the deficiency of bilingual texts, tremendous conciseness of the inscriptions, and unawareness about the language(s) encoded by Indus script.
We know that in the colonial period, there was the delicate endeavour to claim the far-flung kinship of Indo-Aryans to the European (British) Aryans. Tropes of linguistic substantiation were marshaled to establish that Sanskrit had numerous commonalities with Latin and Persian and other European languages.
The a priori hypothesis was that the Aryans were outsiders—they were extrinsic to South Asia, were trespassers or drifters and had come from outside and displaced the native occupants. To an extent such a construal sounded conceivable. All the succeeding invasions of India had indeed come from Greece, Central Asia, Iran and Afghanistan and even the Middle East.
Therefore an even earlier Aryan invasion or migration seemed to fit the overall pattern of large-scale movements from the parched centre of Asia and afar into the lush alluvial plains of South Asia which generated massive surpluses and wealth to attract raiders and intruders. The Aryan invasion/migration paradigm had thus been an overriding premise of colonial historiography that became tremendously acutely deep-rooted and embedded in our psyche.
What are the simple and straightforward facts that we have had to contend with up until the recent past? There is a marked similarity between the Indo-European groups of languages.
And we are faced with other associated questions: -
1) What explains this similarity?
2) What are its implications?
3) What was the original nature of this proto Indo-European language?
4) Were the Aryans foreign invaders or immigrants? Or were they indigenous?
More of late historians have suggested a fundamental turnaround of the logic for the profound similarities between the Indo-European groups of languages. Plus a few more questions have cropped up:
1) Is it probable that the Indo-Aryans were inhabitant and aboriginal people of the Indus-Sarasvati tract?
2) Was it a case of out- migration rather than in-migration?
3) Was the Harappan civilisation a home-grown civilisation?
There is such an astonishing quantity of cultural connection between the Harappan civilisation and the succeeding Indo-Aryan Hindu (Sanatan) civilisation in the North and Western India that we are forced to ponder intensely today upon the substitute hypothesis.
Let us take a step back.
The 18th and 19th centuries witnessed the primary flourish of globalization, ushered in principally by enormous sailing ships that made worldwide voyages and enabled cross-cultural trade and linkages.
It was in due course realized that the Aryans of India, Iran, Ireland, Central Asia and Europe etc. had an unanticipated deal of commonalities in their languages. These seem to have emerged from a universal proto Indo-European language as it were.
This was first realized in 1786, when Sir William Jones noted that there are striking similarities in the vocabulary and grammar of Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, Celtic and Gothic. David Frawley’s ‘The Search of the Cradle of Civilisation’, worked on the salient similitude between keywords in these languages.
Jones’ discovery led to the creation of a whole new scholarly discipline. This was a foremost exodus from the conventional Judeo-Christian heritage that regarded Hebrew as the surrounding substance of all languages.
At the outset, the historical explanations offered for the similarities between various Indo-European languages were rather unsophisticated and highly speculative. By the middle of the 19th century however, the idea that all Indo-European languages derive from a much older Proto-Indo European language gained considerable momentum.
Scholars now sought to reconstruct not only that ancient proto language but also the culture associated with it. What is even more important is the fact that this led them to a quest for identifying the original homeland of this Proto Aryan culture.
In the late 19th century, David Frawley elaborates that these linguistic culture considerations were swiftly overtaken by strident racial overtones.
It was 1874-75. Cunninghum laid his hands upon some unidentified seals from Harappa of Beluchistan region. The marks and representations inscribed on those seals were entirely alien at that time. Though he had published his theory on them in the journals, he had but a little idea that it would lead to the gates of a treasure trove in the world of ancient history.
The treasure-hunt was in point of fact started in 1921 by R. D. Banerjee and D. Sahani under the direction of John Marshall, the then Director of the Archaeological survey of India. Lots of theories and calculations have been laid down during the last 90 years by scholars and amateur researchers regarding the type of this civilization.
Mehrgarh excavation has given the hint of the primary habitations of the pre-Harappan people and different Kot Dizi-an sites have produced several evidences of the existence of Vedic documents in the time of this civilization.
New sites are being found on the banks of the possible course of the extinct River Saraswati (Gaggar-Hakra). Researchers like B. B. Lal, Dales, Danino, Kenoyer are stating new points in favour of identifying this civilization as Indus-Saraswati civilization. Though there remain differences in opinions, but one thing is for sure that, the script of the inscriptions could not have been deciphered yet.
Pal clarifies several points, apropos the nomenclatural debate. At the outset, prior to 1947, this civilization was named either as Harappan civilization or Indus valley civilization (IVC) or Indus civilization. It was only subsequent to independence, that frequent archaeological sites being discovered by the side of the projected Sarasvati River, some historians preferred to name this as the ‘Sarasvati civilization’. To avoid disagreement some scholars like to mention it as the ‘Indus- Sarasvati civilization’.
In the same vein, the Script is identified as the ‘Indus script’, ‘Sarasvati script’ and/or ‘Indus-Sarasvati script’ by different people. The term ‘Proto — Indian script’ is also used by several scholars.
The thirty-two chapter book has been divided into three subsequent sections.
Part I, christened ‘Accumulating information so far and our deduction thereof’ has the following sections:
1. Problem of Decipherment
2. People of Indus Civilization: A Mythological Deduction
3. Evolution of Writing
4. Contemporary Evolution at Sumer, Egypt and Indus Valley
5. Some Factual Information
6. Indus Signs in India after 1700 BC
7. Indus Similar Signs Found at Places outside India
8. Indus the Precursor of Indic Scripts
9. Language and Signs
Part II, named as ‘Reaching the Phonetic Values of Indus Signs’, contains the following sub-sections –
1. Acrology /Acrophony
2. Evolution through Time: Basic Indian Signs
3. Basic Indus Signs and their Phonetic Values
4. Consonants, Added with Vowels (Diacritic Marks)
5. Conjunct
6. Indus Numerals
7. Unit of Measurements
8. Single Letters with Magical and Other Occult Values
9. Indus Signs and Its Valuations
10. Coinage
11. King Sign: Royal Monogram
The concluding Part III, named as ‘Our Reading of the Indus Inscriptions’ contains the following chapters:-
1. Principles Followed in Deciphering Indus Script
2. Single Letter Inscriptions
3. Measuring
4. Reading
5. Inscriptions in Pottery and Tablets
6. Names
7. Unit Signs (Denoting measurements of Preciousand/or Other Items)
8. Paatra (vessel)
9. Vanika (traders)
10. Determinatives
11. Miscellaneous Words
12. Dholavira Sign Board
Pal has followed the subsequent twelve phases to reach to the decipherment of the Indus Script: -
1st stage: Evolution of writing throughout the world has been referred to
2nd stage: Writing in three contemporary major civilities including Indus has been mentioned
3rd stage: Indus signs found outside India after the timeline of the so-called fall of Indus Civilization, has been shown
4th stage: Indus signs found in India after so called collapse of Indus script have been assesed
5th stage: Letters have been identified through acrology/acrophony
6th stage: Signs similar to Brahmi have been identified
7th stage: Letters for measurement units have been identified
8th stage: Valuations of other letters have been identified
9th stage: Names have been identified
10th stage: King signs have been identified
11th stage: Pottery and Tablets inscriptions have been read
12th stage: Seals and other texts have been read
In Pal’s book the reader finds the practice of using Indus signs much after the Harappan era, when Indus civilization is believed to have been ended. The book also discusses the uses of Indus signs (letters/syllables) outside India, at Late Harappan period and thereafter. Pal discusses the use of Royal monograms in Indus, plus in Maurya, Kushan and Gupta Era and also outside India [Greece] and the proximity of the Monograms therewith. The use of Acrology/Acrophony was very much crucial in determining letters not only in Indus, but Egypt too.
At the last stage of the book, the author has discussed about the names and other words found in Indus seals and inscribed on other items.
At the very end, Pal presents his readers with a series of ten concluding bullet points. What I particularly enjoyed reading therein, were points I, IX and X, where the author states: -
I. We have discussed about the main signs used in Indus-Sarasvati Inscriptions, keeping many signs un-deciphered.
IX. The notion of identifying Indus Script as logo-syllabic and Brahmi as syllabic and as a result denying any relation between them has no proof at all. Through natural evolution Brahmi letters were shaped from Indus signs.
X. There are some signs which remained non-valuated, for further research.
Nowhere in this book has the author sought to claim total decipherment. He has merely presented facts and analyzed them like a detective of history.
He has observed, hypothesized and made his inferences. In point II of his finale he states that he accepts Rao’s premise of omitting some composite signs in later period and accordingly he has not tried to read those signs at all.
Indus signs are found in practice all through India (Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Central India etc.) for more than 1500 years after the ostensible plummet of Indus Civilization, which gives us the intuition of the use of Indus signs before and during the use of Brahmi letters. Some Indus signs were in fact modified to become Brahmi letters. The employ of Indus signs outside India proves that those letters were reached to Western Asia and Europe through trade relations. It has also been found that other civilizations had used many Indus signs without knowing the source of them after the supposed Harappan period.
Latest archaeological discoveries are forcing us to deem that a larger than speculated civilization existed in India starting from 7000 BC, the area of which was beyond the Indus-Sarasvati river basins, influencing up to Kerala, Tamil Nadu to the south and Orissa, Bengal to the east.
We can never overlook that the Indus-Sarasvati civilisation dwarfed the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisations in sheer size and scale of its spread. It predated them by a thousand years.
What is more noteworthy is its amazing diligence over time, its sheer cultural continuity. Where those ancient civilisations have since vanished from the face of this earth, the Indus Civilisation continues more or less unbroken in essential shape and form right down to the current era in India.
The Indus Valley script has not so far been deciphered but a plethora of terracotta and copper figurines and steatite seals, the plastic arts of that era, provide us a visual language of sorts that has accurately recorded that ancient era. It today provides us astounding insights into that antique civilisation.
Ancient Indian History must unwrap itself to construals that stem from new research in manifold fields. A multidisciplinary advance is the ultimate answer in addressing such complex questions that deal with the key issues of our Sanatan identity. Thus it is almost visionary in tone, when Pal wraps up saying, “To reach to the actual history of it we must shed our inhibition of Aryan-Dravidian debate as well as theories like Aryan Invasion and/or migration….”
Our search for knowledge shall continue.
A highly pleasurable and recommended book!! Grab a copy if you choose.
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