A review of Dr S. Kalyanaraman’s trilogy by Dr Shrinivas Tilak
Mirror: https://www.academia.edu/9643316/A_review_of_Dr_S._Kalyanaraman_s_trilogy_by_Dr_Shrinivas_Tilak
The trilogy is a contribution to the History of Bharatam Janam using Indus script inscriptions. The trilogy is composed of the following books:
Kalyanaraman, S. 2010. Indus Script Cipher-Hieroglyphs of Indian Linguistic Area. Herndon: Sarasvati Research Center.
Kalyanaraman, S. 2014. Indus Script: Meluhha Metalwork Hieroglyphs. Herndon, VA: Sarasvati Research Center.
Kalyanaraman, S. 2014. Philosophy of Symbolic Forms in Meluhha Cipher. Herndon: Sarasvati Research Center.
Bharatam Janam, ‘people of the nation of Bharatam’ is a phrased used in Rigveda by Rishi Viswamitra. Kalyanaraman sees a link with the word bharatha which occurs in Indus Script denoting an alloy of copper, pewter, tin and zinc. The decipherment of Indus Script inscriptions sees the corpora as metalwork catalogs representing Meluhha (Mleccha) words by the use of rebus principle for hieroglyphs which constitute both pictorial motifs and signs of the Indus Script. Thus, the work of decipherment constitutes a contribution to the history of science and technology in Ancient India that is Bharatam.
Thanks to Prof. Shrinivas Tilak for a comprehensive review of the trilogy which is a contribution to the History of Bharatam Janam.
S. Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Centre
Sarasvati Research Centre
December 6, 2014
A review essay on Dr S. Kalyanaraman’s trilogy by Dr Shrinivas Tilak*
Introduction
With his latest book Indus Script: Meluhha Metalwork Hieroglyphs published in 2014, Dr Srinivasan Kalyanaraman now has to his credit the trilogy of a grand narrative of metallurgical technologies in Ancient India developed during the Bronze Age. The relevant theses, arguments, and writing system methodology were initiated and elaborated in his two earlier works: Philosophy of Symbolic forms in Meluhha cipher(2014) and Indus Script cipher: Hieroglyphs of Indian Linguistic Area (2010). The trilogy sets out to resolve the ongoing contentious academic debate over the identity of the Indus Valley Civilization. Dr Kalyanaraman (hereafter K) proceeded in the assumption that a solution to this problem and the puzzle lay in the trade and commercial activities of the people known collectively as Meluhha/Mleccha who also gave rise to the Indus Valley Civilization which K renames Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization.
Emergence and formation of Mleccha world and cipher
The Meluhha/Mlechha people (hereafter Mlechhas) who produced the seals were mostly artisans: lapidaries (workers in gem stones), masons, miners, to smiths who worked on stones, ivory, shell, minerals, metals, and alloys of metals. They created the Indus writing system in order to record the details of their professional activities. They used a code and a code key to transform and transfer information and messages that were deliberately obscured so that the messages could not be read or understood even if they were intercepted. A cipher is a secret language invented to conceal the meaning of a message. Artisans and traders of the Indus area created the cipher and included it with the goods that were shipped (like including a font that you may have used to generate a file?). Their trade associates in other parts of the world who received the messages were able to securely decipher the text of the coded message by performing an inverse substitution using the code keys (see below and Tilak 2010 for more details).
The demand for the stoneware and metal ware across a wide area extending from Rakhigarhi in the Punjab and Daimabad in Maharashtra to Haifa (Israel) and the Levant in the ancient Near East necessitated long-distance travel trade by sea-faring artisans and merchants, which K describes as the ‘Tin Road’ (Kalyanaraman 2014: 688). Beginning in the mid-third millennium BCE, ancient Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform sources frequently mention two foreign lands: Makkan and Meluhha, Makkan is the southern shore of the Persian Gulf denoting Arabia and Meluhha denoting areas of modern Iran and India (Kalyanaraman 2014: 78). Avasyaka Chūrņī, a Jaina text, notes that ivory trade was managed by Mleccha merchants who traveled from Uttaravaha to Dakşiņapatha. Guţţila Jātaka, too, makes reference to itinerant ivory workers/traders journeying from Varanasi to Ujjain (Kalyanaraman 2014: 222).
K argues that the onset of Bronze Age in the Sarasvati/Sindhu basin gave rise to several new technologies ranging from cire perdue casting technique to production of alloys (bronzes/brasses/pewter) complementing arsenical copper. This development, in turn, necessitated the invention and development of a writing system, that later came to be known as Mlechha cipher as evidenced in the now extant corpora of over seven thousand inscriptions (p. 12). As a result, the Mleccha language, Muņḑa, and Indo-Aryan language families constituted themselves into an Indic Sprachbund covering the landmass of India. Furthermore, Mlechha cipher was developed to create hieroglyphs in order to identify traded goods and processes using rebus method of representing similar sounding words of Mleccha, the lingua franca of the artisans. Evidence for this is discernible in over two thousand rebus lexical glosses of Mlechha and over one thousand unambiguously written-down, engraved, incised, or sculpted hieroglyphs in the corpora. K argues that these written symbolic forms relate to, and are continuous with, most languages of Indic Sprachbund (Kalyanaraman 2014: 21).
How it all began
Blurb pasted at the back of the seal replica: “Seals from Moenjodaro 5000 year old. These seals have thrown an open challenge to the scholars to decipher their worth. Indus Valley civilization flourished five thousand years ago in Pakistan. The inhabitants lived largely by atriculture but also maintained trade with lands s far away as Mesopotamia.”
K’s interest in the enigmatic Indus seals and attempts at their decipherment began more than three decades ago when one day a friend in the Asian Development Bank, Manila where K occupied an important position (before retiring in 1995), gave him a paper-weight bearing the replica of a seal from Mohenjodaro. Such replicas were routinely presented as a memento to all passengers traveling in first class on the Pakistan International Airlines. A sticker at the back of the paper-weight claimed that the script has not been deciphered so far and that the seal represents the five thousand-year old civilization of Pakistan. This launched K into the study of all ancient Indian languages that eventually resulted in the compilation of an Indian Lexicon that would serve as a comparative dictionary of twenty-five plus ancient languages of India after a hard work lasting over twenty-five years. K found that there were about eight thousand semantic clusters, that is, words similar sounding and with similar meanings across the entire length and breadth of ancient India. This led him to a compilation of the entire corpus of epigraphs (glyphs) found on seals, tablets, copper plates, and pottery and even on a huge sign-board at Dholavira and a gold pendant in Harappa. He began with the corpus of Indus script texts compiled by Iravatham Mahadevan and Asko Parpola and updating them with later findings and materials available in various museums of the world beyond Pakistan and India and publishing the results on the web and in various scholarly journals and books.
Mlecchas: the founding people of India (Bhāratam janam)
K argues that the term Mleccha occurs both in the context of speech (bhāşā) and country/region (deśa). As people, the Mlecchas constituted an integral and dominant part of the community that the Ŗgveda knows as Bhāratam janam (the people of the nation of Bhārata (3:53.12). The lands designated as Mleccha-deśa included not only areas in which non-Aryan languages were spoken but also those Indo-Aryan-speaking areas which were regarded as religiously unorthodox. This may explain why Magadha was known as Mleccha-deśa (whether the language of that area was a form of Indo-Aryan or not), whereas to the Buddhists the term meant primarily areas in which non-Aryan languages were spoken. Thus, there was a good deal of bilingualism and diglossia in ancient India (Kalyanaraman 2014: 63). Mleccha as a language evolved among casters of metal (bhāratiyo) many of whom lived in dvīpa (land between two rivers—Sindhu and Sarasvati—or islands on Gulf of Kutch, Gulf of Khambat, Makran coast and along the Persian Gulf region of Meluhha)(Kalyanaraman 2014: 9).
The Amarkośa defines Mleccha as the forest people and in other texts people known as Abhīra, Kirāta, Śabara, Pulinda, Āndhra, Pundhra, Drāviḑa, Lāţa, Barbara, Pallava, Śaka, Yavana, and Siḿhala are designated as Mleccha, Milakkha, or Milakkhu. The Mahābhārata refers to them collectively as Asnānāmlecchagaņa (1:165.35-37) (p. 43). The Matysa Purāņa (10:7) records that King Veņa was the ancestor of the Mlecchas and according to the Mahābhārata, Veņa was a progenitor of the Nişādas dwelling in the Vindhya mountains (12:59.101-103). Nirukta (3:8) includes Nişādas among the five peoples mentioned in the Ŗgveda (10:53.4), citing Aupamanyava. The five peoples alluded to include Brāhmaņa, Kśatriya, Vaiśya, Ṡūdra, and Nişāda. Pāņini mentions Nişāda gotra in the Gaņapāţha (Aşţādhāyyī 4:1.100) (Kalyanaraman 2014: 14-15).
Kumārila (ca. 700), a great Mīmāmsā philosopher, granted Mlecchas a potentially superior competence in worldly and secular (laukika) matters. In the Tantravārtttika he discusses the Mlecchas at length and advises engagment with them in empirical transactions (dŗşţārthavyavahāra) and to learn from them such secular professions and skills as agriculture, astrology, and drama. Acknowledging that the Mlecchas were more qualified in such fields as building houses, producing silk products, and making harnesses he also credited them for generating appropriate terminology in these areas. Kumārila also invited Indians to explore lands and areas inhabited by the Mlecchas (see Tantravārttika # 150, 153 on Jaiminisūtra 1:3.10). Prabhakara, another leading exponent of the Mimamsa school, also rejected parochial attempts to (1) derive all Mleccha words from Sanskrit roots and (2) construe their meanings `etymologically' regardless of their actual usage by the Mlecchas (see Śhabara and Kumārila on Jaiminisūtra 1:3.10)(also Wilhelm Halbfass 1990: 179). As a result, there has been a long tradition of Sanskrit scholars who were diglossic (i.e., bilingual = dvaibhāśika) (see Halbfass 1990).
K is careful to remind his reader that the Mlecchas should be differentiated from a people designated by a polemical term, Pasanda, who were opposed to the orthodox doctrines of the times. There is no textual indication that the Mlecchas were Pasandas. Rather, the Mlecchas were an integral and a dominant part of the nation of Bhārata. Similarly, there is no indication that Mlecchas were a distinct racial or linguistic entity. The only differentiation indicated in the early texts is that Mleccha is ‘unrefined’ speech and as such is distinct from Sanskrit. Thus Mleccha is a reference to a common spoken tongue from the Indic language family. What distinguished Mlecchas and Āryas, when used in reference to language-speakers or dialect-speakers, were places of habitation, norms of behavior and dialectical variations in parole (ordinary spoken language) juxtaposed to grammatically 'correct' Sanskrit or inscriptional Prakrit or Pali.
Mlechhas and their language
A narrative account from the Ṡatapatha Brāhmaņa, a Vedic text dating from 8th century BCE, (SB 3:2.1.22-28) provides evidence for existence of a proto-Indian language which had dialectical variants in its usage by the Devas (i.e. those who perform yajna and do using a refined and proper speech (vāc) and by the Asuras who do not perform yajnaand ill-pronounce or speak an imprecise language. This is a remarkable reference to Mleccha as a language in the ancient Indian tradition. This variation is discernible in the division of the Ārya vācas and Mleccha vācās proposed by Manu (MS 10:45) who declared Coda, Drāviḑa, Pallava people as former Kśatriyas that had sunk to the level of Ṡūdra, whether they spoke the language of the Mleccha or the language of Ārya. Thus, Mleccha speakers and Indo-Aryan speakers belong to the same language group but with a tendency to deploy dialectical phonetic variations. Comparable to the reference in Manu, a Jaina text (Pannavana, 1.37) also described two groups of speakers: Ārya and Milakkhu. Two Pali texts, Digha Nikāya and Vinaya, also denote Milakkha as a language (Milakkha bhāsā).
Elsewhere the Ṡatapatha Brāhmaņa (SB 3:2.1.23-24) states that the Devas (i.e. Vedic speakers) robbed the language from the Asuras. K argues that this is a way of saying that languages of Asuras and others in Saptasindhu evolved into the Indian Sprachbund. One explanation for this is provided in the SB text itself in the use of the concept of upajijñasya(to be excogitated, found out or enigmatical). The language referred to in the statement is Mleccha (cognate Meluhha). The Hindu tradition refers both to the Devas and Asuras as children of Kaśyapa. The SB notes that the Devas exchanged their language (vāc) with Gandharvas in exchange for Soma which was in their possession. One way of explaining this enigmatic statement is that Vedic diction elaborated the Mleccha language of Gandharvas (people of Gāndhāra)(Kalyanaraman 2014: 19).
Pāņini semantically associates Mleccha with indistinct speech (7:2.18) (38-40) and comments on its imprecise nature (mlechhe avyakte śabde 1:205) (Kalyanaraman 2014: 84). Patanjali elaborates Pāņini’s distinction between lingua franca and literary version of the language with reference to (1) grammatically correct literary language and (2) ungrammatical, colloquial speech (deśῑ) which Pāņini had identified as Samskŗta and Prākṛta (Kalyanaraman 2014: 45). He then adds the following characteristics of the Mlechha speech: use of ungrammatical forms of words (mlecchah ha vai eşah yat apaśabdaḩ); dialectical variants or unrefined sounds in words (mlecchitavai na apabhaşitavai). He concludes with an advice to learn rules of (Sanskrit) grammar in order to avoid descending to the level of Mleccha (mlecchitam viśpaşţena iti eva anyatra; mlecchaḩ mā bhūma iti adhyeyam vyākaraņam (Kalyanaraman 2014: 35-36). In the Mahābhārata (Ādi Parva, Jātugŗha section 135: 4-6) Vidura and Yudhişţhira converse in Mleccha language. So does the miner (khanaka) sent by Vidura to warn Yudhişţhira about the jātugŗha as a trap to kill the Pāņḑavas. Khanaka offers to dig a tunnel so that the Pāņḑavas can escape as the jātugŗha goes up in flames (MBh. 2.53.8). Vidura conveys using cryptography that Pāņḑavas are in danger and hinting at the nature of the impending danger without naming the jātugŗha.
Mlecchita vikalpa
The term mlecchita means ‘made by Mleccha’ and the expression Mlecchita vikalpa refers to a distinct or specific option or alternative (vikalpa) associated with the Mlecchas. Thus, the Kāmasūtra of Vātsyāyana lists Mlecchita vikalpa (Mlechha [cipher] option) as one of the sixty four arts (including two allied communication arts—muşţikā kathanam and deśabhāşā jñānam) to be learned by youth (see Vidyāsamuddeśa of Kāmasūtra; (Kalyanaraman 2014: 6).Since Milakkhu in Pali and Mleccha-mukha in Sanskrit, both mean ‘copper’ it may not be mere coincidence that many epigraphs or glyphs of the historical periods were inscribed on copper-plates to preserve records of economic transactions or edicts by rulers.
K undertook astatistical analysis of the number and graphics of ‘signs’ or ‘pictorials’ on the glyphs written on a variety of materials (about four thousand glyphs have been discovered so far, mostly on seals, tablets and copper plates), which suggested to him that some ‘signs’ and ‘pictorials’ were repetitively used. For example, rim of a short-necked jar and a young bull (heifer) with one horn and pannier are the most frequently occurring motifs on the epigraphs. For K, such a distribution of ‘signs’ and ‘pictorials’ pointed to the fact that the glyphs were not meant to be ‘names’ of owners of the objects with glyphs. On the other hand, many of the ‘signs’ and ‘pictorials’ were very graphic representations of such commonly recognized objects as a wide-mouthed pot, fish, liquid-measure, axle of a spoke-wheel, archer, ox, antelope, Brahmani bull (Zebu), elephant, rhinoceros, tiger, or a person hiding on a tree branch. He therefore started looking for the words used in modern Indian languages for these glyphs (that is, graphic representations). A surprising pattern emerged supporting his hypothesis that the underlying language used for these glyphs was continuous with most Indian languages spoken today and shared many words.
K also found that such words representing these glyphs had homonyms (similar-sounding words). He further found that such similar-sounding words formed a pattern and were related to one category: that of metal-smiths, of smithy, of furnaces used by workers working with minerals, metals and alloys. This principle of identifying similar-sounding words is similar to the technique used by Jean Paul Champollion to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs and known as the ‘rebus method.’ K coined the phrase Sarasvati hieroglyphs for these ‘signs’ and ‘pictorials’ on the epigraphs and went on to decode them using words from the Indian Lexicon which has over half-a-million words. Hieroglyph is composed of two elements: hiero + glyph. Hieros (Greek) mean ‘holy’ as well as “a picture or symbol used in hieroglyphic writing.” The term became popular after the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs which were used to record the property possessions of priests. For K they constitute the oldest written documents providing a reliable account of (1) what later would be known as the Hindu civilization and (2) of activities of artisans and traders whose donkey caravans frequented the Tin Road from India through Ancient Near East to Fertile Crescent. The guilds and their trade caravans formed the nucleus corporate entities that ultimately evolved into the [Bhārata] rāşţra, a multi-community formation = janajātis] of the people of India. K argues that the manner in which these records were encoded and decoded is akin to Mlecchita vikalpa.
Kalyāņa vikalpa
The revised reading and interpretation (upajijñasā) of the Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization proposed by Dr Kalyanaraman in his trilogy and based on the use of the Rebus method (see below) may be called ‘Kalyāņa vikalpa’ (option or key) in recognition of his lifelong commitment and service to the land and people of India (Bhārata janam) and assuring their welfare (kalyāņa). This comes out clearly in more than fifteen books and hundreds of articles that he has authored with that noble goal in mind. Vikalpa in the Indian philosophical tradition refers to the interpretation and organization of the data of perceptual experiences, making it intelligible and serviceable. Vikalpais an acceptable option or alternative whereby one is invited to choose from one or more of the available models or methods of action, behavior, or interpretation. Thus, in the Gītā Śrīkŗşņa allows Arjuna an option of selecting any one or more of the three types of yoga that are introduced in the Gītā.
The earlier attempts at deciphering the Indus Valley seals assumed that the pictorials were totem symbols and/or that the signs were alphabets or syllables. The vikalpa or an alternative interpretation suggested by K is that both pictorials and signs may be read as words because of the fact that there is on average only five signs/pictorials on the four thousand or so epigraphs. Furthermore, there are over two hundred epigraphs which contain only pictorials or just one or two signs. The earlier attempts assumed the underlying languages to be Sanskrit (S. R Rao), Tamil (Iravatham Mahadevan, Asko Parpola) or Akkadian or Sumerian (JV Kinner-Wilson). K argues that it cannot be Akkadian because a merchant from Meluhha is shown with an interpreter on a cylinder seal with cuneiform inscription. The presence of an interpreter shows that the Meluhhas/Mlechhas probably did not speak Akkadian (Kalyanaraman 2010: 30-31).
The rebus method
Rebus, meaning ‘sounds like,’ is a Latin word meaning representation of words in the form of pictures or symbols, often presented as a puzzle. The word is said to have been derived from Latin res‘thing’. The rebus method was employed successfully by Jean Paul Champollion using the Rosetta Stone to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs. An example is the depiction of ‘son’ (male child of a parent) by the similar-sounding word ‘sun’ which can be pictured as a circle with emanating rays. The system used a combination of phonograms (that is, sound-signs which spelt out the word in an alphabet system = semiotics) and ideograms (that is, sense-signs which were ligatured (syntax) or added to the spelled-out word to convey the intended meaning (semantics). Since Sarasvati hieroglyphs do not use an alphabet system it can be described as picture-writing or alternative representation of sounds through pictures or glyphs. For example, a glyph which is commonly shown is that of a tree in a platform. The word for tree is kut.i; a similar-sounding word, kut.hi connotes a smelter-furnace for minerals. Thus, when a tree is shown on an epigraph (as on the Sohgaura copper plate), it connotes a smelter-furnace.
K justifies his use of the rebus method by the fact that the texts of the inscriptions are composed of an average of five signs. The longest inscription has twenty-six signs (found on two identical three-sided tablets: M-494 and M-495 of Parpola corpus). There are over 170 inscriptions with only one sign (in addition to the field symbol); about thirty inscriptions have only two signs (Koskenniemi et al. 1973: x, see Kalyanaraman 2010: 112-115). A number of signs appear in duplicated pairs though apparently they are not duplicated alphabets or syllables. Many pictorials in inscriptions in field symbols also occur in pairs: two tigers, two bisons, two heads of the unicorn. To K these statistics suggest that a given message is communicated using a combination of pictorials. One or two signs and/or a pair of signs are adequate to compose the core of the messages. From this K suggests that each sign in pairwise combinations (which constitute the core plan of information conveyed) is not an alphabet or a syllable, but a ‘word.’ This is based on an observation by a group of Soviet scholars (Probst et al 1965) who analyzed texts on the computer and concluded that the Indus script is essentially morphemic in character, resembling the Egyptian hieroglyphic system in this respect.
K noted that only two animals were shown with their heads turned backwards: tiger and antelope. He therefore looked for a word which explained this feature and found that in Telugu the word krammarameans ‘head turned backwards’ whose homonym is kammara or karmara = ‘smith.’ Tiger is denoted by the word ‘kol’ whose homonym happens to be kol = ‘panchaloha alloy’ (Tamil). Similarly antelope is denoted by the word ‘mr.eka’ whose homonym is melakka‘copper’ (Pali). In this way K was able to see and hypothesize why the tiger and antelope were shown with their heads turned backwards. The total pictorial representation of the tiger and antelope shown with their heads looking backwards can then be deciphered: alloy-smith, copper-smith. K also found that some glyphs were ligatured (that is, many artistic features were combined or joined together). For example, the young bull (heifer) was shown with a pannier and one-horn. Some animals were joined together (heads of ox, antelope, and heifer joined to one body). The device in front of this heifer was shown with two components: (1) bottom component showing a wide-mouthed pot with smoke emanating and (2) top portion showing a gimlet (sharp-point of a drill-lathe) with a churning motion shown by wavy lines depicted on the gimlet.
K found that the pannier or waist-band was denoted by the word ‘kammarasala’ whose homonym is ‘karmarashala’ (smithy). One horn is kod.u whose homonym is kod = ‘workshop.’ Thus the ligatured pictorial can be read as damra (heifer); homonym: tam(b)ra‘copper’ + karmarashala (smithy) + kod. (workshop), that is the copper smithy workshop. Similarly, the device generally shown in front of this glyph can be deciphered as: sangada‘lathe, gimlet;’ sangada‘joined animals;’ kammata‘gold furnace;’ homonyms: sangada‘furnace.’ Kamatha means ‘an archer’ whose homonym is kammata = ‘mint.’ Thus the device shown in front of the one-horned heifer (young bull) can be read as kammata‘gold mint’ + sangada‘furnace’ (Kalyanaraman 2010).
Assessing Kalyana vikalpa
K detected a remarkable pattern--Almost all the glyphs relate to the production of artisans and smiths working with minerals, metals, and alloys seemingly denoting the repertoire of a smithy such as furnaces of a variety of types used for different metallurgical processes. The entire corpus seems to be a record of property possessions of artisans. The epigraphs seem like a calling card of the artisan stating the property possessions and the professional expertise he or she possessed. Same is the case with the decipherment of the Dholavira sign-board which connotes a copper smithy with a number of metallurgical services offered. This makes it the earliest advertisement board in the history of human civilization, a board which could be seen by the sea-faring merchants traveling into and out of the Persian Gulf and hugging the Hindumahasagara. It was like what the nineteenth century Indian industrialist Jamshedji Tata would have done—giving a memento to his bride at the time of his marriage--a seal designed as a mangalasutraannouncing to the world that he, Tata, owned a blast steel furnace!
The Tin Road
While going through the archaeo-metallurgical researches K came across the proceedings of a seminar held at the Smithsonian Institution in which Prof. Muhly had noted that tin used in Mesopotamia perhaps came from the Mlechha land and that there was some connection with the invention of alloy making and the revolutionary ways of writing. When K looked at the glyphs inscribed on the tin ingots he found that the glyphs connoted the metal ‘tin.’ A cylinder seal impression from a site called Ur (in Mesopotamia) was found containing many pictorials comparable to Sarasvati hieroglyphs (five-petalled flower or Brahmani bull for instance). The five-petalled flower was a frequently used sign on many epigraphs found on a potsherd at Harappa and which was recognized as perhaps the oldest writing system in ancient civilizations. One glyph on this seal showed what Daniel T Potts suggested was tabaernae montana, a fragrant flower known as Tagaraka in Indian languages meaning a ‘fragrant flower used as a hair-fragrance’ (Potts 1995). This glyph is also shown on a bone comb found at Tell Abraq (see http://ina.tamu.edu/CG-ingots.htm; Potts 1993: 591-596). K proposes that the homonym of this glyph is ‘tagara’ meaning ‘tin.’ He similarly deciphered other glyphs as relating to metals, alloys, and furnaces. Brahmani bull, for instance, can be said to represent by the word ‘adar dangra’ with the homonyms aduru‘native metal’ (Kannada) and danger, thakkura‘smith’ (see http://www.harappa.com).
K’s endeavor to correlate the words of the seals, tablets with the material evidences from the respective sites in Sindh and in other parts of India has met with some success. For instance, seals have been found close to workers’ platforms, in Banawali in a gold-silversmith’s residence and in Padri (Gujarat) in a coppersmith’s residence. Though the functions served by workers’ platforms found at Harappa are not explicit it appears that the central circle might have been used to stack up storage jars with ores. No copper or remnants of copper smithy have yet been found near these workers’ platforms. One archaeologist conjectures that these platforms could have been used for indigo making since storage jars have a pointed end and could not have rested on flat ground. Copper furnaces, special furnaces used for making terracotta bangles and for making pots have been discovered at specific sites. The archaeological reports from sites such as Mohenjodaro and Harappa do attest to the fact that the objects with inscriptions or epigraphs have been found from all parts of the site, from what is called the ‘citadel’ area and also from what is called the ‘lower town.’
Contribution to Indology
K’s researches underscore the need to take a fresh look by Indologists at the received wisdom about the history, formation, and evolution of Indian languages. His compilation of eight thousand semantic clusters (similar-sounding words with similar meanings) from Indian languages (be they categorized as ‘Indo-Aryan,’ ‘Dravidian,’ or ‘Austro-asiatic of Munda’ as alluded to in the Indian Lexicon) renders the exercise of a Dravidian Etymological Dictionaryquestionable since out of over five thousand etyma listed therein over four thousand etyma have cognate words in ‘Indo-aryan’ or in Munda. His notion of the Indic Sprachbund warrants further studies of the nature and the history of the interactions that took place among Proto-Vedic, Vedic, Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit, Santali, and other ‘proto’ versions of present-day Indian languages. Furthermore, the metallurgical tradition in India as a continuum of the Lithic Age to Metals Age has to be researched afresh since iron smelters that have been found in the Ganga valley are co-terminus with the finds of copper smelters in Sarasvati-Sindhu valley. Is it possible, K wonders, that India skipped a Bronze Age altogether and directly moved into the ‘Metals Age?’ Finally, the tradition of technology in India allegedly initiated by the legendary Vishvakarma has to be researched in light of the presence of cultural continuum that is discernible even today in (1) the use of cire perdue technique, (2) the use of shankha industry during the last 8,500 years (K makes this claim on the basis of a finding of a cut wide shankha bangle dated to 6500 BCE at Mehergarh, 300 kms. north of Karachi), and (3) use of paints on terracotta toys found at Nausharo showing red paint at the parting of the hair of ladies, black paint for hair and golden paint for necklaces.
K’s trilogy demonstrates a remarkable continuity--syntactic, semiotic, and semantic—of present-day Indian languages to the days of Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization going back to 4thmillennium BCE. Many glosses identified by the deciphered Indus script hieroglyphs are demonstrated in cipher texts of the lexical repertoire of all Indian languages bolstering K’s hypothesis that the Mleccha language/s was (were) the fountain spring of Indian Sprachbund. Roman Jacobson used the term Sprachbund in 1931 to describe ‘linguistic area’ as an area in which languages belonging to more than one family show traits in common which do not belong to the other members of (at least) one of the families. The historical diffusion of common features throughout the languages of a given Sprachbund may be investigated through questions of lexical lists, phonology, syntactic, morphological and semantic development, and socio-linguistic questions (Kalyanaraman 2014: 63-64). This unique form of continuity of Indian Sprachbund from the days of the Bronze Age may therefore explain why any of one or more of the present-day glosses from any of Indian languages would adequately explain and validate Mlechhita vikalpa.
The dream of Queen Māyā
History of Civilizations of ancient times records two remarkable dreams: the dream in the Epic of Tukulti-Ninurta and the dream of Queen Māyā, mother of Gautama Buddha. Both the dreams are narrated in ancient texts and also on preserved on sculptures and as epigraphs. The ancient texts describe the life-activities of two heroes which the dreams signified. The hieroglyphs used on sculptures and epigraphs provide for rebus representations of the dreams yielding glosses related to life-activities of the people involved. Both the dreams are presented in a visible language using hieroglyphs and can be read rebus.
The power of Kalyana vikalpa is discernible in the innovative interpretation of this dream. K hypothesizes that Mlechha hieroglyphs dating from the Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization of the Bronze Age are continuous with art forms and the historical narratives of subsequent centuries. Harappan craftsmen produced figurines such as the famous dancing girl using the process and technique known as cire perdue: an initial model was made of wax, then quickly coated with clay; once fired (which caused the wax to melt away), the clay hardened into a mold, into which molten bronze was later poured. A wide variety ornaments were thus produced: pendants, bangles, beads, rings, or necklace parts which we find duly reproduced in various art forms since then (Kalyanaraman 2014: 162).
The dream of Queen Māyā, mother of prince Siddhārtha (the future Buddha), is preserved both in ancient sacred texts and sculptures. K’s contribution lies in his reading rebus some of the hieroglyphs employed in such sculptures and texts which tend to be ignored in most standard accounts of the dream. In her dream Māyā saw an elephant entering her womb from the right side. King Śuddhodana and the court Brahmins interpreted the dream and announced that a son would be born to her who would either become a world ruler or a great spiritual teacher. K points out that the presence of many hieroglyphs in the friezes and sculptures depicting Māyā’s dream are a continuum from the ancient Mlechha culture and tradition (Kalyanaraman 2014 A: 483).
Freudian interpretation of the dream
Before Sigmund Freud, attempts to solve the problems of dreams concerned themselves directly with the manifest dream-content as it is retained in the memory. An interpretation of the dream was sought from this content, or, if an interpretation was dispensed with, the conclusions concerning the dream were based on the evidence provided by this content. Freud, however, turned his attention on a different set of data-- psychic material interposing itself between the dream-content and the results of Freud’s investigations: the latent dream-content or dream-thoughts obtained by the method Freud proposed. For Freud, the dream-thoughts and the dream-content present themselves as two descriptions of the same content in two different languages. The dream-content appears as a translation of the dream-thoughts into another mode of expression, whose symbols and laws of composition must be understood by comparing the origin with the translation. The dream-content is, as it were, presented in hieroglyphics, whose symbols must be translated, one by one, into the language of the dream-thoughts (see Freud 1999, chapter six).
It would of course be incorrect to attempt to read these symbols in accordance with their values as pictures, instead of in accordance with their meaning as symbols. For instance, I have before me a picture-puzzle (rebus) -- a house, upon whose roof there is a boat; then a single letter; then a running figure, whose head has been omitted, and so on. As a critic I might be tempted to judge this composition and its elements to be nonsensical. A boat is out of place on the roof of a house, and a headless man cannot run; the man, too, is larger than the house, and if the whole thing is meant to represent a landscape the single letters of the alphabet have no right in it, since they do not occur in nature. A correct judgment of the picture-puzzle is possible only if I make no such objections to the whole and its parts, and if, on the contrary, I take the trouble to replace each image by a syllable or word which it may represent by virtue of some allusion or relation. The words thus put together are no longer meaningless. Now a dream is such a picture-puzzle. Freud insisted that previous attempts in dream-interpretation made the mistake of judging the rebus as an artistic composition. As such, of course, it appears nonsensical and worthless (see Freud 1999 chapter six).
K follows the line of interpretation suggested by Freud and detects in one of the friezes from Nagarjunkonda, Andhra Pradesh (2nd century CE, National Museum, New Delhi) depicting Queen Māyā’s dream four hieroglyphs that for him suggest continuity to the writing systems from the days of Mlechha culture. These are: stack of straw, a scribe, a bull ligatured to a crocodile (makara), and two antelopes ligatured back-to-back. The engraver/scribe is shown holding a wedge. K relates the phrase tanama mlecchato (1) tah’nai, ‘engraver’ Mleccha; or (2) tana, ‘of (Mleccha lineage) and reads rebus the young ligatured bull as (1) Khőņḑa (Telugu) = ‘young bull calf’ and (2) Kὁnda (Marathi) ‘engraver, lapidary setting or infixing gems.’ He reads rebus the crocodile ligatured to the bull (kāru) askhar (blacksmith) (Kashmiri). Alternatively, the bull is ḑangar which K reads rebus as ḑangar = blacksmith (Hindi). The two antelopes joined back-to-back suggest pusht ‘back’ which K reads rebus aspusht = ancestor. The antelope (or ram) could also denote tagara (Tamil) which K reads rebus as ţagara = tin. A pair in Kashmiri is dula which K reads rebus as dul = cast metal (Muņḑa). Thus the pair of antelopes on the top register of the frieze denotes ‘tin smith artisan’ (dul ţagara; Kalyanaraman 2014A: 483-486).
Armed with this data and analysis, K posits that Queen Māyā was the daughter of King Anjana of the Koliyas, a community working in iron (kol = working in iron, Tamil) (Kalyanaraman 2014A: 484-485). She was married to King Ṡuddhodana who ruled over the Sakyas, a warrior tribe living next to the Koliyas. The signifier of Māyā’s dream is an elephant (ibhain Mlechha and also in Sanskrit). Rebus reading provides the signified: ib= iron. This is a kernel of the life-activities of Māyā’s clan--Koliya (Koles) who are iron workers of yore from several generations. Māyā’s unconscious thought was conditioned by the life of iron workers and smelters who were associated with her lineage and identified as such by the product of their labor, ib = iron (Kalyanaraman 2014A: 673).
Dream of Māyā features the descent of an elephant which is a hieroglyph read rebus, consistent with Sigmund Freud’s theory that dreaming is a process that is analogous to the Rebus method. The narrative is accompanied by Mlechha hieroglyphs which include a scribe of the guild of metal/stone-work artisans who might have been involved in the construction of the monuments in Bharhut and Nagarjunakonda -- commemorative pilgrimages of Buddhists. Māyā's dream is a sacred, hallowed tradition in Bauddha Āgama and the narrative is revered in ancient sculptures and ancient texts. This tradition is further elaborated by the use of Mlechha hieroglyphs which K reads rebus, validating the Mlechha hieroglyph cipher for the ancient, unambiguous vernacular of the Indian Sprachbund.
Limitations of Kalyana vikalpa
One major limitation of Kalyana vikalpa would be that the continuity of the writing system in the Indian tradition cannot be fully explained in the later-day evolution of Kharoshthi and Brahmi scripts, though some scholars have seen similarities between Brahmi script ‘syllables’ and Sarasvati hieroglyphs. K argues that the Mleccha vācā and Ārya vācā were two terms used in ancient texts connoting the spoken language and literary language respectively. Both have co-existed in India from ancient times pointing to the evolution of Sanskrit from Prakrit. This hypothesis, however, needs to be tested in light of the fact that early epigraphs of historical periods in India are in Prakrit while the epigraphs in Hinduised states of Southeast Asia are in Sanskrit.
Concluding remarks
Hopefully the Kalyana vikalpa, ably developed and amply documented in K’s trilogy, will stimulate further researches in the history of Ancient India during the times preceding the Bronze Age and further explore the formation of Indian and Indo-European languages and their links with the Mlechhas and their language. K’s trilogy can shed new light on the formation and evolution of the Hindumahasagar Parivar (Indian Ocean Community; see Kalyanaraman 2008) exemplified in the work of the French epigraphist, George Cœdès and presented in one of his monographs entitled: The Indianized states of Southeast Asia (1968) based on epigraphic evidences gathered from Angkor Wat (Nagara Vatika) and other sites in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and in the other Indian Ocean Rim States. There is a great deal to learn from K trilogy about the remarkable treasure-house of jñāna in many fields and disciplines ranging from art, music, dance to such technologies as metallurgy, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, physical and natural sciences, apart from the contributions through āyurveda, yoga, darśana and adhyātmikatexts. K’s trilogy would also provide an opportunity to reassess the contributions made by the followers of Khandoba, Vithoba, Jagannatha, Sabarimala, Balaji, Pandharpur and others who belonged to the so-named ‘backward and deprived classes’(anusūcita janajātis). The Itihasa Bharati can sponsor projects along this line in order to recognize the contributions made by these classes to the broader socio-cultural history of India.
References
Cœdès, George. 1968. The Indianized states of Southeast Asia. Honolulu, East-West Center Press.
Freud, Sigmund. 1999. The interpretation of dreams. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
Halbfass, Wilhelm. 1990. India and Europe: An Essay in Philosophical Understanding.Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass.
Kalyanaraman, S. 2008. Indian Ocean Community-- a socio-economic powerhouse. https://sites.google.com/site/indianoceancommunity1/
Kalyanaraman, S. 2010. Indus Script Cipher-Hieroglyphs of Indian Linguistic Area. Herndon: Sarasvati Research Center.
Kalyanaraman, S. 2014. Indus Script: Meluhha Metalwork Hieroglyphs. Herndon, VA: Sarasvati Research center.
Kalyanaraman, S. 2014A. Philosophy of Symbolic Forms in Meluhha Cipher. Herndon: Sarasvati Research Center.
Mahābhārata: Text as constituted in its Critical Edition. 5 vols. 1974. Poona: The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.
Manu Smŗti [With the Commentary Mānavārtha Muktāvali of Kullūka]. 1946. 10th ed. Edited by Narayana Ram Acharya, Kavyatirtha. Bombay: Nirnaya Sagar Press.
Potts, D.T. 1993. A new Bactrian find from southeastern Arabia. Antiquity 67 (1993): 591-596.
Potts, D. T. 1995. Distant Shores: Ancient Near Eastern Trade. In Civilizations of the Ancient Near East vol 1, edited by Jack M. Sasson, 1451-1463.
Probst, M.A., Kondratov, Probst A.M., and Knorozov Y. V. 1965. Proto-Indica. Moscow.
Shendge, Malati. 1977. The civilized demons: the Harappans in Rigveda., Jaipur: Abhinav Publications.
Tilak, Shrinivas. 2010. Solving the Indus script puzzle. http://creative.sulekha.com/solving-the-indus-script-puzzle_486161_blog
https://www.academia.edu/9494773/History_of_Bharatiya_languages_Tracing_back_to_Meluhha_and_Indus_script
*Dr Shrinivas Tilak (PhD History of religions, McGill University, Montreal, Canada) is an independent researcher based in Montreal, Canada. His publications include The Myth of Sarvodaya: A study in Vinoba's concept (New Delhi: Breakthrough Communications 1984); Religion and Aging in the Indian Tradition (Albany, N. Y.: State University of New York Press, 1989), Understanding karma in light of Paul Ricoeur's philosophical anthropology and hermeneutics (Charleston, SC: BookSurge, revised, paperback edition, 2007), and Reawakening to a secular Hindu nation: M. S. Golwalkar’s vision of a dharmasāpekşa Hindurāşţra(Charleston, SC: BookSurge, 2009).
Addendum:
https://www.academia.edu/9494773/History_of_Bharatiya_languages_Tracing_back_to_Meluhha_and_Indus_script History of Bharatiya languages: Tracing back to Meluhha and Indus script
History of Bharatam Janam and Indus Script inscriptions (16:49)
https://www.academia.edu/9388012/History_of_Bharatam_Janam_--Dharma-dhamma_cultural_narrative_from_6500_BCE History of Bharatam Janam --Dharma-dhamma cultural narrative from 6500 BCE
Papers presenting an overview of the decipherment complement the readings of nearly 3,200 inscriptions detailed in Indus Script -- Meluhha metalwork hieroglyphs:
Dravida maayaa of Mahadevan-- A rejoinder to Iravatham Mahadevan’s hurried claim of Tamil/Dravida decipherment of Indus Script (S. Kalyanaraman, Nov. 2014)
Ancient seafarers in the Persian gulf and maps
Vanishing wayside inns of erstwhile Venad and continuing traditions
Sohgaura copper plate and Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization
Copper plates of Indus Script and rebus Meluhha readings
Archaeological discovery of Tukulti Ninurta altar, re-discovery of Meluhha writing (Indus script)
Dravida maayaa of Mahadevan-- A rejoinder to Iravatham Mahadevan’s hurried claim of Tamil/Dravida decipherment of Indus Script (S. Kalyanaraman, Nov. 2014)
Ancient seafarers in the Persian gulf and maps
Vanishing wayside inns of erstwhile Venad and continuing traditions
Sohgaura copper plate and Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization
Copper plates of Indus Script and rebus Meluhha readings
Archaeological discovery of Tukulti Ninurta altar, re-discovery of Meluhha writing (Indus script)
http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2014/12/reference-to-meluhha-mleccha-in-two.htmlReference to Meluhha (mleccha) in two Brahmi inscriptions of 2nd cent. BCE
India, that is Bharat. Tracing republic roots in Sarasvati- Sindhu civilization and Indus Scriptmore
Bharat, name of a nation. Root: bharatiyo 'caster of metals', bharat 'metal alloy' in Indus Script more
Catalogs of pola, kuṇṭha, goṭa, bichi ferrous oxide metalwork in Meluhha Indus script hieroglyphs more
Catalogs of pola, kuṇṭha, goṭa, bichi ferrous oxide metalwork in Meluhha Indus script hieroglyphs more
ayas Vedic gloss in hieroglyph modifiers of Indus script, indicators of semantics of soma as a metallurgical processmore
Indus writing mlecchita vikalpa (Meluhha cipher)—6. Meluhha metallurgy, Tin Road trade & interaction narrativesmore
Indus writing mlecchita vikalpa (Meluhha cipher)—7. Interaction areas & Hermeneutics from Sarasvati-Sindhu (Hindu) civilizationmore
Indus wri$ng mlecchita vikalpa (Meluhha cipher)—4. kol 'alloy of 5 metals' pañcaloha in Meluhha hieroglyphsmore
Indus writing mlecchita vikalpa (Meluhha cipher)—2-- Semantics & orthography of svastika hieroglyphmore
Meluhha hieroglyphs & cuneiform writing systems on two soft-stone fragments of Ancient Near East (3rd millennium BCE)more
Locating Aratta of Ancient Near East using Meluhha hieroglyphs and defining Anzu & the start of Tin Road from Meluhhamore
Tin Road: Meluhha (Aratta) - Assur – Kanesh. What was traded and documented in writing in Bronze Age?more