Some Tarim mummies on trade caravans spoke Mleccha (Meluhha) before they were mummies
This hypothesis needs to be tested by archaeometallurgical and historical linguistic studies from an extended area from Ancient Far East to Ancient Near East. This is also an imperative in the context of a new start for Vedic and IE studies. Evidence of contact between Vedic and Tocharian has already been attested in the cognate expressions: ams'u (Vedic), ancu (Tocharian). The circular stones in funerary practices unite Tocharian and Dholavira. By the 6th century CE, the Brihat Samhita of Varahamihira also locates the Tusharas with Barukachcha (Bhroach) and Barbaricum (on the IndusDelta) near the sea in western India: bharukaccha.samudra.romaka.tushrah.. :(Brhatsamhita XVI.6). If contacts with area lived in by speakers of Kafiri (Nuristani) was a transit point, Tushara could also have arrived to settle in Barukachcha from this detour from Kyrgystan (Muztagh Ata), taking a caravan route south of the Oxus (Amu Darya) river. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tushara_Kingdom
What language did the people of Sarasvati-Sindhu doab river basins (with about 2,600 archaeological sites) speak? Given the evidence of Buddhist Hybrid Samskritam (BHS) in the Tarim Basin documents and the links between Rigvedic people and Tushara (Tocharian) in trade transactions of Soma (synonyms, metaphors: ams'u, ancu), a proto-BHS, or Proto-Indo-Aryan, or Early Indo-European, Mleccha (Meluhha) is suggested as the language of the metalworkers of the Bronze Age. Mleccha, 'copper' (Samskritam) provides the profession of Mleccha-speakers, 'metal workers', also referred to by cognate expressions: Milakkha (Pali), Meluhha (Akkadian on a Shu-ilishu cylinder seal). A reference to the metalworkers is contained in the expression used in Rigveda to denote the people in general by Rigveda Rishi Visvamitra: Bharatam Janam, 'lit. metalworker people'. Chandas, 'prosody' represented the liturgical version of an Indo-European language and Mleccha/Meluhha 'parole or speech' represented the administrative version of the language used predominantly by trader caravans (as attested by Tarim Mummies and the Tin Road from Asshur to Kanesh in Ancient Near East), by metalworkers, in general and by specialist cire perdue metalcasters, dhokra kamar, in particular. The expression, kamar is an Indo-European gloss: karmāˊra m. ʻ blacksmith ʼ RV. [EWA i 176 < stem *karmar -- ~ karman -- , but perh. with ODBL 668 ← Drav. cf. Tam. karumā ʻ smith, smelter ʼ whence meaning ʻ smith ʼ was transferred also tokarmakāra -- ] Pa. kammāra -- m. ʻ worker in metal ʼ; Pk. kammāra -- , °aya -- m. ʻ blacksmith ʼ, A. kamār, B. kāmār; Or. kamāra ʻ blacksmith, caste of non -- Aryans, caste of fishermen ʼ; Mth.kamār ʻ blacksmith ʼ, Si. kam̆burā.
Md. kan̆buru ʻ blacksmith ʼ.(CDIAL 2898). kamar 'artisan, smith, smelter' (Santali) karum (Akkadian: kārum "quay, port, commercial district", plural kārū, from Sumerian kar "fortification (of a harbor), break-water" is also perhaps an expression related to karumā 'smith, smelter' or khārun,'the trough into which the blacksmith allows melted iron to flow after smelting' (Kashmiri, see below) of this Indian sprachbund.
The roots of the expression are found in Kashmiri where a number of compounds are attested and hence provide the trade route across Karakoram and Pamir, from Muztagh Ata through Kashmir to Sarasvati-Sindhu river basins: khār 1खार् । लोहकारः m. (sg. abl. khāra 1 खार ; the pl. dat. of this word is khāran 1 खारन् , which is to be distinguished from khāran 2, q.v., s.v.), a blacksmith, an iron worker (cf.bandūka-khār, p. 111b, l. 46; K.Pr. 46; H. xi, 17); a farrier (El.). This word is often a part of a name, and in such case comes at the end (W. 118) as in Wahab khār, Wahab the smith (H. ii, 12; vi, 17). khāra-basta खार-बस््त । चर्मप्रसेविका f. the skin bellows of a blacksmith. -büṭhü -ब&above;ठू&below; । लोहकारभित्तिः f. the wall of a blacksmith's furnace or hearth. -bāy -बाय् । लोहकारपत्नी f. a blacksmith's wife (Gr.Gr. 34). -dŏkuru ; । लोहकारायोघनः m. a blacksmith's hammer, a sledge-hammer. -gȧji ; or -güjü; । लोहकारचुल्लिः f. a blacksmith's furnace or hearth. -hāl -हाल् । लोहकारकन्दुः f. (sg. dat. -höjü ; ), a blacksmith's smelting furnace; cf. hāl 5. -kūrü ; । लोहकारकन्या f. a blacksmith's daughter. -koṭu ; । लोहकारपुत्रः m. the son of a blacksmith, esp. a skilful son, who can work at the same profession. -küṭü -; । लोहकारकन्या f. a blacksmith's daughter, esp. one who has the virtues and qualities properly belonging to her father's profession or caste. -më˘ʦü 1 ; । लोहकारमृत्तिका f. (for 2, see [khāra 3] ), 'blacksmith's earth,' i.e. iron-ore. -nĕcyuwu -न्यचिवु&below; । लोहकारात्मजः m. a blacksmith's son. -nay -नय् । लोहकारनालिका f. (for khāranay 2, see [khārun] ), the trough into which the blacksmith allows melted iron to flow after smelting. -ʦañĕ -च्&dotbelow;ञ । लोहकारशान्ताङ्गाराः f.pl. charcoal used by blacksmiths in their furnaces. -wān वान् । लोहकारापणः m. a blacksmith's shop, a forge, smithy (K.Pr. 3). -waṭh -वठ् । आघाताधारशिला m. (sg. dat. -waṭas -वटि ), the large stone used by a blacksmith as an anvil.
"Early references to karū come from the Ebla tablets; in particular, a vizier known as Ebrium concluded the earliest treaty fully known to archaeology, known variously as the "Treaty between Ebla and Aššur" or the "Treaty with Abarsal" (scholars have disputed whether the text refers to Aššur or to Abarsal, an unknown location). In either case, the other city contracted to establish karū in Eblaite territory (Syria), among other things... By 1960 BC, Assyrian merchants had established the karū,[5] small colonial settlements next to Anatolian cities which paid taxes to the rulers of the cities.[6] There were also smaller trade stations which were called mabartū (singular mabartum). The number of karū and mabartū was probably around twenty. Among them were Kültepe (Kanesh in antiquity) in modern Kayseri Province; Alişar Hüyük (Ankuva (?) in antiquity) in modern Yozgat Province; and Boğazköy (Hattusa in antiquity) in modern Çorum Province. (However, Alişar Hüyük was probably a mabartum.)(a metal in trade transactions)... amutum, was even more valuable than gold. Amutum is thought to be the newly discovered iron and was forty times more valuable than silver. The most important Anatolian export was copper, and the Assyrian merchants sold tin and clothing to Anatolia." (Ekrem Akurgal: Anadolu Kültür Tarihi, Tubitak, Ankara, 2000, pp. 40-41). It is possible that amutum also relates to Vedic-Tocharian ams'u-ancu.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karum_(trade_post)
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Letter from Assyria to karum Kanesh concerning the trade in precious metals. 1850–1700 BC. Walters Museum (click on image for more info).
Tracing the Tarim mummies to the traditions associated with the veneration of the departed aatman, we find a remarkable parallel in Dholavira and Harappa of stone circles associated with death ceremonies. It is not unlikely that some of the mummies before they were mummies spoke Mleccha (Meluhha) language, not far from Kafiri (Nuristani) which was attested as a possible candidate by Frits Staal.(http://bharatkalyan97.
"The Tarim mummies are a series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BCE to the first centuries BCE. Many centuries separate these mummies from the first attestation of the Tocharian languages in writing. A 2008 study by Jilin University that the Yuansha population has relatively close relationships with the modern populations of South Central Asia and Indus Valley, as well as with the ancient population of Chawuhu. (Mitochondrial DNA analysis of human remains from the Yuansha site in Xinjiang Science in China Series C: Life Sciences Volume 51, Number 3 / March, 2008). The scientists extracted enough material to suggest the Tarim Basin was continually inhabited from 2000 BCE to 300 BCE and preliminary results indicate the people, rather than having a single origin, originated from Europe, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley and other regions yet to be determined.(Amanda Huang https://archive.today/bK4h)."
http://bharatkalyan97.
"Buddhist missionaries possesed liturgical texts in what is known as Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, a language originating in northern India...Whether from India or greater Iran, all of these languages were carried into the Tarim basin by religious communities or merchants from outside the region during the 1st millennium CE. A second group of languags are associated with documents that were not exclusively religious, but also adminsitrative. This may indicate that the languages were spoken by considerable numbers of the local population. Buddhists in the region of Kroran (Chinese Loulan), for example, employed an Indic language, Prakrit, in administration. Tocharian was used both to translate Buddhist texts and as an administrative language, which suggests that it was spoken by a wider range of people than exclusively monks. Another major language was Khotanese Saka, the language spoken in the south of the Tarim Basin at th site of Khotan as well as at northern sites suh as Tumshuq and Murtuq and possibly Qashgar, the western gateway into the Tarim Basin...And unlike Tocharian, which became extinct, there were small pockets of Saka speakers who survived in the Pamir Mountains...two main languages in the Tarim Basin that might be associated with at least some of the Tarim mummies of the Bronze Age and Iron Age: Khotanese Saka (or any other remnant of the Scythians or the Eurasian steppe) and Tocharian...Saka belongs to the eastern branch of the Iranian languages, which was one of he most widespread of the Indo-European family of languages spoken in most of Europe, Iran, India, and other parts of Asia...The sub-branch to which Saka belongs also included Sogdian, Bactrian and Avestan. Most archaeologists believe that the Iranian languages appeared earliest in the steppelands and only later moved southward through the agricultural oases of Central Asia into the region of modern Iran. The Iranian language group is very closely related to Indo-Aryan, the branch of Indo-European that occupies the northern two-thirds of India; these language groups presumably shared a common origin in the steppe region during the Bronze Age, perhaps about 2500 BCE." (Mallory, 2010, JP, Bronze Age languages of the Tarim Basin, Expedition, Volume 52, Number 3
http://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/pdfs/52-3/mallory.pdf pp.45-47)
Mallory goes on t provide select glosses comparing Saka with Tocharian B:
duva - wi (two)
drai - trai (three)
tcahora - s'twer (four)
hauda - sukt (seven)
sata - kante (hundre)
pate - pAcer (father)
mAta - mAcer (mother)
brAte - procer (brother)
ass- - yakwe (horse)
gguhi - keu (cow)
bar- - par- (bear, carry)
puls- - park- (ask)
In the Tarim Basin, in addition to Tocharian, administrative texts in Prakrit have been discovered; this is an Indian language from the terroritory of Kroran; the Kroranian documents date to ca. 300 CE providing the earliest evidence of spoken Tocharian.
Mallory continues: "From a linguistic point of view, we need to explain how languages from two major Indo-European language groups managed to spread into the Tarim Basin, and evaluate as far as possible whether they were the language spoken by those Bronze Age individuals whose remains were mummified...We also know that the Saka were known to the ancient Greeks as Scythians, and were clearly a people of the northern steppes, famous as horse-riding nomads who periodically challenged the civilizations to their south. They are attested in historical and archaeological sources from about the 8th century BCE...The one language group that is most clearly anchored in the Tarim, Tocharian, lacks any obvious external source..." (ibid., pp.49-50).
The search is on to trace the movements from Andronovo or Afanasievo cultures, the way the search is on for the Urheimat of PIE. Based on what Nicholas Kazanas has pointed out and argued, the search for Urheimat for PIE may lie closer to the river basin where most of Rigveda was composed and chanted: Sarasvati River Basin. This river basin attests a spoken, administrative language: Mleccha (Meluhha) which may include many mispronunciations of reconstructed IE glosses and expressions and closely associated with the Prakrits which may also be termed Proto-Indo-Aryan. Tocharian speakers got isolated from the rest of the Indo-Europeans but had apparent trade contacts with the Rigvedic people for exchanges of Soma (ancu) from Mount Mujavant (Muztagh Ata) of the Tarim Basin as argued with the evidence of cognates (Soma syonym) ams'u~~ancu pointed out by Georges Pinault.
So, with Frits Staal, Mallory and Mair have to answer the question posed earlier, why Mleccha (Meluhha) could not be the candidate among the IE languages to explain Tocharian languages.
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The concentric circles of timber posts found in Tarim Basin may also compare with concentric circles of stones found in Ukherda and Dholavira. See also polished stone pillars found in Dholavira and stone sivalinga found in Harappa.
![Ukherda Burial Ground]()
![Ukherda Burial Ground]()
Ancient graveyard, near Nakhtarna, Kutch: anthropomorphic menhirs![Ukherda Burial Ground]()
![Ukherda Burial Ground]()
Ukherda burial ground, cemetery.![Ukherda Burial Ground]()
Barrow Cemetery in India
Near Nakhtarana in Kutch, Gujarat, there is a large cemetery and cremation ground called Ukherda by the locals. There are also ancient hero and Sati stones. http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=26370
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Circle of stones at Dholavira.
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Remains of Circular hutments (?) joined in 8-shape with stone pillar fragments at the centre of each circle, close to the area where two polished stone pillars (sivalinga?) were found. Did these circular stone remnants, denote a smithy? In Kota language (Indian sprachbund, Mleccha-Meluhha) kole.l 'smithy, temple'.
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Three stone Siva Lingas found in Harappa. Plate X [c] Lingam in situ in Trench Ai (MS Vats, 1940, Excavations at Harappa, Vol. II, Calcutta): ‘In the adjoining Trench Ai, 5 ft. 6 in. below the surface, was found a stone lingam [Since then I have found two stone lingams of a larger size from Trenches III and IV in this mound. Both of them are smoothed all over]. It measures 11 in. high and 7 3/8 in. diameter at the base and is rough all over.’ (Vol. I, pp. 51-52)."
Using stone slabs in cremation samskara in Vedic tradition is attested from the days of Rigveda. "When the body is almost consumed by the fire the chief mourner carries an earthen pot (the one in which fire was brought) filled with water on his shoulders and walks thrice round the burning pyre. A man walks with him piercing with a stone called the ashma or life-stone a hole in the jar out of which water spouts round the burning corpse. He finally throws the trickling water pot backwards over the shoulders spilling the water over the ground. Then, he pours libations of water mixed with sesamum on the ashma to cool the spirit of the dead which has been heated by the fire. The ashma is carefully preserved for ten days. The mourners also pour such water on the ashma. When the body is completely consumed, the party returns. During the first ten days, all closely related persons belonging to the family observe mourning called sutak." http://akola.nic.in/gazetteers/maharashtra/people_rituals.html As'ma is the symbolic stone of the departed aatman which is used during the samskara performances lasting upto 13 days after the cremation. अश्म 1 [p = 114 , 1] ifc. for. 2 / अश्मन् , a stone Pa1n2. 5-4, 94th as'man *= 2 %{A} m. (once %{azma4n} S3Br. iii), a stone, rock RV. &c.; a precious stone RV. v, 47, 3 S3Br. vi; any instrument made of stone (as a hammer &c.) RV. &c.; thunderbolt RV. &c.; a cloud Naigh.; the firmament RV. v, 30, 8; 56, 4; vii, 88, 2 [cf. Zd. {asman}; Pers. {as2ma1n}; Lith. {akmu}; Slav. {kamy}].
http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/06/ancient-near-east-ziggurat-and-related.html
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The salty sands and freeze-drying climate of the Tarim Basin, where the mummies were found, are highly conducive to preservation. http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0111/feature2_1.html
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http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php?topic=14315.0
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A Tarim Mummy and a reconstruction.
http://dienekes.blogspot.in/2011/05/on-tocharian-origins.html
S. Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Center
March 12, 2015
This hypothesis needs to be tested by archaeometallurgical and historical linguistic studies from an extended area from Ancient Far East to Ancient Near East. This is also an imperative in the context of a new start for Vedic and IE studies. Evidence of contact between Vedic and Tocharian has already been attested in the cognate expressions: ams'u (Vedic), ancu (Tocharian). The circular stones in funerary practices unite Tocharian and Dholavira. By the 6th century CE, the Brihat Samhita of Varahamihira also locates the Tusharas with Barukachcha (Bhroach) and Barbaricum (on the IndusDelta) near the sea in western India: bharukaccha.samudra.romaka.tushrah.. :(Brhatsamhita XVI.6). If contacts with area lived in by speakers of Kafiri (Nuristani) was a transit point, Tushara could also have arrived to settle in Barukachcha from this detour from Kyrgystan (Muztagh Ata), taking a caravan route south of the Oxus (Amu Darya) river. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tushara_Kingdom
What language did the people of Sarasvati-Sindhu doab river basins (with about 2,600 archaeological sites) speak? Given the evidence of Buddhist Hybrid Samskritam (BHS) in the Tarim Basin documents and the links between Rigvedic people and Tushara (Tocharian) in trade transactions of Soma (synonyms, metaphors: ams'u, ancu), a proto-BHS, or Proto-Indo-Aryan, or Early Indo-European, Mleccha (Meluhha) is suggested as the language of the metalworkers of the Bronze Age. Mleccha, 'copper' (Samskritam) provides the profession of Mleccha-speakers, 'metal workers', also referred to by cognate expressions: Milakkha (Pali), Meluhha (Akkadian on a Shu-ilishu cylinder seal). A reference to the metalworkers is contained in the expression used in Rigveda to denote the people in general by Rigveda Rishi Visvamitra: Bharatam Janam, 'lit. metalworker people'. Chandas, 'prosody' represented the liturgical version of an Indo-European language and Mleccha/Meluhha 'parole or speech' represented the administrative version of the language used predominantly by trader caravans (as attested by Tarim Mummies and the Tin Road from Asshur to Kanesh in Ancient Near East), by metalworkers, in general and by specialist cire perdue metalcasters, dhokra kamar, in particular. The expression, kamar is an Indo-European gloss: karmāˊra m. ʻ blacksmith ʼ RV. [EWA i 176 < stem *karmar -- ~ karman -- , but perh. with ODBL 668 ← Drav. cf. Tam. karumā ʻ smith, smelter ʼ whence meaning ʻ smith ʼ was transferred also to
Md. kan̆buru ʻ blacksmith ʼ.(CDIAL 2898). kamar 'artisan, smith, smelter' (Santali) karum (Akkadian: kārum "quay, port, commercial district", plural kārū, from Sumerian kar "fortification (of a harbor), break-water" is also perhaps an expression related to karumā 'smith, smelter' or khārun,'the trough into which the blacksmith allows melted iron to flow after smelting' (Kashmiri, see below) of this Indian sprachbund.
The roots of the expression are found in Kashmiri where a number of compounds are attested and hence provide the trade route across Karakoram and Pamir, from Muztagh Ata through Kashmir to Sarasvati-Sindhu river basins: khār 1
"Early references to karū come from the Ebla tablets; in particular, a vizier known as Ebrium concluded the earliest treaty fully known to archaeology, known variously as the "Treaty between Ebla and Aššur" or the "Treaty with Abarsal" (scholars have disputed whether the text refers to Aššur or to Abarsal, an unknown location). In either case, the other city contracted to establish karū in Eblaite territory (Syria), among other things... By 1960 BC, Assyrian merchants had established the karū,[5] small colonial settlements next to Anatolian cities which paid taxes to the rulers of the cities.[6] There were also smaller trade stations which were called mabartū (singular mabartum). The number of karū and mabartū was probably around twenty. Among them were Kültepe (Kanesh in antiquity) in modern Kayseri Province; Alişar Hüyük (Ankuva (?) in antiquity) in modern Yozgat Province; and Boğazköy (Hattusa in antiquity) in modern Çorum Province. (However, Alişar Hüyük was probably a mabartum.)(a metal in trade transactions)... amutum, was even more valuable than gold. Amutum is thought to be the newly discovered iron and was forty times more valuable than silver. The most important Anatolian export was copper, and the Assyrian merchants sold tin and clothing to Anatolia." (Ekrem Akurgal: Anadolu Kültür Tarihi, Tubitak, Ankara, 2000, pp. 40-41). It is possible that amutum also relates to Vedic-Tocharian ams'u-ancu.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karum_(trade_post)
Letter from Assyria to karum Kanesh concerning the trade in precious metals. 1850–1700 BC. Walters Museum (click on image for more info).Tracing the Tarim mummies to the traditions associated with the veneration of the departed aatman, we find a remarkable parallel in Dholavira and Harappa of stone circles associated with death ceremonies. It is not unlikely that some of the mummies before they were mummies spoke Mleccha (Meluhha) language, not far from Kafiri (Nuristani) which was attested as a possible candidate by Frits Staal.(http://bharatkalyan97.
"The Tarim mummies are a series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BCE to the first centuries BCE. Many centuries separate these mummies from the first attestation of the Tocharian languages in writing. A 2008 study by Jilin University that the Yuansha population has relatively close relationships with the modern populations of South Central Asia and Indus Valley, as well as with the ancient population of Chawuhu. (Mitochondrial DNA analysis of human remains from the Yuansha site in Xinjiang Science in China Series C: Life Sciences Volume 51, Number 3 / March, 2008). The scientists extracted enough material to suggest the Tarim Basin was continually inhabited from 2000 BCE to 300 BCE and preliminary results indicate the people, rather than having a single origin, originated from Europe, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley and other regions yet to be determined.(Amanda Huang https://archive.today/bK4h)."
http://bharatkalyan97.
"Buddhist missionaries possesed liturgical texts in what is known as Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, a language originating in northern India...Whether from India or greater Iran, all of these languages were carried into the Tarim basin by religious communities or merchants from outside the region during the 1st millennium CE. A second group of languags are associated with documents that were not exclusively religious, but also adminsitrative. This may indicate that the languages were spoken by considerable numbers of the local population. Buddhists in the region of Kroran (Chinese Loulan), for example, employed an Indic language, Prakrit, in administration. Tocharian was used both to translate Buddhist texts and as an administrative language, which suggests that it was spoken by a wider range of people than exclusively monks. Another major language was Khotanese Saka, the language spoken in the south of the Tarim Basin at th site of Khotan as well as at northern sites suh as Tumshuq and Murtuq and possibly Qashgar, the western gateway into the Tarim Basin...And unlike Tocharian, which became extinct, there were small pockets of Saka speakers who survived in the Pamir Mountains...two main languages in the Tarim Basin that might be associated with at least some of the Tarim mummies of the Bronze Age and Iron Age: Khotanese Saka (or any other remnant of the Scythians or the Eurasian steppe) and Tocharian...Saka belongs to the eastern branch of the Iranian languages, which was one of he most widespread of the Indo-European family of languages spoken in most of Europe, Iran, India, and other parts of Asia...The sub-branch to which Saka belongs also included Sogdian, Bactrian and Avestan. Most archaeologists believe that the Iranian languages appeared earliest in the steppelands and only later moved southward through the agricultural oases of Central Asia into the region of modern Iran. The Iranian language group is very closely related to Indo-Aryan, the branch of Indo-European that occupies the northern two-thirds of India; these language groups presumably shared a common origin in the steppe region during the Bronze Age, perhaps about 2500 BCE." (Mallory, 2010, JP, Bronze Age languages of the Tarim Basin, Expedition, Volume 52, Number 3
http://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/pdfs/52-3/mallory.pdf pp.45-47)
Mallory goes on t provide select glosses comparing Saka with Tocharian B:
duva - wi (two)
drai - trai (three)
tcahora - s'twer (four)
hauda - sukt (seven)
sata - kante (hundre)
pate - pAcer (father)
mAta - mAcer (mother)
brAte - procer (brother)
ass- - yakwe (horse)
gguhi - keu (cow)
bar- - par- (bear, carry)
puls- - park- (ask)
In the Tarim Basin, in addition to Tocharian, administrative texts in Prakrit have been discovered; this is an Indian language from the terroritory of Kroran; the Kroranian documents date to ca. 300 CE providing the earliest evidence of spoken Tocharian.
Mallory continues: "From a linguistic point of view, we need to explain how languages from two major Indo-European language groups managed to spread into the Tarim Basin, and evaluate as far as possible whether they were the language spoken by those Bronze Age individuals whose remains were mummified...We also know that the Saka were known to the ancient Greeks as Scythians, and were clearly a people of the northern steppes, famous as horse-riding nomads who periodically challenged the civilizations to their south. They are attested in historical and archaeological sources from about the 8th century BCE...The one language group that is most clearly anchored in the Tarim, Tocharian, lacks any obvious external source..." (ibid., pp.49-50).
The search is on to trace the movements from Andronovo or Afanasievo cultures, the way the search is on for the Urheimat of PIE. Based on what Nicholas Kazanas has pointed out and argued, the search for Urheimat for PIE may lie closer to the river basin where most of Rigveda was composed and chanted: Sarasvati River Basin. This river basin attests a spoken, administrative language: Mleccha (Meluhha) which may include many mispronunciations of reconstructed IE glosses and expressions and closely associated with the Prakrits which may also be termed Proto-Indo-Aryan. Tocharian speakers got isolated from the rest of the Indo-Europeans but had apparent trade contacts with the Rigvedic people for exchanges of Soma (ancu) from Mount Mujavant (Muztagh Ata) of the Tarim Basin as argued with the evidence of cognates (Soma syonym) ams'u~~ancu pointed out by Georges Pinault.
So, with Frits Staal, Mallory and Mair have to answer the question posed earlier, why Mleccha (Meluhha) could not be the candidate among the IE languages to explain Tocharian languages.
The concentric circles of timber posts found in Tarim Basin may also compare with concentric circles of stones found in Ukherda and Dholavira. See also polished stone pillars found in Dholavira and stone sivalinga found in Harappa.
Ancient graveyard, near Nakhtarna, Kutch: anthropomorphic menhirs
Ukherda burial ground, cemetery.
Barrow Cemetery in India
Near Nakhtarana in Kutch, Gujarat, there is a large cemetery and cremation ground called Ukherda by the locals. There are also ancient hero and Sati stones. http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=26370
Remains of Circular hutments (?) joined in 8-shape with stone pillar fragments at the centre of each circle, close to the area where two polished stone pillars (sivalinga?) were found. Did these circular stone remnants, denote a smithy? In Kota language (Indian sprachbund, Mleccha-Meluhha) kole.l 'smithy, temple'.
Using stone slabs in cremation samskara in Vedic tradition is attested from the days of Rigveda. "When the body is almost consumed by the fire the chief mourner carries an earthen pot (the one in which fire was brought) filled with water on his shoulders and walks thrice round the burning pyre. A man walks with him piercing with a stone called the ashma or life-stone a hole in the jar out of which water spouts round the burning corpse. He finally throws the trickling water pot backwards over the shoulders spilling the water over the ground. Then, he pours libations of water mixed with sesamum on the ashma to cool the spirit of the dead which has been heated by the fire. The ashma is carefully preserved for ten days. The mourners also pour such water on the ashma. When the body is completely consumed, the party returns. During the first ten days, all closely related persons belonging to the family observe mourning called sutak." http://akola.nic.in/gazetteers/maharashtra/people_rituals.html As'ma is the symbolic stone of the departed aatman which is used during the samskara performances lasting upto 13 days after the cremation. अश्म 1 [p = 114 , 1] ifc. for. 2 / अश्मन् , a stone Pa1n2. 5-4, 94th as'man *= 2 %{A} m. (once %{azma4n} S3Br. iii), a stone, rock RV. &c.; a precious stone RV. v, 47, 3 S3Br. vi; any instrument made of stone (as a hammer &c.) RV. &c.; thunderbolt RV. &c.; a cloud Naigh.; the firmament RV. v, 30, 8; 56, 4; vii, 88, 2 [cf. Zd. {asman}; Pers. {as2ma1n}; Lith. {akmu}; Slav. {kamy}].
http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/06/ancient-near-east-ziggurat-and-related.html
The salty sands and freeze-drying climate of the Tarim Basin, where the mummies were found, are highly conducive to preservation. http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0111/feature2_1.html
http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php?topic=14315.0
A Tarim Mummy and a reconstruction.
http://dienekes.blogspot.in/2011/05/on-tocharian-origins.html
S. Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Center
March 12, 2015