Mirror: http://tinyurl.com/nhlapeb

What is the purpose of Indus Script Decipherment? 

The purpose is to conclusively establish the identity of the people who created a civilization and to pin-down indicators of the language they spoke. 

In the absence of a decipherment of the Indus Script, there have been merely speculations on cultural significance of archaeological artifacts to delineate the 'religion' of the ancient people. 

Indus Script Corpora are archaeological artifacts, as epigraphs, inscriptions documented by the ancient people of Sarasvati-Sindhu Civilization.

With the decipherment of Indus Script Corpora as metalwork catalogues, a reconstruction of the significance of the associated artifacts (and life-activities of the ancient peoples of the civilization) can be suggested, beyond laukika interpretations as lokottara deductions, inferences and logical arguments.

The metalwork catalogues evidence:

1. significant contributions made by artisans of Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization to archaeometallurgy with particular reference to: a) creation of new alloys such as bharata (factitious alloys of copper, pewter, tin); b) creation of cire perdue metal castings using hard alloys and c) lapidary work by artisans engaged in gem-fixing tasks indicated by the frequently-used description in the script corpora of kundar turner (A.); kudar, kudari (B.); kundaru (Or.); kundau to turn on a lathe, to carve signified by the hieroglyph: one-horned young bull with a pannier and neck-rings.

2. incipient formation of janapada (peoples' republics) as artisan guilds with products manufactured in workshops taken into 'treasuries' by jāṅgaḍiyo  'military guard who accompanies treasure into the Treasury' (Gujarati) (Rebus rendereing of Indus Script hieroglyph: saṅgaḍa, 'lathe, portable furnace').

3. kāraṇī or kāraṇīka,  'the supercargo of a ship &c' is a frequently-used description in the metalwork catalogues of the script corpora suggesting extensive presence of guilds of seafaring merchants of the civilization.

Section I. Spoken language (vāk, 'parole') of the civilization: Proto-Prakritam (Meluhha)

The decipherment has demonstrated that the underlying language of Indus Script hieroglyphs is Proto-Prakritam (Meluhha/Mleccha), the spoken versions of the Indian sprachbund ca. 3500 BCE (the earliest date of the Harappa potsherd containing Indus Script hieroglyphs).

That the underlying language is Proto-Prakritam is confirmed in two levels: Object Level 1: words signifying the hieroglyphs such as trunk of elephant, tiger, rhinoceros, buffalo are part of Proto-Prakritam lexis (vocabulary set); Rebus Cipher Level 2: words signifying rebus rendering of metalwork words such as furnace, smelter, copper, iron, zinc, tin, hard alloy, bharat (alloy of copper, pewter, tin), dhokra, cire perdue metal casting are part of Proto-Prakritam lexis (vocabulary set).

The areas lived-in by the ancient artisans constituted an Indian sprachbund (speech area) which resulted in the formation and evolution of all languages of ancient India.

This Proto-Prakritam of ca. 3500 BCE is consistent with the following map outlining Indian sprachbund zone of Northern South Asia during 8th to 4th millennia BCE, principally along the Sindhu-Sarasvati-Ganga-Narmada river basins.


Indian sprachbund
[After Franklin C. Southworth, 2005    Linguistic archaeology of South Asia, London: Routledge-Curzon (for the Table of Contents and chapter summaries, download LASAcontents.pdf). MLECCHA and VEDIC are added as overlays, on the language categories maped by Southworth.]

Map of Bronze Age sites of eastern India and neighbouring areas: 1. Koldihwa; 2.Khairdih; 3. Chirand; 4. Mahisadal; 5. Pandu Rajar Dhibi; 6.Mehrgarh; 7. Harappa;8. Mohenjo-daro; 9.Ahar; 10. Kayatha; 11.Navdatoli; 12.Inamgaon; 13. Non PaWai; 14. Nong Nor;15. Ban Na Di andBan Chiang; 16. NonNok Tha; 17. Thanh Den; 18. Shizhaishan; 19. Ban Don Ta Phet [After Fig. 8.1 in: Charles Higham, 1996, The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia,  Cambridge University Press].

http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2015/02/maritime-meluhha-tin-road-links-far.html

Austroasiatic languages map (in German) from H.-J. Pinnow's Versuch einer historischen Lautlehre der Kharia-Sprache, 1958: map
Austroasiatic Languages:
Munda (Eastern India) and
Mon-Khmer (NE India, mainland SE Asia, Malaysia, Nicobars) [Site maintained by Patricia Donegan and David Stampe]

Lexicography:

• Munda Lexical Archive, an ongoing copylefted archive of most of the lexical materials available from the non-Kherwarian Munda languages, assembled, analyzed, and arranged by Patricia J. Donegan & David Stampe. A detailed description with credits is forthcoming. For now see 00README. (A current snapshot of the whole is available for download as a zip archive: munda-archive.zip)
  • Sora (Saora, Savara), data of G. V. Ramamurti, Verrier Elwin, H. S. Biligiri, David Stampe, Stanley Starosta, Bijoy P. Mahapatra, Ranganayaki Mahapatra, Arlene R. K. Zide, Khageswar Mahapatra, Piers Vitebsky, Patricia J. Donegan, et al.
  • Gorum (Parengi), data of Arlene R. K. Zide et al.
  • Gutob (Gadaba), data of Norman H. Zide, Bimal Prasad Das, Patricia J. Donegan, et al.
  • Remo (Bonda), data of Verrier Elwin, Frank Fernandez, S. Bhattacharya, Patricia J. Donegan, et al.
  • Gta' (Didayi), data of Suhas Chatterji, P. N. Chakravarti, Norman H. Zide, Khageswar Mahapatra, Patricia J. Donegan, et al.
  • Kharia, data of H. Floor, H. Geysens, H. S. Biligiri, Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow, et al.
  • Juang, data of Verrier Elwin, Dan M. Matson, Bijoy P. Mahapatra, Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow, et al.
  • Korku, data of Norman H. Zide, Beryl A. Girard, Patricia J. Donegan, et al.
• Santali, a growing selection of Paul Otto Bodding's 5-volume A Santal Dictionary (Oslo, Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, 1929-1936), input by Makoto Minegishi and associates, ILCAA, Tokyo, but so far of limited value since it is accessible only by searching for an exactly spelled Santali headword! .

Etymology:

• Munda:
  • Comparative Munda (mostly North), rough draft ed. Stampe, based on Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow's Versuch einer historischen Lautlehre der Kharia-Sprache(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1959) and Ram Dayal Munda's Proto-Kherwarian Phonology, unpublished MA thesis, University of Chicago, 1968.
  • Working files of South Munda lexical data by gloss assembled from collections of David Stampe, Patricia Donegan, H.-J. Pinnow, Sudhibhushan Bhattacharya, and Norman and Arlene Zide for a seminar by Stampe on Austroasiatic languages.
• Indian Substratum: South Asia Residual Vocabulary Assemblage (SARVA), a compilation of ancient Indian words lacking apparent Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, or Austroasiatic origins, in progress by Franklin Southworth and Michael Witzel, with David Stampe.
• Dravidian: Thomas Burrow and Murray B. Emeneau's A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2nd ed. 1984. Accessible by search on headwords or strings, through the Digital Dictionaries of South Asia project, U. Chicago.
• Indo-Aryan: Sir Ralph Turner's A Comparative Dictionary of Indo-Aryan Languages, London: Oxford University Press, 1962-66, with 3 supplements 1969-85. Accessible by search on headwords or strings, through the Digital Dictionaries of South Asia project, U. Chicago.
• Sino-Tibetan: James A. Matisoff's STEDT (Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus) Project, at Berkeley. The first fruit of the project, Matisoff'sHandbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman: System and Philosophy of Sino-Tibetan Reconstruction (University of California Publications in Linguistics 135), 2003, can be downloaded from California's eScholarship Repository as a searchable pdf file. On the STEDT site is an index of reconstructions and a first set ofaddenda and corrigenda for HPTB. Electronic publication of STEDT is planned in 8 semantically arranged fascicles.

http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/austroasiatic/


https://kampotmuseum.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/austroasiatic-languages.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8e/Austroasiatic-en.svg/300px-Austroasiatic-en.svg.png

[Source: Vikrant Kumar, et. al., “Asian and Non-Asian Origins of Mon-Khmer- and Mundari-Speaking Austro-Asiatic Populations of India,” American Journal of Human Biology 18 (2006): 467.]




Paul Sidwell and Roger Blench propose that the Austroasiatic phylum had dispersed via the Mekong River drainage basin.

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/dravling/hopper5.html

Linguistic history of the Indian subcontinent

The languages of the Indian Subcontinent are divided into various language families, of which the Indo-Aryan languages and the Dravidian languages are the most widely spoken. There are also many languages belonging to unrelated language families such asTibeto-Burman, spoken by smaller groups. Linguistic records begin with the appearance of the Brāhmī script from about the 3rd century BCE.

Locus of the civilization area

As many as 80% or 2000 out of 2600 archaeological sites of the Indus Civilization are on the banks of River Sarasvati forcing a renaming of the civilization as Sarasvati-Sindhu Civilization. This discovery proved the reality of the Vedic River Sarasvati and continuum of settlements from ca. 8th millennium BCE in the doab.

Source: http://www.harappa.com/har/ancient-indus-sites.html


Section II. Cultural-religious indicators (sáṁskr̥ti, ʻput together, completedʼ Rigveda) of the civilization: īśāna ʻrulingʼ Rigveda; īśvará'master' (Atharvaveda); īsara 'lord' (Prakritam)

Yes, the people seemed to have venerated śivalinga. A version of a skambha, ekamukha linga is associated with sculptural friezes of Bhutesvar of 2nd cent. BCE signifying smelters for metalwork.

The association of a skambha, linga, is the earliest attestation of an aniconic signifier of some phenomena at work in converting mere earth and ashes into metal forms in a smelting process. This is the earliest evidence of the formation of a 'religious' explanation for the archaeo-metallurgical process as a manifestation of the cosmic process. This gets later signified as the cosmic dance by the orthographic representation of a tāṇḍava nṛtya of īśvará.


Worship of linga by Gandharva, Shunga period (ca. 2nd cent. BCE), ACCN 3625, Mathura Museum. Worship signified by dwarfs, Gaṇa (hence Gaṇeśa =  Gaṇa +  īśa).

This skambha, fiery pillar of light, seems to be of an infinite size with roots and end indeterminate, a concept represented in sculptural frieze of Darasuram, Airavatesvara temple. Both Brahma and Vishnu are signified as searching for the the beginning and end of the skambha as īśvará, now presented in an iconic form with multiple hands, hence multiple attributes.

The language revealed by the Indus Script cipher enables a link of the architectural forms with the ancient texts of the ancient Hindu civilization which provide enormous documentation on the cultural-religious facets of the Brahman, the paramāman -- cosmic version -- manifestation? -- of the mundane processes of the smelter, smithy, forge and anvil in metalwork.

The idea of the 'temple' is born. Hence, the same word which signified in Proto-Prakritam a smithy/forge is also used in the lexis to signify a temple, with, say, a linga. The word which signifies both smithy/forge and temple is: kole.l (Kota language).

There are artifacts of the civilization from Daimabad which show hieroglyphs being drawn on toy wheeled-carts. The hieroglyphs signify rebus: rango 'buffalo' rebus: ranga 'pewter'; karibha 'elephant trunk' rebus: karba 'iron'; kANDa 'rhinoceros' rebus: kANDa 'implements'; poLa 'zebu' rebus: poLa 'magnetite'; dula 'pair' rebus: dul 'cast metal'.

The idea of processions with utsava bera (images carried in processions) is an attested practice in the Hindu temple traditions.




Damaged circular clay furnace, comprising iron 

slag and tuyeres and other waste materials stuck with its body, exposed at 

lohsanwa mound, Period II, Malhar, Ganga river basin.


Furnace at Arisman, Sialk, Ghabristan, Set into a clay platform, the furnace consists of a lower bowl for collecting the metal and an upper ceramic chimney for holding the charge and charcoal, and for regulating the conditions in the smelt. This furnace was re-used at least 30 times. Image courtesy of Barbara Helwing and the Arisman Photographi Archive. (After Fig. 7 in Thornton Christopher Peter, 2009, The emergence of complex metallurgy on the Iranian plateau: escaping the Levant, J. World. Prehist. (2009) 22: 301-327).

Ghabristan-style crucibles found in one of the metallurgical workshops of Period II. Note how one of the crucibles (on the right) has been used (but not destroyed or discarded)  while the other remains unused. Image courtesy of Thomas Stollner and Gero Steffens of the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum. After Fig. 4 in CP Thornton (2009).

Archaeological attestation ofśivalinga in the civilization

In 1940, archaeologist M.S. Vats discovered three Shiva Lingas at Harappa, dating more than 5,000 years old. This rare archival photo shows that ancient Shiva Linga as it was being excavated from the Harappa site.Lingam, grey sandstone in situ, Harappa, Trench Ai, Mound F, Pl. X (c) (After Vats). "In an earthenware jar, No. 12414, recovered from Mound F, Trench IV, Square I... in this jar, six lingams were found along with some tiny pieces of shell, a unicorn seal, an oblong grey sandstone block with polished surface, five stone pestles, a stone palette, and a block of chalcedony..." (Vats, MS, 1940, Excavations at Harappa, Vol. II, Calcutta, p. 370) "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)."

See: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2015/04/sivalinga-in-dholavira-depicted-as.html Discussion on the association with smelting operations.

Yes, the people seemed to have venerated turbinella pyrum, śankha, using the conch-shell as a trumpet to produce the sound 'om' or using it as a ladle to feed the young children or as libation ladles to venerate pratimā or utsava bera or to perform abhishekam to śivalinga.

The orthographic features of Gaṇeśa adored and venerated in the Rigveda seem traceable in the artifacts of joined animals and joined animal parts, e.g. an elephant head with trunk decorated with a fan or an elephant head with trunk superimposed by the horn of a buffalo.

"Slide 44. harappa.com Elephant figurine head with painted designs from Harappa. It is unknown whether elephants were domesticated in the Indus Civilization. However, one of the few elephant figurines from Harappa is a head with large stylized ears and red and white stripes painted across the face. This may mirror the custom of decorating domesticated elephants (red and white are common colors) for ceremonies or rituals that is still practiced in South Asia. Elephant bones have also been found at Harappa. Approximate dimensions (W x H(L) x D): 5.4 x 4.8 x 4.6 cm. (Photograph by Richard H. Meadow)". Harappa, Lot 800-01 Harappa Museum, H87-348. "Elephant head with stylized wide spread ears. Traces of red and white paint bands are visible on the face. Painting of elephants for ritual processions is a common practice in traditional India and the main colors are red and white. This figurine may represent a tame elephant or an elephant that is being marked for sacrifice. Hand formed and incised. Material: terra cotta." 

Three-headed: elephant, buffalo, bottom jaw of a feline. NS 91.02.32.01.LXXXII. Dept. of Archaeology, Karachi. EBK 7712

Hieroglyph: karabha 'trunk of elephant' (Pali) ibha 'elephant' (Samskritam) Rebus: karba 'iron' rango 'buffalo bull' Rebus: ranga 'pewter, solder' kola 'tiger' Rebus: kol 'working in iron'

Hieroglyphs and rebus readings: mũh 'face' Rebus: mũhe 'ingot' kola 'woman' kola 'tiger' Rebus: kol 'working in iron' Nahali (kol ‘woman’) and Santali (kul ‘tiger’; kol ‘kolhe, smelter’)

Ligatured glyph on copper tablet. m571B (serpent-like tail, horns, body of ram, elephant trunk, hindlegs of tiger). Hieroglyph: miṇḍāl 'markhor' (Tōrwālī) meḍho a ram, a sheep' Rebus: meD 'iron' poLa 'zebu' Rebus: poLa 'magnetite' paTam 'snake hood' Rebus: padm 'sharpness' karabha 'trunk of elephant' (Pali) Rebus: karba 'iron'

Terracotta. Tiger, bovine, elephant, Nausharo NS 92.02.70.04 h. 6.76 cm; w. 4.42; l. 6.97 cm. Centre for Archaeological Research Indus Balochistan, Musée Guimet, Paris.

harappa.com "Slide 88. Three objects (harappa.com) Three terra cotta objects that combine human and animal features. These objects may have been used to tell stories in puppet shows or in ritual performances. On the left is a seated animal figurine with female head. The manner of sitting suggests that this may be a feline, and a hole in the base indicates that it would have been raised on a stick as a standard or puppet. The head is identical to those seen on female figurines with a fan shaped headdress and two cup shaped side pieces. The choker with pendant beads is also common on female figurines. Material: terra cotta Dimensions: 7.1 cm height, 4.8 cm length, 3.5 cm width Harappa, 2384 Harappa Museum, HM 2082 Vats 1940: 300, pl. LXXVII, 67 In the center is miniature mask of horned deity with human face and bared teeth of a tiger. A large mustache or divided upper lip frames the canines, and a flaring beard adds to the effect of rage. The eyes are defined as raised lumps that may have originally been painted. Short feline ears contrast with two short horns similar to a bull rather than the curving water buffalo horns. Two holes on either side allow the mask to be attached to a puppet or worn as an amulet. 

Material: terra cotta Dimensions: 5.24 height, 4.86 width Harappa Harappa Museum, H93-2093 Meadow and Kenoyer, 1994 On the right is feline figurine with male human face. The ears, eyes and mouth are filled with black pigment and traces of black are visible on the flaring beard that is now broken. The accentuated almond shaped eyes and wide mouth are characteristic of the bearded horned deity figurines found at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro (no. 122, 123). This figurine was found in a sump pit filled with discarded goblets, animal and female figurines and garbage. It dates to the final phase of the Harappan occupation, around 2000 B. C.

Harappa, Lot 5063-1 Harappa Museum, H94-2311 Material: terra cotta Dimensions: 5.5 cm height, 12.4 cm length, 4.3 cm width 

http://www.harappa.com/indus/88.html

 

                                                                                                             

masks/amulets and 

                                        Slide72. Two composite anthropomorphic / animal figurines from Harappa. Whether or not the attachable water buffalo horns were used in magic or other rituals, unusual and composite animals and anthropomorphic/animal beings were clearly a part of Indus ideology. The ubiquitous "unicorn" (most commonly found on seals, but also represented in figurines), composite animals and animals with multiple heads, and composite anthropomorphic/animal figurines such as the seated quadruped figurines with female faces, headdresses and tails offer tantalizing glimpses into a rich ideology, one that may have been steeped in mythology, magic, and/or ritual transformation. 
Approximate dimensions (W x H(L) x D) of the larger figurine: 3.5 x 7.1 x 4.8 cm. (Photograph by Richard H. Meadow)

See: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2015/01/multiplex-as-metaphor-ligatures-on.html

An extension of the continuing tradition of hieroglyph-multiplexes in Indus Script Corpora find their expression in the orthographic signifier of  Gaṇeśa in the following sculptural representations of the historical periods of Indian sprachbund.

A scupture of Gaṇeśa was found in Yogyakarta Islamic University dated to c. 9th century.

Thus, above sections 

-- Section I. Spoken language (vāk, 'parole') of the civilization: Proto-Prakritam (Meluhha) and Section II. Cultural-religious indicators (sáṁskr̥ti, ʻput together, completedʼ Rigveda) of the civilization:  īśāna ʻrulingʼ Rigveda; īśvará 'master' (Atharvaveda); īsara 'lord' (Prakritam) --

demonstrate the significance of Indus Script Cipher in unraveling the cultural-language continuum of Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization in Ancient Hindu traditions.

It is possible to infer why Gaṇeśa is rendered iconographically with an elephant trunk ligatured to a human body. The tradition has evolved in Indian sprachbund which defines kole.l as a smithy/forge and kole.l as 'temple' with the invocation of Gaṇeśa before any human undertaking or endeavour, praying for the successful completion of the tasks of the worshipper in perfection, without any hindrances, impediments, obstructions or blemish. The mantra of the Rigveda RV 2.23.1 explains the tradition:  gaṇānāṃ tvā gaṇapatiṃ havāmahe is a celebration of the kaví ʻ wise ʼ RV., m. ʻ wise man, poet ʼ RV., °ika -- m. lex. Pa. Pk. kavi -- m., Pk. kaï -- m., Si. kivi ES 25 but ← Pa.(CDIAL 2964). 

http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2015/11/utsava-bera-pola-and-winnowing-fan-kul.html

It is this mantra of the Rigveda tradition which finds expression in some hieroglyph-multiplexes of Indus Script Corpora of metalwork. The hieroglyph-multiplexes include depictions such as an elephant trunk ligatured to the body of an antelope, the face of a human, scarfs on neck (dhatu 'scarf' rebus: dhatu 'mineral'), forelegs of a hoofed bovine, hindlegs of a feline, horns of a zebu (bos indicus), tail as hood of a snake -- all signifying metalwork components.
Example of hieroglyph-multiplex on Indus Script Corpora. (Note: the strands of rope signify Sindhi. dhāī f. ʻ wisp of fibres added from time to time to a rope that is being twisted ʼ, Lahnda. dhāī˜ f. rebus: धावड dhavaḍa  'iron smelters'; kaṁḍa-- m. ʻ backbone ʼ(Prakritam) rebus: khaNDa 'metal implements'; karNika 'rim of jar' rebus: karNika 'supercargo'.)

The lokottara analytical framework provides a basis for the narration of ancient history of Bhāratam Janam who were remarkable metalworkers who have handed down a tradition of signifying work as worship.

That the creators of the Indus Script Corpora are Bhāratam Janam is evidenced by the finds of two terracotta toys at Nausharo. The toys show sindhur (red vermilion) on the mAng or hair-partings, a tradition to signify married status of a woman which is an abiding tradition of Bhāratam Janam.

Nausharo: female figurines. Wearing sindhur at the parting of the hair. Hair painted black, ornaments golden and sindhur red. Period 1B, 2800 – 2600 BCE. 11.6 x 30.9 cm.[After Fig. 2.19, Kenoyer, 1998].

This is the most emphatic evidence attesting that the writing system evidenced by Indus Script Corpora and the underlying Proto-Prakritam language of the inscriptions are the heritage of Bhāratam Janam. The same Bhāratam Janam continue to use the hieroglyph-multiplexes of Indus Script on punch-marked and cast coins all over Bhāratam, during the historical periods.

Dhanyosmi.

S. Kalyanaraman
Sarasvati Research Center
November 9, 2015