3 Idiots - All is not well

Watched "3 Idiots" - All is not well, more hype than substance, good acting and comedy but poor storyline, especially compared with the earlier films of the director RH and the actor AK. I just could not help compare its story (especially the second half) with really innovative stories of Munna Bhai series, Rang De Basanti, Lagaan, Taare Zameen Pe... Compared with these earlier films of RH and AK, 3 idiots is pretty old wine in new bottle, 3 idiots could not rise beyond the memories of Dil Chahta Hai kind of friendship movies...I had somewhat higher expectations from innovative artists like RH (director) and Aamir Khan. I did like the film 3 idiots, however, it is not a classic in the league of other Aamir films...

Well, just found that I am not alone in my mixed response to the film:
Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave the film three out of five stars and states: "Going home after watching 3 Idiots I felt like I'd just been to my favourite restaurant only to be a tad under-whelmed by their signature dish. It was a satisfying meal, don't get me wrong, but not the best meal I'd been expecting." [38] Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL India too criticized the length of the film. " A 20-reeler – ‘3 idiots’ is 3 hours long! By all standards that’s too long a time, especially when the audience has shrinking tolerance level and attention span. It could have easily been shorter had the director preferred editing out some scenes," he remarks.[39] Shubhra Gupta of Indian Express gave 3 out of 5 star and criticized movie saying "The emotional truth that shone through both the ‘Munnabhai’ movies doesn’t come through strongly enough in '3 Idiots'".

Online Course on Indian Films and Religions

Ghazals on classical raga

Note: MH - Mehdi Hassan, JS, CS - Jagjit & Chitra Singh, GA - Ghulam Ali

Ahir Bhairav
Jab bhi aati hai teri yaad kabhi shaam MH
Hume koi gham MH
O Laagi re - MH

Bageshri
Aapko bhool jaaye hum (CS) mishra kaafi
Kaise kaise log – MH
Dilki baat labope MH
Ab koi baat bhi meri
Ek naye modpe MH

Bahar
Phool hi phool khil uthe - MH

Bhairav
Saamne hai jo use log JS (Bairagi)
Hosh-hasti (mangal) MH
Manzil na de chiraag na de JS

Bhairavi
Phir kisi raah guzar par shayad - JS
Meri tanhaiyon tum hi lagalo mujhko sinese - JS
Yeh dil yeh paagal dil mera (awaargi) - GA
Kabhi neki bhi uske ji men gar aa jaye hai mujhse - GA
Jo bhaje hari ko sada – Bheemsen Joshi
Main khayal hoon – MH
Yaaro kisii qaatil se kabhii pyaar na maa.Ngo MH
Yaaron Kisai Qatil Se MH
Apno ne gham diye MH

Raga Bhankar
Khuli Jo Ankh

Bhimpalashri
Zindagimen to sabhi pyar kiya karte hai - MH
Chupke chupke GA

Bhupali
Duniya kisi ke pyaar main – MH
He Govind, He Gopal, He Dayaal Lal - JS
Tum naa maano magar PU

Bhupeshwari (Jansammohini)
Abke hum bichhde MH
Dard badhkar fugaan na ho jaye CS

Bihag
Wo dil nawaz hai magar MH (with bhinna shadaj)

Bilawal
Yu na mil mujhse khafa ho jaise MH
Wo ke har ahad-e-mohabbat se mukartaa jaaye MH

Charukeshi
Aisa lagta hai zindagi tum ho – CS
Patthar ke khuda - JS
Main khayaal hoon kisi aur ka - JS
Dukh ki laharne chheda hoga - GA

Des
Chadariya jhini re jhini - AJ

Darbari
Hangama hai kyon barpa – GA
Ku ba ku fail gayi MH
Denewale mujhe maujon ki rawani de de – JS
Sunate hain ke mil jaati hai - JS
Jay Radha madhav Jai kunjbihari - JS

Gara
Raghupati raghav raja ram - Bhajan
Thumak chalat ram chandra – Bhajan by Lata
Patta patta boota – MH

Goud
Bhooli bisri chand ummeeden (MH) with Saarang

Jansammohini
Chirag-e-toor jalao (MH)
Jheel main chaand (PU)

Jangla Bhairavi
Khuda kare ki mohabbat – MH

Jayjayvanti
Raghupati raghav raja rama – Bhajan
Dost bankar bhi nahin saath nibhanevala - GA

Jhinjhoti
Sata sata ke hame – MH
Gulon main rang bhare - MH
Tanha tanha mat sochakar - MH

Jog
ye mojazaa bhii muhabbat kabhii dikhaaye mujhe MH

Jogiya
Gazab kiya tere vaadepe – MH

Kaafi
Pyar bhare do MH
chamte chand ko – aawargi GA (with Asavari)
Rafta rafta MH
Kabhi guncha kabhi shola kabhi shabnam JS
Ye haqeeqat hai – CS

Kalawati
Dil men aur to kya rakha hai - GA

Khamaz
Janakinath sahay – Bhajan by Pulaskar
Mohabbat karnewale kam na hoge MH
fiqr hii Thaharii to dil ko fikr-e-Khubaa.N kyo.n na ho MH
Yu zindagi ki raah main MH

Kirwani
Shola tha jal bujha hun – MH
Para para hua pairahan-e-jaan – GA

Lalit
Koi paas aya savere - JS

Malkauns
Kya bhala mujhko parakhne ka nateeza nikla MH
E roshniyo ke shahar bata MH
Mana ke musht-e-khak se badhkar nahin hun main - JS

Marwa
Garmiye Hasrat-e-Nakamse (with Sohni/puriya)

Majh Khamaz
Dil main ek lahar GA

Mand
Naqsh-e-khayal MH
Hum hee main thee na koi baat - maand

Miya Ki Malhar
Ek bas tu hi nahi - MH

Mishra Goud
Aaye kuchh abra kuchh sharab – MH

Pahadi
Dilmen ek lahar si uthi hai abhi - GA
Payoji maine rama ratan dhan payo – Bhajan by Lata
Chalo man – Bhajan by Pulaskar
Baat karni mujhe mushkil – MH
Jawanike heele haya JS
Kaun kahata hai ki mohabbat JS
Suna tha ki wo aayenge anjuman main JS
Badal jayega CS
Jo thake thake se hausle MH

Patdeep
Roshan jamaal e yaar MH

Pilu
Aadmi aadmi ko kya JS
Kaise chhupaau raaz-e-gham MH
Guncha-e-shauq lagaa hai khilne MH

Puriya
Ya devi sarva bhuteshu – Pt Jasraj
Tere khamosh hothose – PU
Ye haqeeqat hai – CS
garmii-e-hasarat-e-naakaam se jal jaate hai.n MH (with marwa sohni)

Rageshri
Ye dhua kaha se – MH
Gulshan gulshan shola – MH
Mujhe tum nazar se - MH

Sarang
Nawajish karam shukriya – MH
Ye kaisi mohabbat – JS

Shivranjani
Jo bhi dukh yaad na tha, yaad aya GA
Teri mehfil se MH

Todi
Jagmen sunder hai do naam, chahe krishna kaho ya ram – AJ
Milkar juda huye JS (Gujari)

Yaman
Ranjish hi sahi, dil hi dukhane ke liye aa - MH
Shola hun bhadakne ki gujarish nahin karta - JS
Tum nahin, gam nahin, sharab nahin – JS
Jal bhi chuke parvane MH

Tweeting the World\'s Longest Poem

Tweeting the World\'s Longest Poem

America is becoming Hindu, says Newsweek story

http://www.newsweek.com/id/212155

"America is not a Christian nation. We are, it is true, a nation founded by Christians, and according to a 2008 survey, 76 percent of us continue to identify as Christian (still, that's the lowest percentage in American history). Of course, we are not a Hindu—or Muslim, or Jewish, or Wiccan—nation, either. A million-plus Hindus live in the United States, a fraction of the billion who live on Earth. But recent poll data show that conceptually, at least, we are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians in the ways we think about God, our selves, each other, and eternity."


--

Indians are world's 'greenest' according to National Geographic Society and GlobeScan

Indians are world's 'greenest' according to National Geographic Society and GlobeScan

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/File-Indians-are-worlds-greenest-Survey/articleshow/4527041.cms

Programs in Ethnomusicology, Indian Film Studies, Comparative Religions, and Jainism

I have created Wiki pages (which are editable by anyone) of lists of graduate programs in Indian ethnomusicology, Comparative Religions of India, Indian Film Studies and Jainism Studies.

Grad programs in ethnomusicology of South Asia:
         http://indianethnomusicology.wikia.com/

Study of comparative religions in India:
         http://compreligionsindia.wikia.com/

Films Studies in India:
         http://filmstudiesindia.wikia.com/

Study of Jainism in North America and Europe:
         http://jainism.wikia.com/wiki/

Chindia (China and India combined) dominated World Trade until 1700 by more than half!

वैदिक मंत्र

(notation A - X.Y.Z :
Mantra number A is from Rig Veda Mandala X, Sukta Y, Mantra Z)
1 - 2.23.1
2 - 1.27.13
3 - 1.112.3
4 - 1.147.1
5 - 1.164.50
6 - 1.167.4
7 - 1.169.5
8 - 1.185.9
9 - 1.186.8
10 - 2.28.3
11 - 3.6.7
12 - 3.49.1
13 - 3.56.8
14 - 4.34.11
15 - 4.50.9
16 - 4.55.1
17 - 5.31.8
18 - 6.7.1
19 - 6.7.2
20 - 6.50.11
21 - 6.52.15
22 - 8.63.12
23 - 9.109.1-2
24 - 10.51.8
25 - 10.55.7
26 - 10.85.23
27 - 10.85.36
28 - 10.95.7
29 - 10.109.5
30 - 10.110.11
31 - 10.112.6
32 - 1.99.1
33 - 7.59.2
34 - 1.164.41
35 - 10.71.2
36 - 6.61.4
Thus, e.g., 33 - "Om trayambakam yajamahe sugandhim pushtivardham..."
is Rig Veda Mandala 7, Sukta 59, Mantra 2.

भारत और दक्षिण एशिया

Subject: Indian Influence in Ancient South-East Asia
A Cultural History of India
Edited by A.L. Basham
Oxford University Press, Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras 1975
Chapter XXXI: Indian Influence in Ancient South-East Asia
by ALASTAIR LAMB
BEGIN QUOTES:
Pages 442-443
By the opening of the Christian era the civilization of India had begun to
spread across the Bay of Bengal into both island and mainland South-East
Asia; and by the fifth century AD. Indianized states, that is to say states
organized along the traditional lines of Indian political theory and
following the Buddhist or Hindu religions, had established themselves in
many regions of Burma, Thailand, Indo-China, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Some
of these states were in time to grow into great empires dominating the zone
between metropolitan India and the Chinese southern border, which has
sometimes been described as' Further India' or' Greater India '. Once rooted
in South- East Asian soil, Indian civilization evolved in part through the
action of forces Of South-East Asian origin, and in part through the
influence of cultural and political changes in the Indian subcontinent. Many
scholars have described the eastward spread of Indian civilization in terms
of a series of 'waves'; and there are good reasons for considering that such
'waves' are still breaking on South-East Asian beaches today.
The cultures of modern South-East Asia all provide evidence of a long period
of contact with India. Many South-East Asian languages (Malay and Javanese
are good examples) contain an Important proportion of words of Sanskrit or
Dravidian origin. Some of these languages, like Thai, are still written in
scripts which are clearly derived from Indian models South-East Asian
concepts of kingship and authority, even in regions which are now dominated
by Islam, owe much to ancient Hindu political theory. The Thai monarchy,
though following Hinayana Buddhism of the Sinhalese type, still requires the
presence of Court brahmans (who by now have become Thai in all but name) for
the proper performance of its ceremonials. The traditional dance and
shadow-puppet theatres in many South-East Asian regions, in Thailand,
Malaya, and Java for example, continue to fascinate their audiences with the
adventures of Rama and Sita and Hanuman. In Bali an elaborate indigenous
Hindu culture still flourishes, and preserves intact many Indian ideas and
practices which have long passed out of use in the subcontinent; and here we
haven fossil record, as it were, which can be exploited to throw much light
on the early cultural history of India itself. The fact of Indian impact on
South-East Asian civilization, past and present, is, indeed, in no doubt.
Much controversy, however, has arisen over the precise way in which this
impact took place.
Page 443
The term South-East Asia, moreover, covers a very extensive area within
which there exists a considerable range of environments and ethnic types,
and throughout which there cannot possibly have been a uniform operation of
any one of the several likely processes of Indianization. Some populations,
like the Khmers, the Chams, and the Javanese, became heavily Indianized.
Others, like some of the tribes in Sulawesi (the Celebes), were indeed
subject to Indian influence, but lightly and, most probably, indirectly. Yet
others, like the Negritos of the Malay Peninsula, cannot be said to have
been Indianized at all.
Page 444
...It seems most probable, on the present available information, that
Indianization started in earnest in the period from the first century B.C.
to the first century A.D. There can be no doubt, at all events, that by the
fifth century A.D. Indian culture was widely known in South-East Asia, and
that Indianized states had appeared not only in regions with relatively
large populations practicing a settled agriculture, like Cambodia, Vietnam,
and Java, but also in remote and sparsely peopled districts like Kalimantan
(Indonesian Borneo) and Sulawesi (Celebes).
...Indian colonization of South-East Asia, on the pattern of European
colonization of North America or Australia and New Zealand, is no longer
regarded by the majority of scholars as a major factor in the initiation of
the Indianization process, which now tends to be interpreted in the light of
an expansion of international maritime trade.
Page 445
...It is certain however, that once the economic importance of the routes
from India eastwards through South-East Asia was established, they were
extensively exploited by Indians who, unlike the Westerners of this time,
left a lasting impression upon the South-East Asian cultural landscape.

We possess very little direct evidence as to the manner in which the
Indians, once they began to trade and travel widely in South-East Asia,
actually proceeded to Indianize the indigenous peoples with whom they came
into contact. It is clear, however, that more than one mechanism must have
operated and that there can have been no question of a single pattern of
events holding good for the whole region.
Pages 445-446
Such communities would no doubt provide an example for the techniques of
urban life along Indian lines and the practical advantages of the major
Indian religions, which could be copied by neighbouring indigenous
populations.
Another mechanism can perhaps be detected in the deliberate borrowing by
indigenous South-East Asian rulers of the techniques of Indian political
organization, of which they learned either from merchants visiting their
territories or from themselves visiting the early entrepôts. More recently
we have examples of this kind of mechanism at work in Asia in the efforts
towards self-Westernization made by Japan and Thailand in the latter part of
the nineteenth century. Here there was no blind swallowing in its entirety
of an alien culture: rather, specific aspects of Western civilization,
mainly technical and political, were married into the indigenous way of
life. The finer points of art, philosophy, and literature tended to be
ignored, Since ancient Indian political life was so inextricably bound, up
with the religious cosmology, one would expect that self-lndianization, as
it were, would result in the establishment, at an official level, of an
Indian-type religion in the charge of a brahmanical priestly caste, whose
role would be comparable to that filled today by Western advisers in an
under-developed nation.
Page 446
...The Chinese texts, confirmed by epigraphy, describe the founding of the
Indianized kingdom of Funan in Indo-China in terms which could well suggest
the career of the Indian equivalent of Brooke. Kaundinya, so the story goes,
guided by a dream, set out in search of a kingdom which he won by kidnapping
and marrying Willow Leaf, Queen of Funan, This tale was later phrased in
more orthodox Indian terms, with the brahman Kaundinya marrying Nagi Soma,
the daughter of the King of the Nagas, or serpent spirits, a legend
strikingly similar to that accounting for the origin of the Pallava Dynasty
of south India. The Khmers, whose empire was a successor state to Funan,
later adopted this story as their official myth, and the Naga motif came to
dominate their decorative art.
Pages 446-447
...Almost ubiquitous in South- East Asia, for example, is a category of
Buddha image showing very clear signs of Gupta or Amaravati influence; and
some examples of this can, on the established principles of Indian
iconography, be dated to very early in the Christian era. Specimens have
been found in Indo-China, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the
Philippines. The earliest South-East Asian inscriptions, some of which may
perhaps date to the fourth century A.D., show the use of a script generally
considered to be of a south Indian type, with little if any sign of
evolution in a South-East Asian environment. All this rather suggests the
deliberate acquisition by the first South-East Asian Indianized rulers of
the signs and symbols of Indian political organization, the language and
script of the brahmans, and the cult objects of the major Indian religions.
Page 447
...The cult of the Devaraja, the God King, though certainly expressed in
Indian terminology, developed, so many scholars believe, into a distinctive
corpus of political and cosmological ideas which lies behind the
proliferation of Khmer temples built in the form of mystic mountains and the
Javanese chandis which were not only places of worship but also royal tombs
and mechanisms, as it were, designed to link the dynasty on earth with the
spirit world. No more extreme examples of this cult, with its identification
of ruler with god,' be it Siva, Vishnu, or Buddha, can be found than in
Angkor Thom, the city of the late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century
Khmer ruler Jayavarman VII. Here, on the gateway towers of the city, and on
its central monument, the Bayon, the face of the king himself becomes the
dominant architectural motif. From all four sides of every tower of the
Bayon, Jayavarman VII looks out over his capital, his lips and eyes
suggesting an enigmatic and slightly malevolent smile. This is something
which the Roman emperors, who deified themselves in their own lifetimes,
would have understood, but which would have been beyond the comprehension of
the great Hindu and Buddhist dynasties of India. The Devaraja cult of the
Khmers, Chams, and Javanese Indianized kings has survived to the present day
in Thailand, where it explains many features of the modern Thai monarchy.
_________
Page 449
...Indianization, once initiated, did not come abruptly to a halt. Contacts
between India and South-East Asia along the trade-routes, once established,
persisted; and cultural changes in the Indian subcontinent had their effect
across the Bay of Bengal. During the late Gupta and the Pala-Sena periods
many South-East Asian regions were greatly influenced by developments in
Indian religious ideas, especially in the Buddhist field. The pilgrimages to
Indian religious centres like Nalanda, of which devout Chinese like Hsuan
Tsang and I Ching have left celebrated accounts, were also made by
South-East Asians, sometimes with much encouragement on the part of their
rulers. The Indonesian King Baladeva, for example, so an inscription
records, made in A.D. 860 a benefaction to the Buddhist university at
Nalanda. It should cause no surprise, therefore, to find a strong late Gupta
and Pala influence in many manifestations of Mahayana Buddhism in South-East
Asia. The art of the Sailendra Dynasty in Java, the builders during the
eighth and ninth centuries A.D. of Borobodur and many of the other
architectural glories of central Java, shows abundant evidence of this
particular influence, as also does the art of Srivijaya, a state which
dominated the Malayan and Sumatran shores of the Malacca Straits from the
seventh to the thirteenth centuries A.D.; and Pala influence can also be
seen to a varying degree in the major styles of the South-East Asian
mainland. Thus the great temple at Paharpur in Bengal, dating perhaps from
the seventh or eighth century, of which excavation has revealed the
ground-plan, may well be representative of an inspiration shared in common
by such widely separated monuments as Borobodur and Prambanan in central
Java, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and the Ananda temple at Pagan in Burma.
Pages 449-450
Inscriptions show that there was also a very close contact between many
South-East Asian regions and the Tamil kingdoms, particularly during the
period of the Chola Dynasty (ninth to thirteenth centuries A.D.). There were
Tamil trading settlements at this time at Baros in western Sumatra and at
Takuapa on the Kra Isthmus. Indonesian rulers endowed shrines in Chola
territory in India. This connection between both sides of the Bay of Bengal
was so important that, in the eleventh century A.D., it induced the Chola
kings Rajaraja and Rajendra to undertake demonstrations of their sea power
in the direction of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, with the probable
objective of securing a commercial monopoly rather than the acquisition of
territory. It is not difficult, therefore, to find explanations for the
presence of a Chola element in many South-East Asian arts and architectures.
Page 450
The Thais, once established in the Menam basin, underwent a process of
Indianization which, because it is well documented, provides an invaluable
example of the mechanics of cultural fusion in South-East Asia. On the one
hand, Thai rulers set out deliberately to Indianize themselves. They sent,
for example, agents to Bengal, at that time suffering from the disruption of
Islamic conquest, to bring back models upon which to base an official
sculpture and architecture. Hence Thai architects began to build replicas of
the Bodh-Gaya stupa (Wat Chet Yot in Chiengmai is a good example) and Thai
artists made Buddha images according to the Pala canon as they saw it. On
the other hand, the Thais absorbed much from their Khmer and Mon subjects;
and the influence of Angkor and Dvaravati is obvious in Thai art. Thai kings
embraced the Indian religions, and they based their principles of government
upon Hindu practice as it had been understood by their Khmer predecessors.
Hence the Khmer version of the Devaraja cult was absorbed by the Thai
monarchy; and traces of it survive to this day.
Pages 450-451
The thirteenth century, which saw the conquests of the Thais, also witnessed
two major developments in South-East Asian religious life, both, if
sometimes rather indirectly, the product of Indian influence. Theravada
Buddhism established itself as the dominant form of religious expression on
the South-East Asian mainland; and the saffron-robed monk became ubiquitous
in Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. This movement appears to have
originated in Ceylon and is unconnected, except in the most remote way,
with the Buddhism which came to South-East Asia in the first centuries of
Indianization.
Page 451
...But it seems that the actual conversion of South-East Asian populations
to Islam on a significant scale did not begin until the thirteenth century,
when Indian Muslim merchants from Gujarat or Bengal brought the faith with
them as their ancestors had brought the Hindu and Buddhist religions....
The conversion to Islam of much of island South-East Asia was the last phase
of Indianization which we can treat in the same terms as our discussion of
the earlier establishment of Hindu and Buddhist influence; for in the
sixteenth century the South-East Asian cultural scene was greatly
complicated both by the coming of the European empire-builders and by the
great increase in Chinese settlement. Indian influence, of course, has
continued up to the present; but it has done so in competition with the
influences of Europe and China, to which, in recent years, have been added
those of America and Japan. The Islamic conversion in South-East Asia took
place along lines very similar to those which marked the coming of Buddhism
and Hinduism in earlier-years. It was established by influence and example,
not by force; and there is no South-East Asian parallel to the Islamic
Turkish invasions of India. Once established on South-East Asian soil, Islam
began to acquire peculiarly South-East Asian features, the product of its
intermarriage with earlier cultural strata, both Indianized and pre-Indian.
Thus women in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines have not, as they
have in India and the Middle East, taken to veiling their faces in public.
The first South-East Asian mosques were not replicas of Indo-Saracenic art:
they were based on the forms of existing Buddhist and Hindu temple
architecture; and the dome is a late, and rather exotic, development in this
region. Many old pre-Islamic customs and ceremonies survived. Islamic
peasants continued to be entertained by stories from the Ramayana. Much of
Malay and Indonesian court ceremonial, marriage customs, and the like can be
traced without difficulty back to the days of Buddhist and Hindu dominance.
Page 452
The Indianization of South-East Asia was a slow and gradual process. With a
few exceptions like the Chola attacks of the eleventh century, it was
carried out by peaceful means; and in consequence, as it developed, it did
not build up a resistance to its further progress. Though its initial impact
was probably at the level of the ruling classes, Indian influences had no
difficulty in merging with indigenous cultures to create a series of
distinct South-East Asian amalgams in which it is now virtually impossible
to disentangle all the Indian from
the non-Indian. The result may not have simplified the task of the cultural
historian; but it has without doubt guaranteed the Indian heritage a place
in South-East Asian civilization from which it cannot possibly be dislodged
without the total destruction of that civilization.
Pages 452-453
Secondly, there are new theories about the reasons for the coming of Indian
influence to ancient South-East Asia and the way this influence spread.
These show a clear tendency away from a predominantly commercial or economic
interpretation of the process of Indianization (i.e. traders seen as the
main agents of the spread of Indian influence), let alone one based on the
assumption of large-scale migrations, abandoned long ago. Emphasis is now
put on brahmans or missionaries, or even on the initiative of South-East
Asians themselves, a development foreshadowed by Professor Lamb's adoption
of the term 'self-Indianization' to describe one possible mechanism of the
process. The frequent use of the words 'Sanskritization' or 'brahmanization'
in recent publications underlines this tendency. Archaeological evidence now
available also points to a slightly earlier date than that suggested by
Professor Lamb for the effective results of this Sanskritization in some
parts of South-East Asia, if not for its beginning.
Page 453
...As regards the extension of Sanskritization, which until recently was
thought not to have reached the eastern parts of South-East Asia, it has now
been shown that even the Philippines got a fair share of it, although it did
not result there in the establishment of lndian-inspired kingdoms as in the
more western and southern parts of the region.

श्री राम नवमी

SRI RAMA NAVAMI CHAITRA SHUKLA NAVAMI
The ninth day of the bright half of Chaitra

"Wherever four Hindus live, Rama and Sita will be there" so said Swami Vivekananda, one of the foremost harbingers of modern national renaissance of Bharat. The reverse also is equally true - wherever Rama and Sita live, the people there will remain and live as Hindus. Every hill and rivulet of Bharat bears the imprint of the holy feet of Rama and Sita. Sri Rama reigns supreme to this day in the hearts of our people, cutting across all barriers of province, language, caste or sect. Even the tribes living in isolated valleys and jungles have names like Mitti-Ram and Patthar-Ram. In some other tribes, every name carries the proud suffix of Ram, such as Lutthu Ram, Jagadev Ram, etc. In many northern parts of Bharat mutual greetings take the form of Jay Ramjee Ki.

Sri Rama has become so much identified with all the good and great and virile qualities of heroic manhood that expressions such as 'Us me Ram nahi hai' (there is no Rama in him) - meaning that a person has lost all manliness and worth - have become common usage. And when a Hindu quits the world stage, he is bid God-speed in his onward journey [with Ramanama satya hai or Raghupati Raghava raja Ram, patita paavana Sita Ram. In fact, the latter couplet has become the nation's bhajan par excellence.

Sri Rama's story, Ramayana, has been sung and resung in all the languages and dialects of Bharat. The tradition of writing epics centering round the saga of Rama's achievements started by Valmiki and Samskrit was continued by Tulsidas in Hindi, by Kamban in Tamil, by Ramanujan in Malayalam, by Krittivasa in Bengali and Madhav Kambali in Assamia and in fact, in almost every Bharatiya language. The tradition is being continued up to the present day. The Ramayana Darshanam of K.V. Puttappa, the national literary award of Bharat by the Jnana Peeth. The enchanting Geet Ramayana composed in Marathi by G.D. Madgulkar and set to tune by Sudhir Phadke is now thrilling the hearts of millions in Maharashtra. The various tribal groups too have sung the story of Ramayana in their dialects. Sri Rama, Lakshmana and Janaki mirror the ideals for millions of tribal boys and girls. The Khamati tribe in Arunachal Pradesh, which is Buddhist, depicts Ramayana as the story narrated by Buddha to his first disciple, Ananda, and carries the universal message of Buddha. How deeply significant that every group and sect even in distant and far-flung parts of Bharatavarsha should have found a radiant reflection of its own ideals in the form of Sri Rama!

The comparison of Sri Rama's fortitude to Himalayas and the grace and grandeur of his personality to the ocean – 'Samudra iva gaambheerye, dhairye cha Himavaan iva' - portrays how inseparably his personality has been blended into the entire national entity of Bharat. Where in lay the secret of this unique greatness in Rama's personality? He is called Maryaada-Purushottama - the great one who never deviated from the norms set by Dharma. In the eyes of the Hindu, the touchstone of human excellence is Dharma. Devotion to Dharma
came first in Rama's life and considerations of his personal joys and sorrows came last. It was his supreme commitment to putra-dharma (duty of a son) that made Rama smilingly depart to the forest for fourteen years at the bidding of his father. And this he did on the very day he was to be anointed as the future emperor of Bharat. He would not budge from the path of Dharma -
righteousness - even when his own preceptor, his parents, his brothers and the whole body of his subjects tried to dissuade him. He upheld the supremacy of Dharma in every one of his human relationships and hence became an ideal son, an ideal brother, an ideal husband, an ideal disciple. an ideal friend, an ideal kind and even an ideal foe. The one and supreme concern of Sri Rama's life was the welfare of his subjects. He would forsake everything else to uphold his kingly
duties - the Rajadharma. The night previous to his scheduled coronation, when Rama and Sita were alone in a happy mood in view of the next day's joyous occasion, Sita asked Rama, "What is that thing which hold dearest to your heart?" Rama fell serious for a moment and said, "Dear Sita, you know I love you most dearly, but I love the subjects of Ayodhya more and if their welfare demands, I would not hesitate to sacrifice even you!" The following couplet conveying this idea is cited often:
Sneham dayaam cha soukhyam cha yadi vaa Jaanakimapi,
Aaraadhanaaya lokasya munchate naasti me vyathaa.
And Sri Rama did live up to his words. When he felt that the call of his royal duties - Rajadharma - demanded the forsaking of Sita, he wavered not in carrying it out. The most crucial test came when Lakshmana violated the orders of Rama and admitted Durvasa to Rama's presence with a view to averting the destruction of Ayodhya by Durvasa's curse. Rama stuck to the law of the land and awarded death penalty to Lakshmana - one whom he loved dearer than his own life. It was with such a fiery faith that Rama followed the dictates of Dharma.

To such a one, how could power and pelf hold any fascination? When Bharata came to him in the forest and implored him to return to Ayodhya and become the emperor, Sri Rama firmly refused. Here was enacted a scene unparalleled in the annals of world history - each of the two brothers trying to out-argue the other to make him accept the emperorship of a great and mighty kingdom.

Sri Rama's role as one of the first and foremost national unifiers of Bharat is also unique and extraordinary. He embraced Guha, the forest Kind and ate in his house without the least hesitation. No sense of high or low ever touched his all-embracing love of his people.
He even enjoyed a fruit tasted and offered with devotion by Shabari, a tribal lady in the far south.
The Vanaras or the forest-dwellers too felt that Rama was their own. He endeared himself to them so intimately that they became, in fact, his chief allies against Ravana. All over Bharatavarsha, the dear, little squirrel with his three brown stripes bespeaks the devotion
to Sri Rama even among the animal world. Along with the Vanaras, a solitary squirrel had played his humble part in carrying sand for the construction of bridge to Lanka and Sri Rama's caressing of the little one on the back had left those indelible stripes for all future generations.

Sri Rama's intense adoration for the motherland has been immortalized by a legendary couplet which is playing on the lips of millions even to this day:
Janani janmabhoomischa swargaadapi garreyasi
(the mother and the motherland are to me greater than the heavens themselves).

The story of Rama is not that of a single towering personality dwarfing all others. The other characters like Sita, Lakshmana, Bharata and Hanuman too shine in their own greatness. All of them are so closely interwoven with Sri Rama's life and achievements that it is well-nigh impossible to think of any one without the other. In fact, the most popular picture of Sri Rama, i.e., of Sri Rama Pattabhisheka includes Sita, Hanuman and all his brothers. And in the bringing out of the greatness of all these partners of his life-drama, Rama's instinctive recognition of their merit and virtues played no mean part. He would always be the first to openly appreciate the unique and noble traits in others' character. Even for Kaikeyi, who was responsible for his banishment to forest, Rama had only words of kindness. And as for Ravana, the abductor of his wife, Rama's unstinted praise of his erudition and prowess at once lifts the story of Ramayana to heights unsurpassed in the annals of human history.

No wonder, the story of Sri Rama has crossed the boundaries of Bharat and inspired by many a distant people, their culture and literature. Indonesia - with Muslims forming 80% of her population - continues to adore Rama and Sita as her great cultural standard-bearers, and Ramayana as her national epic par excellence. Indonesia also prides herself in having the biggest drama stage in the world - with Ramayana as its chief attraction. And the credit goes to that country for celebrating the very first grand World Ramayana Festival some years ago.
The birthday of Sri Rama, indeed, signifies an event worth of remembrance by every one, whatever his country or race or religion, who cherishes the time honored sublime values of human culture and civilization.

The Indus ‘non-script’ is a non-issue (Hindu.com)

Date:03/05/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mag/2009/05/03/stories/2009050350010100.htm

The Indus ‘non-script’ is a non-issue
IRAVATHAM MAHADEVAN
There is solid archaeological and linguistic evidence to show that the Indus script is a writing system encoding the language of the region (most probably Dravidian). To deny the very existence of the script is not the way towards further progress.
The Indus script appears to consist mostly of word-signs. Such a script will necessarily have a lesser number of characters and repetitions than a syllabic script.

Photo Courtesy: ASI A Riddle still: Indus seals with long inscriptions.
Is the Indus Script ‘writing’?
“There is zero chance that the Indus valley is literate. Zero,” says Steve Farmer, an independent scholar in Palo Alto, California. “As they say, garbage in, garbage out,” says Michael Witzel of the Harvard University. These quotations from an online news item (New Scientist, April 23, 2009) are representative of what passes for academic debate in sections of the Western media over a serious research paper by Indian scientists published recently in the USA (Science, April 24, 2009).
The Indian teams are from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and the Indus Research Centre of the Roja Muthiah Research Library (both at Chennai), and backed by a team from the University of Washington at Seattle. They have proposed in their paper, resulting from more than two years of sustained research, that there is credible scientific evidence to show that the Indus script is a system of writing which encodes a language (as briefly reported in The Hindu, April 27, 2009).
This is a sober and understated conclusion presented in a refereed article published by an important scientific journal. The provocative comments by Farmer and Witzel will surprise only those not familiar with the consistently aggressive style adopted by them on this question, especially by Farmer. Their first paper, written jointly with Richard Sproat of Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland, has the sensational title, “The collapse of the Indus script thesis: the myth of a literate Harappan civilization” (Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 11: 2, 2004).
The “collapse of the Indus script thesis” has already drawn many responses, including the well-argued and measured rebuttal by the eminent Indus script expert, Asko Parpola, “Is the Indus script indeed not a writing system?” (Airavati 2008), and a hilarious and intentionally sarcastic rejoinder (mimicking the style of the “collapse” paper) by Massimo Vidale (“The collapse melts down”, East and West 2007). Here is a sampling from the latter: “Should we be surprised by this announced ‘collapse’? From the first noun in the title of their paper, Farmer, Sproat and Witzel are eager to communicate to us that previous and current views on the Indus script are naïve and completely wrong, and that after 130 years of illusion, through their paper, we may finally see the truth behind the dark curtains of a dangerous scientific myth.”
I am one of the co-authors of the Science paper. But my contribution is limited to making available to my colleagues the electronic database file compiled by me in collaboration with the computer scientists at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, and partly published in my book The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables (1977). I have no background in computational linguistics. However, I have closely studied the Indus script for over four decades and I am quite familiar with its structure. The following comments are based on my personal research and may not necessarily reflect the views of the other co-authors of the Science paper.
In a nutshell, my view is that there is solid archaeological and linguistic evidence to show that the Indus script is a writing system encoding the language of the region (most probably Dravidian).Archaeological evidence
Path-breaking work: Iravatham Mahadevan.
The strongest argument against the new-fangled theory that the Indus script is not writing is provided by the sheer size and sophistication of the Indus civilisation. Consider these facts:
• The Indus was by far the largest civilisation of the ancient world during the Bronze Age (roughly 3000 – 1500 BCE). It extended all the way from Shortugai in North Afghanistan to Daimabad in South India, and from Sutkagen Dor on the Pak-Iran border to Hulas in Uttar Pradesh — altogether more than a million sq km in area, very much larger than the contemporary West Asian and Egyptian civilisations put together.
• The Indus civilisation was mainly urban, with many large and well-built cities sustained by the surplus agricultural production of the surrounding countryside. The Indus cities were not only well-built but also very well administered with enviable arrangements for water supply and sanitation (lacking even now in many Indian towns).
• There was extensive and well-regulated trade employing precisely shaped and remarkably accurate weights. The beautifully carved seals were in use (as in all other literate societies) for personal identification, administrative purposes, and trading. Scores of burnt clay sealings with seal-impressions were found in the port city of Lothal in Gujarat attesting to the use of seals to mark the goods exported from there. Indus seals and clay-tag sealings have been found in North and West Asian sites, where they must have reached in the course of trading.
This archaeological evidence makes it inconceivable that such a large, well-administered, and sophisticated trading society could have functioned without effective long-distance communication, which could have been provided only by writing. And there is absolutely no reason to presume otherwise, considering that thousands of objects, including seals, sealings, copper tablets, and pottery bear inscriptions in the same script throughout the Indus region. The script may not have been deciphered; but that is no valid reason to deny its very existence, ignoring the archaeological evidence.
Another important pointer to the literacy of the Indus civilisation is that it was in close trading and cultural contacts with other contemporary literate societies like the Proto-Elamite to the North and the Sumerian-Akkadian city states (and probably the Egyptian kingdom) to the West. It is again inconceivable that a civilisation as urban and well-organised as the Indus could not have been alive to the importance of writing practised in the neighbouring literate cultures and was content with “non-linguistic” symbols of very limited utility like those employed by pre-historic hunter-gathering or tribal societies.Linguistic evidence
While denying the status of a writing system to the Indus script, Farmer, Sproat and Witzel point to the extreme brevity of the texts (averaging less than five signs) and the presence of numerous “singletons” (signs with only one occurrence). Seal-texts tend to be short universally. Further, the Indus script appears to consist mostly of word-signs. Such a script will necessarily have a lesser number of characters and repetitions than a syllabic script. Thus the proper comparison should be with the number of words in later Indian seals or cave inscriptions. The average number of words in these cases matches the average number of signs in an Indus text. There are, however, many seal-texts that are much longer than the average. (See illustrations of longer Indus texts). As for singletons, they appear to be mostly composite or modified signs derived from basic signs, apparently meant only for restricted or special usage. An apt parallel would be the difference in frequencies between basic and conjunct consonants in the Brahmi script.The concordances
Photo Courtesy: UNESCO A file photo of The Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro.
Three major concordances of the Indus texts have been published: a manually compiled edition by Hunter (1934), and two computer-made editions, one by the Finnish team led by Asko Parpola (1973, 1982) and the other by the Indian scholar, Iravatham Mahadevan (1977). All the three concordances provide definitive editions of the texts, sign lists, and lists of sign variants. The Mahadevan Concordance also provides in addition various statistical tabulations for textual analysis as well as for relating the texts to their archaeological context (sites, types of inscribed objects, and pictorial motifs accompanying the inscriptions).
The concordance is a basic and indispensable tool for research in the Indus script. It is a complete index of sign occurrences in the texts. It also sets out the full textual context of each sign occurrence. The frequency and positional distribution of each sign and sign combination can be readily ascertained from the concordance. A study of near-identical sequences leads to segmentation of texts into words and phrases. Doubtful signs can be read with a fair amount of confidence by a comparative study of identical sequences. Sign variants can be recognised to a large extent by studying the textual environment.
It is the concordance which conclusively established the direction of the Indus script to be from right to left on seal-impressions and direct writing (naturally reversed on the seals). The concordance also reveals the broad syntactical features of the texts, like the most frequent opening and terminal signs, as well as pairs and triplets of signs in the middle representing important names, titles etc. Numerals have been identified. As they precede the enumerated objects, we know that adjectives precede the nouns they qualify. This is an important result ruling out, for example, Sumerian or Akkadian as candidate languages. According to competent and objective scholars like Kamil Zvelebil and Gregory Possehl, the concordances are the most tangible outcome of the prolonged research on the Indus script.
The concordances have been criticised for employing “normalised” signs that are sometimes different from what are actually found in individual inscriptions. The differences are as between a handwritten manuscript and the printed book. All the three concordances employ normalised signs, as there is no other possible way of presenting hundreds of inscriptions and thousands of sign-occurrences in a compact and logical arrangement for analytical study. The concordances have also been faulted for differences in readings. The criticism overlooks the fact that the Indus script is still undeciphered and such differences are unavoidable, especially in reading badly preserved texts or in deciding which are independent signs and which are mere graphic variants.
The serious student of the Indus script will consult the concordances, but refer to the sources for confirmation. Statistically speaking, differences (or even errors in coding) in the concordances are marginal and have not affected the interpretation of the main features of the texts.
This was confirmed by an interesting study published recently by Mayank Vahia et al of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 37:1, 2008). They removed all the doubtfully read signs (marked by asterisks) and multiple lines (with indeterminate order) from the Mahadevan Concordance and analysed the rest, a little less than half of the total sign-occurrences. They found that the statistically established percentages of frequencies and distribution of signs and segmentations of texts remained constant, attesting to the essential correctness of compilation of the full concordance.The Dravidian hypothesis
There is archaeological and linguistic evidence to support the view that the Indus civilisation is non-Aryan and pre-Aryan:
• The Indus civilisation was urban, while the Vedic was rural and pastoral.
• The Indus seals depict many animals, but not the horse. The chariot with the spoked wheels is also not depicted. The horse and chariot with the spoked wheels are the main features of Aryan-speaking societies. (For the best and most recent account, refer to David W. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel and Language, Princeton, 2007).
• The Indus religion as revealed in the pictorial depictions on the seals included worship of buffalo-horned male gods, mother-goddesses, the pipal tree, the serpent, and probably the phallic symbol. Such modes of worship are alien to the religion of the Rigveda.
Ruling out Aryan authorship of the Indus civilisation does not automatically make it Dravidian. However, there is substantial linguistic evidence favouring the Dravidian theory:
• The survival of Brahui, a Dravidian language in the Indus region.
• The presence of Dravidian loanwords in the Rigveda.
• The substratum influence of Dravidian on the Prakrit dialects.
• Computer analysis of the Indus texts revealing that the language had only suffixes (like Dravidian), and no prefixes (as in Indo-Aryan) or infixes (as in Munda).
It is significant that all the three concordance-makers (Hunter, Parpola, and Mahadevan) point to Dravidian as the most likely language of the Indus texts. The Dravidian hypothesis has also been supported by other scholars like the Russian team headed by Yuri Valentinovich Knorozov and by the American archaeologist, Walter Fairservis, all of whom have utilised the information available from the concordances. However, as the Dravidian models of decipherment have still little in common except the basic features summarised above, it is obvious that much more work remains to be done before a generally acceptable solution emerges.
I am hopeful that with an increasing number of Indus texts, and better and more sophisticated archaeological and linguistic methods, the riddle of the Indus script will be solved one day. What is required is perseverance, recognising the advances already made, and proceeding further. To deny the very existence of the Indus script is not the way towards further progress.
Iravatham Mahadevan is a well-known authority on the Indus and Brahmi scripts. He is the author of The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables (1977) and Early Tamil Epigraphy (2003).
© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu

Is the Indus script indeed not a writing system? By Asko Parpola

Is the Indus script indeed not a writing system? By Asko Parpola

Is the Indus script a writing system or not? I represent the traditional view
that it is, and more accurately, a logo-syllabic writing system of the
Sumerian type. This paper is an enlarged version of the criticism that I
presented two years earlier in Tokyo, where it was published soon
afterwards (Parpola 2005). What I am criticizing is "The collapse of the
Indus script thesis: The myth of a literate Harappan Civilization" by Steve
Farmer, Richard Sproat and Michael Witzel (2004), where the authors
categorically deny that the Indus script is a speech-encoding writing
system.
Farmer and his colleagues present ten main points or theses, which
according to them prove that the Indus script is not writing:
1. Statistics of Indus sign frequencies & repetitions
2. ―Texts‖too short to encode messages
3. Too many rare signs, especially ―singletons‖4. No sign repetition within any one text
5. ―Lost‖longer texts (manuscripts) never existed
6. No cursive variant of the script developed, hence no scribes
7. No writing equipment has been found
8. ―Script‖signs are non-linguistic symbols
9. Writing was known, but it was consciously not adopted
10. This new thesis helps to understand the Indus Civilization better than
the writing hypothesis.
I shall take these points up for discussion one by one.
Statistics of Indus sign frequencies & repetitions
Firstly, Farmer and his colleagues claim that comparison of the Indus sign
frequencies ―can show that the Indus system could not have been a
Chinese-style script, since symbol frequencies in the two systems differ
too widely, and the total numbers of Indus symbols are too few‖ (Farmer
& al. 2004: 29). They also point out that signs are repeated within a single
inscription much more often in Egyptian cartouches than in Indus seals of
a similar length.
112 Airāvati
There is no difficulty to agree with these observations. There is a vast
difference between the Chinese script with its theoretically nearly 50,000
signs (and even in practice about 5000 signs) and the Indus script with
only about 400 known graphemes.
―But [as Farmer and his colleagues themselves conclude,] studies of
general sign frequencies by themselves cannot determine whether the
Indus system was a ‗mixed‘ linguistic script [that is, a logo-syllabic script
of the Sumerian type]... or exclusively a system of nonlinguistic signs‖
(Farmer & al. 2004: 29).
As this is an important point, my colleague Dr Kimmo Koskenniemi, who
is Professor of Computer Linguistics at the University of Helsinki,
verified from Dr Richard Sproat by e-mail in April 2005 that they both
agree on the following: ―Plain statistical tests such as the distribution of
sign frequencies and plain reoccurrencies can (a) neither prove that the
signs represent writing, (b) nor prove that the signs do not represent
writing. Falsifying being equally impossible as proving.‖
Rebuses were used very much from the earliest examples of the Egyptian
writing. Around 3050 BC, the name of King Narmer was written with the
hieroglyphs depicting ‗catfish‘ (the Egyptian word for 'catfish is n'r) and
‗awl‘ (the Egyptian word for 'awl' is mr). (cf. Gardiner 1957: 7). Egyptian
rebus-punning ignored wovels altogether, but the consonants had to be
identical (cf. Gardiner 1957: 9). Other early logo-syllabic scripts too,
allowed moderate liberties, such as difference in vowel and consonant
length. The Egyptian words represented by the hieroglyphs could contain
three or two consonants or just one (cf. Gardiner 1957: 25). Eventually
only the one-consonant signs were selected by the Egyptian-trained
Semitic scribes for writing their own language, but they were used
copiously also in Egyptian-language texts, and not only for writing
foreign proper names. This easily explains the difference in the statistics
between Egyptian cartouches and Indus seal inscriptions.
―Texts‖ too short to encode messages
The second argument of Farmer and his colleagues is that ―Indus
inscriptions were neither able nor intended to encode detailed ‗essages‘,
not even in the approximate ways performed by formal mnemonic
systems in other nonliterate societies‖ (Farmer et al. 2004: 42). One of the
two reasons adduced in support of this thesis is that the Indus inscriptions
are too short.
Parpola, Asko 113
But although the Indus texts have as their average length five signs, this is
quite sufficient to express short noun phrases in a logo-syllabic script of
the Sumerian type. We cannot expect complete sentences in seals and
other types of objects preserved (cf. Parpola 1994: 87). But even written
noun phrases qualify as language-based script — I shall return to this
point later.
The Mesopotamian seal inscriptions typically contain: a proper name ±
descent ± occupation (cf. e.g. Edzard 1968). In the most elaborate seals of
the high officials, this information is couched in an invocation addressed
to the King or other dignitary. Here are two examples of Mesopotamian
seal inscriptions: ―Adda the Scribe‖ ―O Sharkali- sharri, King of Akkad:
Ibni-sharri the Scribe (is) your servant‖. These Akkadian seals are
contemporary with the heyday of the Indus Civilization, and the latter one
in fact attests to contacts with it. The water-buffalo depicted in it was
imported to Mesopotamia from the Indus Valley during the rule of Sargon
the Great, King of Akkad (2334-2278 BC) and entered Mesopotamian
iconography towards the end of his 60 year long rule, to disappear from
the iconography and the faunal remains in the beginning of the second
millennium BC when the Indus Civilization collapsed (Cf. Boehmer
1975).
Not all Indus texts 2 are so short — for instance the one-line seal
inscription M-355 from Mohenjo-daro has 14 signs. But even a single
sign of a logo-syllabic script can convey a message. The single-sign seal
inscription H-94 from Harappa probably renders the occupational title of
the seal owner. Single-sign texts may consist of non-composite signs, but
here this single sign is a composite sign consisting of two component
signs. Many composite signs (like the one in the text H-94) have ‗man‘ as
the final component and may denote occupational titles such as ‗oliceman‘
or ‗ilk-man‘. Partially identical sequences show a functional
correspondence between compound signs and their component signs (cf.
Parpola 1994: 80-81 with fig. 5.3). The Egyptian script around 3000 BC
was used in a number of inscriptions, most of which were very short,
often consisting of just two or three signs. They recorded proper names
with a high percentage of rebus signs and thus qualify as writing.
Too many rare signs, especially ―singletons‖
The third argument of Farmer and his colleagues has been put into words
as follows: ―Further evidence that clashes with the Indus-script thesis
shows up in the large number of unique symbols (or ‗singletons‘) and
other rare signs that turn up in the inscriptions ... A number of inscriptions
114 Airāvati
also contain more than one singleton in addition to other rare signs,
making it difficult to imagine how those signs could have possibly
functioned in a widely disseminated ‗script‘‖(Farmer & al. 2004: 36).
It is true that around 25% of the about 400 graphemes of the Indus script
are attested only once (cf. Mahadevan 1977: 17; Parpola 1994: 78, table
5.1).
But if more texts are excavated, many of these ‗singletons‘ will occur
more than once; there will also be new rare signs. Many of the Indus
‗singletons‘ occur in the midst of more frequently occurring signs, which
helps their understanding. All logo-syllabic scripts had rarely occurring
signs, some of these scripts quite many. Chinese has very many rare signs,
and some of them do occasionally occur even in newspapers.
No "random-looking" sign repetitions within any one text
Although Farmer and his colleagues in passing refer to logosyllabic
writing systems of the Sumerian type and their functioning, their
argumentation implies that in order to represent a language-based script
the Indus signs should largely be phoneticized in the manner of the
Egyptian cartouches. However, in early logosyllabic scripts one sign
often stands for a complete word. Even a seal with a single sign can
express its owner, and there is mostly little reason for sign repetition in
short seal texts written in an early logosyllabic script of the Sumerian type.
The alleged lack of what they call random-looking type of sign repetition
is mentioned as the fourth and most important and critical evidence
against the thesis that the Indus script is a writing system: ―Most
importantly, nowhere in Indus inscriptions do we find convincing
evidence of the random-looking types of sign repetition expected in
contemporary phonetic or semi-phonetic scripts‖ (Farmer & al. 2004: 29-
30).
Farmer and his colleagues themselves admit that ―some Indus signs do
repeat in single inscriptions, sometimes including many repetions in a
row‖ (p. 31). However, they do not accept the evidence of such
duplications: ―Whatever the origins of these different types of
duplications, all that is critical for our purposes is to note again the lack of
any suggestions in them of the random-looking repetitions typical even of
monumental scripts like Luwian or Egyptian hieroglyphs‖ (p. 36).
The hieroglyphic signs drawn in black in fig. 1 mark the repetitions in the
cartouches of Ptolemy and Cleopatra; they were crucial in the
Parpola, Asko 115
decipherment of the Egyptian script. But these are the repetitions when
both of the two cartouches are taken into consideration. Farmer and his
colleagues speak of sign repetitions limited to single cartouches, in which
case Ptolemy‘s cartouche has only one sign repetition, namely the
duplication of the sign E, one after the other in a row, which according to
Farmer & al. does not count as a "random-looking" repetition. Within
Cleopatra‘s cartouche, there is likewise only one sign repetition, namely
that of the eagle-shaped sign for A. This latter case would qualify as an
example of a ―random-looking‖ sign repetition.
Fig. 1 : Cartouches of Ptolemy and Cleopatra: the Egyptian hieroglyphs and their
transliterations (with repetitions shown in bold). (After Parpola 1994: 41, fig. 3.1.)
But sign repetition within single Indus inscription DOES occur, also of
the ―random-looking type" completely missed by Farmer and his
colleagues. Such repetition occurs even in the ―bar-seals‖, which Farmer
and his colleagues (2004: 33) consider particularly crucial for the Indus
script thesis. The following counter examples by no means exhaust the
material.
In the 10-sign text M-682 from Mohenjo-daro, one sign is repeated three
times, two other signs are repeated twice, and all in different places, that
is, not in a row.
In M-634 from Mohenjo-daro one sign is repeated in three different
places. Farmer and his colleagues have noticed this case, but disqualify it
because in their opinion the ―sun symbol‖shows that non-linguistic
symbols are involved. Of course this sign can very well depict the solar
wheel with rays, as I have myself proposed on the basis of Near Eastern
and later Indian parallels (cf. Parpola 1994: 104, 106 fig. 7.5; 110; 116-
116 Airāvati
117). But, how do Farmer and his colleagues know that this sign has not
been used phonetically as a rebus sign: after all, it is precisely this type of
―random repetition‖that they consider as proof for phonetic usage!
In M-1792 (Marshall 1931: III, pl. 106 no. 93) from Mohenjo-daro one
sign (different from that of M-634) is also repeated in three different
places.
The seal K-10 from Kalibangan has ten signs. One and the same two-sign
sequence is repeated in two different places.
In the 11-sign text M-1169 from Mohenjo-daro, one sign is repeated in
two different places.
In the 8-sign "bar-seal" M-357 from Mohenjo-daro, one sign is repeated
in two different places.
I agree with Farmer and his colleagues that some of the sign duplications
in row imply quantification (cf. Farmer & al. 2004: 31). I shall come back
to the probable function of the small bifacial tablets later on. The
inscription on one side of them usually has just the U-shaped sign,
preceded by one to four vertical strokes for the numbers 1 to 4: UI, UII,
UIII, UIIII. In some tablets, such as H-764 from Harappa, the U-shaped
sign is repeated three times: UUU, obviously an alternative to UIII, where
III = number 3 is a numeral attribute (cf. Parpola 1994: 81). Farmer and
his colleagues want to deny the use of number signs as numeral attributes
of following signs; according to them they are independent symbols for
fixed conceptions: thus seven strokes should denote ―THE seven‖
However, different numbers clearly alternate before certain signs, among
them the U-shaped sign, clearly suggesting attributive use (cf. Parpola
1994: 81-82; 88; 120, fig. 7.21, I).
Farmer and his colleagues (2004: 31) surmise that the duplication of other
signs may emphasize their magical or political power. They do not
mention that such sign reduplications can reflect emphasizing linguistic
reduplications common in Dravidian (and other Indian languages)
especially in onomatopoeic words, or as grammatical markers, such as
Sumerian nominal plurals (cf. Parpola 1994: 82). There are also cases like
the reduplication of the sign ―dot-in-a-circle‘ that could depict the ‗ye‘.
Comparing the Dravidian words kaN ‗eye‘ and ka:N ‗to see‘, I have
proposed reading their reduplication as a compound word, namely kaNka:
Ni attested in Tamil in the meaning ‗overseer‘, a meaning that would
Parpola, Asko 117
suit very well for instance its occurrence on an ancient seal-impression on
a potsherd from Mohenjo-daro (M-1382) (cf. Parpola 1994: 215; 275).
"Lost" longer texts (manuscripts) never existed
All literary civilizations produced longer texts but there are none from the
Indus Valley — hence the Indus ―script‖is no writing system: Farmer and
his colleagues reject the much repeated early assumption that longer texts
may have been written on ―birch bark, palm leaves, parchment, wood, or
cotton cloth, any of which would have perished in the course of ages‖as
suggested by Sir John Marshall in 1931 (I, 39). Farmer and his colleagues
are ready to believe the ―Indus script thesis‖only if an Indus text at least
50 signs long is found.
But even though Farmer and his colleagues speak as if our present corpus
of texts was everything there ever existed, this is not the case. More than
2100 Indus texts come from Mohenjo-daro alone, and yet less than one
tenth of that single city has been excavated. Farmer and his colleagues do
not know what has existed and what may be found in the remaining parts
of the city, even if it is likely that only imperishable material of the kinds
already available continue to be found. The Rongo-Rongo tablets of
Easter Island are much longer than 50 signs. But does this make it certain
that they represent writing in the strict sense?
Seed evidence shows that cotton has been cultivated in Greater Indus
Valley since Chalcolithic times, and cotton cloth is supposed to have been
one of the main export item of the Harappans. Yet all the millions of
Harappan pieces of cotton cloth have disappeared for climatic reasons,
save four cases where a few microscopic fibers have been preserved in
association with metal (cf. Possehl 2002: table 3.2, with further
references). Alexander‘s admiral Nearchus mentions ―thickly woven
cloth‖used for writing letters in the Indus Valley c 325 BC. Sanskrit
sources such as the Ya:jñavalkya-Smrti (1,319) also mention cotton cloth,
(ka:rpa:sa-)paTa, as writing material around the beginning of the
Christian era. But the earliest preserved examples date from the 13th
century AD (cf. Shivaganesha Murthy 1996: 45-46; Salomon 1998: 132).
Emperor Asoka had long inscriptions carved on stone (pillars and rocks)
all around his wide realm in 260 to 250 BC. They have survived. But also
manuscripts on perishable materials must have existed in Asoka‘s times
and already since the Achaemenid rule started in the Indus Valley c 520
BC. This is suggested among other things by the mention of lipi ‗script‘
in Pa:Nini‘s Sanskrit Grammar (3,2,21) which is dated to around 400-350
118 Airāvati
BC. Sanskrit lipi comes from Old Persian dipi ‗script‘. The earliest
surviving manuscripts on birch bark, palm leaves and wooden blocks date
from the 2nd century AD and come from the dry climate of Central Asia
(cf. Shivaganesha Murthy 1996: 24-36; Salomon 1998: 131). We can
conclude that manuscripts on perishable materials have almost certainly
existed in South Asia during 600 years from the start of the Persian rule
onwards, but they have not been preserved; this period of 600 years with
no surviving manuscripts corresponds to the duration of the Indus
Civilization.
No cursive variant of the Indus script developed — hence no scribes
The sixth argument of Farmer and his colleagues is based on the
observation that everywhere scribes writing manuscripts tended to
develop a cursive style. From the fact that the Indus script changed very
little during its 600 years of existence they conclude that there were no
longer texts nor any scribes.
But the Egyptian hieroglyphs preserved their monumental pictographic
shapes for 3000 years.The Egyptian cursive hieratic style of papyrus
manuscripts does not differ so very much from the monumental
hieroglyphs. The difference between Maya manuscripts and monumental
inscriptions is not all that great, either.
Actually there is quite a lot of graphic variation in the Indus signs (see the
sign list in Parpola 1994: 70-78, fig. 5.1), and in my opinion this variation
provides also an important key to their pictorial or iconic understanding.
On the other hand, the Indus script emerges in the Mature Harappan
period already more or less fully standardized, and by this time a lot of
shape simplification or creation of a more cursive script had already taken
place.
No writing equipment has been found
No writing equipment has been found, hence Farmer and his colleagues
conclude that there were no scribes nor any manuscripts. Four
archaeologists specializing on the Indus Civilization have interpreted
some finds as writing equipment, but their suggestions ―are no longer
accepted by any active researchers‖(Farmer et al. 2004: 25).
But thin metal rods, such as used in South India to incise palm leaf
manuscripts, could have early on corroded away or beyond recognition.
From painted Indus texts on Harappan pots (e.g. Sktd-3 from Surkotada
Parpola, Asko 119
in CISI 1: p. 392) and bangles (cf. Blk-6 from Balakot in CISI 2: p. 432)
we know that Indus people used brushes to write, although such brushes
have not survived or have not been recognized — and in North India
palm leaf manuscripts have been painted with brushes. For the record,
some of the provisional identifications for Harappan writing equipment
(Mackay 1938; Dales 1967; Konishi 1987; Lal 2002) were published
fairly recently, and two of these scholars are still themselves "active
researchers".
The Indus "script" signs are actually non-linguistic symbols
Instead of a language-based writing system, Farmer and his colleagues
(2004: 45) see in the Indus signs ―a relatively simple system of religiouspolitical
signs that could be interpreted in any language‖ The nonlinguistic
symbols of Mesopotamian iconography are said to be a
particularly close and relevant parallel, as they may be arranged in regular
rows with a definite order like the Indus signs.
But in Mesopotamian seal iconography, the non-linguistic symbols
usually occur as isolated signs, for instance near the gods they belong to.
Arranged in longer rows and with a definite order they occur only in very
limited contexts: mainly on stelae and boundary stones (kudurru) between
1600 and 600 BC. Mesopotamia was a literate civilization, and the
symbols on the boundary stones followed the order of divinities in curse
formulae written down in cuneiform texts — the symbols represented
deities invoked to protect the boundary stone (cf. Black & Green 1992:
15-16; 113-114).
Writing was known to the Indus people from Mesopotamia, but it was
consciously not adopted
Finally, Farmer and his colleagues ask themselves: ―The critical question
remains of why the Harappans never adopted writing, since their trade
classes and presumably their ruling elite were undoubtedly aware of it
through their centuries of contact with the high-literate Mesopotamians‖
(Farmer et al. 2004: 44). Their answer is that the Harappans intentionally
rejected writing for some such reason as the Celtic priests of Roman
times: for the druids were averse to encode their ritual traditions in
writing like the Vedic Brahmins of India (ibid.).
But it is not likely that the Harappans would have rejected writing for
such a reason because: adopting writing did not oblige them to divulge
their secret texts, which could be guarded in an esoteric oral tradition. In
120 Airāvati
any case literacy must have been fairly restricted. Even in Mesopotamia
literary texts were written down only long after the invention of writing.
It is true that some complex societies did prosper without writing — the
Incan empire for example used instead a complex communication system
of knotted strings. But writing does offer advantages not easily discarded.
We can indeed ask a counter question: Why was the Indus script created?
In my opinion for economic and administrative reasons, like the Archaic
Sumerian script. This is strongly suggested by the fact that the majority of
the surviving texts are seal stamps and seal impressions quite clearly used
in trade and administration (cf. Parpola 1994: 113-116). But proper
judgement requires acquaintance with the evolution of the Indus
Civilization. (The following short overview is mainly based on Possehl
2002).
The Indus Civilization came into being as the culmination of a long
cultural evolution in the Indo-Iranian borderlands. From the very
beginning, this was the eastern frontier of a large cultural area which had
Mesopotamia as its core pulsating influence in all directions. In Western
Asia, the domestication of animals and plants started by 8000 BC. This
revolution in food production reached the mountain valleys of western
Pakistan by 7000 BC. From the Neolithic stage, about 7000-4300 BC,
some twenty relatively small villages are known, practically all in
highland valleys. People raised cattle, sheep and goats. They cultivated
wheat and barley, and stored it in granaries. Pottery was handmade, and
human and bovine figurines reflect fertility cults. Ornaments reflect
small-scale local trade.
During the Chalcolithic phase, about 4300-3200 BC, the village size grew
to dozens of hectares. Settlements spread eastwards beyond the Indus up
the ancient Sarasvati river in India, apparently with seasonal migrations.
Copper tools were made, and pottery became wheel-thrown and
beautifully painted. Ceramic similarities with southern Turkmenistan and
northern Iran also suggest considerable mobility and trade.
In the Early Harappan period, about 3200-2500 BC, many new sites came
into existance, also in the Indus Valley, which was a challenging
environment on account of the yearly floods, while the silt made the
fields very fertile. Communal granaries disappeared, and large storage
jars appeared in house units. Potter‘s marks suggest private ownership,
and stamp seals bearing geometrical motifs point to development in
administration. Irrigation canals were constructed, and advances were
made in all crafts. Mastery of air reduction in burning enabled making
Parpola, Asko 121
high quality luxury ceramics. Similarities in pottery, seals, figurines,
ornaments etc. document intensive caravan trade with Central Asia and
the Iranian plateau, including Shahr-i Sokhta in Seistan, where some
Proto-Elamite accounting tablets have been discovered. There were
already towns with walls and a grid pattern of streets, such as Rahman
Dheri. Terracotta models of bullock carts attest to improved transport in
the Indus Valley, which led to considerable cultural uniformity over a
wide area, especially where the Kot Diji style pottery was distributed.
The relatively short Kot Diji phase between 2800 and 2500 BC turned the
Early Harappan culture into the Mature Indus Civilization. During this
phase the Indus script came into being, as the recent American
excavations at Harappa have shown. Unfortunately we still have only few
specimens of the early Indus script from this formative phase (see CISI 3:
pp. 211-230). At the same time, many other developments took place. For
instance, the size of the burned brick, already standardized during the
Early Harappan period, was fixed in the ratio 1:2:4 most effective for
bonding.
During the Indus Civilization or Mature Harappan phase, from about
2500 to 1900 BC, the more or less fully standardized Indus script was in
use at all major sites. Even such a small site as Kanmer in Kutch, Gujarat,
measuring only 115 x 105 m, produced during the first season of
excavation in 2005-2006 one clay tag with a seal impression and three
carefully polished weights of agate (Kharakwal et al. 2006: figs. 11-12).
During the transition from Early to Mature Harappan, weights and
measures were standardized, another very important administrative
measure suggesting that economic transactions were effectively
controlled. Weights of carefully cut and polished stone cubes form a
combined binary and decimal system. The ratios are 1/16, 1/8, 1/6, 1/4,
1/2, 1 (= 13 g), 2, 4, 8, 16, ... 800.
By about 2500 BC, the Harappan society had become so effectively
organized that it was able to complete enormous projects, like building
the city of Mohenjo-daro. The lower city of at least 80 hectares had
streets oriented according to the cardinal directions and provided with a
network of covered drains. Many of the usually two-storied houses were
spacious and had bathrooms and wells. The water-engineering of
Mohenjo-daro is unparallelled in the ancient world: the city had some 700
wells constructed with tapering bricks so strong that they have not
collapsed in 5000 years. Development of water traffic made it possible to
transport heavy loads along the rivers, and to start direct trade with the
122 Airāvati
Gulf and Mesopotamia. Over thirty Indus seals and other materials of
Harappan origin, such as stained carnelian beads, have been found in
Western Asia.
That the numerous Indus seals were used to control trade and economy is
certified by the preservation of ancient seal impressions on clay tags that
were once attached to bales of goods and otherwise to safeguard property.
There are impressions of clothing and knotted strings on the reverse of
these clay tags, such as the one found at Umma in Mesopotamia (cf.
Parpola 1994: fig. 7.16). Almost one hundred such clay tags come from
the port town of Lothal on the coast of Gujarat (see CISI 1: pp. 268-289).
A warehouse had burned down and therewith baked and preserved these
tags. Many of them bear multiple seal impressions, some involving four
different seals, as does the clay tag K-89 from another site, Kalibangan.
The practice suggests the use of witnesses. Such bureaucratic procedures
imply keeping records comparable to the economic tablets of
Mesopotamia. Registers and other official documents — the kind of
longer texts that I miss — are likely to have been written on palm leaves,
cotton cloth or other perishable material that has not survived for climatic
reasons.
I spoke earlier of sign duplications that imply quantification. The small
bifacial tablets mainly known from Harappa had some economic and
ritual function. At the right end of the tablet M-478 from Mohenjo-daro
(cf. CISI 1: p. 115 & Parpola 1994: 109 fig. 7.12), we see a worshipper
kneeling in front of a tree, undoubtedly sacred, and extending towards the
tree what looks like a pot of offerings shown in profile. The
accompanying inscription, read from right to left, begins with a U-shaped
sign similar to the assumed pot of offerings, preceded by four strokes that
represent number four. One side of most tablets from Harappa usually has
nothing but this pot-sign, preceded by one to four vertical strokes for the
numbers 1 to 4. In some cases, as in the tablet H-247, the pot-sign is held
by a kneeling worshipper, as in the scene of the tablet M-478. In Harappa,
many identical tablets have been found in one and the same location.
They may have been distributed by priests to people who brought a given
amount of offerings, either as receipts that dues had been paid to the
temple, or as protective amulets in exchange of offerings. In either case,
the priests probably kept some kind of log of the transactions. In a South
Indian village where I have done field work (Panjal in Kerala), I have
witnessed how each house brings one or more vessels full of paddy to the
local shrine at festivals, to be managed for common good by temple
priests.
Parpola, Asko 123
Conclusion: Is the Indus script writing or not?
So is the Indus script writing or not? We have seen that all evidence
adduced by Farmer and his colleagues is inconclusive: none of it can
prove their thesis that the Indus script is not writing but only nonlinguistic
symbols, "a relatively simple system of religious-political signs
that could be interpreted in any language‖ (Farmer & al. 2004: 45).
The question requires the consideration of some further issues. One of
these is the fact that non-linguistic symbol systems (―potter‘s marks‖and
iconographic symbols) existed as early as since 3300 BC not only in
northern Indus Valley but also in Baluchistan, Seistan & Kerman on the
Iranian Plateau and in southern Turkmenistan, a circumstance not
mentioned by Farmer and his colleagues (cf. Vidale 2007).
In contrast to these relatively simple systems of non-linguistic pot-marks,
the Indus script has a great number of different signs, around 400, and
they have been highly standardized. Moreover, the signs are usually
neatly written in lines, as is usual in language-bound scripts. The normal
direction of writing is from right to left; this is the direction of the
impressions made with seal stamps, which were carved in mirror image.
Occasionally the seal-carver ran out of space, and in such cases he
cramped the signs at the end of the line to preserve the linear order. For
instance in the seal M-66 from Mohenjo-daro, the single sign of the
second line is placed immediately below the space which had proved too
small. The three last signs thus have the same sequence as the last three
signs in the seal M-12 from Mohenjo-daro.
But the most important characteristic of the Indus texts from the point of
view of speech-encoding becomes evident if we do not limit the
observation of sign repetition to single inscriptions as Farmer and his
colleagues do. The fact is that the Indus signs form a very large number
of regularly repeated sequences. The above discussed sequence of the
three last signs in the seals M-66 and M-12 occurs in Indus inscriptions
about 100 times, mostly at the end of the text. The order of these three
signs is always the same, and this sequence is recorded from nine
different sites, including two outside South Asia, one in Turkmenistan
and one in Iraq (see fig. 2). If the Indus signs are just non-linguistic
symbols as Farmer and his colleagues maintain, for what reason are they
always written in a definite order, and how did the Indus people in so
many different places know in which order the symbols had to be written?
Did they keep separate lists to check the order? And one should note that
there are hundreds of regular sequences that occur several times in the
124 Airāvati
texts. The text of eleven signs written on top of fig. 2 (attested in several
identical tablets from Harappa: H-279 through H-284, see CISI 1: p. 222-
223; and H-871 through H-873, see CISI 2: p. 335) can be broken into
smaller sequences all of which recur at several sites (see fig. 2). As this
small example shows, the texts even otherwise have a regular structure
similar to linguistic phrases. The Indus signs do not occur haphazardly
but follow strict rules. Some signs are usually limited to the end of the
text, and even when such a sign occurs in the middle of an inscription, it
usually ends a recurring sequence. Some other signs are limited to the
beginning of the text, but may under certain conditions appear also in
other positions. And so forth. (See Parpola 1994: 86-101).
Fig. 2 : Indus signs occur in strictly ordered sequences that recur at many different sites.
Table compiled by AP for this paper
The unrelated graffiti scratched on pots at the Megalithic site of Sanur in
South India (see fig. 3) offer a contrasting example. Three signs occur
many times together, but their order varies. It does not matter in which
order they are placed. This is what one normally expects from nonlinguistic
symbols. I do not believe that these Megalithic graffiti represent
real writing in the sense of speech-encoding, but are non-linguistic
symbols.
Parpola, Asko 125
The Indus sign sequences are uniform all over the Harappan realm in
South Asia, suggesting that a single language was used in writing. By
contrast, both native Harappan and non-Harappan sign sequences occur
on Indus seals from the Near East, the sequences usually being in
harmony with the shape of the seal: square seals are typical of South Asia,
round seals are typical of the Gulf and cylinder seals are typical of
Mesopotamia. One would expect that the most frequently attested Indus
sign would very often occur next to itself, but this is never the case in the
Indus Valley. The combination is however attested on a round Gulf-type
seal coming from the Near East, now in the British Museum (BM
120228). This seal contains five frequently occurring Indus signs but in
unique sequences (cf. Parpola 1994: Fig. 8.6). This suggests that
Harappan trade agents who resided in the Gulf and in Mesopotamia
became bilingual and adopted local names, but wrote their foreign names
in the Indus script for the Harappans to read. The cuneiform texts in fact
speak not only of a distant country called Meluhha which most scholars
equate with Greater Indus Valley, but also of a village in southern
Mesopotamia called Meluhha whose inhabitants had purely Sumerian
names.
Farmer and his colleagues claim that the Indus script is a system of nonlinguistic
symbols that can be understood in any language. They suggest
that it belongs to the category which Andrew Robinson (2002: 30)
proposes to call ―proto-writing‖, and to which he assigns ―Ice Agecave art,
Amerindian pictograms, many modern road signs, mathematical and
scientific symbols and musical notation‖. The speech-bound scripts or in
Robinson‘s terms ―full writing ― came into being with the phonetization
of written symbols by means of the rebus or picture puzzle principle.
Let us consider the rebus principle utilized in logo-syllabic scripts. Most
signs were originally pictures denoting the objects or ideas they
represented. But abstract concepts such as ‗life‘ would be difficult to
express pictorially. Therefore the meaning of a pictogram or ideogram
was extended from the word for the depicted object to comprise all its
homophones. For example, in the Sumerian script the drawing of an
arrow meant 'arrow', but in addition 'life' and 'rib', because all three words
were pronounced alike in the Sumerian language, namely ti. Homophony
must have played a role in folklore long before it was utilized in writing.
The pun between the Sumerian words ti 'rib' and ti 'life' figures in the
Sumerian paradise myth, in which the rib of the sick and dying water god
Enki is healed by the Mistress of Life, Nin-ti. But the Biblical myth of
Eve's creation out of Adam's rib no more makes sense because the
original pun has been lost in translation: ‗rib‘ in Hebrew is Sela:c and has
126 Airāvati
no connection with Eve's Hebrew name H‘awwa:, which is explained in
the Bible to mean ―mother of all living‖ (Cf. Parpola 1994: 102.) The
point is that homophony usually is very language-specific, and rebuses
therefore enable language identification and phonetic decipherment.
Fig. 3 : Pottery graffiti from the Megalithic site of Sanur in TamilNadu, South India. After
Banerjee & Soundara Rajan 1959: 32, fig. 8.
Since the appearance of my criticism in 2005, Farmer and his colleagues
have underlined that the rebus principle is occasionally used also in
symbol systems not so tightly bound to language3. As an example they
mention the use of rebus puns to express proper names in the otherwise
Parpola, Asko 127
clearly non-linguistic communication system of heraldry. But by
definition any ancient or modern symbol system which consciously uses
rebuses and which therefore at least partially can be read phonetically
counts as full writing.
Even short noun phrases and incomplete sentences qualify as full writing
if the script uses the rebus principle to phonetize some of its signs. (Cf.
Robinson 1995: 12.) Archaic Sumerian is considered a full writing system,
because it occasionally uses rebus puns, for instance on a tablet, where
the single word gi ‗reimburse‘ (expressed by the sign depicting 'reed' = gi
in Sumerian), constitutes the very incomplete phrase in its own
compartment that constitutes a text unit (cf. Robinson 2002: 26). Even in
later times, the Sumerian script had more logograms than syllabic signs,
although with time the number of phonetic signs increased. When the
cuneiform script was adapted for writing the Akkadian language, the
system could be improved upon, and the script became almost fully
phonetic.
The Egyptian script around 3100-3000 BC was used in a number of very
short inscriptions, often consisting of just two signs, which recorded
proper names but with a very high percentage of the signs used as rebuses
(see e.g. Schott 1951). The famous palette of King Narmer with an
inscription already quoted above is a good example. This is definitely
already a writing system, even if the texts are on average shorter than the
Indus texts! Here two rebus signs express the proper name of King
Narmer, whose feats are related in a non-linguistic way in the pictures
taking up the rest of the palette, yet with many formalized conventions.
This is fully parallel to the use of rebus symbols to express proper names
in the non-linguistic communication system of heraldry or coats of arms.
The new thesis helps to understand the Indus Civilization better than
the writing hypothesis
As to the very last point raised, and claim made, by Farmer and his
colleagues in their 2004 paper, I honestly cannot understand how the
hypothesis that the Indus signs are non-linguistic symbols helps us to
understand the Indus Civilization much better than the hypothesis that the
Indus script is a logo-syllabic writing system. In a logo-syllabic script the
signs may denote what they depict, or they may be used as rebuses.
Before we can even start pondering their use as rebuses, we must clear up
their iconic meaning. This necessary first step is identical with the efforts
of Farmer and others to understand the Indus symbols as pictograms.
128 Airāvati
As an example of my own efforts to understand the pictorial shapes of the
Indus signs, I would like to mention my interpretation of one particular
sign as depicting the palm squirrel (Parpola 1994: 103 with fig. 7.1): the
sign clearly represents an animal head downwards, tail raised up and four
legs attached to a vertical stroke representing tree trunk. The palm
squirrel spends long times in this pose, wherefore it is called in Sanskrit
‗tree-sleeper‘. In seal texts, the sign is more likely to have been used as a
rebus rather than in its iconic meaning (for my interpretation see Parpola
1994: 229-230). Could the non-linguistic approach of Farmer and his
colleagues offer a better explanation for the meaning of this sign?
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Notes
1 This paper was written for, and presented at, the workshop on ―Scripts,
non-scripts and (pseudo-)decipherment‖ organized by Richard Sproat and
Steve Farmer at the Linguistic Society of America's Linguistics Institute
on the 11th of July 2007 at Stanford University
(http://serrano.ai.uiuc.edu/2007Workshop/). It was also read as a public
lecture at the Roja Muthiah Research Library, Chennai, on the 16th of
February 2008. I thank the organizers of both events for this opportunity
to participate in the debate on the nature of the Indus script, and am glad
to publish the paper in honour of my old friend Iravatham Mahadevan, a
great epigraphist.
2 The Indus texts are cited in this paper with their labels in the CISI (see
references).
3 From the abstracts of the Stanford workshop papers
(http://serrano.ai.uiuc.edu/2007Workshop/abstracts.html), I got the
impression that at least one of the three authors wants to back out from
their original thesis and change it into something else. While Farmer
repeats the claim that ―the so-called Indus script was not a speechencoding
or writing system in the strict linguistic sense, as has been
assumed‖, Witzel writes as if he and his colleagues had only claimed that
the Indus script does not SYSTEMATICALLY encode language in the
sense that ―Indus signs do not encode FULL phrases or sentences‖(my
emphasis, AP). Witzel also admits that ―Indus symbols... may... contain
occasional puns‖ Or maybe, when speaking of recent studies which
suggest this, he is referring to me, since these have been my very
assumptions, namely that the Indus seals hardly contain complete
sentences and that they contain puns. In any case, I am happy if Witzel
has changed his previously more radical view and now agrees with me.
When I mentioned these impressions of mine at the Stanford workshop,
Michael Witzel assured me that he was not backing out from the original
claim but continues to maintain that the Indus script does not encode
language.