Prolog

As mentioned in my previous post , I am pleased to announce that my first paper jointly authored with Priya Raju and NK Sreedhar got published by the International Institute of Tamil Studies.

Background

In 2004, Farmer, Sproat & Witzel released their controversial paper titled [PDF] “The Collapse of the Indus Script Thesis: The Myth of a Literate Harappan Civilization” . The paper made the claim that the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was illiterate in a forceful and strident manner.

Since then, a number of attempts have been made to disprove this paper. Most of the attempts have tried to use interesting methods – [PDF] statistical techniques, [PDF]conditional entropy , [PDF 7.7MB] markov chain model etc to prove that the Indus inscriptions encode speech.  We had previously covered Asko Parpola’s effort to counter FSW.  Parpola’s efforts were not accepted by FSW.

We found that, to our surprise, many years after FSW, no one actually had published a comprehensive analysis of all the points made by FSW.  We decided to do just that in our paper.

Illiterate Indus?

As a newbie researcher, i found the FSW paper very useful to understand the state of the Indus research. As we researched every point FSW makes, we learnt even more about the IVC.

It was a long grind to get the paper published after several iterations. We are grateful to the International Institute of Tamil Studies for publishing our paper.

Special thanks to Michel Danino, Iravatham Mahadevan, Bryan Wells, M Meenakshisankar, PK Karthik and some reviewers who want to be anonymous  for their painstaking reviews. Iravatham Mahadevan, my guide at the Indus Research Center, went through the paper line by line 3 or 4 times to make it into an academic quality paper.  Special mention goes to Priya Raju for making the paper readable after Michel Danino’s critical review, not to speak of her contribution to the actual research which is quite significant. NK Sreedhar has made several contributions to the paper including the key one on the Singletons.

Thanks to JK at Varnam blog for introducing me to Michel Danino.

Epilog

With all due respect to FSW, we reached the conclusion that most of their arguments can be refuted. The paper can be downloaded at Response_to_FSW2_Paper_v3.1-Final .  If you are really interested in the IVC research, i strongly recommend that you read the FSW paper as well as our response to it. Please chime in with your comments.

Prolog

Many of you know that i began researching the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) formally about 10 months ago. I am happy to say  i have made reasonable progress – my first paper (written jointly with Priya Raju & NK Sreedhar) countering FSW’s arguments is going to be published shortly. My paper on the Bangle Hypothesis has been selected for the Classical Tamil Conference set to happen in June 2010 in Coimbatore. 

Rig Veda

I had already showed how the Rig Veda couldn’t have been written by the IVC people.   Over time, I realized that the Rig Veda (RV) is a veritable treasure trove to divine the Real History of India. I started looking at who the Vedic people called as demons or enemies and any references to gods of the enemy people.

Kuyava

Interestingly, I found the term Kuyavan, who is a Dasa, who is killed by Indra. There are 6 occurrences of the Dravidian word Kuyava – RV.I.103.8, RV.I.104.3, RV.I.174.7, RV.IV.18.8, RV.VII.19.2, RV.II.1.104.3.

It turns out that,  i am the first researcher [Iravatham Mahadevan Sir has acknowledged this] to tie the RV demon Kuyava to the Dravidian word (DEDR 1762) , which means potter, obviously a very important profession for the IVC people.  Therefore, if one Dravidian person was identified as a Dasa (an enemy) by the RV people, it is likely there is more to it than meets the eye.

Alongside one of the mentions of Kuyava, there is a mention of Kuyava’s wives – Anjasi and Kulisi.  I was breaking my head on what these names could mean and i stumbled upon Kulici - a type of pot [well connected to the potter Kuyavan).  Yes, we could question how a type of pot could have become a name of Kuyava's wife.  However, if the Vedic people could take Kuyava, the name of a profession, as a name of a person, then this is also possible, right?  Given that the term Kuyava is found in the earliest sections of the RV, the error could be due to their unfamiliarity with the Dravidians, as they may have just arrived into the Indus Region.

I haven't yet figured out what Anjasi is? Is it also a type of pot?

Namuci

Namuci is the next demon name that got my attention. Namuci was some type of chieftain, not an ordinary enemy. Indra vanquishes him after a lot of difficulty (per the RV). After chasing several deadends, i pursued an idea Priya Raju gave me - is it connected to Padayachi, Pethachi etc. ?   The suffix achi is usually used to denote affection - ammucci, appucci, acchan (father in malayalam), or to denote respect - pethachi, padayachi.   When i looked at the etymology of ucci it struck a chord - it means head, summit etc. This means Namuci could be Nam + Ucci = where Nam = Our and Ucci = Head - in other words, Chief.

Susna Deva & Mura Deva

RV talks in a derogatory fashion about 2 native gods - Susna Deva and Mura Deva. Several scholars have translated Susna Deva to Phallic God and Mura Deva has been translated as Foolish God (because Mura is an alt. form of Muda which means foolish in Sanskrit).

I was not convinced about these translations. So i started digging into it and I found that in one of the references to Susna, RV talks about the Horn - Sringa in Sanskrit means Horn. Interestingly, Sringara in Sanskrit means passion.  That the Horn is a phallic symbol is quite obvious from this. Now we all know who the Phallic God is right? - Shiva. I am not yet able to find out what is the old Dravidian name for Shiva, because Shiva seems to be from Sanskrit.

That the Muradeva could be Muruga was postulated by the Bandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI, Pune in their Annals Volume XXIV from 1943).  Again i wasn't convinced and dug deeper. Interestingly, in one of the references to Muradeva, the RV says the god has bent neck.  If you look at Mahadevan Signs #47 & #48 [2nd sign from the right in this pic], which are thought to be symbols of Murugan, you can see the bent neck. The word Muruku in tamil has the meaning of crooked or twisted as well.

Epilog

As you can see, RV is filled with many clues as to the true nature of the peoples, the Vedic people conquered/merged with/assimilated – whatever is your favorite term.  What do you all think? Do you agree with me?  Do you have any thoughts/ideas that can help me?

Disclaimer – many of what i have said here needs to be taken as a hypothesis and not as a scientific proof. As in the Bangle Hypothesis, which i converted into a scientific 5 page paper, i will be converting this post also into a scientific paper.

Updated 23 Aug 2009 2:50PM – added the Indus signs from Bryan Wells’ paper.

Updated 22 Aug 2009 11:55PM – found the image of the single/double bangle.

–

FTOTW [Fine Tastings of the Week]

Why we must focus on women for development – a brilliant/heart rending/uplifting article in NYT (Via Ganesh). Programmable Web – a great post on Google’s Pubsubhubub (via @raganesh ).

Prolog

As many of you know i started working on researching the IVC (Indus Valley Civilization), formally, a month or so back.  Since most researchers are concentrating on the script, i am focusing on the Symbology.

I am writing this post to collect the wisdom of the community  to make the hypothesis into a scientific proof which can pass muster with the research community.   In the Epilog,  I will explain, how you can all help me.

IVC Bangle Hypothesis

Here is my  hypothesis – unmarried women wore bangles only in one arm, whereas married women wore bangles in both arms. The iconography from the IVC is quite sparse but still there seems to be enough evidence for this hypothesis. The famous Dancing Girl of Mohenja Daro. You can see that the statuette has bangles only on one arm.

There is another piece of iconography where 2 men are having a fight ostensibly over the hand of a woman (wears bangles only on one arm).  In this piece, we have another woman, possibly mother goddess, wearing bangles on both arms.  Given that in the same piece of iconography both  bangles on one arm  and  bangles  on two arms are present, it is highly unlikey to be a scribal error [I am trying to find this image on the web for you all to review. Meanwhile Found the image below. Also take a look at the Fig Deity Seal at the bottom of this post - it has women wearing bangles in both arms].

There are some burials of women with shell  bangles on only the left arm [The authors of the book also seem to think that one-arm bangles signifies marital status (Via Priya Raju)  ].

I found another instance of this type of burial where the woman had bangles only on the left arm. Don’t know if they are both the same instance. I hope not.

Why does this bangle hypothesis matter?

In the inscriptions , there are several  which have a symbol of a man, having an implement in one arm or in both arms.  Sometimes the implement is seen on  one leg or both legs. For example, see page 71 [reproduced below, click on the pic to expand] of the Bryan Wells’ Indus Script Thesis [Caution: 12MB PDF]. My guess based on the bangle symbology, that having an instrument on one arm/leg signifies someone with less skills/expertise than the one who has it in both arms/legs.

How do we prove this hypothesis?

Even in modern day  India, bangles are an important part of a married women’s attire. The Shankha Pola tradition still continues in Bengal or the Valai Kappu ceremony which is still observed  in South India. However, given the distance in time and space from the IVC, we cannot use practices from modern India as proof. Additionally, we don’t have written records prior to 6th Century BCE, which leaves a gap of 1,000-1,200 years after the downfall of the IVC.

Assuming that tribals have been following their traditions for millennia, we need to find tribals in North Western India who have a similar bangle symbology.  That would be a good enough proof.

I found some tribals – Ekbahia and Ikbainha whose women wear bangles only in one arm. However, it does not seem to indicate marital status.

Thanks to Priya Raju, I found this practice amongst the Ahir Tribes:

These people belong to the Gujarati and Rajasthani families – Cherry thinks the woman pictured above is from the Ahir tribe. The bangles would have been gifted to her during the girl’s wedding – they do marry very young. The pastoral tribes cover their entire hand with broad plain bangles made of bone. The unmarried wear them only from the wrist to the elbow whereas the married wear them from the elbow upwards as far up as the underarm. Since these tribes are nomadic and they cannot keep their assets under safe keeping, they wear their saving in the form of jewellery on their person.

Epilog

From the above, it is quite evident that there is some symbology associated with bangles and marital status. But we still need to find the exact match for the hypothesis to stick.

Can you all help me uncover this? Please pass this to people that are familiar with folk/tribal customs in North Western India. Thanks in advance. Whoever helps me, i will acknowledge them in the paper formally.