The Harappa / Indus Valley Civilization ... What do we know?

Introduction

Indus Civilization has a special place in the imagination of many Tamil people. There is a gnawing conviction among many who think it is possible that the Indus Script represents a language which may be an ancient forebear of modern Tamil itself. And many an attempt had been undertaken in this presumption. This does no justice to the reality that the Indus Civilization is not a monolithic phenomenon that belonged to a single people at a singular period. And it conveniently overlooks the the gigantic gap in time between the Indus Civilization and the earliest evidences of written language in India. Or the fact that the modern Tamil written form is a descendant of Ashoka Brahmi and not its own native ancient form.

I am aware the debate over the many issues of this area of study can get acrimonious. Still these are my thoughts on the subject, namely why this is a language but not in the way we think it is a language; and why it may not have anything to do with any of our modern Indian languages. 

So what do we know of the Harappa / Indus Valley Civilization?

1.      The geographical area of the civilization is very large … therefore there must be many regionally diversified diverse ethnic groups and their languages

2.      All the settlements that make up the Indus Civilization are largely riverine or directly linked to a riverine access point and that gives:

a.      Transport of goods, depended on river navigation, hence an inference of river navigational knowledge and its related geography.

b.      Riverine economy assumes (a) knowledge of ship-building that depended on hinterland wood, (b) knowledge of making of earthenware / pottery; understanding of clay and its properties – the pottery that can be catalogued, dated, and assigned place of origin; (c) knowledge of seasonal changes of the river itself - water containment, irrigation, and flood mitigation; (d) knowledge of fishery and cooking of river produces.

c.       Such settlements would have been of different cultural levels, ranging from primitive wood suppliers to urban centres.

3.      There seem to be no central authority … this is a misperception perpetuated by early scholarly narratives that understood centralized authority as one who could project power using armed forces, marauding terror, or dazzling structures. The fact is that there are ample evidences of universal standards that can be established only by central authority.

a.      Bricks were made 1:2:4 standards

b.      Weights were calibrated, standardized, and made available to traders

c.       Towns were centrally planned

d.      This is likely possible if in the absence of a central military authority there are trade-guilds, and town councils made of guild representatives.

e.      Note: strong military authorities tend to conquer for plunder and taxation; and then when peace is secured the surplus labour of the army is then utilized to build grand projects. This did not happen in Indus in that order did not mean there were no conquest, plunder, taxation, nor surplus labour nor grand public projects. It existed, just that in a form we have not understood altogether well.

4.      The people knew how to make tiny beads and polish stones thus have made the technological jump from the pottery wheel to gem polishing and boring. 

a.      of all kinds of stone, including precious ones

b.      they possibly knew how to collect and use diamond dust for polishing granite to a glass like sheen

c.       technology would have been fiercely guarded by the guilds that regulated who and how such knowledge could have been passed on.

d.      If they had knowledge relating to use of iron, it is unlikely it would have survived 5,000 years.

5.      Every artifacts found were small

a.      So-called seals were actually amulets that could be tied around one’s forehead, arms or hung round one’s neck … 1 inch by 1 inch. There are cylindrical holes to string the seals. There are pockets of communities in India and Bangladesh that still follow this custom. It is not well attested to or studied.

b.      Figurines and toys were found but were miniatures … Indus people seem infatuated with small things.

6.      The overall Indus Civilization must have a dominant culture or more at one time or another extending their influence upon less developed people groups.

7.      The Indus Civilization writing emerged around 2500 bc and disappears around 1800 bc.

8.      Modern Indian scripts all owe their origin to Brahmi… and that is almost a 1300 year gap between the Indus scripts and the next known Indian scripts. Establishing a viable link between the orthography of Indus and Brahmi or to any modern forms of Indian languages has been elusive.

9.      Near Universality of the Script
The prevalence of the amulets suggest that the Indus “script” must have been universally understood along the river trade routes despite the diversity of ethnic and language groups. Assuming the amulets were not superstitious talisman, it must convey something useful for travelling in the vast riverine civilizational geography of the Indus … symbols that must indicate essential data about the person wearing it, namely (a) social status; (b) trade-clan; and (c) place of origin. Why these three?

a.      Social status allows the wearer to approach and be approached by the rank they carry to conduct trade negotiations. Guilds needed to protect trade secrets and will not engage with people outside the guild, or below their rank. A purchaser may want to know if he is dealing with a forager, middleman or a direct supplier, for example.

b.      Trade-clan allows the wearer to find food and lodging in a town that has been provided by the particular trading community. This would be the "caste".

c.       Place of origin allows the trading guild to return the trader if he had fallen sick; or return the body if he died along with his personal possession, unclaimed goods; or if unable to return the dead body, at least the information, back to the place where the local people would be able to identify the person and attend to the necessary rites.

10.   Features of the Script

a.      The “script” should be a set of symbols that indicate status (i.e. in Indian culture one’s caste), trade, and geography (i.e. direction, distance, conflux, logo of town).

b.      There are 400 known symbols in the “scripts” and the monographs in the seal is not thought to be “script” but ought to be integral to understanding the seals.

c.       Out of the 400 known symbols 31 are repeated more than 100 times 

d.      Some of the symbols could represent phonetic values on the basis of statistical analysis that indicate linguistic forms. However, it is possible that a large enough number of symbols used consistently can mimic linguistic forms, and it is no proof that the script is a natural language.

e.      Cramping indicates that the script has direction. It was engraved right to left… but when “stamped” it is meant to be read left to right… in any case, the direction is not meant to be relevant.

11.   Conclusion

a.      Indus script is a graphic depiction of Indus trade pidgin … Indus-pidgin – conveying the bare minimum of facts to identify the trader carrying the goods. 31 symbols repeated more than 100 times may represent recurring concerns in the trade routes.

b.      That there were no evidence of a central authority may not be true but there seem to be no political necessity for a common script for a common language … just symbols for ensuring smooth trading.


c.    The genius of the Indus Civilization must remain with the Indus Civilization.