Indus script early form of Dravidian

Iravatham Mahadevan proves the point with the help of ideograms

Iravatham Mahadevan-CHENNAI, November 15, 2014

Iravatham Mahadevan, a well-known expert in Indian epigraphy, especially the Indus

and Tamil Brahmi scripts, on Friday unveiled what he termed as his long years of
studies on the Indus Valley script, demonstrably showing that the language of that
once great civilisation was an early form of the Dravidian.
Making a presentation of his latest paper, Dravidian Proof of the Indus Script via The
Rig Veda: A Case Study at the Roja Muthiah Research Library here, he explained with
the help of ideograms- a picture or a symbol that represents an idea or a concept-,
that the Indus language has been correctly identified as an early form of the
Dravidian script.
He said the methodology followed is to identify the ideograms, find the Dravidian
roots with the nearest literal meanings and interpret them through the rebus technique
to get at the intended meanings. (A rebus is an allusional device that uses pictures to

represent words or parts of words.)

This technique has helped in arriving at this conclusion, he said.
Explaining the frequent phrase of four signs (ABCD), as in the above picture, Mr.
Mahadevan, who was earlier this year awarded the prestigious Campbell Medal -2014
by the Mumbai Asiatic Society, formerly Royal Asiatic Society, said that in short, the
signs stood for Merchant of the City.
Referring to two divergent streams arising from the Indus Valley civilisation, he said,
the Earliest Old Tamil, which has retained the Dravidian roots of the Indus phrase
still, is firmly interlinked, but with modified meanings.
String of names

The results reveal a string of names and titles associated with the Pantian dynasty
whose remote ancestors were probably traders in the Indus civilisation, he said.
After the collapse of the Indus civilisation, he said in his paper that a section of the
Indus Valley population had migrated to south India and the the Indus Dravidian
influenced the South Dravidian languages. The earliest traces of such migratory
influence are found in the Old Tamil.
The other stream that the epigraphist spoke of is the Earliest Indo-Aryan (Rig Veda),
which has inherited the Indus phrase through loan translations. Pusan, an early
Vedic God, for instance, is identified as a deity of the trading community (Vaisya). The
origin of the myths associated with Pusan becomes clear when their source is traced
to the Indus phrase, Mr. Mahadevan contended.
The results also show that the descendants of the Indus civilisation adopted the IndoAryan speech and that there was a long gap of time between the Indus civilisation and
the early Vedic culture, said Mr. Mahadevan. The Vedic Age succeeded the Indus
civilisation and the Rig Veda itself is a product of the composite culture, said the
scholar, who began studying the Indus script way back in 1968.
Mr. Mahadevan further explained that the results of the discovery, using the above
technique, are summarised in a Grid of correspondences, adding, the Grid
constitutes the proof of the discovery.
I have not claimed to have deciphered the Indus script. But the present paper appears
to me the most productive I have so far written, he claimed in his written paper,
adding that from the level of mere evidence, it has now attained the level of proof.

Mahadevan traces language of Indus

Civilisation to early Dravidian
[TamilNet, Monday, 17 November 2014, 10:35 GMT]
Releasing his latest research findings at the Indus Research Centre of the Roja Muthaih Research Library
in Chennai this month, veteran epigraphist Iravatham Mahadevan concluded that the language of the
Indus Civilisation was an early form of Dravidian. Due to the migration of a section of the Indus population
southwards, forming some settlements in South India, the Indus Dravidian influenced the South Dravidian
languages. The earliest attestations of such influence are found in Old Tamil. As the Vedic Age succeeded
the Indus Civilisation, the Rig Veda itself is a product of the composite culture, he said in the paper,
Dravidian Proof of the Indus Script via the Rig Veda: A Case Study, published as November 2014 bulletin
of the Research Centre.
Dravidian Proof of the Indus Script via
Decipherment of the Indus Script eludes scholars
the Rig Veda: Iravatham Mahadevan
ever since the Indus Civilisation was unearthed, as
diachronic factors such as those which facilitated the objective
decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs or Sumerian cuneiform are
unavailable in the case of the Indus Script.

Iravatham Mahadevan
Hence, scholars are left with the option of beginning the decipherment
primarily through synchronic or structural methods deployed to the text
alone, in breaking the code and understanding the Indus Language.
Mahadevan was working in this line since 1968, resulting in his compilation,
The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables, published by the
Archaeological Survey of India in 1977.

After finding certain patterns in the relative placement of signs in the Indus
texts, Mahadevan in the present research approaches the language
question by considering the Script as rebus and by coming out with bilingual explanations.
Rebus was a technique employed in designing ancient pictograms. To
explain it in English through an example, an eye could be drawn to read
and mean I.
Rebus is usually language-specific and hence helps language identification
and phonetic decipherment.

The four-sign phrase read as merchant of the city

Taking the case study of a four-sign phrase that often comes in the Indus
seals, and reading the meaning of it as Merchant of the City, Mahadevan
explains the rebus in it through old Tamil and Rig Vedic Sanskrit.
Citing the titles of the Pandyan rulers found in old Tamil and the attributes
of a deity called Pooshan found in Rig Veda tallying with the rebus,
Mahadevan says that they are later survivals of the Merchant of the City
concept of the Indus Civilisation times.
Coming to the language part of the four-sign phrase, Mahadevan citing
etymological evidence says that the Indus language survived in old Tamil,
while it became loan translation in Rig Vedic Sanskrit.
The present paper appears to me to be the most productive I have so far
written, says Mahadevan who is now 84 and has internationally been
recognized for breaking the code of Tamil Brahmi in the late 1960s.
He doesnt claim decipherment of the Indus Script, but says that the
findings arrived at through the interpretation model interlocked at three
levels, go beyond being mere evidence and have become proof: The

Dravidian proof of the Indus Script via the Rig Veda.

The four signs explained through old Tamil

The four signs explained through Rig Vedic Sanskrit, showing loan
translations from Dravidian
***

Related research by Asko Parpola:

A Dravidian solution to the Indus script problem: by Asko Parpola ( June

25, 2010)

Posted by Thavam