Breaking the code: the Sarasvati-Sindhu Script
A few days I came across the amazing research work by Dr Kalyanaraman on the Sarasvati-Sindhu script.
In his own words,
“…Ever since I got a letter from Dr. BV Subbarayappa (the great man who wrote on History of Science and Technology in Ancient India– who sent me a monograph stating that Indus script is a womb of numbers and asked for my comments since I had done some fonts for all scripts of the world on the early PC’s) and got from my American ADB colleague, 3 replicas of Mohenjodaro seals presented as paper-weight mementos mounted on turquoise and wood by Pakistan Intl. Airlines to its First Class passengers travelling from Karachi to Islamabad, understanding the writing system of our ancestors has become my life’s mission. The paperweights have been lying on my desk for 30 years now. And I have just cried many-a-time looking at them as my pitr-tarpanam to our pitr-s.
When Vatsyayana mentions mlecchita vikalpa (cryptography) together with akshara mushthika kathanam and des’a bhaashaa jnaanam and when mleccha is cognate with meluhha, the enigma unravels. Hemacandra notes milakkhu ‘copper’ (Pali) as in milakkhurajanam ‘colour of copper’. As in Manu, mleccha is simply indistinct ‘speech’, it does connote the vernacular; mlecchavaacas (lingua franca) as distinct from aryavaacas (grammatically correct literary composition).
It was just breathtaking when I re-read jaatugriha parvan of Mahabharata and learnt that Yudhishthira and Vidura/Khanaka — according to Krishna Dvaipaayana or Veda Vyaasa — spoke in mleccha ! (crypt :)– Mleccha is the lingua franca and mlecchita vikalpa the writing system two of the 64 arts to be learnt by the young as vidyaasamuddes’a, according to Vatsyayana.
The journey into the mists of our ancestors’ world goes on. It is a journey into dharma…”
The work was painstaking and has taken “over 30 years of intense introspection and collation of earlier brilliant work done by our savants.“
As Dr Kalyanaraman says, “I find it just striking that one category alone — that of smithy or khanaka ‘mine-worker’, yes Khanaka of Jaatugrhaparvan of Mahabharata speaking in mleccha with Yudhishthira  — explains, rebus, virtually the entire corpus of inscriptions of Sarasvati civilization. Invention of a writing system was as brilliant as the invention of alloying changing the way people live and interact with one another, for ever.”
I first stumbled across this work on an Yahoo! group that I am member of which had this link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2231843/writing
I would encourage all of you to have a look at it when you have some time. You will be amazed. I believe this research is invaluable and I am very keen that it is read and understood widely.
The invention of writing by the inhabitants of Sarasvati-Sindhu basin was a ground-breaking, fundamental development that deserves to acknowledged and celebrated.
Sadly many of us continue to believe that the Sarasvati-Sindhu writing is indecipherable and hence of no significance..This research will go a long way in dispelling this notion.
Do also have a look at this site for more (and regular) updates: http://sarasvati97.blogspot.com/
and finally, for some photographs of seals and inscriptions from the era, please click here.
I hope to publish some excerpts/summary of theis research soon.
Follow-up Post: Placeholder for Saraswati-Sindhu script
Related Posts:
Scientific validation of Vedic Knowledge
Revising the “Aryan Invasion of India” Theory
Image Courtesy: Sh V Sundaram
The article is nice phantasy, but nonsense. The deciphering you can look up at http://www.indus-civilization.info
@ Rainer: I am letting your comment stay for now but I am sure you realise that there is a proper (and scholarly) way of defending (or opposing) an idea/hypothesis.
Your comment appears to be woefully short on that.
If you can please point out specific inconsistencies, anomalies or mistakes in the theory and research by Dr Kalyanaraman (or produce counter-evidence), I will be happy to consider publishing it here.
Dismissing ideas as “phantasy” and “nonsense” is not conducive to a good discussion.
The problem with any decipherment claim assuming syllabic or alphabetic values for 400+ signs while ignoring the pictorial motifs which dominate the epigraphs is likely to be only an article of faith.
Any value can be assigned to each sign but the meaning of each pictorial has to be explained for any decipherment claim to be accepted as valid.
Making comments using fanciful words such as phantasy or nonsense is not a scholarly response, but bucking the evidence presented from Indian traditions and languages.
Namaskaram.
Kalyanaraman
Dear Shri. Rainer,
I went through the website indicated and I am happy that you have demystified the script.
This does not mean that the efforts of Shri. Kalyaraman are worthless and acts of fantasy. Your letter speaks or, may I be excused for saying that it “STINKS” of Bigotry.
While appreciating your efforts and putting things in the right perspective I am sure you must be aware that you have gone overboard in your comments.
I must thank you for appreciating that the AIT is a lot of bunkum, just developed as a theory to put down the great culture of Ancient Bharat by the uncultured brutes who ruled Bharat for more than 250 years
It would be of great help and be more in line with your kind of capabilities to work with Dr. Kalyanaraman to throw more light on the greatness of this great land, rather than debunking the theories.
Regards,
vck
1. We don’t need to be so sensitive on words. Kalyanaraman’s work didn’t make sense to Rainer, so he felt it is nonsense. Someone may feel his work too nonsense, if that does not satisfy or convince.
2. All scientific/research works are nonsense, till they make sense to someone. When Indian space organization, ISRO, planned to put a satellite on Moon’s orbit (with a cost of Rs. 3000 million), many said (and still saying) it is nonsense and fantasy, and waste of tax-payers money. We need to see, nonsense is also a sense and they make sense. It makes sense to me (not nonsense) to see a satellite orbiting the Moon at 100 km above, and scientists using the satellite data studying the moon surface structure, composition, minerals, atmosphere, etc.
3. Fantasy comes from imagination. When we start imagining a beautiful girl, after a while we feel to hug and kiss, and many times we hug and kiss in dreams. It is fantasy. But when we realised the girl and hug and kiss, its realisation.
4. Imagination is more important than knowledge, said Albert Einstein (it was said by the ancient rishis/seers too). Nice beautiful fantasies are potential creative actions, they lead to new innovations, discoveries and developments. Many of Arthur C Clarke’s (renowned science fiction writer) fictions (fantasies) are realised, and we are enjoying the fruits (e.g. satellite communication).
5. Renowned cosmologist and physicist Stephen Hawking quoted an anonymous quotaiton in a book, which says like: scientists and prostitutes, scientists and prostitutes (emphasise repeated), do what it pleases to them. I fully agree with the statement.
6. Finally, truth is truth, false is false. Truth can’t be false, and false can’t be truth. Truth unfolds itself, beyond our likes and dislikes, as we have no control on it. So the ancient rishis boldly proclaimed, satyameva jayate nanritam (truth alone triumphs, not falsehood).
Bharat
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Namaste Sri Kalyanji,
I follow most of your writings regarding the Mlechha writing system of Bronze age discovered in the Saraswathi valley and admire your remarkable work in this area.
Eventhough I follow this from an outsider perspective, my instinct tells me that your analysis is correct.. the only thing that tugs at me is – somehow the creators of this script wanted to convey an “astronomical date” also in some of the tablets.
One thing that came to my mind as I follow your logic and reasoning for the decipherment of these clay tablets is the current texting language (SMS), its creation and their widespread adaptation by mostly teenagers. If one were asked to decipher this texting “language” (emoticons etc.,) it would be a similar excercise to the decipherment of the Mlechha writing system.
Hope this comparison helps in some way in your research.
best regards
–ramana
Thanks Ramana gaaru for your kind note.
We have to do a lot of work on the continuity of Sarasvati culture and in particular, the performance of yajna (and related astronomical events of which the knowledge as old as the Rigveda had emerged earlier on the banks of River Sarasvati).
Certainly, it is possible that the fire-/mint-workers were also the cosmic enquirers. We have to dig deep into the knowledge about astronomy incorporated in many bharatiya languages firmly anchored on Samskrtam and Vedic.
One thing is clear. The cultural framework and the semantic structure for all bharatiya languages was the same.
Early punch-marked coins rapidly adopted the Sarasvati hieroglyphs, superimposed with writing systems based on kharoshthi and brahmi syllabic scripts.
I do not know if special glyphs were used to denote the cosmic phenomena and events in early astronomical works.
dhanyavaadaalu. kalyanaraman
http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/13/stories/2008091361500900.htm
I’d like to get comments on this decipherment, which was done in May-June 2010.
It is very different from Rainer Hasenpflug’s and that of Dr. Kalyanaraman,
http://decipherquarterly.piczo.com/?cr=2
Sincerely, S. M. Sullivan