topDr. Madhusudan Mishra
top
Dr. Madhusudan Mishra
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ABOUT
THE AUTHOR |
1.The plural formation in the Indus language, if Mahadevan is right (The Indus Script,p.17:11,9),was carried out by repeating the syllables so many times, which, fortunately, reflects in Panini (1,2,64),who says that the pl. form devAs has resulted from deleting the deva-elements from deva-deva-devAs. He was not required to say like this, because just deva + as = devAs is enough. But because he somehow knew that the ancestor of Sanskrit made plural by repeating the words, he wanted to highlight this ancient procedure. It seemed to suggest that Sanskrit was genealogically related to Indus. 2. At another place (P. 6,1,64-65), Panini says that the initial cerebral S and N of the Sanskrit roots should be read as the dental s and n. That is to say, the verb sthA (to stand), e.g., goes to some original S-ThA. The graphic form of the sign no. 15 suggested it to be S-Tha. As a corollary, the sign 12 was taken to be Tha and 342 to be Sa. They were confirmed later. This also seemed to suggest that Sanskrit and Indus belong to the same stream of the language, the two at the two extremes of development. (From Indus to Sanskrit, Pt. I,1996) 3. After a rigorous phonetic exercise, the 3rd and 4th signs from the right in the texts 4132 and 4147 appeared to be va and Na (From Indus to Sanskrit, Pt. II p. 20). While, on the one hand, the specific shapes and lengths of the Indus numerals (Mahadevan : 86-121,287-298,312-315) were identified with the specific syllabic order of the Mahesvarasutras,on the other hand, the sign 249 was identified with va and 162 with Na. This was a major breakthrough and, at least, more than one -third of the basic signs was identified. 4. Some rare vedic vocables appear to reflect in the Indus texts. The text 1288 was provisionally read rau ra ,which appeared to reflect the Vedic rUra (the heat of the fever). As a corollary,307 was identified with u,its long form made by adding it to a consonant from two sides 29.It was also suggested that 216 was i, its long form seen in 218. As in case of 15,12,342, some signs were recognised through their ligature conditions. The geometrical sign 347 for ka was recognised from the ligature 352 k-Sa, and the duplicate was seen in the ligatures 348 and 359 l-ka. The ligature 394 S-Ta shows Ta, and sa was seen in the ligature 351 s-ka, its full form in 400. (From Indus to Sanskrit, Pt. II,1997) It came to be realised that the Indus inscriptions have appeared in three scripts. The writing would have started with the pictographs of the animals indicated by the specific syllables; e.g. ka stood for a turtle 58,ga for the horns of a bull or buffalo 328,gha for the neck of a human being 155, ca for an ant 57,ja for a bat 83,jha for a typical fish 74-75,Tha for a porter or bearer 12, Da for a drum 214,Dha for a dog 50,Na for a watchman 17, ta for the breast of a woman 420,da for a mountain 230,dha for an emaciated ascetic (prominent by the backbone) 47, na for a coomon fish 59,pa for a leaf 323,ba for a spider 54, bha for a bee 53, ma for another kind of fish 72,ya for the horns on the head of an animal 225, ra for a walking man 1,la for the hind-leg of a horse 84,va for an arrow 365, sha for a hare 51,Sa for the udder of a milch cow 342,sa for a bird 76-81,and ha for another kind of fish 67,other syllables either not quotable or not recognisable. When the animal figures began to look rustic with the advancement of education and when the Indus culture was gradually urbanised, the geometrical figures were invented. The animal figures were greatly replaced by the geometrical figures. At the height of the Indus culture, the artificial numerals were invented to arrange the phonemes according to their qualities and places of utterance. With the help of the numerals in the duplicate texts, the Geometrical signs, which had actually evolved from the animal figures, were gradually recognised. For example, the Geometrical signs 171 for ta was recognised through the texts 4464,1365,2374 and 2541 , where three different signs for ta make the same clause ta na sa. even ca 373 was recognised through the numeral in a long text 2914,etc..Because, squares and rectangles are often rounded in writing, even 261 was supposed to be ca. The following syllables were recognised through the respective duplicate texts comprising either numerals or animal figures: tha 126 through 4283: 6228,bha 127 through 6104;1154,la 173 through 2124:3083. For the following, only the common sense may be made responsible: 137 ya. 161 Dha, 189 dha, 174-175 sha, 176 gha, 186 pa, 411 Sa, 254 ga, 299 ja, 321 Da, 341 ha, 367 da, 402 ra, 403 cha, 415 jha. As a rule the vowels have been sparsely represented. even the numerals have represented only u 312 i 313 o 314 and au 315. Diacritically, u i o and e are visible in Su 343 Si 344 So 345 and Se 419. The animal signs for vowels making diphthongs appear in 16 Ha-O (H =voiceless h), in 218 ga-I, and there is the Geometrical sign for u in 28 ra-u, 29 ra-U. There is the Geometrical 134 for i with its diacritical form in 41 ri, 65 ni, etc.. There is also diacritical form for u in 350 ku 226 yu, though, its full form is not available. Some signs appear already with vowels; e.g., 230 yo 237 rA 258 rau, etc.. some c-syllables are represented by various forms of spoked wheels, which formed the remarkable items of that urban culture. Because, many signs are already having different vowels or conjunction of consonants, they can not be easily read unless they reflect in the wornout Vedic vocables. The phonology of the
Indus language is briefly, with slight modifications, represented by the :
Among the nasals, 5-n is palatal and 3-n is guttural. By the time of the Vedic language, the vowels e o were lost, and ra was weakened to the vocalic r (R), also with its dental variety, and the voiceless h (H) was either lost or replaced by s. The nasals were a group of six, including the unwritten M. The IE numerals from 5 to 10 are based on this syllabic order. 5 = Five
syllables from pa to ca with M (representing the five nasals)
interposed in the middle : pa-M-ca. Because, c was
dialectally an 6 =Sa(3) Sa(3).Because sa heads a group of three sibilants, it is for 3 7 =Seven syllables from Ha to ta via p : Ha-p-ta. 8 =Eight
syllables from Ha to Ta via S : Ha-S-Ta ,cf. Modern Persian 9 =Nine syllables from na to va : nava (The Nasals being a group of six). 10 =Ten syllables
from da to jha : da-jha ; jha, where affricate,
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INDUS SCRIPT 2001-02 Site Concept By Sumit Mishra |
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