Author: M.R. Mallya
Publication: Organiser
Date: December 10, 2000
The attack on Rajaram
and the scholars, who asserted the autochthonousness of the Aryans in the
Saraswati-Sindhu belt, has been well marshalled by Frontline (24-11-2000).
By publishing Rajaram's letter and interviewing him, the ground was prepared
to confound him further on minor issues, particularly the 'horse' that
was but a footnote to the larger question of the Indus script. The
five-fold attack on Rajaram had eminent persons like Asko Parpola and Iravatham
Mahadevan giving their views. Sukumar Muralidharan questioned the
assertions of the Harappan civilization, openly and obliquely. The
climax came with Michael Witzel and Steve Farmer flogging a dead horse
to bring out flaws in Rajaram's interviewed remarks. They ended up
with abuses unbecoming of scholarly disagreements. Their "main thrust"
is that "what makes Rajaram's effort worth close analysis is not its scholarly
merit-because it has none-but the element of duplicity in his work and
the ugly politics underlying it. This was the real subject of our
article which focused on the enormous abyss between Hindutva 'revisions'
of history and any sane view of the past". Fortunately, I.
Mahadevan says, "I agree with Rajaram that it is time we put this 'horse
business' behind us and look at the decipherment itself".
That is the real crux.
According to him the direction of reading (left to right) adopted by the
authors (Jha & Rajaram) is wrong as "demonstrated" by Witzel and Farmer,
to whom, "so for as the scholarly world goes, nothing is left of Rajaram's
Hindutva revisions of history than ... a dead horse". Witzel
and Farmer assert the traditional history with only minor modifications,
such as preponing the date of Aryan invasion to, say 2000 BC, and reassert
the primarily Dravidian origins of the Harappan civilization with a later
Aryan superimposition. Whoever opposes their view is a Hindutva fanatic,
and his arguments are a fabrication. By condemning Rajaram they feel
they have silenced all other writers. This is one of their major
flaws. Neither Dravidian nor Vedic literature speak of any migration
into India in spite of all attempts at manipulating history. This
has been confirmed even by Ambedkar and Pargiter. In his latest book,
Rig Veda, A Historical Analysis (2000), Talageri has highlighted at least
two battles, by Mandhata and later by Sudas, driving out Aryan tribes (Drhuyus,
Dasas, Anus, Alinas) west of Indus into Afghanistan. The Aryans in
Rig Veda were on the banks of the Saraswati which is east of the Sindhu.
They were aware of cows,
elephants, buffaloes and lions in the early Rig Vedic era, while they came
to know the camel, sheep and horses later during the period of Mandala
VIII, IX and X. Full reference to Rig Vedic hymns have been given
by Talageri. (How then could they be the invasionists?) Talageri
has taken care to answer scholars who attempted to manipulate and misinterpret
the Rig Veda. He has exposed Witzel's poor knowledge of Indology
and his Eurocentric bias. K. Elst in his Update of Aryan Invasion
Debate (1999) has confirmed this. His index reads: "Witzel Michael
dismisses Talageri without reading Talageri, 55; on wild goose chase 164-7;
faulty Vedic chronology of, 171". There is no archaeological evidence
to prove the Aryan invasion of India or that the Dravidians were the people
of the Harappan civilization. If Parapola is "inclined to think"
otherwise on the basis of "new archaeological evidence" he must spell it
out. He cannot ignore Talageri's evidence on the Rig Veda and K.
Elst's "Update", as generally done by these "eminent" people. Surprisingly
for Witzel and Freeman, it was N. Jha who first intuited the Indus
script after looking at three animal seals none of which was a horse.
The incident of "horse play" has little to do with his substantial decipherment.
Jha was puzzled by the seals of a bull, a unicorn and another unicorn with
three body parts, reminding him of three shlokas in the Shanti Parva of
Mahabharata:
1. Viddhi mam vrishamuttamam
(Know me therefore as the magnificent bull)
2. Ekasranga...
divyadarshana (One horned, divine apparition)
3. Trikakuta tena
vikhyata (... renowned with three body parts) Deciphering an ancient
script is a unique experience where the romance and truth of the past fall
into place at the right moment. Some dry and arid historians have
no intuition, nor zest for truth to understand these eventful stages.
But let us not digress. Much is being made that the script is from
"left to right" while it ought to be "right to left". Jha and Rajaram
discovered it to be both left to right and sometimes right to left and
even top to bottom! Right to left decipherment has been given by them.
It is not clear why Mahadevan makes much ado about it. If 1500 seals
have been deciphered and their methodology and meaning have been given,
is that not in itself a basic proof that left to right reading is correct?
It is strange that none of these eminent critics can throw any light on
the decipherment.
Yet, like proverbial
crabs in a basket, they are eager to pull down the valiant efforts of Jha
and Rajaram which have spelt out the methodology and attempted the decipherment.
The manner in which the decipherment has been graphically illustrated makes
it easy for the reader to understand these and to progress further to Vedic
terms. Names like Yaska, Rama and Sudas have come to light.
But none from the Mahabharata, thereby proving that these were prior to
the Mahabharata era. This transitional script was mainly pictographic,
then slowly transformed to syllabic, leading on to the Brahmi script.
The two scripts have 11 letters in common and many similarities whose importance
is not yet appreciated by historians. The evolution of the script
and comparing it with Brahmi have been well explained. In spite of
a clear methodology and 1500 decipherments it is possible that some, say
10 per cent, has not been correctly deciphered. Some letters have
more than one sign. (Even where known ancient scripts have been deciphered,
there are disputable readings). Sometimes though deciphered, the
meaning and its context are obscure. One also wonders why there are
only a few relating to commercial transactions, while many refer to Vedic
names. Is there too much dependence on Yaska's Nirukta? Such issues
require to be pondered over before passing sweeping judgements.
It certainly is no reason
to dismiss the script just because Jha is a "school master" and Rajaram,
an "expatriate writer" (Witzel). One has to deleve deeper into the
ancient past when the major aspects of human relations were based on oral
traditions, particularly in India where the Vedas themselves were memorised.
Perhaps some Indus seals were earmarked as "reference points" containing
few words. So were the later Sulba sutras whose terse comments composed
vast knowledge. In short, the pioneering research of Jha & Rajaram
has to be carefully studied as a stepping stone to further progress on
the path of history (what we need is constructive criticism not destructive
decimation). Above all, the decipherment has for the first time,
opened up the Harappa civilization as a close sister to Vedic culture.
Progress of such studies will enrich both Indology and Harappan culture.
