Monday 19 September 2011

INDUS VALLEY, A DRAVIDIAN CIVILIZATION? – Unbelievable Article

Part 1..

By: Na. Nandhivarman [Paper presented at the National Seminar on The Indus Valley : A Review of Recent Research organized by the Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture on 28.9.2003 at the Chief Secretariat Conference Hall and inaugurated by the Pondicherry Education Minister K.Lakshminarayanan and Presided by Dr.Pa.Maruthanayagam, Director of PILC.] Humanity is engaged in an endless quest to unravel the mysteries of Nature. The origin of the human race, the original homeland of the first human being, the first civilization on earth, the birth of the language and its multiciplity and the puzzles of continental drifts, sea floor spreading, etc are some of the fields wherein new evidences are coming out every now and that which makes such a quest towards truth a must for proper construction of the history of the human race. The greatness of the Indus Valley Civilization and various clues that it provides to discover the first civilization on earth needs to be evaluated in the context of changing needs of our times, wherein claims and counter claims or even doctored claims are made to establish the Dravidian or the otherwise content of that civilization. In India Sir John Marshall deserves the credit to be the first scholar to suggest that the language of the Indus Valley civilization was Dravidian. Piero Meriggi in his book “ Zur_Indus Scrift “ (which means On the Indus Script) written in the German language was of the opinion that Brahui, spoken even now in Balochistan, is the Dravidian Language which must be the original language of the Harappans. Henry Heras in his book “ Studies in Proto-Mediterranean Culture “turned more than 1800 Indus texts into Proto-Dravidian sentences. In their book “Proto-Indica: 1979,Report on the investigation of the proto-Indian texts by Yu.V.Knorozov, M.F.Ali Bedil and B.Ya.Volchok have carried out a computer analysis of sign distribution in the Indus texts and had proven beyond an iota of doubt that it belonged to the Dravidian language family. David W.McAlphin in his book “Proto-Elamo-Dravidian and F.C.Southward in his book “The Reconstruction of Prehistoric South Asia language contact” had successfully used the Dravidian roots to reconstruct the language of the Indus Valley. As Dr.Mathivanan had too proven that the Indus script is Dravidian, there is no necessity to question the collective wisdom of all these scholars, yet there are schools of thought, which want to deny the Dravidian roots of the Indus Valley civilization. Let me quote elaborately from Professor Irafan Habib, who puts up a strong case for the Dravidian family language.“ The Dravidian languages constitute the second largest family in India. Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada belong to the Southern group, Telugu (in Andhra) and Gondi (in widely scattered pockets of Madya Pradesh) to the South Central, Kolami (in Maharastra) to the Central, Kurukh (in Jharkand, Chattisgarh and Nepal) and Brahui (Baluchistan) to the Northern. There are also many minor languages attached to these different groups. Tamil has the longest literary history going back at least to the first century B.C By comparing the vocabularies and grammar of these languages, a hypothetical Proto-Dravidian language can be reconstructed, which, it is assumed, must have been spoken before the speakers of the Dravidian languages separated from each other. The use of certain retroflex sounds (such as hard l, n, r, rh, the tongue having to curl back just under the hard palate in order to pronounce them) is one of the most common traits in the Dravidian languages, while such retroflexion is absent in both Austro-Asiatic and Indo-European languages spoken outside the Indian sub continent. It is therefore a reasonable conjecture that it is Proto-Dravidian or its early successors, from which the Austro-Asiatic and Indo-Aryan languages derive their retroflex consonants. This inference has many consequences. Retroflexion as well as a few words (more than 2 dozen) of possible Dravidian origin are present in the Rigveda. Since retroflexion is totally absent in the Avesta, the earliest Iranian Text, which is very close to Rigveda in vocabulary and grammar, one must assume that Rigveda reciters introduced retroflexion in pronunciation of even the most impeccable Indo_Iranian words, under the influence of the pronunciation of the speakers of the earlier local languages. Since the Rigvedic hymns were composed in the area between the Hindukush and the Ganga, this makes it very likely that some of the substrata languages of Punjab or Upper Indus basin at the time were members of the Dravidian family. The likelihood is increased by the geographical proximity of the Brahui language, whose speakers are today to be found in northeastern Baluchistan, not far from Punjab.Brahui’s own case for antiquity has been strengthened by David MacAlphins discovery of the links between Elamite.Similarly connections have been seen between Proto-Dravidian and the Uralic languages of Eastern Europe and Siberia, and this would also suggest that there were once Dravidian speakers in latitudes much further to the north than today. There are strong hints towards linking the official Indus language to the Dravidian family”, says Irfan Habib. Shareen Ratnagar in her book “Understanding Harrappa Civilization in the Greater Indus Valley says “Harrappan language was probably agglutinative or a language which added suffixes to an unchanging root. This feature is characteristic of the Dravidian language family than the Indo-Aryan text; the rgveda shows Dravidian influence (indicating that early Indo-Aryans had some contact with Dravidian speakers) make it likely that the language of the Harrappans was a Dravidian one. (Note, also, that Brahui, spoken in the hills of southeastern Baluchistan is a Dravidian language) It will be of great interest to note that Ainul Hag Faridkoti in his book “ Urdu zaban ki Qadeem Tareekh (Urdu: The History of ancient Urdu) and in ‘Pre-Aryan origin of Pakistani languages: A monograph” claims that the first languages of the present day Pakistan are Dravidian. Bertil Tikkanen “On Burushaski and other Ancient substrata in the north western South Asia” asserts that Pakistani languages have a Dravidian substratum. The evidence for the presence of the substratum is the presence of retroflex consonants which do not exists in Iranian or European members of the Indo European family of languages. Iravatham Mahadevan’s book:” The Indus script texts, concordance and tables “ helps in deciphering the Indus script, some claim.. Sathur Sekaran’s valuable contribution in proving that Indusscript is Dravidian also deserves special mention. Dr.N.Mahalingam in his article in the book” Ancient India “ observes thus: “though eminent scholars like Heras, Parpola, Kamil Zvelebil, FairServices and Mahadevan have already clearly established that the Indus valley script has to be read only as a Dravidian language, it is the decipherment of the script of the Indus by Dr. M Ramachandran and Dr.R.Madhivanan which is the first cogent and systematic effort which can be stated as the test of vigorous scholarship’ In another scholarly analysis by M. Sundar Raj in his article Tamil Grammer Rules (Tholkappiam) a new truth emerges. He lists the Gods found in Rigveda as 33 gods, and gives a break up. Adityas 12, Vasus 8. Rudras 11, Vasatkara 1, Prajapathi1,so totaling 33. The assertion of Rigveda to restrict the number of gods to 33 baffles M.Sundar Raj, which goes into the question of the rationale of this particular scheme of classification. He refers the Tamil Grammar Tholkappiam particularly on alphabets and finds those 33 letters in Tamil script to be the clue for this particular scheme of classification of 33 gods in Rigveda. 12 Vowels, 18 consonants, 1 Aidham, I Kutrialugaram, 1 Kutrialigaram together makes to the 33 letters. This is a marvelous new line open for research. M.Sundar Raj’s views need further deeper consideration. “ At first stage of impact between the highly developed Dravidian civilization and the nomadic and vigorous Aryan people, a process of civilization of the latter took place, as elsewhere, leading to the birth of Sanskrit language and the evolution of Sanskrit literary conventions from the Dravidian base. The first result was the coming into being of a mixed language, which we today call Sanskrit. The material for the literary compositions in this language were taken from the culture of the teachers, who obviously were Dravidians, and who found in this process a convenient and secretive way of preserving their culture with a key only known to themselves. These early compositions must have been the work of small groups or schools, working in conclaves independently, but with the same inherited material. Long afterwards an attempt appears to have been made to bring together and systematize the whole material, whence the Vedas, as we know now emerged. But by this time the Dravidian origin of the language and culture was forgotten, not merely due to the lapse of time, but also apparently as an outcome of cultural elimination. Thus the key to the puzzle has remained lost now”, opines M.Sundarraj. The admixtures and adulterations carried out in the languages of the invaders and the subdued indigenous people needs a specialized study to establish the origins of many concepts including the Godhood. An impartial enquiry will bring to light which are the Dravidian or Aryan origins of many social customs, religious practices and literary products including grammar, and unless an unbiased attempt is made in search of truth fabricated truths will rule the roost. It is true that cultural elimination had left a deep adverse impact on the Tamil literary history. The burning away of palm-leaf inscriptions in Bogi fire, and the habit of throwing Tamil texts in Adi-perukku are designed well to serve the process of cultural elimination well, thereby Tamils lost numerous texts which could have been of greater help in reconstruction of the literary and other history. In this age of Netizens , Tamil citizens of various countries are engaged in preserving the palm leaf texts as digital texts, and of particular mention is that of Mr.Na.Kannan who resides in Germany ( tamilheritage.org ). In Karnataka and in Orissa there are many stone inscriptions and cave paintings which have to be deciphered, and like U.V.Swaminatha Iyer if many Tamilians look for Tamil Manuscripts from Museums and other places all over the world , lot of hidden history could be unraveled. So far we have seen the opinion of various scholars who firmly held that the text and language of the Indus script is Dravidian. But there is a school, which is hell bent upon denying anything about “ Dravidian “ and they call it as a British conspiracy to divide and rule such Aryan invasion theories were invented, forgetting their own rigvedic hymns. In nutshell this is what that school goes on shouting from all possible platforms. Why so? Let me quote John Hinnells and Eric Sharpe from their book “ Hinduism “ which will reveal the designs of these cultural eliminators.” Until the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization, the development of literature and culture in India was always credited to the Aryans. In 1920 archaeologists announced the discovery of extensive urban ruins in the Indus valley, which predated earliest archaeological sources and this caused scholars to reexamine their views on the different phases of Indian culture. The Rig Veda that speaks in such derogatory terms of the enemies subdued from by the Aryan tribes, gives the impression that they were all savage barbarians. “ There is another scholar who speaks about the conspiracy not of the British but of the nomadic invaders. “ The Brahmins for centuries have degraded the original inhabitants of India with the intention of self elevation, preservation and oppression. These ancient dwellers in India were Dravidians, and in fact, their culture had developed a highly sophisticated way of life. The existence of Brahui tribe in Baluchistan to the west of Indus, who speak a Dravidian language like South Indian Tamil, gives the evidence that a migration of people or culture did occur. Also the Harrappan religion shows many similarities with the elements of Hinduism, which are especially popular in the present Dravidian culture. “ (A.L.Basham in The Wonder that was India p 27) However in pursuance of an attempt to systematically bury the truth an assertion began to be widely made that the Indus Valley civilization was not only Aryan, but also Vedic or even post-vedic.” Some professional archaeologists have embraced this view, though it might be contrary to what they had held earlier. The basic argument advanced by this school is that the main features of the Indus Civilization are quite consistent with those of the society and culture inferable from the rig veda.” Irfan Habib smashes all these assumptions put forward as arguments that make no sense. “ We shall consider the question of the reconcibility of the Rig veda, with what we know of the Indus valley civilization. Since the Rigveda is preeminently a religious text, consisting mainly of hymns to deities, the crucial area of comparison must be religious one. What the seals and copper amulets tell us is that the Indus deities were mostly zoomorphic, represented by the various animals, the most prominent animal being the Unicorn, the mythical one horned humpless bull, other animals include the bison, elephant, humped bull and rhinoceros, in the order of the frequency of the occurrence. The great rigvedic deities are however, practically all anthrophormic in conception (that is idealized human or superhuman forms) and zoomorphism is practically absent. Sarama is a dog like female deity in the late rigvedic hymn, but even here the contrast continues. The Indus seals give no evidence of a similar canine deity (nor is the dog itself pictured on the seals). We may note that the cow so highly priced in the Rigveda and at least at one place deified, is not at all shown on the seals, where the honour belongs to the bull alone. The horse and the camel, sought in gifts by the rigvedic seers, are absolutely absent from these seals. On the other hand, the rigveda shows no perception of the mythical unicorn, or assign any sanctity to the animals like the elephant, rhinoceros or tiger. The rigveda has nothing similar to the composite animals (tigers body, bulls horn, elephant trunks, for sample) on the Indus seals. Among the Indus day figurines found in private houses, representations of the Mother Goddess are particularly numerous. The rigveda has no female deity that is either as prominent or similarly linked to any fertility cult. There is no rigvedic goddess either, who has the body of a tiger, as an Indus cylinder seal. The lack of similarity continues when one considering the ways of disposing the dead. The Indus people buried their dead and there is no evidence at all of cremation. The rigveda on the other hand, recognizes cremation as the principal method, using the word non cremation (an-agnidaghal) for burial.” Whatever logic is there in these argument, the sadists who want to deny Dravidian people of anything that is great, continue their single point agenda to spread untruths. The Discover Magazine in the following beautiful words describes the greatness of the Dravidian civilization. “ No golden tomb, no fancy ziggurats. Four thousand years ago city builders in the Indus valley made deals, not war, and created a stable, peaceful and prosperous culture. Neither Vedas nor the Bible made any mention of this magnificent civilization. Yet they were a highly organized and stupendously successful civilization. They built some of the worlds first written languages, and thrived in an area twice the size of Egypt and Mesopotamia for 700 years. “ Well we have to look at the way Indus came to be associated with this civilization. “ Harappa, in Sahiwel District of West Punjab, Pakistan had long been known to archaeologists as an extensive site on the Ravi river, but its significance as a major city of an early great civilization remained unrecognized until the discovery of Mohenja daro near the banks of the Indus, in the Larkana District of Sindh by R.D.Banerjee in 1922. Sir John Marshall, the then Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India used the term Indus civilization for the culture discovered at harappa and mohenja daro, a term doubly apt because of the geographical context implied in the name Indus and the presence of cities implied in the world civilization.” Says Irfan habib in his book the Indus Valley Civilization “p 16. In spite of the fact that this civilization is known as Indus because of the geography and is called as Dravidian because of the language and culture, yet the cultural eliminators are for centuries at pains to remove all traces of Dravidian content or to be more specific, the indigenous people’s greatness, whose culture they had taken over by way of admixture and adulteration. In 1893 V.Warren, an American wrote the book “ The Paradise found or the Cradle of Human race at the North Pole. Heavily adopting the views put forth in that book Balagangadhara Tilak wrote a book ‘The Artic home of Vedas’. He and other of his school of thought, till date are burning midnight oil to aryanize a Dravidian culture. In Ukraine during 1966 Yu Kanygin brought out his book “ The Path of the Aryans: The role of Ukraine in the spiritual History of Mankind”. This book says that Rama’s birthplace is not Ayodya but near the Driper river. It says Rama is from a tribe known as Druid. It will be of interest to know that Rama, whether a ruler or mythological hero, is a Dravidian born in the tribe of Druids near the Driper River.


Thanks: freewebs
Part 2 Indus Valley, A Dravidian Civilization?

7 comments:

  1. Tasmilscafe: I am willing to not look at names like Irfan Habib on the post. He is one of the premier AIT baiters amongst historians. I see a statement "Tamil has the longest literary history going back at least to the first century B.C" Now, without going into the merits of this, if anything, dating of Tolkappiyam (the premier Tamil Sangam litearutre) has been as elusive as the Rig Veda. And based on what I know of Sangam literature, the fact that there was supposedly a work called Agathiyam (from Sage Agastya)predating Tolkappiyam that was lost & the author of Tolkapaiyam being the sage's student, we can safely say that this work belonged to 300 BC. The first Tamil sangam (before 300 BC) was supposed to have lasted for 4000 yrs and it was lost due to sea waters entering land (this is mentioned in Iraiyanar Akapporul by Nakirar).

    Another spurious statement "The first result was the coming into being of a mixed language, which we today call Sanskrit." Now Arabic co-existed with Aramaic, Hebrew, Sumerian and many other dialects of Central Asian languages. Based on key strokes and similarities like Shalom / Salom, why does the author of the post, inspired by Habib, not call Arabic as a mixed language. Why only Sanskrit? There is nothing been provided as evidence to support the statement.A few written / key strokes of letters and etymology alone cannot establish anything about the origins of any language.

    Brahui tribe of Balochistan is a red herring. They are today a tribe. There are three different versions of how they ended up in Balochistan. From a linguistic standpoint, do we have any proof of how similar Brahui tongue is with Tamil? We know that "HA" (leave alone the tribe's name) is not a Tamil pronunciation at all. The letter for HA in Tamil is borrowed too. So what are the similarities other than claims? Has any Tamil linguist spoken with these Balochis? And how come, when Dravidian civilization was getting usurped by another culture (right next door), these tribes ended up being "dravidian" as the article claims?

    Rig Veda is not a zoological work. What the article says in this regard is redundant. Does Sangam literature talk about rhinos or alligators or unicorns? And why does the article expect thee Rig Veda to delve into zoomorphism? Even then it is wrong. RV treats this entire Universe as an aspect of God and describes this Universe as a Horse in many verses. So what kind of homework has gone into this article? And there are quite a handful of female deities in RV. What is the significance of a female deity for fertility, as mentioned in the article? What is Dravidian or Aryan about the statement?

    And do the authors know that there is a theory that states that Dravidians themselves came to India from else hwere and that the original original inhabitants were people that spoke Munda language, an Austo-Asiatic language (with origins in Vietnam). Can Irfan habib explain this, as, Munda lnguage is completely different from Sanskrit or Tamil? I can go on and on...but I think I have made my point. Lastly, unless someone can convince me otherwise, Druids are a Celtic tribe. And the author of the article did not even get the name of the river in Ukraine correctly. It is not Driper river but it should be Dnieper river in Ukraine.

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  2. @ Apolloreach:

    Thanks for your comments on part 1… First of all, I am not a Tamil scholar to answer you with authentic proof and I don’t want to spread hatreds among Indians by promoting the Aryans and Dravidian theories. In other hand, I would like to know more about history behind Tamils, so as an ordinary Tamilian I would like to raise some questions from your comments.

    • You have decided to pick some of the points discussed in the post and answer them vaguely, that’s fine we go for one by one. How can you substantiate your statement that “Irfan Habib” is one of the premier AIT baiters amongst historians? Does this mean any one coming to conclusion towards Dravidian ideology is a baiter?
    • Yes, I agree with you that the first Tamil sangam (before 300 BC) was lost by tsunami or tidal waves by reading iraiyanar Akapporul by Nakirar, it clearly gives proof that there were many literatures lost during the disaster, don’t you think this is a substantiate PROOF or CLUE for statement such as "Tamil has the longest literary history going back at least to the first century B.C" ( I will update tonight another post as an important source to substantiate the link backwards from 300BC)? Read the part2, then you will more information in this regard.
    • He has given proofs to substantiate the statement "The first result was the coming into being of a mixed language, which we today call Sanskrit." such as,
    o“Proto-Indica: 1979,Report on the investigation of the proto-Indian texts by Yu.V.Knorozov, M.F.Ali Bedil and B.Ya.Volchok have carried out a computer analysis of sign distribution in the Indus texts and had proven beyond an iota of doubt that it belonged to the Dravidian language family”,
    o“Retroflexion as well as a few words (more than 2 dozen) of possible Dravidian origin are present in the Rigveda”,
    o“Since the Rigvedic hymns were composed in the area between the Hindukush and the Ganga, this makes it very likely that some of the substrata languages of Punjab or Upper Indus basin at the time were members of the Dravidian family”
    o“Shareen Ratnagar in her book “Understanding Harrappa Civilization in the Greater Indus Valley says “Harrappan language was probably agglutinative or a language which added suffixes to an unchanging root. This feature is characteristic of the Dravidian language family than the Indo-Aryan text; the rigveda shows Dravidian influence (indicating that early Indo-Aryans had some contact with Dravidian speakers) make it likely that the language of the Harrappans was a Dravidian one”

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  3. @Apolloreach
    o “M. Sundar Raj in his article Tamil Grammer Rules (Tholkappiam) a new truth emerges. He lists the Gods found in Rigveda as 33 gods, and gives a break up. Adityas 12, Vasus 8. Rudras 11, Vasatkara 1, Prajapathi1, so totaling 33. The assertion of Rigveda to restrict the number of gods to 33 baffles M.Sundar Raj, which goes into the question of the rationale of this particular scheme of classification. He refers the Tamil Grammar Tholkappiam particularly on alphabets and finds those 33 letters in Tamil script to be the clue for this particular scheme of classification of 33 gods in Rigveda. 12 Vowels, 18 consonants, 1 Aidham, I Kutrialugaram, 1 Kutrialigaram together makes to the 33 letters”
    • The existence of Brahui tribe in Baluchistan to the west of Indus, who speak a Dravidian language like South Indian Tamil, gives the evidence that a migration of people or culture did occur.
    • So on…
    • “When Dravidian civilization was getting usurped by another culture (right next door), these tribes ended up being "dravidian" as the article claims?” I don’t honestly understand this point, when over 100s of years were ruled by be it Islamists or Chritians, HINDUISM got its way to upraise, so does Vedic Dharam!! And still we use Dravidian languages in other parts of India despite of Arabic dominance (not just right next door, inside the house too).
    • The author substantiated Brahui claim by saying “Brahui’s own case for antiquity has been strengthened by David MacAlphins discovery of the links between Elamite” Do you reject MacAlphins name as well with Irfan Habib?
    • What is wrong if Brahui or Brohi is a tribe now? Well known two academic theories regarding Brahui people are,
    o One is that they are an ancient hold-over of some sort of indeterminate Elamo-Dravidian origin that descended from the people of the Indus Valley civilization.
    o Another theory is that they are migrants from northern India who arrived in the region either before the Aryan invasion, but probably before the Baloch.
    • Are you going to reject both theories? If not, then which one you would chose?
    • In regards to rig Veda, why to bother about Zoology, biology etc? When RV talks about HORSE, COW etc (I guess) do we claim RV as Zoological book, definitely not, then why now?
    o Is it because of the statement “What the seals and copper amulets tell us is that the Indus deities were mostly zoomorphic, represented by the various animals, the most prominent animal being the Unicorn, the mythical one horned humpless bull, other animals include the bison, elephant, humped bull and rhinoceros, in the order of the frequency of the occurrence. The great rigvedic deities are however, practically all anthrophormic in conception (that is idealized human or superhuman forms) and zoomorphism is practically absent.”
    • If you reject this claim then you are free to do so. But the point author willing to make is Indus deities were mostly Zoomorphic not anthrophormic. How ever, as per my understanding of VEDAS, god is omnipresent and shapeless, isn’t it? Is this alone not enough to claim existence of Indus civilization were prior to Vedic dharma establishment or there was another culture existed (that’s what academics called as Dravidian’s culture)? (Correct me if I am wrong).
    • I think, here we would consider the content of the article rather spelling or grammatical issues. Can you enlighten me more that why do you need to be convinced that Druid is not a Celtic tribe? By means of how?
    • This article is to find hidden truth about Aryan invasion, not Dravidian invasion if I am not wrong!! Or did you mean to say you agreed that Aryan invasion theory is true? Because the many theories you meant about Dravidian invasion are also agrees that Aryan invasion were true. What do we say about it now? We will discuss Munda language too in due course.

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  4. Tamiscafe: I am from TN too. And I will definitely expand on quite a few of the points I have mentioned. I do have evidences against AIT. So we can go over in a slow & steady manner. I am yet to read the second part of the post. I will do so and as stated, I will expand on what meant above.

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  5. Given I am traveling due to work, I may not be posting anytime soon. Please look up for an alternate perspective - http://micheldanino.voiceofdharma.com/tamilculture.html

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  6. @Apolloreach

    I am looking forward to hear from you soon.

    I have many questions to ask about referred article too, we talk about it after we finish discussing about raised ones.

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  7. @tamilscafe
    Please visit here you will find more article on Aryan invasion
    http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/index.html

    http://stephenknapp.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/death-of-the-aryan-invasion-theory-2/

    http://agniveer.org/Thread-Max-Mueller-was-a-swindler

    ReplyDelete