Indian Palaeography c10: Appendix to Chapter 2: The Indus Script and the Later Symbols
Indian Palaeography c10
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Appendix to Chapter 2: The Indus Script and the Later Symbols
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Many writers have loosely compared the signs in the Indus Script with the symbols occurring on the punch-marked coins. About eleven recognizable symbols have also been found on a copper band discovered at Patna. A few are known from Kumrahar columns and from the Rampurva copper bolt, and some have been noticed on copper plates, the best known being on the Sohgaura plate. In fact such symbols are in use right down to the present day in India, and the village women can be seen decorating their floors and walls with them. Today they hardly signify more than auspicious marks.
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The signs in the Indus Script show a system of writing, governed by two definite principles, as described above. If from this system a few symbols are taken out and shown to occur at random on coins and other later objects, it does not prove the continuity of the script, much less, as Dr. C. L. Fabri asserts, that the devices on the punch-marked coins are ‘a survival of the Indus civilization’. Unfortunately, Dr. Fabri wrote at a time (1935) when very little study of the punch-marked symbols had been made. Now we are in a better position to examine these symbols in the published photographs. After a thorough comparison of the plates I have not found more than fifteen symbols which bear close resemblance to the signs in the Indus Script. Some of them are Pl. I*b*. iv. 1, 2; Pl. II*a*. I. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6; Pl. II*a*, VIII. 2, 7; Pl. II*a*. x. 8; Pl. II*b*. I. 1, 5; Pl. II*b*. II. 2; and Pl. II*b*. IX. 5. A few more may be discovered in future. However, it is important to note that this small number has been found out of 537 signs of the Indus Script and nearly the same number on the punch-marked coins. Dr. Fabri calls the coin symbols ‘pictograms’, and bases his argument mainly on Theobald’s drawing of these three symbols: [Figure:] [Figure:] [Figure:]. Theobald’s drawings cannot be checked, as the photographs of them are not published. Fortunately, I found the same symbols given by P. N. Bhattacharya (pl. II, no. 64 of his publication), but on referring to his photograph in pl. X, I found only one (no. 1338) of the three references (the two others being 1335 and 1342) to be correct. Even on this one coin the central symbol is clearly an elephant, and not as given by these authors. I have discarded the coin animal-figures as these are not included in the Indus Script. It is again important to note that the system found in the Indus Script cannot be traced on the coins at all. In fact the coin symbols do not represent writing. They are to be taken as pure symbols, the meaning of which has to be determined in the context in which they are found. The Tantric symbols are other similar signs which were used to express the cryptic Tantric formulae in the medieval period. These can hardly be taken to be a ‘survival’ of the Indus Script, nor can they throw any light on the interpretation of that script.
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<Paragraphs> ALLAN, J., *A Catalogue of the Indian Coins in the British Museum: Ancient India*, London, 1938.
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Altekar, A. S., ‘Symbols on the Copper Band in the Patna Museum’, *J.N.S.I.*, Bombay, ix, pt. 2.
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Bhattacharya, P. N., ‘A Hoard of Silver Punch-marked Coins from Purnea’, *M.A.S.I.*, no. 62.
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Durga Prasad, ‘Classification and Significance of the Symbols on the Silver Punch-marked Coins of Ancient India’, *J.A.S.B.*, 1934.
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—— ‘Observations on Different Types of Silver Punch-marked Coins, their Period and Locale’, ibid., 1937.
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Fabri, C. L., ‘The Punch-marked Coins: A Survival of the Indus Civilization’, *J.R.A.S.*, London, 1935.
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Fleet, J. F., ‘Sohgaura Copper-plate Inscription’, ibid., 1907.
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Walsh, E. H. C., ‘Punch-marked Coins from Taxila’, *M.A.S.I.*, no. 59.