Indian Palaeography c9.s2: Origin
Indian Palaeography c9.s2
- Language
- English
Origin
c9.s2.1
We still do not know where the art of writing was first invented, and with this question is related the origin of the Indus Script. There is nothing more to add to what Dr. G. R. Hunter wrote in 1934:
c9.s2.2
A cursory examination of the script of Mohenjodaro and Harappa will reveal that it is distinctive. It is neither Sumerian, nor any other known script, though it bears certain resemblances to several. Some of these are doubtless coincidental, since in the very nature of pictographic writing it is hardly possible to avoid some similarity in depicting the same object. A closer examination will establish that it is precisely the commoner signs of our texts that are the most distinctive—e.g. [Figure:] At the same time it would be rash, in the present state of our knowledge on the subject, to rule out of court the hypothesis of a common descent from some remote ancestor for the script of Harappa and any other pictographic script. We know so little, after all, of the ultimate pictographic ancestry of any script, even Sumerian.
c9.s2.3
*Attempted decipherments*
c9.s2.4
But while the Sumerian and the hieroglyphic writings have been successfully read, and the meanings of the inscriptions written in these characters have opened to us the minds of the builders of those civilizations, the Indus Script remains undeciphered. Only the material remains have acquainted us with the day-to-day life of the people who formed this civilization. Their language also remains a secret. The material remains have been interpreted in the light of the contemporary world or, more commonly, against the background of the succeeding historical cultures in the subcontinent, and various conclusions about the people and their language have been drawn. These are, of course, hypothetical. It is on these hypotheses that attempts at deciphering the script have been made. The first in the field was L. A. Waddell, who believed in the identity of the Sumerians and the Aryans, tried to read the inscriptions in Sumerian on the basis of a few apparent links, and found in them names of Vedic and Epic heroes. Dr. Pran Nath followed the same line, but supposed the language to be some form of old Sanskrit or Prakrit and utilized the Brāhmī script of a much later date to ascertain what he believed to be the correct sound value of the symbols. Another suggestion of Pran Nath’s, that the significance of the symbols might be arrived at on the basis of Tantric signs, was independently developed by Śankarananda and also by Dr. B. M. Barua, both assuming that the writing is alphabetic. Professor B. Hrozny took the people to be proto-Hittites, an earlier branch of the Indo-Europeans, and tried to interpret the inscriptions with the help of the Hittite language. As opposed to these suggestions, Father H. Heras assumed that the people were Dravidians and tried to reconstruct a proto-Dravidian language for them, and for his interpretation compared the Indus signs with Sumerian, hieroglyphic, and proto-Chinese symbols. Finding no clue to the people and their language, Sir Flinders Petrie tried to interpret the Indus symbols as ideographs, on the analogy of those of Egypt and on the further assumption that the Indus seals contain only titles of the officials. Later, Meriggi realized Petrie’s mistake in taking all the symbols as ideographs. He believed the Indus Script to be an ideo-phonographic system of writing and assumed some symbols to be ideograms and others phonemes. For determining their meanings he often referred to the Hittite vocabulary and to Hittite hieroglyphs. G. de Hévesy rejected all these suppositions and drew attention to the similarities between the Indus Valley Script and the script of Easter Island, maintaining that the latter was the progenitor of the former. But apart from a certain apparent similarity there is nothing to authenticate the antiquity of the script of Easter Island.
c9.s2.5
There is very little external evidence to prove or disprove the readings suggested by the different scholars mentioned above. The only effective argument against each of them is the fact that the criticism levied by one against the other is equally applicable to the critic’s own method. These difficulties were fully realized by Gadd, Sydney Smith, Langdon, and Hunter, and they all chose to confine themselves to listing the signs, mechanically counting their use in the different inscriptions, and suggesting their possible significance. Beyond this mechanical process Gadd has ventured to discover in them ‘an ancient Indo-Aryan language’ and actually suggested the reading *putra* (son) for [Figure:] [Figure:] [Figure:]. Langdon and, following him, Hunter have tried to see some connexion between the Aśokan Brāhmī and the Indus Script, and the latter especially has ventured to suggest vowel signs on this very basis. Both of them argue for a syllabic system of writing. Sydney Smith alone has refrained from falling into any such temptation. He has commented on the mechanical nature of the writing, and has attempted to discover the determinatives, end-signs, and beginning-signs. Beyond this stage it is hardly possible to go with the materials at present available. Professor J. Friedrich rightly points out the main difficulty:
c9.s2.6
The decipherment of an unknown language in a known script, such as the cuneiform Hittite, Etruscan, or Urartean; or of a known language in an unknown script, such as the Greek in the Cyprian syllabic script, is much more hopeful than that of an unknown script and unknown language, as the case is with the hieroglyphic Hittite or Cretan languages. For such works certain points of contact are necessary. Nothing can be made out of nothing.
c9.s2.7
Another great difficulty is the total absence of long inscriptions. We have so far found only short epigraphs on seals, or metal tablets, or rare impressions on pottery.