The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables c9.s6: 6. The purpose and scope of the Corpus

The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables c9.s6

Language: English

6. The purpose and scope of the Corpus

c9.s6.1

The texts in standardized editions and corcordances are based upon the subjective judgements of individual scholars, and they do not display all the intricacies of the originals. Moreover, they contain numerous admittedly doubtful readings. Objective photographic documentation of the original inscriptions thus is a necessary complement to such textual studies. Photographs of the original objects are equally indispensable tools for the historians of art and religion studying the iconographic motifs and for archaeologists engaged in a comparative study of the objects. In short, there is no replacement for good photographs of all the Indus seals and inscriptions.

c9.s6.2

A major part of the material has been published in photographs in the excavation reports of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa: they illustrate altogether roughly 2500 objects. These publications have long been out of print and difficult to procure. It is true that they have been reprinted in recent years, but the quality of the photographs in the reprints is so low that they are practically unusable. The published photographs of the rest of the material, on the other hand, are scattered in a number of publications, and their mere collection involves great difficulties for persons without access to specialized libraries.

c9.s6.3

It would have been simple enough to collect and reproduce the old photographs of the earlier publications. Such a procedure, however, would have resulted in a book that would not have fully satisfied the serious student of the Indus script and iconography. The size and quality of the illustrations, even in the original reports, is not always sufficient. Moreover, the available material is documented incompletely, for, as pointed out above, there are many hundreds of unpublished objects: objects coming from excavations conducted at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa after the conclusion of the official excavations; a large number of duplicate and broken or indistinct objects, especially from Harappa; and objects from excavations and explorations carried out in India and Pakistan during the past few decades but not yet published in full.

c9.s6.4

Apart from their inscriptions and iconography, the seals form an important category of artifacts in their own right, which we have seen to have much relevance for the study of the external relations of a culture as well as of its internal processes. Therefore, in addition to all the inscriptions in the Indus script, this Corpus will contain all the Harappan seals, including those without any inscription. In the case of other object types, 'inscription' has occasionally been understood rather liberally so as to include, for example, K-119, a most interesting 'terracotta cake' from Kalibangan, though its incisions form an iconographic motif rather than an inscription.

c9.s6.5

Moreover, the concept of 'Indus seals' is to be understood in its widest meaning. In addition to the Mature Harappan period or the Indus Civilization proper, the Corpus will, with certain restrictions, cover the Early and Late Harappan periods as well and also include all the imported seals of foreign types coming from Harappan sites.⁵¹ Furthermore, 'Harappan' is understood to include closely related cultures such as that of Kulli in Baluchistan or Prabhas Patan in Saurashtra. Thus the "Northeast Iranian" type seal coming from the Kulli site of Mehi has been included, and it would have been folly to exclude the NE Iranian type seal from Shahi-tump found in Indian collections. Although Maski is not a Harappan site, the cylinder seal found there is of great interest: obviously made in India - witness its elephant motif - it demands comparison with the cylinder seal found not so far from Maski, in Daimabad, in a Late Harappan context.

c9.s6.6

⁵¹ See the discussion in chapter 2. In the past, some clearly imported seals like H-166 have often been treated as Harappan; in order to prevent this from happening in the future, the word "foreign" has, space permitting, been put in the page caption of the Corpus at such seals.

c9.s6.7

Some objects kept in the museum collections together with Indus seals or inscriptions have been purposely excluded as irrelevant. In the case of this volume, these include some Kuṣāṇa coins from Mohenjo-daro,⁵² some Harappan ear studs (?) with geometrical motifs carved on them,⁵³ and some quite indistinct objects from Lothal.⁵⁴

c9.s6.8

⁵² (Sd 2756, ASI 63.10.294) Two copper coins, one round, one square; one copper coin found by R.D.Banerjee (ASI 63.10.301); and one round copper coin (Y 71, ASI 63.10.418).

c9.s6.9

⁵³ DK 8991 (PWM 350); DK 12204 (PWM 351); HR 225 (IM 10508, A 7978) and HR 822 (PTN Arch. 10259) from Mohenjo-daro; 336 (IM 11109, A 21202) and 3603 (IM 11101, A 22435) from Harappa; and one of uncertain provenance (PWM 352). Cf. E. Mackay, *Further Excavations at Mohenjo-daro*, Delhi 1938, Vol. I, 532f.

c9.s6.10

⁵⁴ The objects having the exc. nos. 2839 and 3750 could be remnants or elements of seals, but this seems most uncertain, and in any case they contain no writing. The clay lumps having the exc. nos. 1837, 1856, 1890, 1984, and 5242 contain no trace of a seal impression.

c9.s6.11

The relatively few seals and clearly Harappan-type inscriptions from the Late Harappan period have been included in the Corpus, but Late Harappan graffiti have been excluded, with a few exceptions. These graffiti are short and appear to be just "pot-marks" rather than real writing. Still, they are potentially interesting to the student of the Indus script, even though not to the same extent as the Early Harappan pot-marks. The problem is their great number, coupled with the difficulties of drawing a line between Late Harappan and Post-Harappan and of finding the original potsherds. For these reasons we have decided not to reproduce the graffiti from Rangpur in this volume; these have been collected and published (only partially in photographs) by S.R. Rao.⁵⁵ Only the most elaborate Late Harappan "inscription" from Rangpur (Rgp-2) has been reproduced in this volume along with the one original sherd that could be traced (Rgp-1). The "Late Harappan inscriptions" from Machiala Mota,⁵⁶ the signs painted on Jorwe pottery from Daimabad,⁵⁷ and, among other things, the graffiti on red pottery from Ganeshwar⁵⁸ have been excluded for similar reasons.