Author: Egbert Richter-Ushanas
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass
Year: 2001
Language: English
Pages: 326
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8120814053
Description
The approach to a decipherment presented in this volume makes avail of a bilingual, too, but its master key is the discovering of the symbolic and linguistic connection of the Indus signs with the Rg-Veda.
Since the publication of the concordances of the inscriptions of the Indus seals many people have been working on the solution of the riddle presented by the 5000 years old script of the Indus valley. At first sight the task does not appear too difficult, as there are pictograms that can easily be recognized as man, bird, fish, dog or plant or a part of them. A lot of signs are geometric, but this does not seem to be in insurmountable obstacle either, since some of them resemble or are identical to the majuscules of the Greek and the Latin alphabet or found in the 'mudras' of Indian dance and in the patterns of symbolic Indian art. The decipherments that were based on these similarities resulted, however, only in the reading of some inscriptions as more or less obscure names, sometimes not even a phonetic value could be given. Nevertheless they are often presented as complete decipherments to the public.
On this account, the pretension that the Indus script is deciphered meets with increasing suspicion and is exposed to ridicule even. Many scholars working in the field are nowadays of the opinion that the Indus script is altogether indecipherable, if not a bilingual of considerable size turns up.
The approach to a decipherment presented in this volume makes avail of a bilingual, too, but its master key is the discovering of the symbolic and linguistic connection of the Indus signs with the Rg-Veda. More than 200 inscriptions, among them the longest and those with the most interesting motifs, have been decoded here by setting them word after word in relation to Rg-Vedic verses. The results that were gained by this method of comparison for the pictographic and phonetic values of the Indus signs are surprising and far beyond the most daring phantasy. They have been summarized now in a complete sign dictionary containing over 150 further inscriptions. At the same time many problems of the Rg-Veda could be solved and new insights be won, for example in the issue of the age of the Rg-Veda and the origin of the Vedic poets or the nature of the some plant.
Contents
Preface
CHAPTER I
The Indus script and the Rg-Veda
1. The historical background
2. The evidence of a bilingual
3. Short inscriptions (one to six signs)
4. Narrative motifs
5. Long inscriptions
6. Inscriptions of the Late Harappa phase
7. The unicorn-standard and the Some-plant
CHAPTER II
The Lord of the beasts and the deity in the tree
CHAPTER III
Seals and tablets with anthropomorphic motifs
1. Compound motifs
2. The centaur
3. Standing horned person + arch
4. Man in yoga-posture + snakes or crocodiles
5. Deity between two tigers
6. The tiger and the goddess in a kino tree
7. The sacred marriage
CHAPTER IV
Seals and tablet with composite animals
CHAPTER V
The bull upon the woman and the asvamedha
CHAPTER VI
Pururavas and Urvasi
CHAPTER VII
Gilgames and ancient India
1. The jewel-tree and the ale-wife siduri
2. The ship and the Great Flood
3. Gilgames and Istar
CHAPTER VIII
The cosmic man in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras
CHAPTER IX
Chess as a cosmic diagram
CHAPTER X
The development of the Brahmi and the Tamil script
CHAPTER XI
The Swastika
Bibliography
Seal index with Vedic reference
Sign dictionary with examples
General index