 m0308 Indus seal Feline figurine terracotta. A
woman’s face and headdress are shown.The base has a hole to display it
on a stick.  90. Molded tablet. (Kenoyer)
http://www.archaeowiki.org/Minet_el-BeidaLid of a pyxis with mistress of the animals | |||||||||||||
CA, CC
Ancient Cyprus in the Ashmolean Museum...The Copper Trade: Ingots, Hoards and Ship Wrecks | ||
| ||
Comment: It is significant that only glyphs (without any script signs) are used on the cylinder seal of the Ashmolean museum. It could pre-date the Cypro-Minoan script.
Cylinder seal. Six locks of hair of the person holding back one-horned heifers. bhat.a 'six' (G.); rebus: bhat.a 'furnace' (G.); med. 'body'; rebus: med. 'iron' (Mu.); damra 'heifer' (G.); rebus: tam(b)ra 'copper' (Skt.) (Source: Percy SP Handcock, 1912, Mesopotamian archaeology, New York, GP Putnam's Sons, p. 283)
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/13046016/Riverinemaritime Riverine-maritime trade lanes from Meluhha
n Trade of metals and luxury products by merchants of Ebla
S. Kalyanaraman October 11, 2009 kalyan97@gmail.com
Tin is reported to have passed through Dilmun (cf. Ebla
texts of the third quarter of the third millennium BCE : Waetzoldt 1981: 366-7;
loc.cit. Moorey, 1999, p. 298)
The shipwreck at Haifa containing two pure tin ingots with Indus script is explained in the context of the possible trade routes from Meluhha to this port, through the Persian Gulf, Euphrates River (Mari river port), Ebla and Ugarit.Two pure tin ingots were discovered in 1976 from a shipwreck in Haifa. Details at http://www.scribd.com/doc/3777884/Ancient-metallurgy-and-mleccha-writing-on-pure-tin-ingots In this monograph, the trading route was speculated to be through Mari on the Euphrates to Ugarit (Mediterranean Sea) and on to Minoan Crete. “Tin procurement at Mari was highly organized (Dossin 1970; Villard 1984; nos. 555-6). It travelled in the form of ingots weighing about 5 kg. each. It reached Mari by donkey caavan from Susa (Susiana) and Anshan (Elam) through Eshnunna (Tell Asmar). The relevant records contain the names of Elamite rulers and Elamite agents (Heltzer 1989). Tin was transmitted westwards, both as an item of royal gift-exchange and as a trade commodity…it may well often have travelled by sea up the Gulf from distribution centres in the Indus Valley. In the old Babylonian period tin was shipped through Dilmun (Leemans 1960: 35), as it had been a millennium earlier to judge by references in the Ebla texts…Strabo (xv.ii.10) referred specifically to Drangiana, the modern region of Seistan in south-west Iran (into Afghanistan) as a source of tin. Muhly (1973: 260) associated this directly with Gudea’s report of receiving tin from Meluhha…A number of scholars have pointed out the possibility that tin arrived with gold and lapis lazuli in Sumer through the same trade network, linking Afghanistan with the head of the Gulf, both by land and sea (Stech and Piggott 1986: 41-4).” (PRS Moorey, 1984, Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries, Oxford, Clarendon Press, pp. 298-299).
“We have the cylinder seal of a Sargonic official who served as translator for the Melukkha merchants who came to Agade from the Indus Valley, perhaps bringing with them the tin of Melukkha, a commodity mentioned in one of the statue inscriptions of Gudea, ruler of Lagash. A Mari text, dated to the ninth year of the reign of Zimri-Lim, refers to the construction of a ‘small Kaptaru boat’, perhaps to be taken as a model ship for ritual purposes or as the designation of a ship built for sailing to Crete…Bronze certainly was being produced in Middle Minoan Crete, with production undergoing a great expansion during the Late Bronze Age, as it did on the Greek mainland…The problem is that, at present, no satisfactory analytical method of studying the provenance of tin has been discovered.” (James D. Muhly, 1995, Mining and Metalwork in Ancient Western Asia, in: Jack M. Sasson, ed., 1995, Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, Vol. III, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, pp. 1501-1521).
“The ingots are made of a very pure tin, but what could they have to do with Cyprus? Thee is certainly no tin in Cyprus, so at best the ingots could have been transshipped from that island…What the ingots do demonstrate is that metallic tin was in use during the Late Bronze Age…rather extensive use of metallic tin in ancient eastern Mediterranean, which will probably come as a surprise to many people. (p.47). ” The pictures of these two ingots was published in 1977, by JD Muhly (New evidences for sources of trade in bronze age tin in Alan D. Franklin, Jacqueline S. Olin, and Theodore A. Wertime, The Search for Ancient Tin, 1977, Seminar organized by Theodore A. Wertime and held at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Bureau of Standards).
Sources: Anon., 1980, Ingots from wrecked ship may help to solve ancient mystery, Inst. Archaeo-Metallurgical Studies Newsletter, No. 1, 1-2; Maddin, R., TS Wheeler and J. Muhly, 1977, Tin in the ancient Near East: old questions and new finds, Expedition, 19, 35-47).
The ingots are kept at the Museum of Ancient Art, Municipal Corporation of Haifa. The ingots contain epigraphs in the ‘Indus script’. How did the ship arrive at Haifa containing these artefacts? Could they have come from Cyprus assuming that the epigraphs on the ingots resemble Cypro-Minoan symbols or did they originate stamped in Meluhha and end up in Haifa shipwreck through a trade-route which could have been through Ebla? Or, was the stamping done en route, say, in Mari a riverport on River Euphrates or in the port of Ugarit? We can only speculate, but it is clear that Indus script glyphs are used on the tin ingots...
“Raw materials recovered from archaeological excavations in the Indus Valley, the Persian Gulf, Mesopotamia, Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean reflect the existence of long-distance trading during the Bronze Age, which united these regions into networks of commercial exchange. As each region relied on a different set of weights for trading, a straightforward conversion system must have been in operation. Here we describe a simple and universal conversion system that could have provided an economic key to the trade networks of the Old World between 2500 and 1000 BCE…Our analysis of the diverse weight systems that were in use from the Indus Valley to the Aegean from the middle of the third millennium to the end of the second millennium BCE complements earlier studies and reveals that the conversion systems in operation were elegant in their simplicity, although each weight system showed a degree of variance from our proposed standards. The integration of different weight systems was crucial in developing the scale and nature of commercial exchange in the Near East and would have facilitated the emergence of the Ancient World System… This conversion system enables a hypothetical 1,370-g 'ingot' of lapis lazuli to be defined in terms of the different shekel weights of each region. Thus, 1,370 g would be the equivalent of 100 13.68-g Dilmun shekels , 160 8.55-g Mesopotamian shekels, 175 7.83-g Eblaite–Carcemish shekels, and so on, across an east–west route to the Mediterranean…” (cf. Annex; Alfredo Mederos and CC Lamberg-Karlovsky, 2001, Converting currencies in the Old World--Simple arithmetic underpinned trading throughout the Near East during the Bronze Age, Nature 411, 437 (2001) Macmillan Publishers Ltd.) cf. Zaccagnini, C. (1986). 'The Dilmun Standard and its relationship with Indus and Near Eastern weight systems'. Iraq 48, 19-23.
Serge Cleuziou and Thierry Berthoud, 1982, Early tin the near east -- a reassessment in the light of new evidence from western Afghanistan, Expedition, Fall 1982, pp. 14-19: Gudea of Lagash (2150-2111 BCE) refers to tin from Meluhha.
Role of shell in Mesopotamia: evidence for trade exchange with Oman and Indus Valley: TR Gensheimer (Paleorient, Annee 1984, Vol. 10, No. 1)
Kenoyer 1977 Shell working at ancient Balakot, Pakistan
Manusmriti (II.39) notes that over time, dwija
who remain uninitiated and become vratya, fallen from Savitri and left out by
the aarya: ata uurdhvam trayo apy ete yathaakaalam asamskrtaah saavitripatitaa
vraatyaa bhavanty aaryavigarhitaah. Some scholars ,
however , suggest, Vratya does not necessarily denote a person who has not
undergone upanayana samskara; but, it refers to one who does not offer
Soma sacrifice or keep the sacred fire(agnihotra).
(http://www.sanathanadharma.com/samskaras/edu1.htm)
Vratyakaanda of AV
refer to vratya worshipping Rudra, the wind divinity. Vratya gave the knowledge
and tradition of both Pitryaana (Path of the fathers) and devayaana (Path of
the divinities) (AV XV.12.4-5, 8-9). Yajnavalkya recognized this tradition.
Vratya world-view is that of four quarters of the universe (AV XV.2.1-4) and a
Cosmic person (AV XV.18). Vratya interactions with Mesopotamia s may explain a
few Akkadian words in the Atharva Veda, the concept of the Purushasukta. Vratya
asidiyamana eva sa prajapatim samaisyat (AV 15.1-4)(loc.cit. Hiralal Jain, Jainism in Buddhist literature, fn14: notes
that Pali literature (Theragaatha) also refers vratyas. Cf. Ananda Guruge,
Vidyodaya Lipi, Colombo, 1962, p. 71, where arguments are adduced to prove that
vratyas of an Eastern India were survivals of the Indus valley civilization).
S. Kalyanaraman
9 Oct. 2009 kalyan97@gmail.com
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/13046016/RiverinemaritimeRiverine-maritime trade lanes from Meluhha
n Trade of metals and luxury products by merchants of Ebla
S. Kalyanaraman October 11, 2009 kalyan97@gmail.com
Tin is reported to have passed through Dilmun (cf. Ebla texts of the third quarter of the third millennium BCE : Waetzoldt 1981: 366-7; loc.cit. Moorey, 1999, p. 298)
The shipwreck at Haifa containing two pure tin ingots with Indus script is explained in the context of the possible trade routes from Meluhha to this port, through the Persian Gulf, Euphrates River (Mari river port), Ebla and Ugarit.Two pure tin ingots were discovered in 1976 from a shipwreck in Haifa. Details at http://www.scribd.com/doc/3777884/Ancient-metallurgy-and-mleccha-writing-on-pure-tin-ingots In this monograph, the trading route was speculated to be through Mari on the Euphrates to Ugarit (Mediterranean Sea) and on to Minoan Crete. “Tin procurement at Mari was highly organized (Dossin 1970; Villard 1984; nos. 555-6). It travelled in the form of ingots weighing about 5 kg. each. It reached Mari by donkey caavan from Susa (Susiana) and Anshan (Elam) through Eshnunna (Tell Asmar). The relevant records contain the names of Elamite rulers and Elamite agents (Heltzer 1989). Tin was transmitted westwards, both as an item of royal gift-exchange and as a trade commodity…it may well often have travelled by sea up the Gulf from distribution centres in the Indus Valley. In the old Babylonian period tin was shipped through Dilmun (Leemans 1960: 35), as it had been a millennium earlier to judge by references in the Ebla texts…Strabo (xv.ii.10) referred specifically to Drangiana, the modern region of Seistan in south-west Iran (into Afghanistan) as a source of tin. Muhly (1973: 260) associated this directly with Gudea’s report of receiving tin from Meluhha…A number of scholars have pointed out the possibility that tin arrived with gold and lapis lazuli in Sumer through the same trade network, linking Afghanistan with the head of the Gulf, both by land and sea (Stech and Piggott 1986: 41-4).” (PRS Moorey, 1984, Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries, Oxford, Clarendon Press, pp. 298-299).
“We have the cylinder seal of a Sargonic official who served as translator for the Melukkha merchants who came to Agade from the Indus Valley, perhaps bringing with them the tin of Melukkha, a commodity mentioned in one of the statue inscriptions of Gudea, ruler of Lagash. A Mari text, dated to the ninth year of the reign of Zimri-Lim, refers to the construction of a ‘small Kaptaru boat’, perhaps to be taken as a model ship for ritual purposes or as the designation of a ship built for sailing to Crete…Bronze certainly was being produced in Middle Minoan Crete, with production undergoing a great expansion during the Late Bronze Age, as it did on the Greek mainland…The problem is that, at present, no satisfactory analytical method of studying the provenance of tin has been discovered.” (James D. Muhly, 1995, Mining and Metalwork in Ancient Western Asia, in: Jack M. Sasson, ed., 1995, Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, Vol. III, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, pp. 1501-1521).
“The ingots are made of a very pure tin, but what could they have to do with Cyprus? Thee is certainly no tin in Cyprus, so at best the ingots could have been transshipped from that island…What the ingots do demonstrate is that metallic tin was in use during the Late Bronze Age…rather extensive use of metallic tin in ancient eastern Mediterranean, which will probably come as a surprise to many people. (p.47). ” The pictures of these two ingots was published in 1977, by JD Muhly (New evidences for sources of trade in bronze age tin in Alan D. Franklin, Jacqueline S. Olin, and Theodore A. Wertime, The Search for Ancient Tin, 1977, Seminar organized by Theodore A. Wertime and held at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Bureau of Standards).
Sources: Anon., 1980, Ingots from wrecked ship may help to solve ancient mystery, Inst. Archaeo-Metallurgical Studies Newsletter, No. 1, 1-2; Maddin, R., TS Wheeler and J. Muhly, 1977, Tin in the ancient Near East: old questions and new finds, Expedition, 19, 35-47).
The ingots are kept at the Museum of Ancient Art, Municipal Corporation of Haifa. The ingots contain epigraphs in the ‘Indus script’. How did the ship arrive at Haifa containing these artefacts? Could they have come from Cyprus assuming that the epigraphs on the ingots resemble Cypro-Minoan symbols or did they originate stamped in Meluhha and end up in Haifa shipwreck through a trade-route which could have been through Ebla? Or, was the stamping done en route, say, in Mari a riverport on River Euphrates or in the port of Ugarit? We can only speculate, but it is clear that Indus script glyphs are used on the tin ingots...
“Raw materials recovered from archaeological excavations in the Indus Valley, the Persian Gulf, Mesopotamia, Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean reflect the existence of long-distance trading during the Bronze Age, which united these regions into networks of commercial exchange. As each region relied on a different set of weights for trading, a straightforward conversion system must have been in operation. Here we describe a simple and universal conversion system that could have provided an economic key to the trade networks of the Old World between 2500 and 1000 BCE…Our analysis of the diverse weight systems that were in use from the Indus Valley to the Aegean from the middle of the third millennium to the end of the second millennium BCE complements earlier studies and reveals that the conversion systems in operation were elegant in their simplicity, although each weight system showed a degree of variance from our proposed standards. The integration of different weight systems was crucial in developing the scale and nature of commercial exchange in the Near East and would have facilitated the emergence of the Ancient World System… This conversion system enables a hypothetical 1,370-g 'ingot' of lapis lazuli to be defined in terms of the different shekel weights of each region. Thus, 1,370 g would be the equivalent of 100 13.68-g Dilmun shekels , 160 8.55-g Mesopotamian shekels, 175 7.83-g Eblaite–Carcemish shekels, and so on, across an east–west route to the Mediterranean…” (cf. Annex; Alfredo Mederos and CC Lamberg-Karlovsky, 2001, Converting currencies in the Old World--Simple arithmetic underpinned trading throughout the Near East during the Bronze Age, Nature 411, 437 (2001) Macmillan Publishers Ltd.) cf. Zaccagnini, C. (1986). 'The Dilmun Standard and its relationship with Indus and Near Eastern weight systems'. Iraq 48, 19-23.
Serge Cleuziou and Thierry Berthoud, 1982, Early tin the near east -- a reassessment in the light of new evidence from western Afghanistan, Expedition, Fall 1982, pp. 14-19: Gudea of Lagash (2150-2111 BCE) refers to tin from Meluhha.
Role of shell in Mesopotamia: evidence for trade exchange with Oman and Indus Valley: TR Gensheimer (Paleorient, Annee 1984, Vol. 10, No. 1)
Kenoyer 1977 Shell working at ancient Balakot, Pakistan
Manusmriti (II.39) notes that over time, dwija who remain uninitiated and become vratya, fallen from Savitri and left out by the aarya: ata uurdhvam trayo apy ete yathaakaalam asamskrtaah saavitripatitaa vraatyaa bhavanty aaryavigarhitaah. Some scholars , however , suggest, Vratya does not necessarily denote a person who has not undergone upanayana samskara; but, it refers to one who does not offer Soma sacrifice or keep the sacred fire(agnihotra).
(http://www.sanathanadharma.com/samskaras/edu1.htm)
Vratyakaanda of AV refer to vratya worshipping Rudra, the wind divinity. Vratya gave the knowledge and tradition of both Pitryaana (Path of the fathers) and devayaana (Path of the divinities) (AV XV.12.4-5, 8-9). Yajnavalkya recognized this tradition. Vratya world-view is that of four quarters of the universe (AV XV.2.1-4) and a Cosmic person (AV XV.18). Vratya interactions with Mesopotamia s may explain a few Akkadian words in the Atharva Veda, the concept of the Purushasukta. Vratya asidiyamana eva sa prajapatim samaisyat (AV 15.1-4)(loc.cit. Hiralal Jain, Jainism in Buddhist literature, fn14: notes that Pali literature (Theragaatha) also refers vratyas. Cf. Ananda Guruge, Vidyodaya Lipi, Colombo, 1962, p. 71, where arguments are adduced to prove that vratyas of an Eastern India were survivals of the Indus valley civilization).
S. Kalyanaraman
9 Oct. 2009 kalyan97@gmail.com
Indus script discoveries
outside Meluhha -- mlecccha artisan guild tokens (Mirrored at outsidemeluhha doc) S. Kalyanaraman kalyan97@gmail.com
6 Oct. 2009 Abstract
Hypothesis:
Meluhhans had invented the Indus script writing system ca. 4th
millennium BCE, to encode their speech: mleccha. Many of them were sea-faring
artisan-merchants from Sarasvati-Sindhu river basins. As sea-faring
merchants, the artisan/smith guilds of Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization areas, had
continued the practice of preparing mleccha smith guild tokens in
contemporaneous interaction areas west of Sindhu and with civilizations across
and beyond the Persian Gulf. This monograph presents a view that the Indus
script was a writing system invented to communicate information – in the language
of the inventors -- on the technologies, resources, and processes involved in
the production and distribution of select commodities surplus to the
requirements of the inventors. Such a writing system also involved
communicating information about administrative structures (such as guilds of
artisans) which supported/authenticated the production process. The Indus
script decoded speech of artisans who had experimented with and developed
skills in mining and metallurgy.
Indus script discoveries outside Meluhha -- mlecccha artisan guild tokens (Mirrored at outsidemeluhha doc) S. Kalyanaraman kalyan97@gmail.com 6 Oct. 2009 Abstract
Hypothesis: Meluhhans had invented the Indus script writing system ca. 4th millennium BCE, to encode their speech: mleccha. Many of them were sea-faring artisan-merchants from Sarasvati-Sindhu river basins. As sea-faring merchants, the artisan/smith guilds of Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization areas, had continued the practice of preparing mleccha smith guild tokens in contemporaneous interaction areas west of Sindhu and with civilizations across and beyond the Persian Gulf. This monograph presents a view that the Indus script was a writing system invented to communicate information – in the language of the inventors -- on the technologies, resources, and processes involved in the production and distribution of select commodities surplus to the requirements of the inventors. Such a writing system also involved communicating information about administrative structures (such as guilds of artisans) which supported/authenticated the production process. The Indus script decoded speech of artisans who had experimented with and developed skills in mining and metallurgy.
Thus, the writing
system was a complementary technology, used to enhance or to substitute oral
communication (or speech) related to metallurgical technologies. Almost all the
epigraphs of the script (including epigraphs incised on metallic weapons/tools/
copper tablets, painted on bangles and a gold pendant, incised on a gold fillet
headband and a steatite pectoral ornament) are professional guild tokens,
authenticating the traded alloy/metal/mineral products, encoding the underlying
mleccha speech. The guild tokens were, thus, professional calling cards of the
guilds which could also be used to create sealed impressions on packages traded
in an impressive long-distance trade.
In one instance, the token of a smithy/forge
guild was exhibited on a monolithic sign-board on a gate of the fortification
in Dholavira. (Dholavira. Northern gateway of the citadel with a sign-board.
Reconstruction, courtesy: http://pubweb.cc.u-tokai.ac.jp/indus/english/image2/2_4_03_04.jpg
)
So can the cognate
glyphs on Proto-elamite, Magan, Mesopotamian and Dilmun seals – exemplified by
the Gadd seals or seals from Saar (Magan) – and on two tin ingots, be decoded
as metallurgical repertoire of mleccha smith guilds.
The following objects discovered outside of Sarasvati-Sindhu
river basins are presented:
95 seal and
fragments of seals at Saar
220 sealings or
fragments of sealings at Saar
16 Gadd's list of
"seals of ancient Indian style found at Ur"
10 Persian Gulf
seals and one Persian Gulf sealing reported by Brunswig, Parpola and Potts
2 Yale tablets
Over 10
Mesopotamian cylinder seals from Met Museum and British Museum
1 Mcmohan cylinder
seal
1 Legrain's seal
impression
2 seals reported by
Frankfort
2 inscribed tin
ingots of a Haifa shipwreck
1 Akkadian cylinder
seal showing a Meluhhan
...Two inscribed tin
ingots discovered in a shipwreck in Haifa provide the evidence for the rebus
method of the writing system and mleccha as the underlying speech encoded by
the glyphs.
An Akkadian cylinder
seal provides the evidence for the presence of a Meluhhan speaker artisan/merchant
in Mesopotamia and that meluhha (mleccha) is a non-akkadian language.
Two tin ingots and
an Akkadian cylinder seal as rosetta stones...
continued at http://www.esnips.com/nsdoc/4b509f1a-0043-4b4e-8e4d-06c6a95a0d9d/?action=forceDL
See: Indus script glyphs decoded as mleccha smith guild tokens
Indus
script glyphs on coins and Magan seals
S. Kalyanaraman October 2, 2009 kalyan97@gmail.com
Mirrored at http://www.docstoc.com/docs/12434184/Indus-script-glyphs-on-coins
Abstract
This
monograph explains the glyphs found on early punch-marked coins of Hindustan,
pre-mauryan Sohgaura copper plate and Rampurva copper bolt as a
metallurgist-writing system continuum from the days of metalsmith guild tokens
issued using Indus script epigraphs. Many glyphs used as pictorial motifs and
signs of the script continue to be used on the punch-marked coins and early
cast coins of Hindustan. The continued use is related to the substantive messages
conveyed by these glyphs – the repertoire of artisans – metalsmiths and
mineworkers in particular, of Sarasvati civilization. The glyphs are also seen
on the seals of Magan (Bahrain) establishing the trade contacts between Magan
and Meluhha. The glyphs decode mleccha speech. The monograph complements an
earlier document, ‘Indus script decoded: mleccha smith guild tokens’. http://www.docstoc.com/docs/9536635/Decoded-smith-guild-tokens (August 6, 2009)
Background
In his
1890 monograph, Theobald lists 312 symbols found on early punch-marked coins of
Idia. He revises this list to 342 symbols in his 1901 monograph. DR Bhandarkar
and Alexander Cunningham are of the view that early coinage of India is datable
to 10th century BCE though numismatists claim that the first coinage
is that of Lydia of 7th century BCE.
“Until very lately it was the popular belief
that the Indians were ignorant of the art of coinage until the time of Alexander.
This popular error I refuted some twenty-five years ago, by quoting the
statement of Q. Curtius that Alexander, on his arrival at Taxila, was presented
by the Raja with 80 talents of coined
silver (signati argenti)…That the Indians were not ignorant of stone
masonry is, I think, proved by the name of Taksha-shila-nagara, or the
‘cut-stone-city’. I am of course aware that other meanings are given tto taksha
by European savants; but that this meaning oc ‘cut’ was accepted by the people
is shown by the slightly altered form of Taksha-shira for Taksha-Shila, which
gave rise to the Buddhist legend of the ‘cut-head’. This legend is referred to
by all the Chinese pilgrims – by Fa-Hian in AD 400, by Sung-yun in AD 520, and
by Hwen Thsang in AD 631. The last pilgrim expressly states that ‘this is the
spot where Tathagata ‘cut off his head’. Fa-Hian also notes that
Chu-cha-shi-lo, or Taksashila, means, in Chinese words, ‘cut-off-head’…By the
silver coinage of India I refer to the thousands of square silver pieces which
are found all over the country from the Himalaya Mountains to Cape Comorin, and
from Sistan to the mouths of the Ganges. As all these pieces are stamped with
several dies or punches, on one or both faces, they have received the
descriptive name of punch-marked coins. In the Hindu books they are called
purana or ‘old’, a title which vouches for their antiquity. They are mentioned
by Manu and Panini, both anterior to Alexander, and also in the Buddhist
Sutras, which are about the same age. The original name of the coin was
karshapana, from karsha, ‘a weight’, and apana ‘custom or use’, meaning that
they were pieces of one karsha weight as established by use or custom…According
to Buddhist tradition the karshapana or kahapana, was called purana at least as
early as the time of Buddha himself. This is shown by the curious story,
extracted by Burnouf from the Sutras of the courtesan Vasavadatta, who demanded
500 puranas as the price of her favours…As Buddha’s death is placed in the
middle of the sixth century BCE, the silver puranas of India may be quite as
old as any of the coinages of Greece or Asia Minor. In the frontispiece, Plate
A, I have given two pictorial representations of a well-known Buddhist legend
regarding the purchase money of the Jetavana garden at Sravasti…the owner of
the garden, Prince Jeta, stipulated that he would only part with it on the
condition that the purchaser should cover the whole surface with coins touching
each other. Both scen3es represent the coins being laid out ‘edge to edge’. It
will be seen that the pieces are all square. The older sculpture dates from 250
BCE…How old these punch-marked coins may be it is difficult to say. They were
certainly current in the time of Buddha, that is, in the sixth century BCE. But
I see no difficulty in thinking that they might mount as high as 1000 BCE. They
certainly belong to the very infancy of coinage.” (A Cunningham, 1891, Coins of ancient India from the earliest
times down to the seventh century AD, London, B. Quaritch p. v, p.19, p.43)
Glyphs on the coins in Hindustan
Gyphs are used on
punch-marked coins of Hindustan, on Sohgaura copper plate (pre-mauryan), and on
Rampurva copper bolt...
Discovery Channel, Discovery
News 10/01/2009 Thus, the writing system was a complementary technology, used to enhance or to substitute oral communication (or speech) related to metallurgical technologies. Almost all the epigraphs of the script (including epigraphs incised on metallic weapons/tools/ copper tablets, painted on bangles and a gold pendant, incised on a gold fillet headband and a steatite pectoral ornament) are professional guild tokens, authenticating the traded alloy/metal/mineral products, encoding the underlying mleccha speech. The guild tokens were, thus, professional calling cards of the guilds which could also be used to create sealed impressions on packages traded in an impressive long-distance trade.
So can the cognate glyphs on Proto-elamite, Magan, Mesopotamian and Dilmun seals – exemplified by the Gadd seals or seals from Saar (Magan) – and on two tin ingots, be decoded as metallurgical repertoire of mleccha smith guilds.
The following objects discovered outside of Sarasvati-Sindhu river basins are presented:
95 seal and fragments of seals at Saar
220 sealings or fragments of sealings at Saar
16 Gadd's list of "seals of ancient Indian style found at Ur"
10 Persian Gulf seals and one Persian Gulf sealing reported by Brunswig, Parpola and Potts
2 Yale tablets
Over 10 Mesopotamian cylinder seals from Met Museum and British Museum
1 Mcmohan cylinder seal
1 Legrain's seal impression
2 seals reported by Frankfort
2 inscribed tin ingots of a Haifa shipwreck
1 Akkadian cylinder seal showing a Meluhhan
...Two inscribed tin ingots discovered in a shipwreck in Haifa provide the evidence for the rebus method of the writing system and mleccha as the underlying speech encoded by the glyphs.
An Akkadian cylinder seal provides the evidence for the presence of a Meluhhan speaker artisan/merchant in Mesopotamia and that meluhha (mleccha) is a non-akkadian language.
Two tin ingots and an Akkadian cylinder seal as rosetta stones...
continued at http://www.esnips.com/nsdoc/4b509f1a-0043-4b4e-8e4d-06c6a95a0d9d/?action=forceDL
See: Indus script glyphs decoded as mleccha smith guild tokens
http://www.discoverychannel.co.uk/resources/typepad/press-association/2009/A88367681254381009A.jpg
A rock engraving depicting a symbol commonly associated with the Indus Valley civilisation which flourished in the north-western region of the Indian sub-continent has been found in southern India.
The engraving, which depicts a man with a jar, was discovered recently in the Edakkal caves in the Wayanad district of Kerala.
Historian M R Raghava Varrier, who identified the symbol during excavation by the state's Archaeological Department, told The Hindu newspaper: "What is striking in the Edakkal sign is the presence of an Indus motif, which is rare."
"The jar is the same as the Indus Valley's. But the human figure is slightly different. This is where the influence of the Edakkal style really dominates."
Mr Varrier said: "It is wrong to presume that the Indus culture disappeared into thin air." He added that the findings indicated "the fact that cultural diffusion could take place".
The two-dimensional human figure with a jar is thought to be etched with a stone axe and is a part of the newly-discovered "compound letters similar to scripts".
The Indus script - dating between 2300 BC and 1700 BC - which comprises several hundred symbols which have been found on seals, small tablets, or ceramic pots but have not been deciphered yet.
Copyright © Press Association 2009
http://blogs.discoverychannel.co.uk/discovery-news/2009/10/indus-like-symbols-in-south-india.html
“Edakkal engraving a unique find”
T. S. Subramanian
The discovery of a jar sign engraving in the Edakkal caves in Wayanad district of Kerala “is a unique find, linking the Indus Valley civilisation with south India,” according to Iravatham Mahadevan, a scholar on the Indus and the Tamil Brahmi scripts. The occurrence of the sign, which is the most characteristic symbol of the Indus script, at Edakkal, is “very significant,” he said.
In the light of this discovery, the occurrence of the sign on the polished Neolithic celt at Sembian-Kandiyur in Nagapattinam, district, Tamil Nadu, “is confirmed,” Mr. Mahadevan argued.
The Hindu had published on Saturday (September 26, 2009) a news item headlined “Sign akin to Indus Valley’s found in Kerala.” Historian M.R. Raghava Varier had identified the sign during an exploration of the Edakkal caves. The news item quoted Mr. Varier as saying, “What is striking in the Edakkal sign is the presence of an Indus motif, which has been rare and interesting.”
The Hindu had also published on May 1, 2006 a news item on the discovery of a Neolithic stone celt, a hand-held axe, with four signs of the Indus script on it. The celt was found at Sembian-Kandiyur. One of the signs on the celt was a jar with handles on either side. At that time, Mr. Mahadevan had called it “a major discovery because for the first time a text in the Indus script has been found in the State [Tamil Nadu] on a datable artefact, which is a polished Neolithic celt.”
The large-sized jar sign, partly seen at the right end of the photograph published in The Hindu on Saturday, seems to be No. 345 in the sign list of his work, The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables, published in 1977, said Mr. Mahadevan. This would be confirmed when the missing half of the picture was published, he added. The most frequent sign in the Indus script was the jar, numbered 342 in the Concordance. The picture published in the newspaper showed a related jar sign with three strokes, which is No. 345 in the Concordance, he explained.
He congratulated Mr. Varier and his colleagues for this “major discovery.” Tamil Brahmi inscriptions assigned to the Cheras of the Sangam age had earlier been found at Edakkal. But this Edakkal engraving was much anterior to the Tamil Sangam age, Mr. Mahadevan noted.
http://beta.thehindu.com/arts/art/article25635.ece?css=print
A RARE FIND: The engraving at the Edakkal Caves.
http://thehindu.com/2009/09/26/images/2009092656621201.jpg
Sign akin to Indus Valley found in Kerala
Staff Reporter
A RARE FIND: The engraving at the Edakkal Caves.
MALAPPURAM: A rock engraving, similar to a sign of the Indus Valley Civilisation, has been found at Edakkal in Wayanad district of Kerala. A recent exploration at the Edakkal Caves revealed a picture of a man with a jar, a unique sign of the Indus civilisation.
Tangible evidence
Engraved supposedly with a stone-axe in linear style, the sign has proven itself to be a tangible evidence to link it to the Indus culture. It was the first time that an Indus sign is discovered in Kerala.
“But we do not claim that the Indus people reached Wayanad; nor do we argue that Edakkal was a continuity of the Indus civilisation,” said historian M.R. Raghava Varier, who identified the sign during the exploration in August.
He said, “What is striking in the Edakkal sign is the presence of an Indus motif, which has been rare and interesting.”
Man-with-the-jar has been a recurring motif of the Indus Valley signs. Though it uses the Indus motif, the Edakkal engraving has retained its unique style. With linear strokes, the engraver has tried to attain a two-dimensional human figure.
“The ‘jar’ is the same as in Indus ‘ligature.’ But the human figure is slightly different. This is where the influence of the Edakkal style predominates,” said Dr. Varier.
Unique
Though rock art sites are plenty in different continents, the rock engravings at the Edakkal Caves are unique in the world. The Indus Civilisation has been dated between 2,300 BC and 1,700 BC. The Edakkal culture, however, is yet to be identified with any particular time.
Historians say Edakkal represents quite a long period. The figures of ritualistic nature found at Edakkal represent different stages of human development, both historic and pre-historic. “But this one is definitely pre-historic,” Dr. Varier said.
http://www.thehindu.com/2009/09/26/stories/2009092656621200.htm
http://24dunia.com/english-news/search/issue-Indus.html
Some Indus scrip glyphs, ligatured glyphs depicting a standing person and a jar (of two types: one is rimless; the other is with a rim)
Sign Nos. 1, 32, 33, 34, 35, 328, 342, 44, 45, 46
Decoding the glyphs in mleccha (context of Indus script epigraphs):
Body (of man) glyph
meṛgo = rimless vessels (Santali) mēd ‘body’ (Kur.)(DEDR 5099); rebus: meḍ ‘iron’ (Ho.)
Ligaturing glyphs:
kanka = rim of jar (Santali); karNaka id. (Skt.); rebus: karNaka ‘scribe; barado ‘carpenter, mason’; kaND ‘fire-altar’;
baṭa = rimless pot (Kannada); rebus: bat.a = kiln (Te.) baṭa = furnace (Santali) bhrāṣṭra = furnace (Skt.)
Legend posted on the reverse reads: "Seals from Mohenjodaro 5000 years old. These seals have thrown an open challenge to the scholars to decipher their worth. Indus valley civilization, flourished five thousand years ago in Pakistan. The inhabitants lived largel by agriculture but also maintained trade with lands as far away as Mesopotamia." (date ca. 1977 obtained a first class passenger on PIA who received these mementos and given to me.) Kalyan 19 Aug. 2009
The open challenge was accepted in 1978 and this website documents the efforts.
The rediscovery of Saraswati
Civilisational advantage of being a Hindu
By Dr Vijaya Rajiva August 23, 2009
The rediscovery of the Saraswati revitalises the foundations of Vedic thought. The name Saraswati which the Vedic seers bestowed on the ancient river, which along with the Sindhu, has captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Hindus, also gives new meaning to the later deification of the Goddess Saraswati.
The Rig Veda, comprising some 1008 hymns, was composed approximately 5,000 years ago, and is the oldest of the Hindu Scritpures and much loved by Hindus and much acclaimed by the rest of the world, not only for its beauty and spiritually inspirational verses, but for its ancient lineage. In the Rig Veda there is special mention of the river Saraswati as a mighty river and as one that sustained life for peoples. The Saraswati is mentioned 72 times. The seers of the Rig Veda hailed it as best among rivers and as flowing from the mountains to the sea. It is therefore, natural to assume that the river existed and that the Rig Vedic hymns were composed along its banks and the surrounding river basin.
However, shortly after the Rig Vedic period, the river disappeared and it is believed that it dried up owing to natural causes such as techtonic shifts. Recent archeological discoveries and evidence from a variety of disciplines such as satellite photography show that the dried-up bed of a large river existed once. The inference then is that the Rig Veda must have been composed before the disappearance of the Saraswati. This dating of the river’s existence and its disappearance shed light on what is a controversial topic today, the date of the Rig Veda and the identity of the people who composed these immortal hymns.
Colonial scholars since the 19th century and their present day followers have created a tradition (somewhat dubious at this stage of Indic studies) that maintains that the Rig Veda was composed circa 1,500 B.C. at the earliest and that it was the work of the Indo Europeans/Aryans who invaded India or immigrated from the Steppes there shortly before that period. Their further belief was that the Rig Veda was composed along the banks of the Sindhu (Indus), some even arguing that it was composed partially, further north. Readers will be familiar with the phrase Aryan Invasion Theory.
In the last two decades both Indian and foreign scholars (who can be described as the New Theorists) have challenged this tradition and reclaimed the Veda as the product of indigenous people, native to the Indian subcontinent. On this new theory the Sanskrit people, the Dravidians and the tribal people who spoke the Munda language were the natives of India and amalgamated loosely into a conglomerate of peoples. Further, that they were the peoples of what has been till recently called the Indus Valley Civilisation and which is now called the Saraswati Sindhu Civilization. Based on the evidence provided by geneticists that all non African peoples migrated out of Africa some 90,000 years ago and one branch travelling along to the Indian subcontinent, and a further movement of peoples from south to north in India some 40,000 years ago, it is argued by the New Theorists that the Veda was composed in India by indigenous peoples and not by invaders from outside the subcontinent. The linguistic evidence also points to the close affinity of the various peoples of the Indian subcontinent. This is described by Dr S Kalyanaraman in his paper Indian Lexicon: An Overview, ll May, 1998 (www.hindunet.org). His later paper Saraswati - Vedic river and Hindu civilisation (2008) is also a remarkable account of the topic.
The results of this new thinking have been ably presented in the last two decades in books, lectures, papers and conferences. The most recent one was held in November 2008 at an international conference held in October 2008 in New Delhi. The theme of the conference was: The Vedic River Sarasvati and Hindu Civilisation.
A compendium of papers presented at this conference has been published under the title The Vedic River Saraswati and Hindu Civilisation (Aryan Books International, New Delhi, 2008, editor Dr. S. Kalyanaraman). The participants in the conference were scholars, scientists and researchers in their respective fields.
The literature on the indigenous creation of the Veda and the identification of the Indus Valley Civilisation as proto Vedic is growing. The works S. Kalyanaraman, N.S. Rajaram, David Frawley and Subash Kak are some of that new thinking.
The rediscovery of the Saraswati revitalises the foundations of Vedic thought. The name Saraswati which the Vedic seers bestowed on the ancient river, which along with the Sindhu, has captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Hindus, also gives new meaning to the later deification of the Goddess Saraswati. She is the repository of learning, music and the arts. Great as was classical India’s achievements in all the arts and sciences (and these have been acknowledged as considerable) they could only have come as the product of a riverine civilization that began with the the four Vedas (the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda and the Atharva Veda) and ended with the profound speculation of the forest treatises, the Upanishads and led the way for the achievements of classical, medieval and modern Hinduism.
What is the secret of the Rig Veda’s continued fascination for all who have encountered it?
Is it the deep devotion that everyday millions of Hindus who see it as the profound beginnings of their culture’s wisdom and guidance? Is it the diligence down the centuries of scholars, savants, sages, saints and the millions of unsung and unknown priests and members of their community that have kept the Rig Veda alive in the consciousness of the people of the subcontinent? Is it simply the compelling beauty of Sanskrit as a language which no one who has heard it can deny?
Some of all of the above, would be an approximate answer. More importantly, for our times, it is about the core values of the Rig Veda, its environmentalism and its emphasis on the unity of humankind, linked to the cosmic universe. Earth, heaven and the entire universe and humans inside it, are the subject of the Rig Veda. The Vedic civilization, along with the native cultures of various parts of the world, especially the Americas, exalt the role of nature in their world view.
The Dutch philosopher, Spinoza, said in the 17th century of the Christian era that Nature and God are one.
Long before that, the Hindus saw Prakriti (Nature ) and Purusha (God) as aspects of the divine principle. This is the letimotif of Hinduism’s beliefs, the basis of its pluralism, its all embracing tolerance. The divine principle is Infinite and therefore limitless. It is not ONLY this or ONLY that. It can be worshipped in a variety of modes and the Rig Vedic mode set a precedent for Hinduism for all time to come.
Hence, the inner connection between the Saraswati and Vedic thought is not to be limited to a geographical nexus. The rediscovery of the ‘lost’ river is a joyful reaffirmation of the Vedic truths propounded on the banks of the Saraswati-Sindhu by sages and seers of the Veda.
The current present day controversy around the Saraswati and the composition of the Rig Veda by the indigenous people of India is a challenging and many ways a welcome one since Hindu/Indian scholars are tested in their mettle at the deepest and foundational level of their culture and religion. The discovery of some 2000 sites of what is formerly called the Indus Valley Civilisation, with almost 80 per cent of them being located at the site of Saraswati may indeed be the clinching argument for the continuity of Vedic civilization with the Indus Valley Civilisation, and its identity with that civilization. The new theorists have not only pointed out various similarities between the two cultures, but also the intimate connection of various beliefs and cultural habits between the Indus Valley Civilisation and the Vedic, a connection which can be seen even today in the Indian subcontinent.
The controversy may rage on between the Aryanists and the New Theorists but with the accumulating evidence centred round the rediscovery of the Saraswati, the latter seem to be winning out.
What is of importance is the opportunity provided to contemporary Indians to give new meaning to the alternative names given to the subcontinent and its rivers. Afterall, it was the Greeks who called the Sindhu, the river Indus. And Bharata Varsha, Hindustan and Bharat can be equally be used for the more modern India. Further, there is the message of the Veda which can never be forgotten. This is the great civilisational advantage of being a Hindu and that responsibility is upon Hindus, since they have inherited an ancient and noble tradition that extols the importance of Bhu (Earth), and the interconnected-ness of all life, cosmic and terrestrial.
In the end, that is Saraswati’s message to all Hindus and all Indians who are part of the Indian subcontinent. It is also the message for all humanity in the New Age.
(The writer taught Political Philosophy at a Canadian university.)
dhama = garland; fish-tail = puccha; rebus: dhamma puja 'worship of dharma' 
Asura tradition in Hindu civilization
Sarasvati is aasuri sarasvati. Varuna, Mitravaruna, Agni, Aryaman, Bhaga, Ams’a, the Sun (Savitr, RV 1.35.10), Rudra (tvam agne rudro asuro maho divas…RV 2.1.6: You, O Agni, (as) Rudra, (are) the asura of great heaven…), Dyaus are referred to as asura. Varuna is asura medhira. One interpretation is that asura is derived from asu, meaning ‘possessing asu’. Asu means ‘life-power’. (Rudolf Otto, Das Gefuhl des Uberweltlichen, Munich, CH Beck’sche Verlangsbuchhandlung, 1932, p. 186). Aditya are asura. Devaav asuraa (in the dual) may mean: asura as deva. The word asura has a positive connotation of power and healing with the power of maayaa in early texts. (…asurasya maayayaa – RV 5.63.3 ‘the magic of an asura in the hymn to Mitravaruna.) Agni is the asura in VS 27.12: tanuunapaad asuro vis’vavedaa devo deveshu devaah patho anaktu madhvaa ghrtena…’may Tanuunapaat, asura, all-knower, god, god among gods, anoint the paths with honey (and) with ghee.’
The toughest context of the use of asura occurs in VS 8.55:
Indras’ ca marutas’ ca krayaayopotthito ‘surah panyamaano mitrah krito vishnuh s’ipivishtaa uuraav aasanno vishnur narandhishah
‘Both Indra and the Maruts when put up for sale, the asura when being bargained for, Mitra when bought, Vishnu s’ipivishta when seated on the thigh. Vishnu the delighter-of-men(?)”
Asura as metal workers
Ayojaala asuraa maayino ‘yasmaayaih paashair ankino ye caranti taams te randhayaami harasaa jaatavedah sahasrarstih sapatnaan pramrnaan paahi vajrah (AV 19.66.1)
“The maaya-possessing asura who have metal nets, who wander about having hooks with nooses made of metal, these I make subject to you with the flame, O Jaatavedas. May you, the vajra having one thousand spears, protect (us) crushing our rivals”
Sod akraamat saa ‘suraan aagacchat taam asuraa upaahvayanta maaya ehiiti. Tasyaa virocanah praahraadir vatsaa aasid ayaspaatram paatram. Taam dvimurdhaa ‘rtvyo ‘dhok taam maayaam evaadhok. Taam maayaam asuraa upa jiivanty upajiivantyo bhavati ya evam veda (AV 8.13.1-4)
“She ascended; she came to the asuras. The asuras called to her, ‘O Maayaa, come’. Virocana the son of Prahraada was her calf. The metal vessel was the vessel. Dvimurdhan the son of Rtu milker her. Thus he milked maayaa. The asuras subsist upon that maayaa. He who knows this becomes one to be subsiste upon.”
Munda have a tradition that a metal-using people called Asura were in India. One group of Munda are called Asura. (Rai Bahadur SC Roy, The asuras – ancient and modern, Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society 12 (1926): 148.
(All translations from Wash Edward Hale after Whitney).
Citation from the google book Asura in early Vedic religion by Wash Edward Hale:
According to FBJ Kuiper, the asura ‘constitute the central problem of Vedic religion' (FBJ Kuiper, The basic concept of Vedic religion, History of Religion 15 (1975): 112
According to R. Shamasastry, Vedic Gods in BC Law Volume, ed. By DR Bhandarkar, KA Nilakanta Sastri, BM Barua, BK Ghosh and PK Gode (Calcutta, The Indian Research Institute, 1945, p. 277-281 -- “…the Vedic gods are no other than the seven planets, the twenty-seven asterisms, Agastya or Canopus and Sunasira, the Dog-star Serius and a few other periodical stars. These are the Devas. The Asuras are the imaginary dark spirits of night…(Thus) eclipses, occulations of the planets are the most important subject matter of the Vedic hymns necessitating the performance of suitable sacrifices to appease the gods.”
Asur, Tziganes, Dom – smiths, artisans
“According to the Birhor, the Asur were the first people on earth to smelt iron. But the smoke coming from their furnaces incommoded the Supreme Being, Sing-bonga, who dispatched messenger-birds to enjoin them to cease their labours. The Asur replied that metallurgy was their favourite occupation and mutilated the messengers. Sing-bonda himself then came down to earth. He approached the Asur without being recognized and, having persuaded them to enter the furnaces, burned them. As a sequel, their widows become spirits off Nature. (Sarat Chandra Roy, The Birhors, 1925, Ranchi, pp. 402 sq.). This myth is found in more complete form among the Munda…a similar myth is found among the Oraons. The twelve Asur brothers, and the three Lodha brothers, all famous smiths, irritate Bhagwan (i.e. God) with the smoke of their furnaces. Disguised as a sick old man, Bhagwan comes down to earth, where he is given shelter by a widow, and the smiths, having consulted him for advice regarding the repair of their furnaces, end up, as in the Munda myth, by being burned alive. (Rev. P. Dehon, Religion and customs of the Uraons, Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta, 1906, pp. 121-81, pp. 128-31). The Asur are a tribe of smiths who probably lived in the northern Punjab…Walter Ruben has shown that the probable links between the Asur and the Asuras of the Vedic hymns, those enemies of the gods (deva) with whom they engaged in innumerable combats. (vf. Eisenschmiede und Damonen, pp. 302-3 and passim.)…the Tzigane nomads who are a combination of smith, tinker, musician, healer and fortune-teller. The name given by the Tziganes to themselves is in Europe, Rom, in Armenia, Lom, in Persia, Dom and in Syria, Dom or Dum. ‘It is interesting,’ writes Jules Bloch, ‘that dom in India is the name of a tribe, or rather a conglomeration of tribes very widespread and well known in former times.’ In the Sanskrit texts they are associated with musicians and untouchables, but they are primarily known as smiths and musicians. It is not without interest to note that there are links between the Asur smelters and smiths.. and the dom; before the present dynasty a Dom dynasty, which had originated in the north, ruled over the Asur. (W. Ruben, opcit., p. 9; Jules Block, Les Tsiganes, 1953, Paris, p. 30)” (Mircea Eliade, 1971, The forge and the crucible, pp. 65-66)
“Reuben published a remarkable study of the Asur, a primitive tribe of smiths living in the mountains of Chota Nagpur in India…They formed a community of specialists, divided in totemclans…The single smith was honoured by the surrounding tribes, though he be from a totally different anthropological stock, but as a mass the smiths were despised and hated though feared. Ruben has proved that we have to do with a tribe that originally belonged to a cattle-raising culture, which tribe specialized in metallurgy…The Asur originally lived north of the mountains of the Punjab, where the cattle-raising culture is at home and where the earliest metal objects were found. This culture is certainly connected with early metallurgy also by the fact that they were the first to possess good pottery. We have already pointed out that metallurgy and the possession of proper furnaces are intimately linked and that it is impossible to smelt ores in a camp fire. Coghlan in his interesting experiments at the Borough Museum (Newbury) in 1938 proved beyond doubt that the only primitive furnace that would smelt ores was the pottery kiln, which later on led to special metallurgical furnaces as metal technique improved. But reverting to the ethnological evidence there are many signs that the iron workers of many jungle tribes of southern India are immigrants and form a sort of alien guild or craft, just as much of the practice of iron working in Africa has been spread by the guild of artisans.” (RJ Forbes, 1971, Studies in ancient technology, pp. 62-63) (Water Reuben, 1939, Eisenschmiede und Damonen in Indien, Leiden)
Agaria are iron-smelters. The name signifies a worker with aag or fire. A sub-group Lohaar also exists among agaria. They are found in Maikal range in the Mandla, Raipur and Bilaspur districts and also in Mirzapur and Bengal. The first Agaria made the ploughshare. Two endogamous divisions are: Patharia and the Khuntia agaria. “The Patharia place a stone on the mouth of the bellows to fix them in the ground for smelging while the Khuntias use a peg.” (RV Russell, 2006, The tribes and castes of the Central Provinces of India, p. 31)
(Verrier Elwin, 1940, The Agaria, OUP)
Bir (kol) asur, birjia asur and agaria asur are sub-divisions among asur people who no live in the districts of Gumla, Lohardaga, Palamau and Latehar of Jharkhand state. They are also found in Bihar, West Bengal, Madhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.. http://www.indianetzone.com/8/asur.htm At the Khuntitoli asur graveyard, 56 graves were opened which had 12 or 13 asur earthenware burial urns. The following metal ornaments and other articles were found in these graves (now in Patna museum): bronze and copper bracelets (62), fragments of bronze and copper bracelet (83), bronze ankets, bronze and copper finger rings (28), bronze and copper toe rings (8), bronze and copper bead (103), bronze ankle bells (3), unstamped copper coins (2), bronze ear ornaments (4), stone beads large (18), small (174), bone bead (1), iron bracelets and armlets (8), iron rings (10), iron arrow heads (2), fragments of three bronze plates, cowrie shells, indistinguishable fragments of bronze or copper. (Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, 1919, SC Roy’s excavation of Asur sites http://www.archive.org/stream/journalofbiharre05bihauoft/journalofbiharre05bihauoft_djvu.txt ).
“…the credit goes to India for developing the complex metallurgy and producing alloys of metals. This speaks legions of the metallurgical skill which the metal workers and artisans of ancient India possessed way back in the early centuries before Christ. Such a good understanding of metallurgical processes as involved in metallurgy of zinc may also be a pointer to the overall expertise which the Indian artisan possessed of the fine behaviour of specific minerals in the antiquity. It was almost at this point of time that the famous Damascus steel was being exported to other parts of the world from India. The extraction of zinc may be taken as the culmination of this art (or science).” (Rina Shrivastva, 1999, Smelting furnaces in ancient India, Indian Journal of History of Science, 34 (1), 1999, pp. 33-46.).
Mining of copper in ancient India by Rina Shrivastva, IJHS, 34(3), 1999
Artisanal and small scale mining in India… Mihir Deb et al., Intl. J. of Mining, reclamation and environment, Vol. X, No. X, 2004 http://home.netspeed.com.au/kuntala.david/coalcycles/art.%20&%20small%20scale%20mining.pdf
Early scribes as controllers of guilds (Mesopotamia)
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The remarkable organization of the settlements of Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization points to the possibility of the artisans working as a guild. This hypothesis is borne out by the decoding of Indus script (signs and pictorial motifs) as mleccha smith guild tokens listing the guild repertoire.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/9536635/Decoded-smith-guild-tokens
http://www.esnips.com/nsdoc/916a21ae-dff2-4ad7-a039-473ba5a1a2ca/?action=forceDL ppt slides
Historical evolution of metallurgy
Metal-minded Indus
“Rostovtzev pointed out the importance of the Transcaucasian mines both for Sumer and Caucasia. He considers copper industry to have arisen simultaneously in Turkestan, Elam, Caucasia, Mesopotamia and Egypt and maintains that the ‘animal decoration’ was characteristic for this early metallurgical period…
“Even Witter, who stoutly upholds his theory of a separate Middle European metallurgical school of independent growh and even one of the same date as those in the Ancient East, points to the east for the sources of Sumerian metallurgy and stresses the necessity of further excavations in Baluchistan and the Makran to investigate the common source of Sumerian and Indus civilization. Post-war Near Eastern archaeology seems to confirm the hypothesis that we must look for the birthplace of Old World metallurgy in the mountain region stretching from Anatolia through the Armenian Mountains eastwards into Afghanistan. The eastern flank is notably rich in native metals and ores but apart from a few excavations at Anau and in Baluchistan little is yet known on the earlier prehistory of the region…By 2500 BCE the Royal Tombs of Ur show us a profusion of gold, electrum, silver, copper and various types of bronzes…by 2500 BCE the entire region between the Nile cataracts and Indus is metal-minded.” (pp.1-20)
“The typical tinker is the gypsy, whose history is full of curious sidelights on the history of metals. The Hungarians say ‘there are as many smiths as there are gypsies’. They seem to have come from India and indeed their language is intimately related with Sanskrit. Their word for metal or iron is saster (compare the Sanskrit sastra!), copper is called lolo (red) saster, brass dscheldo saster (yellow iron), a typical nomenclature of a people that was originally a tribe of iron-smiths, now the traditional tinker and copper-smith!...The gypsy is the typical tinker who carries his smithy, anvil, firehearth and tools along and who works sitting, a position quite impossible for a black-smith. At the same time he is the fortuneteller and the musician, a combination that is a regular feature of itinerant smiths in other regions. The Roumanians call him calderari or tinker, and spoitori or white-smith and this again illustrates the evolution of a people that left India as a tribe of iron-smiths…Nowadays the smith in Java is a poor, humble man, but all the same he is a special and honoured person…The word for smith is pan.d.e (expert), a word used especially for the black-smith and empu or kyai (Lord, master) as used for the armourer…In Bali the bangsa pande or guild of the smiths was originally a clan or genealogical group…The smith is obliged to hang the small model of a tent (taroeb) under the eaves outside, thereby making his smithy a taroeb or sacral ground and a meeting place of the community. Originally the taroeb was the primitive tribal temple dedicated to Banispati, the cannibalistic Lord-of-the-Forest who is also Panji, the tribal hero. The pandjaq is not only the smith’s assistant, but the assistant of the gamelan or sacred band is also called pandjaq!...It is clear that the early smiths were organized either in castes or guilds. Among nomads and pastoralists we mostly find smith-castes which are always endogamous. The smith-caste lives apart in semi-nomad tribes in a special quarter…Gradually the guilds of gold- and silver-smiths, copper and bronze-smiths separate from the iron-smiths, who are generally held in higher esteem as they forge the weapons and implements. Even here the iron-smith is seldom at the same time a warrior, as he remains at home to look after the supply and repair of arms. Sometimes the smith-clan also embraces members who are leather-workers, wood-carvers or who ply any other trade. The smith is always a mysterious figure, whose work apart from being a continuous source of wonderment to the primitive tribesman, is generally bound by traditional rites and ceremonies. The ritual of the smith’s craft is generally determined by the religious systems of his fellow-tribesmen…The Bambala iron workers consider it impossible to smelt iron without the medicine which they say transforms iron ore into iron. The principal person therefore is the ‘iron doctor’, who has jealously guarded knowledge of the different medicines. The work is carried out in spring only! During the work the smelters live in temporary shelters in a state of strict taboos…The men moulding the kiln for smelting the ores are not allowed to drink any water!...The fire shall always be kept burning and shall be purified by regular offerings…According to Philon of Byblos the ancient Phoenician author Sanchuniaton says that his countrymen called the iron-smith chorosh which also meant ‘magician’, probably because of the intricacies of iron metallurgy and his knowledge of the secret manipulations and necessary rites to purify the ‘new,unclean metal’. In ancient Java the smith bears the same title as a priest. One of the most renowned magicians of ancient Java, who floated on a leaf from India to Java and who understood the art of making gold, was called Loh-Gawe, that is the Sanskrit loha-kara (metal-worker) rendered in Javanese. And nowadays the Protestant minister is often honoured with a title closely related, etymologically, to the Javanese word for smith. Javanese literature abounds with wonder-tales of the smith, whose sakti (mana) is considered to be enormous…An oath on the anvil is considered to be particularly binding and many a magical rite of the smith is connected with the anvil. The furnace also plays a part. The building is often accompanied by imitative rites. Two children are placed in the new furnace and crack beans to imitate the crackling fire, so that the furnace shall burn well later on…The awe for these ‘special stones’ (metal) only grew when the smith learnt to smelt, melt and cast them…metals were endowed with a particular power because of the miraculous transformations that attended their manufacture, as a secondary factor in the wealth of beliefs…By ‘marrying’ male and female ores metals are born, these too have a gender and the ‘marriage of the metals’ is a special feature of medieval alchemy…The smith was a temple of the spirits of the earth and the fire; the smith a priest who by certain rites could accelerate or cause the birth of the metals, the furnace an altar on which the rite was enacted. The belief in the growth of the metals led to the idea of their transmutation, inherent in our mind to the doctrines of alchemy…In the Rigveda Indra is the smith of the gods and the Avesta recognizes the Ameneshpent Kshatra Vairya as the genius of the metals.But the god of the smith, often the god of the earth-fire is a typical example of an ambivalent god, both a saviour and a demon. ” (RJ Forbes, 1963, Studies in ancient technology, vol. VIII, pp. 69-82)
“Analysis of slow-evolving polymorphisms has identified a single paternal and a single maternal lineage of Indian origin shared by all groups (of Romanies tested…). These lineages belong to a small subset of the known genetic diversity of the Indian subcontinent. Thus, Roma descend from a small ancestral minority in the Indian subcontinent that has subsequently fractured into multiple population isolates within Europe” (Kalaydjieva et al., 1999: 15; Report of June 2001, Centre for Human genetics at Edith Cowan University, Perth; Kalaydjieva, L.; Perez-Lezaun, A.; Angelicheva, D.; Onengut, S.; Dye, D.; Bosshard, N. U.; Jordanova, A.; Savov, A.; Yanakiev, P.; Kremensky, I.; Radeva, B.; Hallmayer, J.; Markov, A.; Nedkova, V.; Tournev, I.; Aneva, L.; Gitzelmann, R.: A founder mutation in the GK1 gene is responsible for galactokinase deficiency in Roma (Gypsies). Am. J. Hum. Genet. 65: 1299-1307, 1999; Kalaydjieva L, Hallmayer J, Chandler D, et al. (1996). "Gene mapping in Gypsies identifies a novel demyelinating neuropathy on chromosome 8q24.".Nat. Genet. 14 (2): 214–7.doi:10.1038/ng1096-214. PMID 8841199) See: Kalaydjieva L, Gresham D, Calafell F (2001) Genetic studies of the Roma (Gypsies): a review. BMC Med Genet 2:5–18
“A Sumerian term for smith, SIMUG, is written with a complex sign that is made up of two others, viz. that for ‘smith’s fire’ (Falkenstein No. 325, which author calls it a smelting furnace, though the pictograms very clearly show the picture of a basin with burning charcoal as used by the smith) and that for ‘foreman’. It seems certain that the word smith meant ‘foreman of the smith’s fire’, which we can compare with the later Accadian nappahu, which literally means ‘one who blows the (smith’s) fire’. The smith in ancient Sumer was a free craftsman; he was linked closely to the temple-state economy that characterizes the ancient civilization. HE belonged to the GIS-KIN-TI (craftsmen), who wre controlled by a priest-smith called SANGU. During URukaginna’s reign he was even elevated to the higher rank of SANGU-GAR. So he was a bondman and remained so for many a century. Even the Codex Hammurabi (par. 274) ordains that the smith shall receive a lower pay than the peasant, because he is only a muskenu, a bondman, controlled and fed by the temple…We hear that the temple-state had central storehouses called AZAG-AN distinguished by a suffix running ‘place where…is kept’ where the imported metal and other goods were stored. However, the Sumerian TIBIRA covered both the Accadian tamkaru (merchant) and qurqurru (metallurgist), like the mercatores of the Middle Ages who were often both artisans and merchants at the same time. Hence the trade was only partly a State-affair and the dam-gar (tamkaru) was allowed a certain latitude to do some business of his own. Hence the lots of 6-12 talents of metal sometimes go to the e-DUB-ba, the State storehouse’, also called ‘house of the silver and the lapis lazuli, the great storehouse’. Several tons of copper were consumed yearly in each Sumerian town and the gold-smith’s shops seem to have worked some 6k of red gold, 8k of refined gold and nearly 6k of silver in one year at Ur. The large part of the metal still arrived at the storehouse at Ur around 2000 BCE, wehre a large staff looked after the eight groups of workers for the administration: sculptors, goldsmiths, lapidaries, carpenters, founders, fullers, tailors and shipbuilders. Each of these ‘guilds’ had a supervisor and the chief of each section also assisted in surveying certain activities of the other sections. The supervisor was the assistant of a gasam: enqu, imqu, the master of a workshop. The controlling office (tun-lal-me) might employ him upto thrice a month. The directors of the storehouse act through inspectors or controllers, who mostly the check the weight of metal and objects fashioned from it…Several contracts between the storehouse keepers and the individual smiths have been found…During the Ur III period he was already a settled citizen with a plot of land, whose fashioned articles were carefully weighed, checked and registered as a he brought them back to be paid a salary expressed in units of barley. We read of contracts for making hoes from 600k of copper, or a number of tools to be made from 500k. In the fifth year of Su-Sin 20 talents of copper were thus issued to the smiths of Ur, and other contracts speak of several hundreds of hacks being made from one lot of copper. A similar organization existed at Tello-Lagash, at Umma the controllers were mainly scribes. The kings of Ur had a great entrepot of metals and other base materials at Drehem (Puzuris-Dagan), where there was no industry, but the craftsmen lived in towns like Sippar (‘town of bronze’) and Eridu (‘town of smiths’), according to Dorsin. We hear about a town called Dur-gurgurri (BAD-TIBIRA ki) that was founded by Sin-iddennam of Larsa and which seems to have been an old Sumerian metallurgical centre as the name means ‘fortress of the copper-smiths’. Its location is unknown but it flourished for many centuries as it still figures in the correspondence of king Hammurabi, when transports of wood-blocks for the metal-workers are mentioned and when it is the scene of an inquiry of bribes taken by officials from the tribute of silver…We know little of the religious status of the smith in Mesopotamia. His patron-god was Ea, who is the patron-god of all craftsmen, later on special patrons of every craft were created and he fire god Girru became patron of the smiths and the goldsmiths…
“Nothing is known of the smith of the Indus civilization, but in Hellenistic India we find that the craftsmen and tradesmen are mostly associated in guilds. Some crafts like mining, gold-and silver-working and the manufacture of arms were government undertakings…The factories for the working of base metals were supervised by the ‘inspector of the base metals’ (Lohadhyaksha), a central authority for urban workshops and those in the country. But on the royal domains the sitadyaksa supervised the smiths who worked there and saw to it that their work was properly done…Still from Buddhist texts we learn that not all the smiths were employed by the state, as they seem to have lived in villages too and to have fashioned agricultural implements freely for their brethren.” (RJ Forbes, pp. 88-96)
Substrate language of Sumer
Tibira, Sangu are pre-Sumerian words (meaning ‘merchant’ and ‘priest’ respectively) – remnants of a language spoken by the inhabitans of southern Mesopotamia before the Sumerian immigration. To the south lay Dilmun and Magan; Meluhha was further east, whose speech needed an interpreter. The sources of this Sumerian substrate may be found in the Indian linguistic area: tam(b)ra is copper; sanga is ‘priest’ in Gujarati.
Tabira, metal worker (See JRAS, 1923, 253 n.2). “The original Sumerian tibira, loan-word tabiru, was transmitted to the Hebrews as tobal, tubal, and then explained by the Hebrew-Arabic word kaiin, metal worker. This combination was discovered by Sayce and communicated to me orally.” (The Sumero-Accadian system of legendary and historical chronology Weld Bundel (cuneiform) collection, 1922, Vol. II, p.8, fn 2) Kudda was mentioned as a priest of Innini and Babbar on a vase found at Warka (?) dedicated to Nimgal of Ur. (ibid., p. 18, fn1; S. Langdon, ed., 1923, Oxford Editions of Cuneiform texts, Vol. II, Historical inscriptions, containing principally the chronological prism, WB.444)
Other substrate words include: engar 'farmer', apin 'plow' and absin 'furrow'. ur 'millstone' (Sumerian)[ur-al 'mortar' (Ta.); ulu_khala (Skt.)] ili 'sesame' (Sumerian) [ellu/u_lu 'sesame oil' (Akkadian); el., el.l.u 'Sesamum indicum' (Ta.); tila, jar-tila 'sesame' (Vedic)](Blazek, V. and C. Boisson, The Diffusion of Agricultural Terms from Mesopotamia. Archiv Orientalni 60, 1992, 16-37) It is possible that IE *kwe-kw-lo- ‘wheel’ may be related to Sumerian gilgul 'wheel'; (GIS-); gigir 'wagon'. a_n.i which occurs in the R.gveda as ‘lynch pin’ is considered foreign to both Dravidian and Vedic. IE rota ‘rotate’ may also relate to urut.t.u ‘roll’; urul. ‘roll’ (Ta.)
Kalyanaraman
17 August 2009
Srivatsa glyph on Sanchi torana created by a scribe of srivastava guild or karanika guild.
[quote] Jāti (in Devanagari: जाति) (the word literally means births) is the term used to denote communities and sub-communities in India. It is a term used across religions. In Hindu society each jāti typically has an association with a traditional job function, although religious beliefs (e.g. Sri Vaishnavism or Veera Shaivism) or linguistic groupings define some jatis. A person's surname typically reflects a community (jati) association: thus Gandhi = greengrocer, Dhobi = washerman, Srivastava = military scribe, etc. In any given location in India 500 or more jatis may co-exist, although the exact composition will differ from district to district. [unquote]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jāti
Srivastava is one of the 12 clans of brahma kayastha. He is a scribe, a military scribe. Literally, the word means, ‘guru’.
Now, it becomes possible to hypothesise why the glyph on top of the Sanchi torana was called a srivatsa. The glyph was created by the vis'wakarma scribe, srivastava. See the glyph.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6151815/Sri-Vatsa
The glyph encodes mleccha speech: dhamma kole.l puja (puja of dhamma temple). Rebus glyphs: dama 'tie, knot'; kol 'fish'; puccha 'fish-tail'. The same glyph occurs on jaina ayagapatta and on Begram ivories of ca.1st millennium BCE.
kalyanaraman 15 august 2009
Indian Museum, Calcutta
This exceptionally fine Hoysala sculpture of Sarasvati, goddess of music and learning, is one of the masterpieces of Indian art. Sarasvati can be identified by the palm-leaf book which she extends with her left hand. The Hoysala impulse was to fill every possible space with decoration, not unlike like the Baroque impulse in Western art. http://www.art-and-archaeology.com/india/goa/goa01.html
J3 July 2009
Indus Sarasvati Civilization – The Mediterranean theory (IA) – Snapshots by Prof. Nick Gier
A)At least three different ethnic types: Austro-Asians, earliest peoples related to Australian aborigines; Dravidians, the people that the Aryans encountered; and the Aryans themselves. This divides up into three different language types, too, with the Northern Indian languages derived from Sanskrit and the Southern languages having Dravidian roots.
Indus river called Sindhu (a river goddess) in Sanskrit. Persians could not pronounce initial "S," so it therefore became "Hindu."
Why did the first great civilizations spring up in some of the driest areas of the world? Not the Mississippi, Amazon, or Danube river valleys, where the sod could not be plowed, but the river systems were the land did not have to be cleared. Alluvial soil easier to plow and very fertile.
Indus cities thrived from ca. 3000 to 2000 BCE and went into slow decline after that time. Two great cities (Mohenjo Daro and Harappa) sprang seemingly from nowhere, fully planned and functional, even more rationally planned than Mesopotamia or Egypt (contrast irregular streets of Babylon. Excellent plumbing and evidence of municipal control over the drainage. City blocks 200 yards by 400 yards. Indoor showers and drains.
Unimaginative but well-designed and sturdy structures. Well built and comparatively spacious housing for workers and slaves. Language still has yet to be deciphered; some scholars discern a similarity with Polynesian languages (specifically Easter Island!). Not much art except for assorted seals.
Agriculture central. Surpluses to support city. Grain and cotton; famous for latter. The harrow only, because the plow was not needed in the soft soil. Some animals domesticated, but not elephant or horse. No irrigation. Some evidence of dam building to flood areas. Did not have iron and mediocre metallurgy (bronze only). Did not penetrate jungle for that very reason. Very poor weapons. No military fortresses, etc. No swords. The people seemed to be extremely conservative; they did not pick up new things even though there is much evidence of trade with Mesopotamia and Persia.
Religion: mother goddess, fertility, etc. Great communal bath at Mohenjo Daro. Definitely for religious purposes. Temple prostitutes. Common also in Babylon. Female figurines and the horned gods with erect penis. Phallus worship. Aryans called them "dark," "phallus-worshiping," "foul-mouthed," and "godless." Horned-god as "proto-Shiva" sitting in the lotus position. Lord of the Forest (Vanaspati) and Beasts (Pashupati). Proto-Venus fertility goddess. The humped-backed bull, but not the sacred cow.
World-wide comparisons: Aryans vs. Indus Valley people; Israelites (non-Aryans) vs. Canaanites; Earliest Greeks (Aryans) vs. Minoans on Crete; Sky-gods and war-gods vs. Fertility gods and goddesses.
Breakdown of Indus Valley Civilization
Three possible causes, and probably a combination of all three:
1. External human forces: Invading nomadic tribes of Aryan warriors. Harrapans had very poor weapons--stone tipped arrows. Aryan war-god Indra vs. Indus pacifists.
2. Natural forces: floods, droughts, radical geologic changes. Natural dams flooded the cities. Back up of salt water from the ocean.
3. Internal human forces: urban pollution and over population. Decline of trade with Mesopotamia. Conservative culture that did not pick up new ideas. Didn’t use their ingenuity to defend themselves.
Pre-Aryan Religious Heritage
1. Ahimsa (non-injury)--the principle of nonviolence
2. Karma and Reincarnation
3. Yoga--proto-Shiva in the lotus position.
4. Worship of Great Goddess--goddess figurines from the Indus cities.
5. Cults of trees, waters, animals, e.g., the fig tree, the most famous being the Buddha’s Bo Tree.
6. Phallus worship connected with the proto-Shiva.
7. Bhaktism--devotion to a savior god. I personally have seen no evidence of this.
8. Village deities, demons, ghosts, spirits
9. Third Eye--the mind’s eye, the eye of introspection and meditation. Perhaps seen on the forehead of nobleman/priest of Indus seals.
New Evidence
Much larger than previously thought. May be the largest prehistoric urban civilization.
May have had a democratic organization. At least more egalitarian than any other civilization.
Largest exporters in the ancient world. 700 ft. long dock in Gujarat.
Suffered depression rather than Aryan conquest. Migration eastward to Sarasvati.
Largest Ancient Civilization
1.5 million square kilometers. Larger than Western Europe.
Iranian border to the West; Turkmenistan and Kashmir to the North; Delhi to the East; and the southern Gujarat to the South.
1,400 sites: 917 in India, 481 in Pakistan, and one in Afganistan.
Sarasvati not Indus?
Most of the sites are in the ancient Sarasvati River basin.
Sarasvati River mentioned in the Rigveda, running between the Indus and the Yamuna Rivers.
Satellite images proved this to be correct.
Some scholars warn that we should stay clear from potential Pakistani-Indian conflict.
Who were these people?
Examination of skeletel remains show that they are directly linked to present day Indians.
Many practices (farming, sailing, jewelry) preserved intact.
The tadoori oven is an Indus-Sarasvati invention.
Indus Chronology
Stage 1: 7000-4000 BC
Beginnings of village farming communities
Stage 2: 4300-3200 BC
Developed farming and pastoral communities
Stage 3: 3200-2600
BC
Agricultural surplus societies, urbanisation
Stage 4: 2600-2500 BC
The big leap. Advanced town-planning and scripts emerge
Stage 5: 2500-2000 BC
Civilization in full bloom
Stage 6: 2000-1600
BC
Dramatic decline in Sindh and resurgence in Punjab
and Haryana. Back to farming units
Indus-Sarasvati Egalitarianism
No cult of personality or royal tombs.
Some social stratification but still no control by one class. Competing elites?
Obvious administrative organization (standardized weights, measurements, and brick size) but only regional capitals.
Seals with what looks like a priest but there is no evidence that they had any great control.
BY Nick Gier
Professor
Emeritus, Department of Philosophy
University of Idaho
SOURCE http://www.class.uidaho.edu/
The rustless wonder by TR
Anantharaman
A historical and archaeological account of the famed Iron Pillar
in the vicinity of Qutab Minar at Delhi, which is associated with a rather
baffling corrosion resistance property. The book also traces the unique
metallurgical knowledge of those times. Also translated in Hindi and Tamil.
Source: http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/digilib/ViewBook.aspx?bookId=283
Where the gods
come alive - a monograph on the bronze icons of south India by Raj
Baldev, Rajagopalan C., Sundaram CV The Monograph Looks At The Celebrated
Bronze Icons From South India With Both Scientific And Technological Standpoints,
With Emphasis On Non Destructive Testing And Finger Printing And Artistic
Accomplishments. An Useful Volume For Historians, Artists, Art Lovers,
Scientists And Common Readers. Source: http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/digilib/ViewBook.aspx?bookId=331
The word has to reverberate in every nook and corner of the globe. We are living in extraordinary times; during our lifeime, maa sarasvati is flowing again.
E-books
Harappan and Mohenjo Daro civilizations were extensions of Sarasvati or Vedic civilization : BB Lal
Your sindhur is 3,000 years old
By Kumar Chellappan
Deccan Chronicle, 1 November 2008
Sindhur, the uniq ue marking on the foreheads of Indian women, dates back to the third millennium BC. Even during the early days of civilisation women used to wear the sindhur or tilak on their foreheads, excavations along the now defunct Saraswati river have proved.
“The Indian woman had adorned her forehead with sindhur as a symbol of marriage. This perhaps also indicated the existence of a structural family life in an orderly society,” Prof BB Lal, former director general, Archaeological Survey of India told Deccan Chronicle.
“We came across the sindhur in terracotta figurines from the sites along the states of Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat. Carbon dating confirmed the fact that these terracotta figurines date back to the third millennium BC,” said Prof Lal.
“Similarly the practice of greeting one another with namaste and the criss-cross pattern of furrows on farm lands, seen even today in Haryana and Rajasthan, date back to the Saraswati era,” he said. The Harappan and Mohenjo Daro civilisations were only extensions of the Saraswati or Vedic Civilisation, according to Prof Lal.
“Since the excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo Daro happened simultaneously in 1920, they are known as Harappan civilisations. But the Saraswati civilisation is much older than that of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro,” said Prof Lal.
He said that linguistic differences between the Saraswati civilisation and the one that existed in South India came to be known as the Aryan-Dravidian divide. “In the third millennium BC, there was this southern Neolithic culture in the region which later became the states of TN, AP and Karnataka,” said Prof Lal an archaeologist of international repute.
http://www.dc-epaper.com/DC/DCC/2008/11/01/ArticleHtmls/01_11_2008_005_007.shtml?Mode=0
Celebrating Sarasvati as divinity of music and other arts
Metaphor: pavo cristatus, peacock.
Habitat: Sarasvati-Hindu civilization linguistic area
Indian Peafowl
Order: Galliformes Family: Phasianidae Genus/Species: Pavo cristata http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/Birds/Facts/FactSheets/fact-peafowl.cfm
See peacock, peahen picture
See peacock dance video
See peacock cry video
Peacock cry: jeevan jeeva video
Depiction on a funerary urn as maraka 'peacock' rebus: 'death'; jeevan jeeva 'long live'.
See peacock-peafowl dance video
National InsigniaThe Indian peacock, Pavo cristatus (Linnaeus), the national bird of India, is a
colourful, swan-sized bird, with a fan-shaped crest of feathers, a white patch
under the eye and a long, slender neck.
The peacock is widely found in the Indian sub-continent from the south and east
of the Indus river,
Jammu and Kashmir, east Assam, south
Mizoram and the whole of the Indian peninsula. It is protected under the Indian Wildlife Protection) Act,
1972.
Distribution and Habitat
The Indian Peafowl occurs from eastern Pakistan
through India, south from
the Himalayas to Sri Lanka.
Though once common in Bangladesh,
it may now be extinct in that country. Its highly ornamental appearance
motivated early seafarers to transplant the peafowl to their homelands in other
parts of the western world. Phoenician traders in the time of King Solomon
(1000 BCE) introduced the birds to present-day Syria and the Egyptian Pharaohs.
In its native
India,
the peafowl is a creature of the open forests and riparian undergrowth. In
southern India,
it also prefers stream-side forests but may also be found in orchards and other
cultivated areas.
http://www.wildlife-tour-india.com/indian-wildlife/indian-peacock.html
The Story of India- World's Oldest Civilization-Beginnings- Sarasvati River' (31 Oct. 2008)
Aryan invasion theory, proven false – India (December 28, 2007)
The video shows how the Britishers filled in an inferiority complex into the already sad post Moghul invaded India through their Aryan Invasion theory to convert all Indians into their culture and religion (Christianity).
A vast number of statements and materials presented in the ancient Vedic literatures can be shown to agree with modern scientific findings and they also reveal a highly developed scientific content in these literatures. The great cultural wealth of this knowledge is highly relevant in the modern world. Techniques used to show this agreement include:
- Marine Archaeology of underwater sites (such as Dvaraka)
- Satellite imagery of the Indus-Sarasvata River system
- Carbon and Thermoluminiscence Dating of archaeological artifacts Scientific Verification of Scriptural statements
- Linguistic analysis of scripts found on archaeological artifacts
A Study of cultural continuity in all these categories.
http://devavision.org/videos.html
A film on Dholavira, Gujarat which bags the Best National Film Award for Creative Contributions in Marketing Tourism Products.