book-review

BOOK REVIEW-

(By Avinash Mishra, IRS.)

Sh. R Jeyakumar, IRS, Additional Commissioner of Income Tax, Chennai, is a batchmate of mine and a great friend for the last 20 years. The author is an IRS officer and had come out with an outstanding claim that he had deciphered the Indus script. So far so many persons had made such a claim and none of the decipherment has been accepted by the community of historians. Noted historian Gregory Possehl, author of the book “The Indus Civilization – A contemporary Perspective” concludes that no satisfactory explanation has been given so far. Even famous Indologist Asko Parpola also had come out with a statement that "totally different approach" should be applied to find a break through in this field of deciphering Indus Script. Asko Parpola is the Finnish History professor and had devoted his entire life to the study Indus script and decipherment of Indus script.

Now, a totally new person, a total outsider to the field of archaeology and epigraphy claims that he had deciphered the Indus script. This outlandish claim should be properly verified. It is very important that we should understand the achievements of Indus people to develop a proper perspective of our present day cultural values of our Hindu religion and Indian Nation. Proper national perspective should be developed on the Indus people so that we can claim an important lineage among the civilized people of the world. Decipherment of Indus script will give a break through in determining the racial category of Indus people, whether they were Aryans or Dravidians.

The author of the book takes a neutral view on the question of ethnicity of Indus people. He states that they were neither Aryan nor Dravidian, but they were people from Mesopotamia (present day Iraq), and most probably of Anatolian origin (present day Turkey). However,he slightly leans towards the ideology that Indus script is some kind of Brahmanical script. Even though he hails from Tamil Nadu, where generally people are staunch supporters of Dravidian origin of Indus people, he takes a different view that there is a possibility that Indus people could have spoken some kind of Indo-Aryan language even before the arrival of central Asian nomads. Most probably working in all-India service had given him wider perspective and liberal approach to this kind of controversial issues.

Another controversial issue raised in the book is that the author claims that Indus sites are necropolis and not metropolis. He claims that just like Egyptians had elaborate pyramids for their dead, Indus people also followed similar burial practices in which the dead bodies were mummified and kept in a burial chambers and the chambers were sealed. These burial chambers were provided with an antechamber for carrying out ritual sacrifice. Generally bulls were sacrificed and blood of the bull collected in a ritual vessel and offered as food to the departed souls. The burial chamber along with anti-chamber gives a feeling that once it was used as a dwelling house. Thousands of such burial houses were built over centuries gives a feeling that Indus sites were some kind of metropolitan cities.

In continuation of the claim of grave yard the author claims that the inscription on the seal denotes “Shrartha Date”. The new theory proposed in this book is that the symbols represent the “star constellations” and in turn the star constellations represent days of the moon calendar month. The final conclusion is that the inscriptions on the seal show the month and day of a death of a person (Thithi) so that the annual death memorial ceremony (shrartha) could be carried out on the correct month and date.

The biggest achievement of the author is that for the first time in Indian history he is showing parallel evidence between Indus script and existing Hindu text. That makes the claim of the author fascinating and interesting and reliable. He claims that the pictograms shown in the seals are coinciding with the symbols presented in Jyotisha Vedanga.The author analyzes that there were two sets of symbols used in Indus valley. One set of symbol is based on Kalan body parts and other set was based on various kinds of logos depending on the shape of star constellations. Out of these two sets of symbols, the Kalan symbols seems to be older and were most likely used by moon-priests of IVC. The other way of interpreting it will be that the Dravidians might have used these Kalan symbols.

The second set of symbols was based on variegated symbols and was used by later day sun-priests (Aryans). The exact period, on which the change occurred could not be determined, most probably the Sumerian farmers who entered India after the Dravidians might have used these variegated symbols. Proper separating out of seals based on age of seal will help in determining the exact time period of this change. This problem is a compounded one because various groups of people for many centuries have used this necropolis as their burial ground. But so far archaeologists have worked on the assumption that it was the work of single group of people. The artifacts available for Indus excavation sites should be re-evaluated to arrive at proper conclusion.

The book is available for free download in the below given website blogsite of the author:

http://sites.google.com/site/induscivilizationsite/

http://jeyakumar1962.blogspot.com/

This book on Indus Civilization has been published in the month of October 2009 and the title of the book is--

“New Interpretations on Indus Civilization”

This book is available in the following addresses:

Allright Publishers,

302/9, Central Revenue Quarters,

15th main road, Anna Nagar,

Chennai, India.

600 040

R.Jeya kumar,

Flat.no.12, Building no.B/6,

SAF games village, Koyambedu,

Chennai, India.

600 109

Price: Rs.500/ in India,

10 British pounds (or) 20 US Dollars in other countries,

(Price inclusive of postage)

Other contact e-mail addresses:

jeyakumar1962@gmail.com