Harappan Writing – The Enigmatic Puzzle

What are the scripts of the Harappan civilization?

Scripts – It is a method of writing that employs a specific collection of symbols or characters, along with a group of guidelines (orthography) to denote a language.

Harappan script – Also referred to as the Indus script, it is a pictographic writing system of the Indus Valley Civilization.

Features – It is defined by approximately 400 symbols; mainly located on small square seals.

The inscriptions are usually brief, mainly located on seals, but also present on pottery, tablets, and various artifacts.

Writing style – The prevalent orientation of writing is considered to be right-to-left.

Occasionally, some lengthy inscriptions employed the boustrophedon format, where the lines switch direction, akin to how an ox cultivates a field.

Undeciphered writing - The writing, along with the language spoken by the Harappans, remains a mystery that has lasted over a hundred years.

What are the various understandings?

Assertion of Sanskrit – Historians affiliated with the Sangh have consistently asserted that the language signified by the Harappan script is Sanskrit.

In 1982, archaeologist S R Rao suggested that the script included 62 symbols and associated the Indus script with Sanskrit and the Vedic culture.

Assertion of Dravidian roots – Others suggest that it is a version of proto-Dravidian.

The case for Tamil connections – Finnish Indologist Asko Parpola, in 1994, recognized 425 unique symbols in the writing system, which he had associated with ancient Tamil for many years.

The script employed a concept known as rebus, and the symbols were images that represented entire words independently.

Instead, he linked it to ‘star’—a homophone for the Dravidian term for fish (min or meen).

Parpola asserted that he discovered the ancient Tamil names of every planet in the Indus script.

His theory has gained backing from scholars in both the West and India, notably Iravatham Mahadevan, who is the foremost researcher on the Indus script in the country.

Backing for the assertion – The presence of Brahui, a currently spoken Dravidian language utilized by a minor ethnic group in Balochistan in modern Pakistan, seems to strengthen the Dravidian hypothesis.

Several other researchers associate the Harappan script with Ho and Santali.

Pursuing such assertions, frequently backed by little evidence, aims to confirm the ancientness of a group and its culture, along with the political advantage that this ancientness brings.

Not a script in any sense – Recent research has cast doubt on whether the Indus script actually denoted any language.

This hypothesis primarily stemmed from the observation that all the Indus inscriptions are quite brief, averaging around five characters, with the longest consisting of just 26 characters.

This assertion was presented in a 2004 study by historian Steve Farmer, computer linguist Richard Sproat, and Indologist Michael Witzel, who stated that the “script” represented non-linguistic symbols of political and religious importance.

What is in store?

Even now, dhobis in India possess their own symbols that serve a purpose for them, though they don't constitute a language.

The majority of prehistoric communities did not record the same types of information that we document today.

Commercial data might have been the initial aspect that any community chose to document in written form.