Critical Podium Dewanand Hinduism
David Frawley, about The Myth of the Aryan Invasion
of India
Sacrificer David Frawley
Sacrifice code wfor0107
Sacrifice date March 12, 2000
Source text=
http://www.hindunet.org
shish Sharma, Indian Express, the Express Magazine, March 12, 2000
Introduction: Who is Dr. David Frawley?
David Frawley is one of the few Westerners ever recognized in India as
a Vedacharya or teacher of the ancient wisdom. In 1991under the auspices
of the great Indian teacher, Avadhuta Shastri, he was named Vamadeva Shastri,
after the great Vedic Rish Vamadeva. In 1995 he was given the title of
Pandit along with the Brahmachari Vishwanathji award in Mumbai for his
knowledge of the Vedic teaching. Vamadeva has received many awards and
honors for his work from throughout India. He works with many different
aspects of Vedic knowledge on which he has written over twenty books and
many articles over the last twenty years. In India his translations and
interpretations of the ancient Vedic teachings have been given the highest
acclaim in both spiritual and scholarly circles.
Dr. Frawley is a teacher and practitioner of Ayurvedic medicine and of
Vedic astrology (Jyotish) and has done pioneering work on both these subjects.
He was recently (Sept. 2000) regarded as one of the 25 most influential
Yoga teachers in America by the magazine Yoga Journal. He is now working
closely with Deepak Chopra, particularly on his internet projects.
-------------
Following is the article written by David Frawley in "The India Times"
David Frawley, a well-known Vedic scholar, runs the American Institute
of Vedic Studies in santa Fe, New Mexico. He is also a famed Ayurveda
doctor. Those interested in this subject may refer to his book "Gods,
Sages and Kings: Vedic Secrets of Ancient Civilization".
The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India
By Vamadeva Shastri (David Frawley)
One of the main ideas used to interpret and generally devalue the ancient
history of India is the theory of the Aryan invasion. According to this
account, India was invaded and conquered by nomadic light-skinned Indo-European
tribes from Central Asia around 1500-100
BC, who overthrew an earlier and more advanced dark-skinned Dravidian
civilization from which they took most of what later became Hindu culture.
This so-called pre-Aryan civilization is said to be evidenced by the large
urban ruins of what has been called the "Indus valley culture"
(as most of its initial sites were on the Indus river). The war between
the powers of light and darkness, a prevalent idea in ancient Aryan Vedic
scriptures, was thus interpreted to refer to this war between light and
dark skinned peoples. The Aryan invasion theory thus turned the "Vedas",
the original scriptures of ancient India and the Indo-Aryans, into little
more than primitive poems of
uncivilized plunderers.
This idea totally foreign to the history of India, whether north or south
has become almost an unquestioned truth in the interpretation of ancient
history Today, after nearly all the reasons for its supposed validity
have been refuted, even major Western scholars are at last beginning to
call it in question.
In this article we will summarize the main points that have arisen. This
is a complex subject that I have dealt with in depth in my book "Gods,
Sages and Kings: Vedic Secrets of Ancient Civilization", for those
interested in further examination of the subject.
The Indus valley culture was pronounced pre-Aryans for several reasons
that were largely part of the cultural milieu of nineteenth century European
thinking As scholars following Max Mullar had decided that the Aryans
came into India around 1500 BC, since the Indus valley
culture was earlier than this, they concluded that it had to be preAryan.
Yet the rationale behind the late date for the Vedic culture given by
Muller was totally speculative. Max Muller, like many of the Christian
scholars of his era, believed in Biblical chronology. This placed the
beginning of the world at 400 BC and the flood around 2500 BC. Assuming
to those two dates, it became difficult to get the Aryans in India before
1500 BC.
Muller therefore assumed that the five layers of the four 'Vedas' &
'Upanishads' were each composed in 200 year periods before the Buddha
at 500 BC. However, there are more changes of language in Vedic Sanskrit
itself than there are in classical Sanskrit since Panini, also regarded
as a figure of around 500 BC, or a period of 2500 years. Hence it is clear
that each of these periods could have existed for any number of centuries
and that the 200 year figure is totally arbitrary and is likely too short
a figure.
It was assumed by these scholars many of whom were also Christian missionaries
unsympathetic to the 'Vedas' that the Vedic culture was that of primitive
nomads from Central Asia. Hence they could not have founded any urban
culture like that of the Indus valley. The only basis for this was a rather
questionable interpretation of the 'Rig Veda' that they made, ignoring
the sophisticated nature of the
culture presented within it.
Meanwhile, it was also pointed out that in the middle of the second millennium
BC, a number of Indo-European invasions apparently occured in the Middle
East, wherein Indo-European peoples the Hittites, Mit tani and Kassites
conquered and ruled Mesopotamia for some centuries. An Aryan invasion
of India would have been another version of this same movement of Indo-European
peoples. On top of this, excavators of the Indus valley culture, like
Wheeler, thought they found evidence of destruction of the culture by
an outside invasion confirming this.
The Vedic culture was thus said to be that of primitive nomads who came
out of Central Asia with their horse-drawn chariots and iron weapons and
overthrew the cities of the more advanced Indus valley culture, with their
superior battle tactics. It was pointed out that no horses, chariots or
iron was discovered in Indus valley sites.
This was how the Aryan invasion theory formed and has remained since
then. Though little has been discovered that confirms this theory, there
has been much hesitancy to question it, much less to give it up.
Further excavations discovered horses not only in Indus Valley sites
but also in pre-Indus sites. The use of the horse has thus been proven
for the whole range of ancient Indian history. Evidence of the wheel,
and an Indus seal showing a spoked wheel as used in chariots, has also
been found, suggesting the usage of chariots.
Moreover, the whole idea of nomads with chariots has been challenged.
Chariots are not the vehicles of nomads. Their usage occured only in ancient
urban cultures with much flat land, of which the river plain of north
India was the most suitable. Chariots are totally unsuitable for crossing
mountains and deserts, as the so-called Aryan invasion required.
That the Vedic culture used iron & must hence date later than the
introduction of iron around 1500 BC revolves around the meaning of the
Vedic term "ayas", interpreted as iron. 'Ayas' in other Indo-
European languages like Latin or German usually means copper, bronze or
ore generally, not specially iron. There is no reason to insist that in
such earlier Vedic times, 'ayas' meant iron, particularly since other
metals are not mentioned in the 'Rig Veda' (except gold that is much more
commonly referred to than ayas). Moreover, the 'Atharva Veda' and 'Yajur
Veda' speak of different colors of 'ayas'(such as red & black), showing
that it was a generic term. Hence it is clear that
'ayas' generally meant metal and not specifically iron.
Moreover, the enemies of the Vedic people in the 'Rig Veda' also use
ayas, even for making their cities, as do the Vedic people themselves.
Hence there is nothing in Vedic literture to show that either the Vedic
culture was an ironbased culture or that there enemies were not.
The 'Rig Veda' describes its Gods as 'destroyers of cities'. This was
used also to regard the Vedic as a primitive non-urban culture that destroys
cities and urban civilization. However, there are also many verses in
the 'Rig Veda' that speak of the Aryans as having having cities of their
own and being protected by cities upto a hundred in number. Aryan Gods
like Indra, Agni, Saraswati and the Adityas are praised as being like
a city. Many ancient kings, including those of Egypt and Mesopotamia,
had titles like destroyer or conquerer of cities. This does not turn them
into nomads. Destruction of cities also happens in modern wars; this does
not make those who do this nomads. Hence the idea of Vedic culture as
destroying but not building the cities is based upon ignoring what the
Vedas actually say about their own cities.
Further excavation revealed that the Indus Valley culture was not des-
troyed by outside invasion, but according to internal causes and, most
likely, floods. Most recently a new set of cities has been found in India
(like the Dwaraka and Bet Dwaraka sites by S.R. Rao and the National Institute
of Oceanography in India) which are intermidiate between those of the
Indus culture and later ancient India as visited by the Greeks. This may
eliminate the so-called dark age following the presumed Aryan invasion
and shows a continuous urban occupation in India back to the beginning
of the Indus culture.
The interpretation of the religion of the Indus Valley culture -made
incidentlly by scholars such as Wheeler who were not religious scholars
much less students of Hinduism was that its religion was different than
the Vedic and more likely the later Shaivite religion. However, further
excavations both in Indus Valley site in Gujarat, like Lothal, and those
in Rajsthan, like Kalibangan show large number of fire altars like those
used in the Vedic religion, along with bones of oxen, potsherds, shell
jewelry and other items used in the rituals described in the 'Vedic Brahmanas'.
Hence the Indus Valley culture evidences many Vedic practices that can
not be merely coincidental.
That some of its practices appeared non-Vedic to its excavators may also
be attributed to their misunderstanding or lack of knowledge of Vedic
and Hindu culture generally, wherein Vedism and Shaivism are the same
basic tradition.
We must remember that ruins do not necessarily have one interpretation.
Nor does the ability to discover ruins necessarily gives the ability to
interpret them correctly.
The Vedic people were thought to have been a fair-skinned race like the
Europeans owing to the Vedic idea of a war between light and darkness,
and the Vedic people being presented as children of light or children
of the sun. Yet this idea of a war between light and darkness exists in
most ancient cultures, including the Persian and the Egyptian. Why don't
we interpret their scriptures as a war between light and dark-skinned
people? It is purely a poetic metaphor, not a cultural statement. Moreover,
no real traces of such a race are found in India.
Anthropologists have observed that the present population of Gujarat
is composed of more or less the same ethnic groups as are noticed at Lothal
in 2000 BC. Similarly, the present population of the Punjab is said to
be ethnically the same as the population of Harappa and Rupar 4000 years
ago. Linguistically the present day population of Gujrat and Punjab belongs
to the Indo-Aryan language speaking group. The only inference that can
be drawn from the anthropological and linguistic evidences adduced above
is that the Harappan population in the Indus Valley and Gujrat in 2000
BC was composed of two or more groups, the more dominent among them having
very close ethnic affinities with the present day Indo-Aryan speaking
population of India.
In other words there is no racial evidence of any such Indo-Aryan invasion
of India but only of a continuity of the same group of people who traditionally
considered themselves to be Aryans.
There are many points in fact that prove the Vedic nature of the Indus
Valley culture. Further excavation has shown that the great majority of
the sites of the Indus Valley culture were east, not west of Indus. In
fact, the largest concentration of sites appears in an area of Punjab
and Rajsthan near the dry banks of ancient Saraswati and Drishadvati rivers.
The Vedic culture was said to have been founded by the sage Manu between
the banks of Saraswati and Drishadvati rivers. The Saraswati is lauded
as the main river (naditama) in the 'Rig Veda' & is the most frequently
mentioned in the text. It is said to be a great flood and to be wide,
even endless in size. Saraswati is said to be "pure in course from
the mountains to the sea". Hence the Vedic people were well acquainted
with this river and regarded it as their immemorial hoemland.
The Saraswati, as modern land studies now reveal, was indeed one of the
largest, if not the largest river in India. In early ancient and pre-historic
times, it once drained the Sutlej, Yamuna and the Ganges, whose courses
were much different than they are today. However, the Saraswati river
went dry at the end of the Indus Valley culture and before the so-called
Aryan invasion or before 1500 BC. In fact this may have caused the ending
of the Indus culture. How could the Vedic Aryans know of this river and
establish their culture on its banks if it dried up before they arrived?
Indeed the Saraswati as described in the 'Rig Veda' appears to more accurately
show it as it was prior to the Indus Valley culture as in the Indus era
it was already in decline.
Vedic and late Vedic texts also contain interesting astronomical lore.
The Vedic calender was based upon astronomical sightings of the equinoxes
and solstices. Such texts as 'Vedanga Jyotish' speak of a time when the
vernal equinox was in the middle of the Nakshtra Aslesha (or about 23
degrees 20 minutes Cancer). This gives a date of 1300 BC. The 'Yajur Veda'
and 'Atharva Veda' speak of the
vernal equinox in the Krittikas (Pleiades; early Taurus) and the summer
solstice (ayana) in Magha (early Leo). This gives a date about 2400 BC.
Yet earlier eras are mentioned but these two have numerous references
to substantiate them. They prove that the Vedic culture existed at these
periods and already had a sophisticated system of astronomy. Such references
were merely ignored or pronounced unintelligible by Western scholars because
they yielded too early a date for the 'Vedas' than what they presumed,
not because such references did not exist.
Vedic texts like 'Shatapatha Brahmana' and 'Aitereya Brahmana' that mention
these astronomical references list a group of 11 Vedic Kings, including
a number of figures of the 'Rig Veda', said to have conquered the region
of India from 'sea to sea'. Lands of the Aryans are mentioned in them
from Gandhara (Afganistan) in the west to Videha (Nepal) in the east,
and south to Vidarbha (Maharashtra). Hence the Vedic people were in these
regions by the Krittika equinox or before 2400 BC. These passages were
also ignored by Western scholars and it was said by them that the 'Vedas'
had no evidence of large empires in India in Vedic times. Hence a pattern
of ignoring literary evidence or misinterpreting them to suit the Aryan
invasion idea became prevalent, even to the point of changing the meaning
of,Vedic words to suit this theory.
According to this theory, the Vedic people were nomads in the Punjab,
comming down from Central Asia. However, the 'Rig Veda' itself has nearly
100 references to ocean (samudra), as well as dozens of references to
ships, and to rivers flowing in to the sea. Vedic ancestors like Manu,
Turvasha, Yadu and Bhujyu are flood figures, saved from across the sea.
The Vedic God of the sea, Varuna, is the father of many Vedic seers and
seer families like Vasishta, Agastya and the Bhrigu seers. To preserve
the Aryan invasion idea it was assumed that the Vedic (and later sanskrit)
term for ocean, samudra, originally did not mean the ocean but any large
body of water, especially the Indus river in Punjab. Here the clear meaning
of a term in 'Rig Veda' and later times verified by rivers like Saraswati
mentioned by name as flowing into the sea was altered to make the Aryan
invasion theory fit. Yet if we look at the index to translation of the
'Rig Veda' by Griffith for example, who held to this idea that samudra
didn't really mean the ocean, we find over 70 references to ocean or sea.
If samudra does noe mean ocean why was it traslated as such? It is therefore
without basis to locate Vedic kings in Central Asia far from any ocean
or from the massive Saraswati river, which form the background of their
land and the symbolism of their hymns.
One of the latest archeological ideas is that the Vedic culture is evidenced
by Painted Grey Ware pottery in north India, which apears to date around
1000 BC and comes from the same region between the Ganges and Yamuna as
later Vedic culture is related to. It is thought to be an inferior grade
of pottery and to be associated with the use of iron that the 'Vedas'
are thought to mention. However it is associated with a pig and rice culture,
not the cow and barley culture of the 'Vedas'. Moreover it is now found
to be an organic development of indegenous pottery, not an introduction
of invaders.
Painted Grey Ware culture represents an indigenous cultural development
and does not reflect any cultural intrusion from the West i.e. an Indo-Aryan
invasion. Therefore, there is no archeological evidence corroborating
the fact of an Indo-Aryan invasion.
In addition, the Aryans in the Middle East, most notably the Hittites,
have now been found to have been in that region atleast as early as 2200
BC, wherein they are already mentioned. Hence the idea of an Aryan invasion
into the Middle East has been pushed back some centuries, though the evidence
so far is that the people of the mountain regions of the Middle East were
Indo-Europeans as far as recorded history can prove.
The Aryan Kassites of the ancient Middle East worshipped Vedic Gods like
Surya and the Maruts, as well as one named Himalaya. The Aryan Hittites
and Mittani signed a treaty with the name of the Vedic Gods Indra, Mitra,
Varuna and Nasatyas around 1400 BC. The Hittites have a treatise on chariot
racing written in almost pure Sanskrit. The IndoEuropeans of the ancient
Middle East thus spoke Indo-Aryan, not Indo-Iranian languages and thereby
show a Vedic culture in that region of the world as well.
The Indus Valley culture had a form of writing, as evidenced by numerous
seals found in the ruins. It was also assumed to be non-Vedic and probably
Dravidian, though this was never proved. Now it has been shown that the
majority of the late Indus signs are identical with those of later Hindu
Brahmi and that there is an organic development between the two scripts.
Prevalent models now suggest an Indo-European base for that language.
It was also assumed that the Indus Valley culture derived its civilization
from the Middle East, probably Sumeria, as antecedents for it were not
found in India. Recent French excavations at Mehrgarh have shown that
all the antecedents of the Indus Valley culture can be found within the
subcontinent and going back before 6000 BC.
In short, some Western scholars are beginning to reject the Aryan invasion
or any outside origin for Hindu civilization.
Current archeological data do not support the existence of an Indo Aryan
or European invasion into South Asia at any time in the preor protohistoric
periods. Instead, it is possible to document archeologically a series
of cultural changes reflecting indigenous cultural development from prehistoric
to historic periods. The early Vedic literature describes not a human
invasion into the area, but a fundamental restructuring of indigenous
society. The Indo-Aryan invasion as an academic concept in 18th and 19th
century Europe reflected the cultural milieu of the period. Linguistic
data were used to validate the concept that in turn was used to interpret
archeological
and anthropological data.
In other words, Vedic literature was interpreted on the assumption that
there was an Aryan invasion. Then archeological evidence was interpreted
by the same assumption. And both interpretations were then used to justify
each other. It is nothing but a tautology, an exercise in circular thinking
that only proves that if assuming something is true, it is found to be
true!
Another modern Western scholar, Colin Renfrew, places the IndoEuropeans
in Greece as early as 6000 BC. He also suggests such a possible early
date for their entry into India.
As far as I can see there is nothing in the Hymns of the 'Rig Veda' which
demonstrates that the Vedic-speaking population was intrusive to the area:
this comes rather from a historical assumption of the 'comming of the
Indo-Europeans.
When Wheeler speaks of 'the Aryan invasion of the land of the 7 rivers,
the Punjab', he has no warrenty at all, so far as I can see. If one checks
the dozen references in the 'Rig Veda' to the 7 rivers, there is nothing
in them that to me implies invasion: the land of the 7 rivers is the land
of the 'Rig Veda', the scene of action. Nor is it implied that the inhabitants
of the walled cities (including the Dasyus) were any more aboriginal than
the Aryans themselves.
Despite Wheeler's comments, it is difficult to see what is particularly
non-Aryan about the Indus Valley civilization. Hence Renfrew suggests
that the Indus Valley civilization was in fact Indo-Aryan even prior to
the Indus Valley era:
This hypothesis that early Indo-European languages were spoken in North
India with Pakistan and on the Iranian plateau at the 6th, millennium
BC has the merit of harmonizing symmetrically with the theory for the
origin of the IndoEuropean languages in Europe. It also emphasizes the
continuity in the Indus Valley and adjacent areas from the early neolithic
through to the floruit of the Indus Valley civilization.
This is not to say that such scholars appreciate or understand the 'Vedas'
their work leaves much to be desired in this respect but that it is clear
that the whole edifice built around the Aryan invasion is beginning to
tumble on all sides. In addition, it does not mean that the 'Rig Veda'
dates from the Indus Valley era. The Indus Valley culture resembles that
of the 'Yajur Veda' and the reflect the pre-Indus period in India, when
the Saraswati river was more prominent.
The acceptance of such views would create a revolution in our view of
history as shattering as that in science caused by Einstein's theory of
relativity. It would make ancient India perhaps the oldest, largest and
most central of ancient cultures. It would mean that the Vedic literary
record already the largest and oldest of the ancient world even at a 1500
BC date would be the record of teachings some centuries or thousands of
years before that. It would mean that the 'Vedas' are our most authentic
record of the ancient world. It would also tend to validate the Vedic
view that the Indo-Europeans and other Aryan peoples were migrants from
India, not that the Indo-Aryans were invaders into India. Moreover, it
would affirm the Hindu tradition that the Dravidians were early offshoots
of the Vedic people through the seer Agastya, and not unaryan peoples.
In closing, it is important to examine the social and political implications
of the Aryan invasion idea:
First, it served to divide India into a northern Aryan and southern Dravidian
culture which were made hostile to each other. This kept the Hindus divided
and is still a source of social tension.
Second, it gave the British an excuse in their conquest of India. They
could claim to be doing only what the Aryan ancestors of the Hindus had
previously done millennia ago.
Third, it served to make Vedic culture later than and possibly derived
from Middle Eastern cultures. With the proximity and relationship of the
latter with the Bible and Christianity, this kept the Hindu religion as
a sidelight to the development of religion and civilization to the West.
Fourth, it allowed the sciences of India to be given a Greek basis, as
any Vedic basis was largely disqualified by the primitive nature of the
Vedic culture.
This discredited not only the 'Vedas' but the genealogies of the 'Puranas'
and their long list of the kings before the Buddha or Krishna were left
without any historical basis. The 'Mahabharata', instead of a civil war
in which all the main kings of India participated as it is described,
became a local skirmish among petty princes that was later exaggerated
by poets. In short, it discredited the most of the Hindu tradition and
almost all its ancient literature. It turned its scriptures and sages
into fantacies and exaggerations.
This served a social, political and economical purpose of domination,
proving the superiority of Western culture and religion. It made the Hindus
feel that their culture was not the great thing that their sages and ancestors
had said it was. It made Hindus feel ashamed of their culture that its
basis was neither historical nor scientific. It made them feel that the
main line of civilization was developed first in the Middle East and then
in Europe and that the culture of India was peripheral and secondary to
the real development of world culture.
Such a view is not good scholarship or archeology but merely cultural
imperialism. The Western Vedic scholars did in the intellectual spehere
what the British army did in the political realm discredit, divide and
conquer the Hindus. In short, the compelling reasons for the Aryan invasion
theory were neither literary nor archeological but political and religious
that is to say, not scholarship but prejudice. Such prejudice may not
have been intentional but deep-seated political and religious views easily
cloud and blur our thinking.
It is unfortunate that this this approach has not been questioned more,
particularly by Hindus. Even though Indian Vedic scholars like Dayananda
saraswati, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Arobindo rejected it, most Hindus today
passively accept it. They allow Western, generally Christian, scholars
to interpret their history for them and quite naturally Hinduism is kept
in a reduced role. Many Hindus still accept, read or even honor the translations
of the 'Vedas' done by such Christian missionary scholars as Max Muller,
Griffith, MonierWilliams and H. H. Wilson. Would modern Christians accept
an interpretation of the Bible or Biblical history done by Hindus aimed
at converting them to Hinduism? Universities in India also use the Western
history books and Western Vedic translations that propound such views
that denigrate their own culture and country.
The modern Western academic world is sensitive to critisms of cultural
and social biases. For scholars to take a stand against this biased interpretation
of the 'Vedas' would indeed cause a reexamination of many of these historical
ideas that can not stand objective scrutiny. But if Hindu scholars are
silent or passively accept the misinterpretation of their own culture,
it will undoubtly continue, but they will have no one to blame but themselves.
It is not an issue to be taken lightly, because how a culture is defined
historically creates the perspective from which it is viewed in the modern
social and intellectual context. Tolerance is not in allowing a false
view of one's own culture and religion to be propagated without question.
That is merely self-betrayal.
References
1."Atherva Veda" IX.5.4.
2."Rig Veda" II.20.8 & IV.27.1.
3."Rig Veda" VII.3.7; VII.15.14; VI.48.8; I.166.8; I.189.2;
VII.95.1.
4.S.R. Rao, "Lothal and the Indus Valley Civilization", Asia
Publishing House, Bombay, India, 1973, p. 37, 140 & 141.
5.Ibid, p. 158.
6."Manu Samhita" II.17-18.
7.Note "Rig Veda" II.41.16; VI.61.8-13; I.3.12.
8."Rig Veda" VII.95.2.
9.Studies from the post-graduate Research Institute of Deccan College,
Pune, and the Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI),
Jodhapur. Confirmed by use of MSS (multi-spectral scanner) and Landsat
Satellite photography. Note MLBD Newsletter (Delhi, India: Motilal Banarasidass),
Nov. 1989. Also Sriram Sathe, "Bharatiya Historiography", Itihasa
Sankalana Samiti, Hyderabad, India, 1989, pp. 11-13.
10."Vedanga Jyotisha of Lagadha", Indian National Science Academy,
Delhi, India, 1985, pp 12-13.
11."Aitareya Brahmana", VIII.21-23; "Shatapat Brahmana",
XIII.5.4.
12.R. Griffith, "The Hymns of the Rig Veda", Motilal Banarasidas,
Delhi, 1976.
13.J. Shaffer, "The Indo-Aryan invasions: Cultural Myth and Archeological
Reality", from J. Lukas(Ed), 'The people of South Asia', New York,
1984, p. 85.
14.T. Burrow, "The Proto-Indoaryans", Journal of Royal Asiatic
Society, No. 2, 1973, pp. 123-140.
15.G. R. Hunter, "The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and its connection
with other scripts", Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., London,
1934. J.E. Mitchiner, "Studies in the Indus Valley Inscriptions",
Oxford & IBH, Delhi, India, 1978. Also the work of Subhash Kak as
in "A Frequency Analysis of the Indus Script", Cryptologia,
July 1988, Vol XII, No 3; "Indus Writing", The Mankind Quarterly,
Vol 30, No 1 & 2, Fall/Winter 1989; and "On the Decipherment
of the Indus Script A Preliminary Study of its connection with Brahmi",
Indian Journal of History of Science, 22(1):51-62 (1987). Kak may be close
to deciphering the Indus Valley script into a Sanskrit like or Vedic language.
16.J.F. Jarrige and R.H. Meadow, "The Antecedents of Civilization
in the Indus Valley", Scientific American, August 1980.
17.C. Renfrew, "Archeology and Language", Cambridge University
Press, New York, 1987.
***
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