WESTERN SCHOLARS AND INDUS CITIES:
ALL THE CLUES AND YET NO CONCLUSION
By Durgadas (Rodney Lingham)
Out of India not Into India:
It is well known that the decipherment of the Indus Valley script as Brahmi by NS Rajaram and N.Jha has been rejected by many western scholars and expounders of the AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory).
However, there are a few questions that need to be raised towards such scholars:
1. If Sumeria and Egypt traded with the Indus cities, and one can trace the history of later Middle Eastern cultures to these, as also the Phoenician, without any historical records from these, where are their writings saying the peoples of the Indus Valley disappeared or adopted a later Phoenician script?
2. Our numerals came to Europe via the Arabs from India. Why not also our writing?
Mathematics in the Indus was very advanced for it’s age, and later Indian mathematics reflects this, as also Vedic culture, which made it’s way to the West via Romans, Greeks and Arabs from India (Takshashila University), itself reflective of the arts and sciences of the Indus culture some 2000-1500 years before it!
Recent dates have also shown Takshashila or Gandhara region (Afghanistan) to have ruins back to 2000BCE, marking it at the end of the Vedic or Indus period, thus it was a continuation¹.
Greeks, it should be noted also studied at Takshashila in Gandhara pre. Alexander also, and possibly took the art of Gandhara (dating back to Indus Valley times) with them to Greece, considering the early dates also.
Greeks such as Pythagoras looked to India, as Egypt as a source of Greece’s wisdom itself.
3. Indian Puranas or Historcal texts and oral history states that writing in India (modern Indian scripts derived from Brahmi) came from Goddess Saraswati (Brahmi) to them and is indigenous and continuous.
Now that the Saraswati River and the Indus have both been identified as rivers in the Indus-valley civilisation, isn’t it logical to assume that the language was Sanskrit and that later Indian scripts all derive from the Indus script – being from the Goddess Brahmi-Saraswati, the river-culture where the Indus script was found?
We also note the Greeks had more reliance on the Indian legends of the Puranas than their own, and the Puranas again speak of no invasion, nor do the Vedas.
Also,
(a) If Dravidians of the South preserve the older Indus Culture and continued with it, then why also are their scripts related to Brahmi and also related to the Indus according to scholars, when both are from the same root? This shows both Northern and Southern Indians came from the same Indus region historically.
(b) Moreover, Indus script symbols have been found in the Maldive Islands and also in some older caves as Edakkal Caves in Kerala around 2000bce ², showing contact with the Indus people and that colonies were contemporary in the south with the Indus, and thus a continuous culture emerged as also Dravidians were not “driven” from the North.
(c) Dravidians claim to be refugees from an older flooded culture dating back some 10,000 years or more off the coast of South-Western India that included Sri Lanka etc. called Kumari Kandam or Ila, and trace their lineage back to Vedic Rishi Agastya, who in Rig Veda along with the father of Vedic peoples, Manu, both are Dravidians who survived a flood in the older South-Western region of India, not as refugees from an invasion in North-Western India, it’s complete opposite direction!
Recent cities off the coast of Tamil Nadu have also shown that cities dating back as far as 7500BCE are also possible, and the 2004 Asian Tsunami also threw up ruins 1200 years earlier, attestsing to flood myths in the region as more than just ‘fishermen’s tales’4.
4. Indus seals reflect later cultural affinities with Hinduism as the OM symbol, Peepal leaf, Swastika, Cow etc. So why do these remain in Hinduism as in the days of the Indus, as also the Indus Architectural system (Vastu or Shilpa Shastra) and yet somehow writing didn’t continue?
Oral tradition also states the god Skanda, who is Vedic Agni the Fire and war God said in the Vedas to be speech (Vak) is said to have created the Tamil language, showing a common heritage of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages. Another states that Shiva (Vedic Indra or Rudra) created both languages at the same time via his drum.
Vasishtha the brother of Rishi Agastya is also common in the Rig Veda and creates the famous mantra to Shiva in the text, called Mahamrityunjaya mantra. Perhaps he represented the Northern Peoples post-flood, whilst the peoples of Agastya remained in the South.
Either way, northern Indo-Aryans also trace their own origin to the southern Dravidian Kings like Manu and a flood culture where they then dwelt in the Himalayas and the Indus and Saraswati Rivers, so if anything invaded from Southern India as Dravidian stock, not from Central Asia!
They also went to the Himalayas since it was their sacred abode of their god Rudra-Shiva or Indra. Vedic Indra is also likewise associated not with Central Asia but with the Himalayas and Mt. Meru (Kailasha) as his sacred abode!
India is often lauded as the world’s oldest and most continuous culture, with the Vedas being chanted for several thousands of years.
Sanskrit is also the world’s oldest surviving language.
It thus becomes somewhat contradictory for such scholars to over-state these facts and yet deny India and it’s scriptures as having anything to do with the Indus Valley cities they clearly represent the culture of, or that their language is derived from the Indus cities as also their script, as their is the tradition of. Hindus also see themselves as indigenous to India itself, nowhere else, nor their language!
On the contrary, we have scanty historical records of the Greeks, Sumerians and Egyptians and yet scholars are happy to re-create their past without any solid historical facts and deny this with India, which has both oral, historical textual and a continuous tradition as also a continuity of art and archaeology to back it up.
Egyptians as is well-known state they came from the land of Punt for example, which lied to the East of Egypt.
Historically also, Indians have migrated out of India not into India, for example the Gypsies, who migrated to Persia, the Middle East and into Europe. Buddhist Monks were also sent to colonies in China, Japan, Cambodia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Burma, Indonesia, Philippines etc. and also into ancient Greece and Alexandria.
It follows a similar model of Indian Swamis coming to the West today.
It should be remembered that Indian also suffered invasions of the Huns, Scythians, Greeks, Arabs and the Mughuls (Turks), and yet still never changed it’s population or DNA structure in this time, nor did it affect Hinduism – which is quite a feat, since other areas (Persia with it’s Zoroastrianism, the whole of the Middle East and Central Asia etc.) had their faiths destroyed.
India today remains a refuge for these people, with the greatest number of Parsis (Zoroastrains) in Mumbai. Jews also fled to India also and sought refuge under Hindu Rajas.
This shows that invasions do not shape Hinduism, or change history. Sanskrit remains the same, and Hindusthani remains a spoken language of Persian words, but still Shuddh Hindi (pure Hindi) using Sanskrit words, as also local dialects (Bhojpuri, Marathi etc.) remain less changed also – and such an invasion which took the nation by force and threatened Hinduism and destroyed their temples, still didn’t alter the faith of these people.
So, why would it be changed by a few (imaginary) nomadic invaders around 1500BCE, when the same symbols and values still survive? Hindus also have not adopted the Arabic script and still use Devanagari the sacred script for writing Sanskrit and Hindi, and it is still widely used as a national language (on signs, shops etc.) across India!
In fact, the Mughuls who derive from the older Buddhist peoples of Central Asia who got much of their culture from India (via Gandhara school of Art) , and the Arabs also, contributed nothing to India’s art and architecture, but rather borrowed from them their art, architecture, numerals, mathematics, medicines etc. and later destroyed these and the institutions they came from!
The Domes and Archways used on Mosques and Tombs by Muslims came from Buddhist Indian stupas and entranceways as seen as far back as Ashoka around 300BCE and on the many Gandhara ruins also, showing and reflection Indo-Parthian Architecture which reached it’s zenith in Gandhara and later under the Guptas.
So rather, Arabs visiting India as also Turks used these Indian designs as they used Indian inventions, medical texts and astronomical and mathematical texts, their dress (costumes) and numerals and claimed them also as their own!
It is known that Tamerlane for example, took tens of thousands of slaves from India (Hindus) to build his Capital at Samarkand. Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal is also known to have used a Hindu Shilpi (Architect) to design his Tomb and Hindu craftsmen to construct it.
Motifs on Islamic monuments in India to Central Asia also reflect Hindu and Buddhist motifs as the lotus leaf, peacock, peepal leaf, om-symbol etc. which also all date back to the Indus Valley seals, reflecting an ancient ironic connection here also, with regards to India’s influences outside of India.
Indian Cave art and primitive cultures also date back as early as 30,000 years ago in Bhimbetka Rock shelters in Central India, which also show symbols as late as the Gupta period around early periods AD, showing a continuity of art styles and cultures in this part of India, that itself remain interrupted between the pre-historical periods (Upper Palaeolithic) until the later medieval times of India. Ruins in Julsi, in Allahabad in India have also yielded cultures as old as 7100BCE in the region also³.
Traditional dates ignored:
One should also be aware that the older history of India also places the Aryan Kings and personalities further back than the Aryan Invasion Theory itself, and makes them contemporaries of and older than the Indus Valley cites.
Whilst we may not agree with all this evidence and these dates, it serves to show of a more traditional, organised, well-documented and older Indian timeline itself, thus showing there is no room (historically) for any Invasion or non-Indus connection.
Below’s tradition dates are supported by scholars as K.D. Sethna, Stephen Knapp and Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, Prasad Gokhale amongst others.
Krishna is historically placed anterior to 3102BCE, as also is the Mahabharata War.
His period marks the end of the Vedic period itself. His Capital at Dvaraka yields ruins dating back to around 1500BCE, but itself build on older layers going back to 3000BCE – and some offshore ruins in the Gulf of Cambay as early as 7500BCE, according to some as Graeme Hancock (Author of Underwater Series).
Dholavira at around 3000BCE also boasts a city with polished pillars and a stone city with a large water reservoir and also a large amphitheatre. Once again, like the Indus busts of men and art, it predates the Greek by 2000 years and yet resembles the later art of Gandhara, as also the cities there also, showing a continuom.
Dholavira resembles the description of Krishna’s Capital in the Mahabharata and the Puranas.
However even at 1500BCE, it shows Vedic peoples as the Yadavas were already well-established in this period. Dvaraka’s ruins also boast a script that is intermediate between the Indus script and Brahmi, cancelling the non-Brahmi and non-Vedic connections.
This shows even at 1500BCE, that Krishna was long after the Vedic Age, which would have been best represented by older Rishi Cultures along the Indus Valley river and Saraswati. If his city is Dholavira, it pushes them back earlier – to the ruins under the Gulf of Cambay and the Mehrgarh cities of Baluchistan.
Buddha is traditionally placed around 1800BCE. This shows him existing around the end of the Indus Valley cities or when Hinduism declined, as the Saraswati River dried up around 1900BCE.
However, Buddha studied at Kapilavastu, the University of the illustrious Kapila, who is mentioned by Krishna as being before him and the founder of Samkhya. If Buddha was confused with Kapila, it pushes back a date of say 1800BCE for Kapila and then 1500BCE for Krishna.
However, tradition all over India asserts the date of 3100BCE for Krishna which places Kapila much earlier, to the Indus culture, which is possible, that he was a teacher there and later established his capitals in Videha province where Buddha was from.
Yet Videha dates back to the King Nimi, an ancestor of the King Rama and his wife Sita. The Janaka Kings of Videha also feature in the Vedic Brahmanas and Upanishads as rulers of Videha, and the famous Yagyavalkya, who spoke on Yoga, Vedanta and Samkhya came from the region in the post Rig Vedic era.
This shows Videha as an extremely ancient area itself, and Kapila’s date even around pre-3000BCE is not out of the question, nor is Buddha’s traditional date.
Either way, both also show of ancient schools existing in India prior to 1500BCE (Krishna / Kapila), or even earlier, showing of again a continuous culture.
We should also note later Jains and Buddhists also created a Sanskrit dialect Pali at an earlier time – some scholars which place it as deriving from Vedic Sanskrit, showing various migrations of Indo-Aryan speakers were about since the earliest times. This is also not possible unless they were already in India thousands of years earlier.
Shankaracharya is historically placed around 500BCE, and there are records in India showing the lineages of Shankaracharyas of the past 2,500 years.
This places him before the Greeks.
The Greeks also mention worship of Krishna and Shiva, and mention a few Buddhist Monks, but mainly the Kings seemed Hindus, making them Gupta Kings not Mauryas, as Mauryas as per tradition were around 1500BCE (post Buddha) and the Guptas around 320BCE onwards (The Greek era of Alexander).
As noted also, the Greeks mentioning the Hindu spots as Krishnapura and Mathura for Krishna worship, and also carrying images of Krishna on the battlefield does not show these Kings were Jains or Buddhists, but Hindus – as Shankaracharya 200 years earlier dispelled Buddhism from India (although many Buddhist monasteries remained and others became more Hindu in approach, as we see with Tantric Buddhism or Vajrayana and even Mahayana).
The problem with the traditional dates is that Western scholars have muddled up personalities in the Indian chronicles.
First is Adi Shankaracharya (500bce), confused with the later Abhinava Shankara (c.800AD), who’s life was similar to the former’s and was likewise a reformer of the Advanta Vedanta tradition.
Second is Chandragupta Maurya the Jain King (c.1500bce) confused with the later Channdragupta Gupta ( Greek Sandrocottus) c.320BCE), his predecessor being Chandramas (Greek Xandramas) and Samudragupta (Greek Sandrocyptus) his son, which are also etymologically more correct.
As noted, we also note these Hindu Kings at the time of the Greeks, not only in name, but also their worship of Krishna and Shiva over Buddha is more prominent in India due to Shankara’s previous influence, as Shankara’s chosen deity was Krishna in his homeland of Kerala, as also he was seen as both incarnation of, and a great devotee of Shiva also (of whom he commonly identified himself as one with).
In conclusion here, we see that there is an extensive ancient tradition in India that either way pre-dates any so-called invasion and instead shows a consistency with the traditional Indian culture.
Ashoka at around 1500BCE can also be evidenced by him using the “Pali-Brahmi” script, an adaptation of that found at Dwaraka at the same time. It is known Kings often changed and adapted scripts for their own religious purposes, and that Ashoka’s Brahmi was Buddhist (not Hindu).
Moreover, we note in Rajgir of a special (undeciphered) script used by one of the older Magadhan Kings, Bimbisara, which itself is a clear example of how Kings after the Buddha began using different scripts, and how many existed already at that time in history!
In Southern India also, Tamil Brahmi scripts have been found dating back to 800BCE, and also found along with skeletons indicating trade with south-east Asia at this period. This shows the script was already ancient in Tamil countries by this time and widely used, as the Indus was in these regions earlier.
It all also points to an older script, and a much older culture – both archeologically and also historically, showing of no mention of invasions into India nor any possible historical room for such an invasion, given these timelines.
Continuity of Indus Valley cities:
Along with scripts and Hinduism, we also note the dress styles of the Indus Valley peoples and later Hindus or Indians is very much the same.
Indus Valley sculptures and art show many varieties of braided hair, hair in ribbons, top-knot, various turbans, shawls (as those like later saris), jewellery covering breasts, drapes, dhotis (loincloths), headdresses of all shapes and types on Indus valley goddesses, sculptures and figurines which are exactly the same as the dress of later Hindus and as seen on later Hindu and Buddhist Art and sculptures also.
It appears the Indus people had a fascination with hairdressing and various such styles can be seen, as also in their dress, which again as noted before, suggests that there was a continuity between the Indus Valley art and that of Gandhara and the Mauryan period – as also of the polished stone pillars and stone architecture of palaces at Dholavira (3000BCE) and Dvaraka (1500BCE).
Indus cities also represent the Shilpa Shastras or Indian architectural texts and traditions with it’s layout and measurements, which also shows a continuity of culture also. We also only have the foundations left of the Indus cities and a few walls – as we do of Ashokan and Buddhist era ruins – and we know they were highly decorated, having wooden beams and pillars and elaborate archways and motifs of gold and silver on them as not only the Greeks told us – but also as we see on Ajantan paintings and various Buddhist sculptures of the period depicting these palaces.
Thus, the Indus Valley cities would have been pretty much of the same style I would imagine, going by their foundations and also that wooden pillars were used, as we know stone ones were at Dholavira.
Thus, the later archaeological finds at the end of the Indus period around 1500bce – 500bce in India (or dated back earlier by dates above of tradition) reveal similar styles in mud-brick, brick and stone foundations in various eras and areas of India, as also we see differences of scripts in the Indus, and also the early date of Tamil Brahmi, Ashokan Brahmi and also the mysterious script of the King Bimbisara in Rajgir.
Buddhists used domes for Stupas which created a new style of Indian art and architecture, but this need not be a foreign import, any more than slight changes in culture are. Likewise, the later Sikhs around 1500AD created Gurmukhi, their new script based upon the older Devanagari, for their religious purpose – the same perhaps happened in the Indus Valley and after, and also with kings as Bimbisara and Ashoka for propagating Hinduism and Buddhism.
We notice the variations of Indian scripts in south-east Asia and in India for example coming from Brahmi. We also note how differently the “OM” symbol looks, as also the Swastika is drawn, and yet both are found in the Indus Valley culture.
We also note how just as in India, peoples of south-east Asia have retained more Indic dress style, scripts and cultural traditions more-so than the West has through the Romans or the Latin Peoples! It shows Asia has always been more traditional and non-changing than us.
The Indus people were also a mixed race also, as the Indians are today – resembling Polynesians on one hand and then Europeans to the far North, where they look like your average southern European. To the East they resemble more the peoples of south-east Asia, having also similar strains, as to the far east of India we see pure Mongoloid people resembling the fair-skinned Chinese.
These diverse cultures would have all existed alongside each other, regardless also of religion, which itself changes styles, as we have noted.
That the Indus people traded in the South and with the Maldive Islands and the West, as well as the continuity of their cities also shows some trade-continuity also with later times, as through ports in Lothal in Gujerat down to Roman times where ports in Dvaraka traded with the West and also southern Indian ports also.
We hence see nothing but plenty of clues about the ancient Vedic-Indus civilisation and nothing about a discontinuity of styles, art, language, scripts or culture, and also regions as remote as the Maldives and Southern India as also Central Asia to have been trading with the earliest Indus Valley cities – which continued into later times, showing no such invasion taking place.
We also see that Indians both in the North and South of India both trace their decent from a flood-figure King and Rishis or Seers that arose from the South of India, not from anywhere in Central Asia, and rather migrated north to the Himalayan and Indus Valley regions after the flood.
The literature of India including the historical Puranas, the Epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata) and the Vedas also speak of no such invasions or discontinuity in Civilisation, but rather various migrations out of India, which as noted, continued also in later times with Buddhist Monks, Gypsies etc.
We have also the continuity from as early as 7500BCE of cities in Northern and Southern India, as also Indus writing in the South, and also the early instance of the Brahmi script in the South, showing of two continuous and contemporary cultures of the Indo-Aryans North and their older ancestors, the Dravidians (or perhaps, “Southern Aryans” or “Older Indo-Aryans”) to the South for the past 10,000 years or so.
This seems to reflect nothing but the tradition of India itself, which states that the so-called Sanskrit-speaking Aryans came from the Dravidian King, Manu from older flooded cities in the South and created a newer culture to the North of India, as reflected in the Indus Cities and those on Mehrgarh and the Gulf of Cambay – and also shows of a continuous cultural contact between the two.
It should also be noted that Northern Heros such as Rama the King and Krishna, are both not only celebrated in the South of India – but Krishna’s cousins, the Pandavas and his Epic the Mahabharata, as also his worship flourishes in the South of India, where many temples are associated with them.
This shows no hostility between North and South Indians at any time, nor any invasion, and that the South of India is mentioned in the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata as Vedic regions ruled by Vedic Kings, and visited by the Pandavas all shows that if anything each culture respected one another and were part of a one culture dating back thousands of years.
In regards to this, we should note that all of the great Hindu reformers – Nimbarkacharya, Shankaracharya (500bce), Ramanuja, Madhavacharya were all Dravidian Saints who restored Hinduism and Vedic teachings to the North, as also Buddhist Monks as Bodhidharma around 500AD took Indian teachings to China and abroad, as did the Kings and Brahmins from the South under the Chola Rule.
This shows it was more South Indians that had a tendency historically to be the ‘Indian Missionaries’ and Invaders to other colonies, especially in South-East Asia, as also their cultivation of Martial Arts (Dhanurveda, Kalari) and it’s cultivation, which also helped them ward off Muslim attacks on their region in later times also.
This hence gives more weight historically to the fact that the Indo-Aryans are descendants of southern older Vedic Dravidian Kings and their Saints, as tradition states, as, as noted, we see history repeating itself with the same influences coming from the south of India to the North of India and beyond (into eastern and south-eastern Asia) in later times also, not from the so-called war-like invading nomads, the Indo-Aryans of the North, who were merely their ancestors and early refugees of the flood cultures!
Footnotes:
1. “The oldest of these is the Hathial area, which yielded surface shards similar to burnished red wares (or 'soapy red wares') recovered from early phases at Charsadda, and may date between the 6th century BCE and the late 2nd millennium BCE.” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TaxilaThe Gandhara grave culture around 1500BCE-500BCE was also preceeded by an earlier phase of the Indus Valley:
“In the centuries preceding the Gandhara culture, during the Early Harappan period (roughly 3200–2600 BCE), similarities in pottery, seals, figurines, ornaments etc. document intensive caravan trade between South Asia and Central Asia and the Iranian plateau” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhara_grave_culture
All this shows the continuity of the ancient sites of Gandhara or Takshashila themselves from the times before the so-called Aryan Invasion to later times. That trade occurred in Gandhara as a place between 3200-2600bce shows that this continued in Indus times as in later times, where Buddhists continued contact there. This can only occur if a civilisation had itself been continuous.
2. That Indus signs have been found at this ancient site alone shows the antiquity of earlier contact with the South. The Edakkal Caves also date back many millennia before the Harrappan cities also – at least 5000bce according to some scholars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edakkal_Caves).
Source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/article26324.ece
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratisthan_Pur_%28Jhunsi%29
4. “As the killer tsunami waves receded, it also gulped the sand deposits only to unveil a line of rocks 500 metres from the Shore temple. The neat arrangement of rocks with man-made features could turn out to be another cave temple of the Pallava era (8th century). The naval diving team, assisting the Archaeological Society of India, also discovered another structure -perhaps a temple 100 metres north-east.” Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1032004.cms
“Drowned Indian city could be world's oldest: "The carbon dating of 7500 BC obtained for the wooden piece recovered from the site changes the earlier held view that the first cities appeared in the Sumer Valley [in Mesopotamia] around 3000 BC," said B Sasisekaran of India's National Science Academy.” Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1808-drowned-indian-city-could-be-worlds-oldest.html
Author Graham Hancock in his TV and Book Series, “Underwater” has also studied these for several years and also confirmed along with archaeologists that these structures are not “natural” but definitely man-made.
We also cite the older cities in the Gulf of Cambay, which likewise also date back to a similar era – showing ancient contemporary cities in both North and Southern India as early as 7500BCE, as we have already seen as early as 3000BCE with the Indus Valley. This shows no so-called Invasions nor shift of people from the Indus Valley in the past 10,000 years or thereabouts!
Bibliography / References:
1. Swami Prakashanand Saraswati: The True History and Religion of India
(http://www.encyclopediaofauthentichinduism.com)
2. K.D. Sethna, Ancient India in a New Light, Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 1997
3. Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati, Satyarth Prakash and Rig Vedadi Bhashya Bhumika
4. Frawley, Dr. David . , Feuerstein, George. , Kak, Subhash: In Search of the Cradle Cradle of Civilisation. Wheaton, USA: Quest Books, 1995
5. Frawley. Dr. David, Gods, Sages and Kings, Passage Press, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1991
6. Hancock, Graham, Underworld, TV Series and Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization
7.Lingham, Rodney, Southern origins and connections for Vedic Agni and Il (Article), http://satyavidya.com/AgniIla.htm
8. Wikipedia.
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