E-mail: asharan@engr.mun.ca

  This paper discusses the authenticity of the Indus Valley script used by the presently living tribals in eastern Bihar State in India. The explanation as to how the tribals acquired this script is detailed. In addition, the solution to the Brahui problem as stated by Sir Dennis Bray is also given. The question about where did the Indus Valley people go is described with a topographical map of India. Next, the role of Hindu scriptures, and life of Jain Tirthankars are considered to explain the possible existence of the Indus Valley script in Bihar and neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh. Finally, the paper briefly discusses the gradual evolution of the way of living of the Indian subcontinent starting from the Indus Valley days.

The Indus Valley civilization is widely thought to have reached its peak during the period between 2700 B.C. to 1900 B.C. This civilization was not known until the year 1922 when the excavations under Sir John Marshall were carried out. These excavations continued until the year 1931. Sir Mortimer Wheeler carried out further archeological work after the partition of India in 1947. This civilization existed over vast area. This area, according to the recent count contained about 2,500 settlements (Feurstein et al, 1995). In other words, this area exceeded the combined areas of the Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations.

In spite of all these excavations and studies of different types of relics, what has remained evasive is deciphering of their script. To know more about the people who built this sophisticated society, the unraveling of their script was of utmost importance. The archeologists have excavated tools, seals, art-work etc, bearing the script on them but, were unsuccessful in deciphering their script. Notables in this respect are the works of Parpola (1994), Rao (1984), Wilson (1984), Hunter (1934), Mitchener (1978), Kak (1989), to name a few. Just like the Egyptian civilization which remained a mystery until the 18^th century, so was the Indus Valley until 1992 when Pathak and Verma disclosed to the world that they had found the tribals in the state of Bihar in India, using the script. Verma had spent considerable amount of time with the tribals to come up with the decipherment.

It was startling because the way the script got deciphered defied any one’s imagination i.e., to find anyone in this day and age to be using those script, and that too - that far away from the Indus Valley (see Fig. 1)?

How could anyone know about the script and not come out and say about it to the world? Anything is possible in India, a country which builds nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles, launches satellites on one hand, and where, people ride bullock-carts or live in forests totally cut off from the march of time, on the other. A perfect co-existence of differing lifestyles. A country where people live in the 20^th century and also where the Indus Valley script remain obscured from the present day civilization.

The present work was taken up by the author, who grew up in the state of Bihar, and was mystified since the childhood about the mysteries of the Indus Valley. During the early fifties, when the author was growing up in Bihar, the history taught was that the people of this civilization were not Aryans. This civilization existed before the Aryans came to India from Asia Minor. However, it was nowhere stated that these people of the Indus Valley were Dravidians. It was left as a mystery as to who these people were? The Egyptian civilization was known to be old but there was no comparative work available at that time as to which one was older.

Ever since the discovery of these tribes, the question has been put forward by many, including by Pathak and Verma (1993) in the epilogue of their book - How did this particular tribe living in the Santhal Pargana in the state of Bihar know about this script? The point to note is that these tribes are not nomadic. To those interested in knowing the answer to this question or to those who were interested in satisfying their curiosity, was the question in front of them - In what form would the proof exist that these were indeed the Indus Valley script, and how did the Santhals, who are cut off from the rest of the world, get it ? Some suggested to look for the potteries or study their food habits etc. The author of this paper was spending the summer of the year 1998 in the state of Bihar . He came back to St. John’s, Canada totally puzzled by all of this. He found the answer to the problem after coming back to Canada . The answer is explained in the pages that follow , and the answer to this question comes from many diverse sources .

Going over the information about the civilization, the plausible proof can be seen in the Figs. 1 and 2. Pathak and Verma (1993) found the tribes who spoke Malto or Santhali in the state of Bihar. Malto is a proto-Dravidian language. In this figure (Fig. 2) which has been re-drawn ( Elfenbein, 1987 ) , one can see that the tribes which spoke Brahui, split into three as they moved south- east from the Baluchistan province of Pakistan, in older times. The fourth one went to the Sindh province in Pakistan. Fig. 2 shows the area in Baluchistan where they speak Brahui even now. In the Fig. 2, one of these tribes who were going south - east, split into two at Rohtas ( in Kaimur district in the present state of Bihar ) .

After splitting , one went to the Raj-Mahal hills and settled there, and where they were found by Pathak and Verma; and the other went to the Chhota Nagpur plateau. These were the Kurukh ( Oraon ) speaking tribes.

Let us now look at the Brahui problem posed by Sir Dennis Bray in 1934. This Brahui problem stated simply is the existence of Brahui speaking people in the hills of Baluchistan who are surrounded by Baluchi (an archaic Iranian language) speaking people. The question was- How did these get separated by hundreds of miles from the Dravidians living in other parts of India as shown in Fig. 2 . This figure also shows another hypothesis by Bloch (the migration paths shown in dotted lines) who had suggested that Brahui was spoken by tribes from Central and Western India. One of these migrated north-west to the different areas in the present day Pakistan. Another group of these migrated east along the Narmada River up to Rohtas and then further split into two. Bloch came up with this hypothesis in 1924 while opposing the views of Sir John Marshall who believed that the Dravidian language entered then un-partitioned India through Baluchistan. George Morganstierne disputed Bloch’s hypothesis in the year 1932. It, the Bloch’s hypothesis, also did not find support by Emeneau in his work in 1960. However, Bloch’s hypothesis was strongly supported by Elfenbein (1987).

Looking at Figs. 2, it is quite obvious that Bloch’s hypothesis is not true because, the tribes which were using the Indus Valley script in the Santhal Pargana could not have known about it, had they come from the Western India originally. They had to have migrated from the Indus Valley. Therefore, it is the first hypothesis, which has to be valid. This is based on the direct evidence that we have to-day - the use of the Indus Valley script by the Santhals. Thus, Sir John Marshall’s thinking was correct.

Is the script used by the Santhals, the Indus Valley script or a script similar to that ? From the facts mentioned above, one can see that it is the Indus Valley script because it is similar, and the language spoken by these tribes has the same origin as the ones living in Baluchistan (Indus Valley area) presently. In the identification of a letter of a script, it is the similarity, which is used as the criteria. This principle is used in the computer software these days where a typed material is scanned first, and then special software is used to identify the letters based on similarity. Once the letters are identified then re-typing effort is saved. In this way, old documents are being stored on computer disks. This topic of pattern recognition using computers is a current field of research in engineering.

The Santhals were using this script for the identification of the tribes. The author is not surprised at that because, even to-day in India, at the time of birth, horoscopes are prepared where Gotra (lineage of various sages) is mentioned. At the time of the negotiations of marriages, care is taken so that the couple do not have the same Gotra (genetically it is not desirable). This tradition has been practiced since the ancient times . The only difference is that the horoscopes are written in Sanskrit language using the Devnagri script. The Brahmi script (emperor Ashoka’s edicts were written in the Brahmi script) preceded this script, and the Brahmi script evolved out of the Indus Valley script. The evolution of various scripts used in present India can be seen in Fig. 3 .

It shows that evolution of the South Indian script split from the North Indian quite early in time. Table 4 shows the possible beginning dates of other scripts [Parpola, 1994] . Important events in the Indian history are shown in Table 5. Did the tribals use any of the scripts mentioned in Fig. 3 or described in Table 4?

The answer is - None other than the Indus script. Since the Santhals were isolated from the rest of the society, they continued to use the Indus Valley script. Moreover, a new script does not come up that quickly, as compared to a change in a language.

No work on the Indus Valley would be complete until one has a glimpse of the symbols and their sound values. Some of these are shown in the Table 1.

These are very common symbols discussed in many books on this subject. The sound values of these and some other symbols are reported in (Pathak, and Verma,1993) . In the first column in this table are the Indus Valley symbols and its sound value is shown in the second column where the letters of the Devnagri script are shown. Devnagri script is used in India presently for Hindi, Sanskrit, and Marathi languages. Finally, the third column shows the letters of the Roman script. The sound value is precisely known from the Devnagri script. The fish symbol, which was discussed in great length by Parpola (1994) has a sound value of the letter I, for example, when we pronounce - Irwin.

Pathak and Verma mention the existence of the rudiments of the Roman and the Greek alphabets also in their book. This shows the possibility of contacts between the Indus Valley civilization, and these countries.

Was there a discontinuity between the Indus Valley civilization, and the present day civilization ? The author does not think so. The reasons are listed below:

1. The structures made of brick in the Indus Valley civilization ( Fig. 20 ), and those used to build Gautam Buddha’s palace at Kapilvastu in Nepal (Fig.21 ), and the brick structures at Vaishali (Fig. 24), the capital of Lichhvis (they practiced democracy in the at least in the 6^th century B.C., (if not earlier) in Bihar, are all similar (the pattern of laying bricks) including the technology of making the bricks.

2. The Jains list their Tirthankars starting much earlier than the arrival of the Aryans.

Table 2 shows all the names of Jain Tirthankars, and also, it shows the time when the Aryans arrived in India which was at the time of Shitalnatha. They believe that the Indus Valley civilization flourished between the times of number three-Sambhava, and the ninth - Pushpadanta. What is meant by the word - flourished? Does it mean that it reached its peak? This may be possible. However, the name of Rishabha appears in Shrimad Bhagvad - one of the holy books of the Hindus. There, it describes the events in the area of Koshala (shown as Kosala in Fig. 4).

Table 3 shows that place of birth of each of the Tirthankaras. It is based on Jain beliefs. It does check out correct with the descriptions of the holy book mentioned above, of the Hindus.

This table (Table 3) shows that all the Tirthankaras were born in the present state of Bihar or Uttar Pradesh.

Fig. 4 shows the ancient road map of India [ Kosambi, 1965 ] , starting from Taxila ( Harappan area ) to Rajgir, the first capital of the written history of India . Most researchers agree that the civilization spread from the Indus Valley - Harappa region eastwards along the present India - Nepal border , which is confirmed by this road map . The development of various Upnishads - the Hindu Scriptures, is shown in Fig. 6 [ Olivelle, 1998 ].

If one looks the Tables 2, 3, and Figs. 4, and 6, they clearly show that the Hindu - Jain religions evolved parallel to each other. The Jain Tirthankaras came from present day Eastern Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar.

Fig. 9 shows Parasnath in South Bihar. What was happening to other areas in India during the days of the Indus Valley civilization? The road between Rajgir and Taxila was called Uttarpatha (North Road), that between Savathi to Paithan (present day Maharashtra) - Dakshinpatha (South Road). People used to travel to the South India along this road. Brahmagiri was famous for trading in gold etc, even in those days. The Jainism in South India in the state of Karnataka was due to the migrations, during Chandragupta Maurya ‘s time, from Bihar when there was a famine in Bihar. Under the leadership of Bahubali, people went from Bihar to Karnataka, and when they subsequently came back, there was dispute with those remaining in Bihar. This dispute was about the change in the cannons by those remaining (Svetambars). The orthodoxes were known as the Digambars. There were subsequent Jain migrations from Bihar to Mathura area, and also to Gujrat, in the early part of the Christian Era. At Parasnath, 21 out of 24 Jain Tirthankars had obtained their nirvana. Lord Mahavira of the Jains, got his enlightenment on one of the peaks at Rajgir, and nirvana, at Pawa Puri, a few miles from Rajgir (refer to Fig. 9). Lord Buddha, when he left his palace, went to Vaishali, then to Rajgir, and finally, he got enlightenment near the holy place of the Hindus at Gaya. The enlightenment came to him in the Urvali forest, just a few miles from the Hindu holy place, where it is believed, that King Dashrath of Ramayan , had also visited . Regarding the historical proof of the Ramayan, it does not exist. However, the road map showing Ayodhya, and other ancient cities, leaves us with, at least, points to the possibility of its historicity. Should we believe in Epics whose historicity is not established? Let us look at this: A German businessman named Schliemann uncovered Troy, the seat of the Ancient Greek Civilization (Appendix B). The truth of this fact became known very recently. He believed in the Homer’s description of Troy, which was doubted by the historians, and carried out the excavations with his own money. After finding the jeweleries at Troy, he took them to Berlin. During the Second World War, the Russians reached Berlin first, took the jeweleries to Russia and kept this fact, a secret. People in the free world, in the mean time, started doubting about Schliemann’s discoveries at Troy. Some started saying that Schliemann had bought those jeweleries in a local store, and called the press conference to announce that he had uncovered Troy. After the break up of the Soviet Union, the Russians admitted that the jeweleries were in Moscow. In the Appendix B, one can see that Schliemann had indeed uncovered Troy. In the same way, we cannot rule out the historicity of the Ramayan, and the Mahabharat but, keep the possibilities open.

Since all of the above (famous people mentioned in the Hindu, and Jain scriptures) in India, lived before or during the Indus Valley days, what script was being used either by the Hindus or the Jains?

Table 4 shows the earliest use of the Brahmi script to 600 B.C.. Fig. 6 shows various Upnishads being created in North Bihar, and Eastern Uttar Pradesh? In fact, the Samveda was created by sage Yagnavalkya , who was in King Janak’s court . King Janak in Mithila , is famous for his practice of Advait Philosophy . The readers, for example, can read about his thoughts in the book - Ashtvakra Samhita - published by the Ram Krishna Mission in India . There must be other publications available about Janak , and his philosophical approach in life . The Upnishads discuss these . What was the script used by such an evolved society ? It had to be the Indus script, although we do not have any direct evidence of it . Santhals are the only ones who provide us with a direct proof .

While visiting the Patna Museum in the year 1991, the author came across some exhibits which were - ancient stone and bronze tools found in the Palamu district about 30 miles south of Rohtas, shown in Fig. 2. The bronze tool was similar to the one shown in Fig. 5. The author, a metallurgist by education, was surprised to see the bronze tool being found in Palamu, which has been a forested area where the tribals have lived all along. The stone tool did not surprise him because he had seen tribals using bows and arrows in the fifties at a place called Lokai near Koderma, about 100 miles from the Palamu district. The author was puzzled, and could not come up with an explanation of it. The bronze tool could not have been made in an undeveloped society.

When the author came back to Canada from India in the year 1998, after hearing about the Santhals using he Indus script, he started looking into the books about the Indus Valley civilization until he came across a map in Parpola’s book which is shown as Fig. 2 . The bronze tool was found on the migration path of the tribals. This explained the existence of the bronze tool in the Palamu district. Following this lead, the author carried out further research in the metallurgy area in ancient India.

Feurstien et. al ( 1995 ) say that the Indus people moved to the Yamuna - Ganga basin after the Saraswati River dried out due to the tectonic movement after which the Sutlej River, a tributary of the Saraswati River, changed its course . The waters of other tributaries afterwards, flowed into the Yamuna River. A belief exists among the Hindus that at Allahabad (Kosam - Fig.2), three rivers merge, and this place is also called Triveni Sangam, which means a place of the merger of three rivers. These rivers are, as the belief goes - Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswati. Every one sees Ganga, and Yamuna, but what about the Saraswati? The answer is that the Yamuna River carries with it, parts of the water of the old Saraswati River. Secondly, in the Mahabharat, it is mentioned that Balarama, the brother of Lord Krishna at Dwarka (shown in Fig. 2), did not participate in the war. Instead, he went on a pilgrimage along the Saraswati river . This figure shows that the possibility did exist at that time when the Saraswati River was flowing as shown in Fig. 2. What Feurstien et. al ( 1995 ) say, by and large could be true but, these authors do not dwell into other aspects such as the state of other areas in India during the Indus Valley days. Agarwal (1971), and Banerjee (1965) believe that this river basin (Ganga – Yamuna) was a swamp which could not be inhabited until the arrival of the iron age (iron tools). These tools were used to cut the thick forests of this basin. This is why, the population in the north India was located along the present day India - Nepal Border, which is confirmed from the Fig. 4. For example, it shows Hastinapur at the foot of the Himalyas. The population was along the Uttarpatha.

While the Ganga - Yamuna basin was thickly forested, it was not true with the other hilly areas shown in Fig. 8 [ Kosambi, 1956 ] .

This area is enclosed within a thick closed curve, and is elevated between 1000 to 3000 feet above the sea level. It is a rocky area, and a civilization subsequent to the drying up of the Saraswati River, grew up in Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh) - Nasik (Maharashtra) area. This was still during the bronze age (1800 - 1400 B.C.) . The bronze in this area was not of the same quality as that of the Harappan civilization [Agarwal, 1971]. This civilization did not flourish, according to Agarwal, because the agriculture did not support it. It was not as fertile an area as, was the Indus Valley. Ganga - Yamuna basin was very fertile. Naturally, the population from the Indus Valley moved towards this basin. It does not mean that people were not living in other areas of India. The proof can be seen in the Appendices A, and C, which show that there were always migrations taking place within India in the times much before the Indus Valley days. Rajgir had its civilization much before the peak of the Indus Valley. From above, it is quite evident why people from the Indus Valley moved in mass, to other areas but towards other populated areas along the Himalyan Foot-Hills which was already inhabited as the Jain Tirthankars places of birth, and nirvana (Parasnath) show. Furthermore, it is also confirmed by the times of - the Upnishads, the Ramayan, and the Mahabharat.

The next civilization that developed was the Magadh Empire having its capital at Rajgir. This time, however , India was in the iron age . Rajgir had an unique location. It had the iron ore outcrop in the Barabar Hills [ Wolpert, 1994 ] , and also , the fertile plains ( Fig. 7 ) .

Thus, it had the right conditions for the development. Here, the Jain, and Buddhist kings ruled. Various important places where the Jains, and the Buddhists still visit are shown in Figs. 10 to 20, which includes Parasnath. Subsequently, the capital was moved to Pataliputra (Patna). With the access to the iron ore near Rajgir, and South Bihar (Fig. 7), they built a vast empire.

In Fig. 7, one can see that these tribals had the know - how about the minerals, and therefore, migrated to those areas which had mineral deposits which included Raj-Mahal Hills where they were found by Verma, and Pathak. The author believes that these tribals also built the civilization at Ujjain. Ujjain also falls on this migration path. There are areas near Ranchi which are named after copper (Tamra in Sanskrit). The place is called Tamar. Nearby Ranchi, is the river called Swarnarekha (gold - line) River, which contained native gold on its bed. The tribals must be panning gold there.

Fig. 7 also shows copper ore and the iron ore occurring next to each other. It is quite possible, as the author thinks that the Iron Age in India started from here. This is because, the furnace for smelting copper can also be used for smelting iron. Copper melts at 1083 degrees C, and the iron can be extracted between 900 to 1150 degrees C by a direct reduction process [McGannon, 1964]. These tribals were quite familiar with smelting processes for the metals.

Places like Maithan, Jaherthan, and Paithan, appear to be pre-historic names of the places where these tribals, also called adivasis (adi means beginning, and vasi means inhabitants), have lived since a long time. These places are shown in Fig. 1. These are all in North India. These places were in the forest areas in the early times.

It is mentioned in Agarwal (1971), Biswas (1996), and Banerjee (1965), that these tribals are of Austric group origin. The facts presented here rule out that possibility due to their knowledge of the Indus script.

The various pictures shown above provide proofs for the well developed civilization not only along the India - Nepal border or the north of the Ganges River but also of a well developed civilization in South Bihar.

1. The Hindu scriptures show a gradual change in their theme and philosophy.

2. In India, the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age is similar to the other civilizations such as Egyptian or the others. The first in the world, according to the established facts, were the Hitites in Turkey, who used iron in sufficient quantity. Copper ore is found in Rajasthan and Bihar, whereas Bihar has rich source of iron ore.

3.Parpola (1994) relies far more on linguistic continuity than Feurstein et. al. (1995), who have emphasized religious (scriptural) knowledge which includes the knowledge of astronomy.

All of the above factors show that it, the Indus Valley civilization, was built by so called the Dravidians, which includes people living in north India presently. There is continuity in the technological aspect with the rest of the known world at that time. Therefore, the Aryans did not come with superior technology to invade India. The coming of the Aryans is believed to be around 1500 B.C., and earlier. The transition from the bronze to iron age is said to be around 1200 to 1100 B.C. In other words, the Aryans came to India during the Bronze Age. There does not exist any proof of any special technology brought by them.

Therefore, there does not seem to be a convincing argument in favor of those who say that the Dravidians receded to the south after the Aryan invasion.

In summary, this work, (a) substantiates, using independent sources, the findings of Pathak and Verma that the script that the Santhals were using was indeed that of the Indus Valley civilization (b) Bloch’s hypothesis about the solution of the Brahuis Problem is not correct, as confirmed by the direct evidence, ( d ) the Santhals migrated towards the mineral deposits in Chhotanagpur Plateau where, today, about 75% of India’s minerals are mined , (e) The Indus people moved towards the already populated areas of North India at that time because those were more fertile areas as compared to south, which has rocky topography , and ( f ) there was no sharp discontinuity in the development of the present day civilization from the Indus Valley civilization.

The antiquities, a collection of pre - Mycenaean jewels and plates known as Priam’s Treasure, were unearthed by German archeologist Henrich Schliemann in Turkey in 1870s and taken by Russia after World War II. Russia’s Constitutional Court Tuesday ruled that treasures taken from Germany and its allies during the war didn’t have to be returned because they were aggressor states. Reuters

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