ASI to host three-day international conclave in August on decoding Indus Valley script

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) will host a three-day international brainstorming conference in August on ways to decipher the Indus Valley script.
Invitations to the international conclave on 'Decipherment of the Indus Script: Current Status and the Way Forward', to be held from August 20 to 22 at the Pt. Deendayal Upadhyay Institute of Archaeology, Greater Noida, have been sent out to experts working on the Harappan civilisation and culture both in India and abroad.
EDITORIAL | ​Script reading: On deciphering the script of the Indus Valley Civilisation
Tamil Nadu CM's offer
The ASI move comes months after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin announced a $1 million prize for experts or organisations that succeed in deciphering the scripts of the Indus Valley Civilisation.
Sources in the ASI told The Hindu said there are also plans to announce a fellowship for research scholars who are interested in working dedicatedly towards deciphering the Indus script.
The sources said the seminar will take place mainly through presentations, both offline and online. Thematic sessions shall be designed based on the current stage of research in this field. Discussions shall follow presentations at the end of each session.
It is expected that the papers will be submitted prior to the date of the seminar. Anticipated results will include, but not be restricted to, a better understanding and documentation of the current state of research in this field, and the potential for further research.
'The proceedings of the seminar is anticipated to highlight the scope and quantum of current and future research in the field,' a senior ASI functionary said.
The Indus Valley Civilisation was discovered more than a 100 years ago in 1921 at Harappa, and was formally announced to the world in 1924 by John Marshall, the then Director-General of the ASI.
According to ASI records, the first official report on excavations at Mohenjo-daro, in 1931 had a section on the 'Indus Script'. It also listed different symbols and their variants.
Also Read | Tamil Nadu CM Stalin announces $1 million prize for deciphering Indus Valley script
A riddle since
This script has attracted and fascinated a number of archaeologists, epigraphists, scientists, and many others who have made sincere attempts to solve its riddles, if not read it. Scholars have propounded several hypotheses about the nature and contents of this script.
Most examples of this script have been found on Harappan seals and their impressions. Other objects that preserved this script are metal and terracotta tablets, copper objects, pottery, etc.
The corpus of documented characters of the script suggests that they are predominantly pictorial. A rough estimation of the principal characters puts them at over 400. This has led some researchers to hypothesise that the Indus script is primarily 'logo-syllabic', the ASI official said.
Also Read | When John Marshall revealed the Indus Valley civilisation to the world
Major challenges
The major limitations in deciphering the script are the absence of bilingual texts and the relatively short nature of recorded specimens.
Computational linguistic analysis has added a new dimension to the study and decipherment of the Indus script.
According to Bahata Ansumali Mukhopadhyay, who has been working on the Harappan script for more than a decade now and is one of the invitees to the conference, most of the Indus script signs were language-agnostic – meaning symbols that could be understood by people from different parts of the Indus civilisation. The script was largely used to record commercial administration such as taxation and licensing-related information, on seals and tablets.
Ms. Mukhopadhyay says that her research indicates that though ancestral Dravidian languages were spoken by a significant population of the Indus civilisation, the one million square km area of the ancient civilisation must have had other groups of languages. In some of the Indus script signs, ancient Dravidian symbolism is found.
She maintains that 'Sanskrit was most likely not the language that influenced the Indus script. However, the symbolism of Indus civilisation has certainly influenced Vedic texts and culture, and has remained alive in various forms across multiple languages and cultures across the Indian subcontinent.'
However, according to archaeologist Ravi Korisettar, all claims till now are hypothetical as the symbols are not complete. 'So far, in the Indus Valley site, we haven't been able to find any bilingual records running into at least a couple of sentences. Hence, serious archaeologists refrain from making any claims on deciphering the script,' he said.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

The Hindu

10 hours ago

• The Hindu

New government arts and science college to offer five undergraduate courses

The new Government Arts and Science College in Thuraiyur will have a total intake of 270 students in five undergraduate courses. The college, which was inaugurated by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin through video conference from Chennai on Friday, will function temporarily from the Sengunthar Government Aided Higher Secondary School in Thuraiyur. The college offers undergraduate courses in B.A. in Political Science and Chemistry in Tamil medium and B.C.A., Computer Science and B. Com in English medium. The Naan Mudhalvan Scheme, which trains students to appear for competitive examinations, will be implemented in the college from this year itself. Twelve faculty posts and 14 non-faculty posts have been sanctioned for the college, an official press release said. Municipal Administration Minister and Collector M. Pradeep Kumar, elected representatives and officials were present during the inaugural ceremony on Friday.

Time of India

17 hours ago

• Time of India

1st Indian reference to Halley's Comet in Sanskrit inscription

HYDERABAD: In what is being described as a rare epigraphical discovery, the Archaeological Survey of India's (ASI) epigraphy division has found the first known Indian inscription referring to the appearance of Halley's Comet. It was found in a Sanskrit copper plate charter dated 1456 CE from Srisailam, Andhra Pradesh, during the reign of Vijayanagara King Mallikarjuna. The inscription, engraved in Nagari script, clearly mentions a celestial phenomenon involving a comet and a subsequent meteor shower, ASI epigraphy director K Muniratnam Reddy said. It records a land grant in the form of a village made by the Vijayanagara ruler Mallikarjuna to a Vedic scholar on Saka 1378, Dhatru Ashadha ba 11, corresponding to Monday, June 28, 1456 CE. The vedic scholar, a brahman named Limganarya, was from Kadiyalapura - likely present-day Kadiyapulanka in Kadapa district - and known for his expertise in astronomy. The donation was made "in order to pacify the great calamity that is believed to arise due to the appearance of a comet (Dhumaketu mahotpata santyartham)" and its meteor shower (Prakasyaya mahotpata santyartham)," said Reddy. "From several historical records across the world, it is known that the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1456 CE was interpreted as a bad omen," said Reddy.

The Hindu

2 days ago

• The Hindu

First Indian epigraphical reference to Halley's comet found in 15th century copper plate inscription

The first Indian epigraphical reference to Halley's comet has been discovered in a copper plate inscription dated 1456 CE belonging to the Vijayanagara period and preserved at the Srisailam Mallikarjunaswamy temple in Andhra Pradesh. Dr. K. Munirathnam Reddy, Director, Epigraphy Branch of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), who announced the discovery, told The Hindu that the inscription is written in Sanskrit, using Nagari script, and refers to the appearance of a comet and a subsequent meteor shower — events that historically coincide with the 1456 appearance of Halley's comet. The inscription records a grant made by the Vijayanagara ruler Mallikarjuna to a Vedic scholar on Śaka 1378, Dhātru Āshāḍha ba. 11, corresponding to Monday, June 28, 1456 CE. The grant was issued 'in order to mitigate the great calamity believed to arise due to the appearance of a comet (dhūmakētu mahōtpāta śāntyartham), and the associated meteor shower (Prakāśyāya mahōtpāta śāntyartham)', said Mr. Munirathnam. The king donated a village named Simgapura, located in Kelajhasima of Hastinavati Vemṭhe, as an agrahāra to a Brahmana named Limgaṇarya, a Vedic scholar from Kaḍiyalapura. Dr. Reddy said this place is probably present-day Kaḍiyapulanka in Galividu mandalam, Cuddapah district of Andhra Pradesh, and noted that the scholar was probably well-versed in astronomy. Dr. Munirathnam noted that while references to dhumaketus (comets) are found in ancient and medieval Indian texts, this is the first inscriptional record that has been discovered. 'What makes this particularly significant,' he said, 'is that the year mentioned in the inscription and the reference to the comet's appearance matches the year in which Halley's comet was later established to have appeared,' said He explained that in traditional belief systems and from the available historical records, the appearance of a comet and meteor shower was considered inauspicious, and associated with misfortune and calamities in many parts of the world. Mr. Reddy said the appearance of the comet and the beliefs surrounding it are vividly expressed in the inscription in the phrase: Prakāśyāya mahōtpāta śāntyartham dattavān vibhuḥ — meaning: this grant was made in order to pacify the calamities that may arise due to the illuminating comets and meteor shower upon the king and his kingdom. The discovery of reference to comets in the inscription was made during the critical 'line by line' editing of a set of 21 unpublished copper plate charters held by the Srisailam temple authorities. The collection, comprising 78 copper leaves, will soon be published in book form, he added.