Small square or rectangular-shaped slabs of soapstone,
considered to have been official seals for merchants and other persons, are the
most perplexing items from the Indus Valley civilization.
More than two thousand of these seals, which typically
combine a graphic picture with an inscription, have been discovered by archaeologists.
The majority of the seal pictures depict normal household
animals, mainly the bull, although a few depict mythological species like
unicorns or even stranger human beings.
One well-known example of the latter depicts a human person
strangling a tiger with each hand, maybe a fabled hero.
A horned guy appears in two different poses, one standing in
front of a table and the other seated in a yoga-like stance.
He is often recognized as an early version of the god Shiva
and offered as proof that Shiva's religion originated in the towns of the Indus
Valley.
Much less is known about the seal inscriptions since the
writing system for these inscriptions has never been decoded, despite several
ideas.
One of the reasons for the dispute is a difference of
opinion on the Indus Valley culture.
Those who think that the Indus Valley civilization existed
before the Aryans arrived and was separate from them search for proof in the
Dravidian language family, which is linguistically distinct from the Indo-Aryan language
family.
Those who believe in the Indigenous Aryan theory, which
links the Indus Valley civilization to that of the Aryans, look for proof in
the Vedas, the oldest Sanskrit literature.
None of these explanations have been proven conclusive, and
the inscriptions themselves add to the difficulties of understanding this
writing.
Linguists have discovered 419 distinct symbols, which seems
to be too numerous for the script to be alphabetical yet too few for each sign
to stand for a single word, as in Chinese.
Because of the modest size of the seals, the inscriptions
are usually quite brief.
Because the text is so short, it is difficult to grasp
because it lacks the contextual patterns that a lengthier text would provide.
Linguists are working with a succession of brief and
unconnected textual pieces in order to decipher these inscriptions.
The writing could most likely be read conclusively if a
bilingual inscription was discovered, but in the absence of such a key, the
issues may prove intractable.
F. Raymond Allchin's The Archaeology of Early Historic South
Asia was published in 1995, while Romila Thapar's Interpreting Early India was
published in 1992.
See David Frawley's The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India (1994) and Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization (1997) for the Indigenous Aryan perspective.
Discover more about Hindu Art, Architecture, and Iconography here.
You may also want to read more about Hinduism here.
Be sure to check out my writings on religion here.
