| Specifications |
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Publisher: RESEARCH INDIA PRESS |
| Author Somesh Chandra Shrivastava | |
| Language: English | |
| Pages: 308 (With B/W Illustrations) | |
| Cover: HARDCOVER | |
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9.5x6.5 inch |
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Weight 680 gm |
| Edition: 2025 | |
| ISBN: 9789348309211 | |
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HBW506 |
| Delivery and Return Policies |
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Usually ships in 3 days |
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Returns and Exchanges accepted within 7 days |
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Free Delivery |
The main hurdle in decipherment of Indus Script is non-availability of biscriptual text. Many previous attempts have been made in this context. Indus Script is a pictographic Script and many of its pictographs are similar to the pictures which were taught to explain some Devanagari letters like Kha for Kharal (Mortar and Pestle Sign), Ta for Tula (Balance Sign), Dha for Dhanush (Bow Sign), Pa for Parna (Leaf Sign), Ma for Min (Fish Sign), Ya for Yashti (Trident Sign), Ra for Rassi (Rope Sign), and Ha for Handi (Jar Sign).
This gave the direction that these pictographs should be given similar phonetic value. This also gave the thought that present Devanagari Script which is evolved from Asokan Brahmi via Kusana Brahmi, Gupta Era Brahmi, Siddhamatrika, Sarda, and Nagari Scripts. Hence pictographs in Indus seals similar to those of Asokan Brahmi should be discovered with similar phonetic value. This gave Immense Success in reading Indus seals and most of which were having Jar Sign at one end were discovered there. This gave the idea that the seals are either starting or ending on Jar Sign with phonetic value of Ha. The two oldest languages in this area were Sanskrit and Tamil. The singular and plural words in Sanskrit end on Visargah (:) which is phonetically similar to Ha.
This gave light to know the language of Indus script as well. This also resolved the problem of direction of writing of Indus script which is neither from right to left nor left to right but it is towards the Jar Sign. This hypothesis further strengthened in the seals with animal motifs where it is written from head end to tail end of the animal, where Jar sign is present at the tail end. In this way when Basic letters were discovered.
In the above laid principle studying large number of Indus seals it was found that it was mandatory to give same phonetic value to some different signs (Homophones).
In this way large number of extra signs identified though used sparingly. Similarly it was observed that some numerical signs were also used as letters of similar phonetic value.
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