Sememe, Indus Script and Hindu Fundamentalism

[nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov]

June 7, 1995
 
           Hindu Fundamentalism, Sememes and Indus Script
          ************************************************

As we know, lots of Hindutva people want to make revisions of
Indian history. Their main efforts are directed towards
showing that Indus valley civilization is Vedic, Aryans originated
in India, and Dravidian languages are derived out of Sanskrit
or at the very least, Sanskrit and Dravidian languages originate
from the same root! 

I am no scholar in Sanskrit or prehistoric India. But I know Tamil very
well, interested in collecting palm-leaf manuscripts and old books, 
and have published some important 16th -17th century Tamil prabandhams.
I happen to know many Tamil professors, pulavars/vidhvans etc.,
I know many Dravidianists, both Indian and Western well and  in their
conversations, they express serious doubts about all this. It seems to
me that Hindu elites have a vested interest in this. I know for sure
that Tamil/Dravidian languages did not arise out of Sanskrit, though
later they all have been heavily influenced by Indo-Aryan, not necessarily
beneficial to the languages or the speakers of those languages - all
the time.


See Asko Parpola, Deciphering the Indus Script, Cambridge university press,
1994 and also Christopher Edens' review, Nature, vol.374, 16 March 1995,
pp. 223-224. They suggest Dravidians as the Indus people. In addition, 
we have a 150 years of solid research starting with Robert Caldwell. All these 
scholars, over a period of such a long time, could not be wrong.

Periodically, Indology listserv gets these Hindutva postings.
I completely agree with Dominik.

Yours
n. ganesan
nas_ng at lms461.jsc.nasa.gov