Darius' problem and the problem of Harappan signs

[Ashok Aklujkar]

I am glad to note that in a recent post George Thompson wrote: > the
message attached to such signs was rather free-floating and unfixed.  The
difficulty for one interpreting such signs is that one has to rely on one's
own inference from context, since the sign itself is more or less mute [at
least compared to true scripts].<

The story of Darius fits a pattern seen in legends/folktales, especially of
India. Some examples:
(a) An Indian king sends a chessboard/game-board to a foreign king and asks
that the wise men of his court figure out the game for which the board is
meant.
(b) A messenger is sent back in a particular manner by the woman being
proposed to by the hero and the hero is expected to figure out from the
manner what the woman means; cf. Jambhala-datta's version of the
Vetaala-pa;nca-vi.m;sati, edited and translated by M. B. Emeneau, American
Oriental Series vol. 4, New Haven, Connecticut: American Oriental Society,
1934, pp. 15-20.
(c) A minister of a king who really has no means to defend himself 'talks'
through the movements of his boat with the minister/messenger of the
attacking king(s) and the latter minister/messenger advises his bosses to
forget about the attack and run for their lives; cf. the story of Kalpaka
in Hema-candra, Pari;si.s.ta-parvan of the
Tri.sa.s.ti-;salaakaa-puru.sa-caritra, if necessary in _The Lives of the
Jain Elders, translated with an Introduction and Notes by R.C.C. Fynes.
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 1998. Oxford World's Classics
series.
(d) A debate is held in which a fool is presented by one side in the
disguise of an extraordinary scholar and the fool's rude gestures are
interpreted by the other side as expressions of unassailable philosophical
arguments or positions.


Of course, all these stories must ultimately come from Classical Tamil
because I find them delightful and they must all contain historical events
because a Greek preserved a story that resembles them.

If I have confused legends at the object level with legends at the
meta-level or if I have summarized the former so briefly as to make them
appear enigmatic ...

ashok aklujkar