Rajaram's horse-bull, better pics

Michael Witzel witzel at FAS.HARVARD.EDU
Wed Jul 26 05:07:37 UTC 2000


For those intrested to take a still closer look at Rajaram's horse (p. 177,
162 sq. in his new book,
The deciphered Indus script, New Delhi 2000),

AND who have a *good* internet connection (LARGE file!)

take a look at

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/Rajaram's-Bull.html

with photos scanned from A. Parpola's great photographic collections of
Indus seals, plates etc.


(1)  First there is the actual "horse seal", published by S. Farmer a few
days ago (starting out from Mackay 453),  here scanned in even greater
detail & resolution (scroll down a little!) .

It is :

K. Koskenniemi & A. Parpola, A  Concordance to the texts in the Indus script,
Helsinki 1982,
no. 2453

and in Parpola's  facsimile edition:

Corpus of Indus seals and inscriptions. 2. Collections in Pakistan,
Helsinki 1991

M-772 = 2453,  DK 6664,  MD 742,  JL 884 ,  a: P 642



(2) ANOTHER seal, with the neck and head broken off as well, but with the
same inscription
(containing only the rimmed vessel & horned man);
however, with the hind parts of the bull CLEARLY visible, Linga included.

i.e. :
K. Koskenniemi & A. Parpola, A  Concordance to the texts in the Indus script,
Helsinki 1982,
no. 2467

and in Parpola's  facsimile edition:
Corpus of Indus seals and inscriptions. 2. Collections in Pakistan,
Helsinki 1991

p. 103 no. M-1034 =  Mohenjo Daro,

M 1034= 2467, DK 5582, MD  778, JL 840, a: P 694


-------

The comparison should indicate that we have the same seal, same
inscription, and that the second one clearly indicates a bull, not a horse.


That throws just a tiny doubt on Rajaram's reading of the broken (!)
inscription of which one sign at  least is missing:

        pipal leaf - fork - horned man - rimmed vessel

which he reads, against the normal order of signs, from right to left, as:

        arko hasva      (sic!)  or
        arko ha azva    meaning
        " Sun indeed like the horse"

Again, one wonders about the missing Sandhi and Visarga (the book has a lot
to say about Sandhi and Visarga!!) and about the role that the co-author
Dr. N. Jha  --announced as  "one of the world's foremost Vedic scholars and
palaeographers"--   had in writing this book.

All of this quite apart from the fact, apparently of little importance,
that the sentence should read, if there was ANY connection indeed with the
picture on the seal, as Rajaram assumed:

                ".... is a bull" !

But then, Vedic is flexible and the word  'go' means at least 21 things...
So why not: azva  'bull', even while disagreeing with  Dr. Kalyanaraman's
"ass"?

Cheers, MW






========================================================
Michael Witzel
Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University
2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA

ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages)
home page:  http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm

Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies:  http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs





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