سنڌي ورچوئل لائبرري

The Sindhi Language of Mohen-jo-DaroI

Human culture has always been changing due to the changing means of production. Approximately in 4000 years BC, due to agricultural growth, the society of Mohen-jo-Darowas changing from a matriarchal to patriarchal state. In that period, the concept of personal property had also come about, and the national wealth was being divided by a class based system. Slavery too was beginning to show its presence. Wealth in the form of gold and copper coins and slaves was becoming property of a handful of people. The class system gave birth to organized religion and a group of pundits and monks introduced the caste system in order to obtaining lasting control over the society. These castes in fact were already there but they were based on their professions and skills. Every caste had a symbol that depicted their profession/skill. Such totems have been found on the seals of Mohen-jo-Daroand Harrappa. Many caste names are derived from such totemic signs eg ‘Maachhi’ (fishermen), ‘Muhaanaa’ (boatmen), ‘Wighaamal’ (carpenters/wood cutters), Oad (masons / builders of mud houses), Sandeelo and others. These distinct indegenous totemic communities were busy in their professionl works. The totemic sign for “Maachhi” was fish and tortoise, “Muhaanaas” had signs of fish and boat, the ‘Wighaamal had axe and for Sandeelos it was a bird (1), from which the classification of their professions could easily be ascertained. But when these castes and totems came under the umbrella of an organised religion, they became religious castes. All the working class castes were considered inferior. It was this period when due to religious bigotry and economic reasons, several tribes moved out of Sindh; some went to North India through Punjab while others crossed the boundaries and settled in Iran and other neighbouring countries. Some tribes voyaged towards Sumer, Babylon, Nainwa, and Phoenicia, where they established their settlements. Phonecian or Panni lok (people) were directly from the Scindhian Stock of Mohen-jo-Daro and they developed the alphabet of the European languages from their original pictographic script. In India, Brahmic script originated from this pictographic script. The scholars are now in agreement that the signs of pictographic language of Sumer are actually Sindhi in origin, which the Sumerians started writing after attributing the sounds of their new language. Leonard Wooley thinks that Sumerian people came from the East to settle on the banks of Euphrates. We have already witnessed the evidences of Noah Crammer in this regard. Herodotus too has said that Phoenician people came from the Erytherean Sea i.e. the Indian Ocean, in ships. According to the Bible, the descendants of Noah had come to Babylon (Shinar) from the East. These people from the east were Sindhis because culturally in that period, only Mohen-jo-Daro has been proved to be present in the east. And all these tribes had taken their orginal language with them in the form of inscriptions on seals. With time, making use of these signs and after giving them new meanings and pronunciations, they created new scripts. In the Hittite language, not only similar signs are found but even so many words are exactly similar to Sindhi words that are from the period of Mohen-jo- Daro. Since Hittite language belongs to an era approximately 2500 years after Mohen-jo-Daro, it is impossible for Hittite to have given these words to Sindhi. The only conclusion that comes about is that people from this region took their language from here and were absorbed in Hittite language.

Culturally the Vedic culture of North India is a form of the culture of Mohen-jo-Daro that travelled from here to India. Whatever the age of the Vedas might be, the cultural indications in them tell us that they had moved there from Sindh. On the basis of this, it can be proved that the arrival of Aryans from abroad is a figment of European scholars’ imagination, in the background of which racial discrimination of Germans is clearly visible. All this myth of Aryans was started by a German linguist and scholar MaxMuller, when he first used the term ‘Aryan’.  MaxMuller had translated some parts of Vedic literature and the languages that were initially called Indo-European and Indo-Germanic now started being called Aryan languages. Even though Max Muller does not clearly say that Aryans belonged to a particular race but in his words “Aryans are those who speak Aryan languages” (2), form this point some German scholars tried their best to prove that some races of Europe, especially Germans were Aryans. They started comparing these Aryans with The Blonde Beasts of Nietzsche and in the non-German countries they were just considered the Whitemen.

While all this was happening, German nationalists started a campaign to find signs of this White race throughout the world. And having seen some such signs they started propagating a theory that these Whitemen were from a stock that belonged to some part of North Europe, who had moved to other countries. And in a very short time, even though the concept was contrary to the facts, the European mind had this concept so strongly dug into it that despite opposition from many scholars it did not vanish, because it had become a tool for the policy of racial discrimination of Germans and it was the very basis of German politics. In 1943, a Russian linguist and anthropologist Professor Stroov exposed the Nazi myth of Aryan race by reading the matter and scripts found from Asia and Caucasus and proved that the facts were absolutely contrary to this theory. (3)

During this period, the political environment of Europe had deteriorated and the concepts of political control over Asian and African continents, the issue of “Inferior races” and Whiteman’s responsibility had infested the European mind, and they used every branch of knowledge to promote their narrow-minded and selfish motives; and in these attempts the poor Aryans became a symbol of political and racial conflict. At times they were likened to the Neanderthal man while at others to some Germanic tribes who had large skulls, slender long noses and a large torso; sometimes to the Celtic people of wheatish complexion; and sometimes to the Kyrgh people of Asia. Attempts were also made to liken them to the present day German people as well as to Heranwok people of extreme North Europe! (4) Suffice it to say that there were as many concepts as there were scholars. This way the conflict started by one word (Aryan) by MaxMuller gave rise to so many theories and contradictions, resulting in thousands of books written on this subject, without any conclusion whether the Aryan race actually existed or not.

In the background of all this movement was the German policy of racial superiority but when the German scholars, due to certain reasons, stared calling this so called ‘Aryan’ race as North European instead of German, the scholars of other European countries felt no hesitation in owning this race. The whole engineered story was prepared in the German workshop that was taken up later by the British and American scholars. When the philosophy of Pan-Germanism could not get footage, the concept of Nordism appeared. The background and purpose of both was similar. According to the followers of this theory, Nordic or northern race had people with large skulls, slender long noses, tall height and blue eyes. One German scholar Paudler went on to connect them to Cro-Magnon, a race that existed in Europe in the Neolithic age. Since this race had come from North Europe, and the people from these countries were thought to be their grand grandchildren and their languages too were Aryan therefore they were also considered Nordic Aryans. It was assumed that the people of the other (Asian) countries where Aryan languages were spoken, must have migrated from there.

Professor Lundberg, a Swedish race-biologist has also presented such a theory that all the people with large skulls and long noses were Nordic Aryans and they resembled the people of Northern Europe. Hence an artificially engineered and concocted story was presented, that has now got a place in history. The Asian historians read the ancient books from India with this perspective in mind. They thought the Aryans were originally from Germany if not from Sweden; or may be central Europe, even Lithuania or southern Russia. However, some scholars thought contrarily, their main theory was that if the Aryans were not from central Asia, they must be from Asia Minor. After the World War II, when the German bias ended, it made the European scholars to reconsider their stance. And with excavations in Germany and France they had to amend their original theories and ideas.  In the village ‘Affet’ of Germany, some skeletons from the Azlian age (period between the Stone and Copper age) were found; some of them had very small and narrow skulls (5). From the excavations of a place called Solioter in France skeletons of people with bigger skulls were found (6). These finds adversely affected the theory of Nordism and they had to drop the supposition of large skulls and long noses of people who lived in the Neolithic Age. The amendment that they made was that the Nordic people had both wide and long skulls (7) and perhaps that was due to cross-breeding of two different human races (4). This was given an artificially coined name of Proto-Nordic race.

I have already mentioned that in order to give it a scholarly and historic touch they read the Sanskrit writings in this perspective and gave them their own meanings. Our respected Bherumal Mehrchand too, on the basis of a book by Baal Gangadher Tilak, has accepted these meanings but some European experts have criticised this concept.

Zimmer thinks that there is no historic evidence to indicate that the ancestors of the Aryans belonged to a cold region (Northern Europe or Siberia etc). The most northern area that the Aryans knew about was Kashmir-Kasheer, the indication of which is found from north Koru (Uttar Koru). In addition to this, the clothes of Aryan ancestors mentioned in the Vedas prove that their living in a cold country was impossible. This cultural point is enough to negate the whole theory.

European experts have presented the original Aryans as being white in colour. But in the Vedas, exactly opposite evidences are seen. In Yajr Veda, god Rudra has been said to be golden in colour. The standard of beauty for these Aryans was not white but was golden and dark. They did not like blondes but people with black hair were their favourite. A sentence from Sarotee of “Budhayin” (Dharm Sutra i.e. religious writing-1/1, 3, 5) is worth noting.

“As long as his hair are black, he may go on igniting the Agni (fire) of Baleedan (sacrifice).”

This same sentence was repeated by Sawar in his Gemni Bhashia (1-33). It is clear from the above examples that original Vedic people had black hair. There is a full chapter in Ather Veda about braiding and growing of hair. At one place there is this prayer found that:

“May black hair start growing on your head like wild grass”. (Athar Veda-part 6-137-372).

It is absolutely clear from these references that Vedic people and their deities or gods (who were actually their great grand fathers but were called gods or deities ritually) had black hair and they all had a liking for black hair. Therefore the hypothesis of blonde hair of Nordic Aryans is absolutely incorrect. This is what the internal evidences of the Vedas tell us.

Let us now explore the proofs from an anthropological point of view. Pumpelli excavations in Turkistan (9) have proved that some 2000 years before the Christian era, there existed a Mediterranean race in the Anau region of Central Asia.

According to Van Eikstedt, from the end of glacial period, a Mediterranean race lived near the Himalayas in the south of Iran.

On the other hand Ripley too had presented such a theory and on the basis of that he had called the people of present day India as from this Mediterranean race.

Sargi in his book “Europe in Asia” has called the Indians as Mediterranean race. So much so that Marshall and MacKay found skeletons and skulls of Mediterranean race from Mohen-jo-Daroand Harrappa.

Based on this material, can it not be assumed that the Vedic people were the eastern offshoot of this Mediterranean race? From all these facts one can definitely say that to whatever race the Indian and Vedic people might belong, but this notion seems absolutely incorrect that a Europeans or some other foreign race came to settle in India. The indications found from culture and similarities of languages are opposed to such occurrences. Thinking on the basis of similarities of languages of two countries, that they would be from the same race is totally absurd. (10). Therefore the theory of the Aryan race on the basis of Indo-European language is also inappropriate.

Let us now see whether in the Vedic period, the meaning of the word ‘Aarya’ had any racial connotation or not. The word ‘Aarya’ is used in the Vedas to mean only ‘civilized’ or ‘good and nice person’. Nowhere is it found to mean a race. The authors who made the Vedic Index say that the real meaning of the word ‘Aarya’ is ‘farmer’ or ‘ one who ploughs’ (11). I have already postulated a theory that the root of the Sindhi word “haari” (i.e. farmer) is “har” "“ar” meaning “to plough” (both noun and verb). This “ar” root exists today in the form of “aary” that Shah A. Latif (great poet of Sindh) has used with the meaning of ‘noble’ or ‘influential’ person. This shows that in ancient times those who ploughed were considered influential or noble people and so they were called ‘Aary’, that with the passage of time became aspirated and “aary” became “haari”. We still have a cultural saying “utam kheti, wadhander waapaar” meaning “ploughing is noble, business is progress”. Ploughing (growing) was considered respectable and so the grower was also respectable and the word ‘Aary’ or ‘Aaryo’/ Aarya existed in our language in ancient times with the meaning of noble and influencial. Again as already mentioned, many Sindhi tribes had moved to settle in Northern India, who used the word ‘Aarya’ or ‘Aary’ in the same meaning and in the Vedic period the word ‘Aarya’ changed its meaning from one of a “ploughman” to that of “religious caste”, and was used for the three main castes of Vedic religion i.e. Brahman, Khatri and Waish. I call it the Vedic period, because before that the discriminatory caste system did not exist and the tribes were named after their professions. Therefore the very people who, in the later period, started being called “Sudras”(untouchables), they too were called ‘Aary’ or ‘Aarya’ because they too were involved with agriculture. Had that not been the case, that is, if it had anything to do with the caste system, the Hindus would have never associated the word ‘Aarya’ with “Sudras”. In fact in the early Vedic references, the compound word ‘Sudra Arya’ (Sudra+Arya) had been used (Suyapath Brahman, Pa h 13 nos. 2, 9, 8) and from Wajasnia Sumheet, pa h 23, 30) this indication is quite clear. Even in the later period, the word ‘Aarya’ was individually used for a nobelman and a person of character, and not having the meaning of a race. In the Ramayana, Rakhshas Inderjeet calls his uncle Bhibhshan, for latter’s cheating, as un-aarya (i.e non Arya): which means that Rakhshas (rascals) who were considered evil spirits were also considered Aryan but because of an evil deed they were deprived of that respectable title and were called ‘un-Arya’ (uncivilized, not noble). Similar signs are found in Mahabharata as well, in which Koru Raja Duryodhanh, on not allowing the request of ‘Sindhu’ Raja repents and calls himself ‘un-Aarya’. In the very same Mahabharata, Pandav’s queen Durupadee says that some inferior ‘non-Aryan’ had provoked Yadhshtar to gamble. In Geeta (Pa h II, Ashlok 2) Shri Krishan forbids Arjun to walk like an Un-Aarya (non-Aryans). Buddhists call their religion as “Aarya Dharm” (Arya religion). Goutam (Buddha) called his sayings as “Aarya Satia’ meaning ‘Arya Truth’. The inference of all this clarifies that the word “Aarya” was used purely in a societal and cultural meaning and not for a particular race. Therefore terming Vedic Aryans as a foreign race is completely incorrect.

Hence arises the question that if the Aryans were not from outside, then who were the tribes mentioned in the Vedas? The direct answer is that the authors of the Vedas and these tribes were originally native to India. It can be said with certainty on cultural grounds that the main tribes amongst them had travelled from the Indus civilization of Mohen-jo-Daroand Harrappa to India. Unable to forget Sindh, (the land of Indus), their motherland, they started writing books in praise of Sindh and Sindhu (Indus River). At the same time they mixed and took words from local languages of Northern India giving rise to a new language that they named Sanskrit meaning improvised (since their own mother tongue Sindhi of that era was not so mature). Some of these people knew the script of Mohen-jo-Daro and along with producing a new language, a new script Brahmic was also produced. There are clear proofs of such occurrences. The science of writing, very much like chemistry, was considered a mysterious science of gods, and the learned pundits and monks used to hide it instead of spreading it. From the recent finds it is known that the original signs of the language of Mohen-jo-Daro with their equivalent Brahmic pronunciations were written and hidden in their temples and monasteries. They would tell the secrets of the Sindhi language to their children before they died and since this reading and writing was their profession, their successors also tried to keep this science a mystery as much as possible. But there were many who wrote the language with its old and new scripts and some of these have now been found; that are called Tantark. A lot of hard work has been done on these Tantaric writings. When the record of the signs of Mohen-jo-Daro was found, some experts attempted to decipher the language of Mohen-jo-Daro. There were two reasons for their failure. Firstly they could not ascertain whether the writings were from “left to right” or from “right to left”. Secondly, giving these writings a Brahmic reading, an attempt to form old Sanskrit was made, and since Sanskrit was formed a long time after Mohen-jo-Daro, therefore the words that were made did not display any meaning. When they were studied in detail, even changing these signs slightly could not result in words. Despite all this, the work of Swami and some others was slightly in the right direction. They should have taken care that since these writings were from Sindh, could it be that the writings contained Sindhi language? But because of their prejudiced notion of Markandia and Hemchander that Sindhi was born from some Apbhramsa, and that the European and local scholars considered it as being formed in the tenth or eleventh century, how could it have been there on the seals of Mohen-jo-Daro? This was their basic mistake that spoilt their entire hard work. In the picture that appears overleaf I am presenting some of those signs that are similar in the seals of Mohen-jo-Daro and Tantaric writing. Against them are given signs of Egyptian pictographic language for the sake of comparison. This comparison of Egyptian signs is very interesting. (pic pp        )

The Sanskrit equivalents given in this list are not absolutely correct, because in different Tantars different equivalents have been given. The purpose here is to emphasize that the language of Mohen-jo-Daro had travelled to temples and places of worship upto Bengal and was preserved in the minds of monks and pundits for thousands of years. Quite a sizeable record of these Tantars was edited by Sir John Woodroffe, who got it published from Lusiac Co. London. Another Tantaric dictionary was collected by Dr. PC. Bagchi from Nepal’s court library and was published with the name “Aikshar Samolip”. The entire Tantaric record is in the form of dictionaries and etymological dictionaries. Scholars have been involved in collecting, correcting and drawing inferences and it is hoped that they will soon derive some useful results.

The above evidences prove that the language of Mohen-jo-Daro had reached Northern and Eastern India, Bihar and Bengal. There could only be two ways for this; either some people from Sindh went there or people came to Sindh from there.  If people came to Sindh, what culture did they belong to? Since no civilization like Mohen-jo-Daro has been found at those places and since the culture of Mohen-jo-Daro was present in Sindh, therefore it can be assumed that Sindhi language went from here to other parts of the world. Secondly, there are chapters upon chapters in praise of Sindh, Sindhu and Sindhis (the land, the river and the people of Sindh) in the Vedas and the authors of Vedas claim Sindh to be their real country which is a proof that these people moved from Sindh to Northern India. Various other evidences also prove that culturally Vedic people belonged to the land of Mohen-jo-Daro. The biggest cultural proof of this feature is the Vedic religious customs. The sign of ‘swastika’ ( ) is commonly found on the seals of Mohen-jo-Daro that had become the main sign of Vedic religion i.e. “Ganesh Pooja. One seal found is such that both Marshall and Mackay in agreement call it the sketch of Shiva. Marshall is of the opinion that the ‘Shakti Pooja’ (worship of strength) of Vedic religion is a reminiscent of ‘Shakti Pooja’ of Mohen-jo-Daro. Moreover the system of burial has clearly proved that there were three distinct ways of disposal of the dead in Mohen-jo-Daro. The first and the most ancient way was burial, the second was leaving the corpse in the woods for wild animals who could eat their flesh that was followed by burial of their skeletons, and the third method was cremation. (12). The third method was more commonly used because many such pots and utensils (urns) containing the ashes of men/women have been found. In the literature of Vedas the Vedic people seem to use all these three methods of disposal of their dead. The indication found in Rig Veda (Pa h 10, 10-18 X 13) about a corpse is:

“O Earth, encircle this body in such a way, like a mother wraps her child in her fabric. I am sprinkling mud all round you, may the pebbles in this mud not cause you pain..!”

This proves that the system of burying the whole corpse was also prevelent. In the same Rig Veda, proofs are found about cremation as well. At one place, a Sloka about corpses says:

“O Fire, do not char him completely, do not burn him, and do not separate his joints, skin and body parts!”(Rig Veda, Pa h 10, Mandal 16-1)

Many such references are found in Rig Veda as well as Ather Veda that definitely prove that in the Vedic period the disposal of the dead was similar to that found from the civilization of Mohen-jo-Daro. It is obvious that people from here carried these customs with them when they moved there and practiced them. These religious and cultural facts of Mohen-jo-Daro prove that the race that is now called Aarya (Aryan) was in fact not a foreign race but consisted of some tribes of Sindh that had travelled to settle in the northern parts of India. Vedic period was a link in the cultural chain of Mohen-jo-Daroand when people of Vedic period acquired harmony and unanimity in religion, language, social and political conditions, they acquired a sort of strong bond. This unity gave rise to a new India i.e. Aarya Vart and Bharat Varsh. This sociopolitical and cultural harmony prevailed for about 2500 years. During this time, civil wars and caste related feuds caused formation of sovereign governments and states but the cultural unity persevered. When Buddhism got stronger, even then this unity continued in a new form from Bengal to Sindh. And during this entire period Sanskrit had been influencing Sindhi, and the cultural and political words with Vedic pronunciations, that are found in our language, are remnants of that long period. It must be reiterated that among these newer words were many words that were originally from Sindhi but had later got a new form, and so now we have both forms of such words. This way our language kept getting richer and it was this mature form that was found at the time Arabs invaded this region. Pure Sindhi words like ٻيٽ “bbait” (meaning ‘island’), ڍنڍ  “dhandh” (meaning ‘lake’). چنا “Channa” (name of a tribe), ڪاڪا “Kaka” (i.e. name of a tribe) are given in Chachnama. The word ‘Channa’ has been found in Mohen-jo-Daro too, (that will be seen in the next chapter). Sindhi language was spoken and written in Sindh in the period of king Dahir. That rich language of Dahir era got richer by absorbing some Arabic and Persian words and is with us now.

Let us now examine the language of Mohen-jo-Daro itself^*.

* The route that Sindhi tribes took can be easily traced as numerous signs of the language and pictures of Mohenjo Daro  have been found on stones on the old banks of river in Cambellpur in Punjab, that indicate that these tribes lived there for some time. One of the sketches on the rocks of Cambellpur can be seen here. This is a sketch from Mohenjo Daro but exactly similar sketches have been found in Cambellpur. A detailed account of this with reference can be seen on page no -------.