:salam2:
Previous reference: Part_‘A’
**Part ‘B’
**
Until recently historians had a notion that the Indo-Aryans were the first architects of Indian civilisation. But the twentieth century witnessed a revolution, as it were, in Indian history just as in many other fields. It has now been proved beyond doubt that a progessive culture existed in India even before the Aryans set foot here.
The history of India had to be rewritten, following explorations conducted, during 1922 - 1927, in Mohenjo-daro in Larkana district in Sindh and in **Harappa **in Montgomery district in Punjab. An organized and well-ordered culture was discoverd to have grown up in Sapta-Sindhu even as early as 5,000 years ago. Sir John Marshall, who led those archaeological investigations, ahs christened in the Mohenjo-daro Indus civilisation flourished on the banks of the River indus and of the Ravi, on of its tributaries.
Archaeologist have also calculated the probable date of the Indus Valley civilisation, as having existed between 3250 and 2750 B.C. with this, the history of Indian culture has been pushed back by many centuries. But then whose were the hands that built up the cultural edifice in Sapta-Sindhu? Scholars in general suggest they could not have been those of the Aryan people to home the Vedic and other literatures belong. They tell us that there is little discernible identity between the Indus people and the Aryans in physiognomy, language or religion. The ancient literatures of the Aryan tribesmen indicate that they were fair-complexioned, whereas the Indus valley inhabitant were brown in colour. Similarly, many other things like their facial shape, stature, mode od fessing and dress differed from thos of the Aryans. Writes T.C. Sankara Menon:
*“What do the relics tell us of the stature, facial feature, and the manners of dressing of the residents of the Indus Valley? We know their stature from the skeletons exhumed from their graves. Information regarding their facial shape, general complexion and dress may be gathered from the pictures, in colour and otherwise, on vessels, wall etc., and from statuettes and the like. It is assumed that their face was fairly long, with a long nose. In their picutres they appear a little brown in colour, with black hair. It may be conjectured that they were mostly dwarfish and that men often grew a beard. Their hair is seen to have been pulled to a mass to the back. Men wore sort of strangely embroidered garment, leaving the right shoulder bare.”
*
Sanskrit was the language of the Aryans. All their ancient literatures are written in Sanskrit. But the language of the Indus Valley coccupants was not Sanskrit. Their language is inscribed on thousand of seals obtained rom excavations. They used a kind of pictographic script, which has not so far been deciphered.
For these reasons archaeologists have come to the conclusion that the occupants of Indus Valley were different from the Aryans people. Who then were they? What race did they belong to? As for the answer, archaeologist have not been able to take a definite and unanimous stand. However, the conclusions cited below deserve particular attention. Say Majumdur Raychaudari and Datta in An Advanced History of India.
Lastly, there is the question of the race of the poeple among whom the Indus Valley civilisation grew…Some hold that they were the same as the Sumerians, while other hold tha they were Dravidians. Some again believe that these two were identical.
Yes, some scholars hold that the authors of the Indus culture were Dravidians. Some other go a step further and hold that the Dravidians belong to one and the same ethnic group as the Sumerians of West Asia. In his **Hindu Civilisation, **Jayaswalal records that one school of archaeologist suggest that even in 6000 B.C. commercial intercourse had taken place between Western Indian and Sumer and that Sumerians and Dravidians resemble each other linguistically as well as ethnically.
Excavations have provided various evidence to corroborate the conclusion that the Sumerians and the people of the Indus Valley were commercially related. Not what Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, quoting the eminent scholar Gordon Childe, record in the Discovery of India:
These people of the Indus Valley had many contacts with the Sumerian civilisation of that period and there is even some evidence of an Indian colony, probably of merchants, at Akkad. ‘Manufactured goods from the Indus cities reahed even the markets of the Tigris and Euphrates. Conversely, a few Sumerian devices in art, Mesopotamian toilet sets and cylinder seal were copied on the Indus. Trade was not confined to raw materials and luxury articles; fish, regularly imported from the Arabian sea coasts, augmented the food supplies of Mohenjodaro’.
Seals of Indian traers have been obtained from distant places including Mesopotamia. Exports from the Indus Valley included cotton cloth and perfumes. Seals found in ancient Mesopotamian cities like Ur, Lagash, Susa, and Tell Asmar speak of Indian trades.
The Sumerians and the Sindhs were related not by commerce alone; there was betwen them religious and moral affinity as well. Rahul Samkrityayan, an Indian Scholar, writes:
It has been stated in the author’s book, Mankind, that before Aryans ever came to India, civilized sect had existed in Assyria (Mesopotamia) in the Indus Valley, and that their sucessors had attained comparatively greater heights than the ancient Aryan community that began entering Afghanistan.
The Mesopotamians who came and settled in the Indus Valley were Sumerians - in other words, the offspring of Noah a.s. It was out of this lineage that the Dravidian group took its birth. Indeed, in the opinion of archaeologist, Sumerians and Dravidians from one ethnic group. Thus, it was from the Sumerians that the earlier Indian culture originated. And they were the offspirngs of Noah a.s.
References:
-Ibid P-197, 206
-An advanced History of India, by Majumdar Raychaudhuri & Datta, 3rd End P-23
-Hindu Civilisation, Jayashwalal; quoted by Krishnanandaswami, in his short book, 'Caste Struggle in India P-11-
What happened in history, Gordon Childe (Pelican Books) P 112; quoted by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in his The Discovery of India PP 67-68 (1st edn 1046).
-Indian Antiquity, short Archealogical book in Malayalam by Dr Ayyappan (a Mathrubhumi Publication) PP 71-72
-Rahul Samkrityayan writes in his Darshan-Digadarshan, a critical book on philosophy in Hindi.
-Perspective of the World PP 54-541.
funny name. ..
but I want him to explain about the comparison he made. 