Vedic rites during the Indus urban phase

[Guest guest]

Author: F. Allchin

Source: The Archeology of Early Historic South Asia

Source: Allchin, F. (1995). The Archeology of Early Historic South

Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States. London: Cambridge University

Press.

 

A rather different picture is presented by the evidence found in the

Indus urban settlements. [...] At Kalibangan the curious ritual

hearths reported in domestic, public and civic situations are

suggestive of a practice ancestral to the Indo-Aryan fire sacrifices,

and it is an indication of the presence of Indo-Aryan speakers already

during the Harappan urban phase.Post a follow-up to this message

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "mayuresh_kelkar <trishul33@a...>"

<trishul33@a...> wrote:

> Author: F. Allchin, The Archeology of Early Historic South Asia

> Source: Allchin, F. (1995).

>

> A rather different picture is presented by the evidence found in the

> Indus urban settlements. [...] At Kalibangan the curious ritual

> hearths reported in domestic, public and civic situations are

> suggestive of a practice ancestral to the Indo-Aryan fire

> sacrifices, and it is an indication of the presence of Indo-Aryan

> speakers already during the Harappan urban phase.Post a follow-up

> to this message

 

Animal bones, including antlers, have been found in these

"fire altars". Linking soma to metallurgy, Dr. Kalyanaraman suggested

unique usage:"Using bones and the fat as reducing agents to

oxidize impurities or base metals in a quartz ore?"

(26 Feb '97, indology archive) However, indologists do not talk

about it.

 

The Kalibangan and Lothal could just be community cooking ovens,

(#26 Harappan fire rituals? in M. Witzel, p. 67-68,)

http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs/ejvs0703/ejvs0703article.pdf

 

The community kitcens, and nearby bathing tanks, are different

from the domesic ritual altars in the earliest veda. The Yajurvedic

agnicayana ritual, mentioned also in Sangam tamil texts,

is about 1000 years later than the Kalibangan ovens.

Even today, most Tamil brahmins follow yajurvedam.

On agnicayana altar designers: "Most of the Rgveda was probably

composed by members of the semi-nomadic Indo-European

pastoralists whose tribes and clans had trickled in across

the mountain ranges that separate Central Asia from Iran

and the Indian subcontinent; whereas parts of the Yajurveda

are more likely to have been composed by indigenous Indians

who had become bilingual by adopting the language of these

incoming tribes as a second language (cf. Deshpande 1993)."

p. 119, F. Staal,Greek and Vedic geometry, JIP, 27 (1999), 105-127.

 

The yajurveda employs the term, iSTa(ka) "brick". It's

said that Indo-Iranians encountered bricks first in

BMAC/Oxus culture. The BMAC culture is around 2000-1500 BC.

 

There was interaction between BMAC and IVC cultures.

While no bricks were kiln-fired in Mesopotamia,

"The Harappans used millions of kiln-fired bricks

as well as countless sun-baked ones" (p. 83, H. S. Converse,

The agnicayana rite:indigenous origin?, HR 14:81-95, 1974)

Is it possible that iSTa-/iSTi- ultimately could be

related with dravidian "iTu-" (to place, to set),

and hence, iTTakai/iTTikai "brick".

 

Tamil literature uses

a) iTTikai "bricks"

b) iTTikaivAycci "chisel for cutting burned clay"

c) iTTaTukki "an old-fashioned

ear-ornament; one of many ornaments worn through the ear-lobes"

d) iTTaLi "a steam-baked rice-cake" (popular

as iDli from south india).

 

In a collection of essays on literature, prof. Indira

Parthasarathy refers to Jean Pryzulski's mention

of the name, viSNU from Dravidian. (from viN 'sky'?,

Unfortunately, Parthasarathy does not give Pryzulski's

exact citation). Southworth (1979, Aryan and Non-Aryan)

links tamil kaTTai & skt. kASThA 'piece of wood, timber'.

>From Turkey/Turkmenistan, turukkan (tamil) and turuSka.

 

Wondering whether iSTakaa is ultimately related

with dravidian root, "iTu-tal"? iTTikai/iSTakaa

(cf. kaTTai:kASThA, turukkan:turuSka etc.)

 

Thanks,

N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

prof. Frits Staal has some additional points

on the Kalibangan (and Lothal) fire kitchens(?)/altars(?)

in his paper, Squares and oblongs in the Veda,

J. Ind. Phil., 29: 257-273, 2001

 

p. 268

 

" Pirak was connected with the BMAC and, at a much

earlier period, the Indus civilization. Has it not

been shown that there were dhiSNya altars at Kalibangan,

a hypothesis widely accessible through the magnificant

illustrations of Asko Parpola's 1994 book Deciphering

the Indus script? Kalibangan is an eastern Indus

settlement in Rajsthan of long duration: approximately

2300-1800 BC. Parpola's illustration comes from a 1985

survey by B. K. Thapar, former Dir. General of the ASI.

It is based in turn upon the original excavation reports

by B. B. Lal who started digging in Kalibangan in 1960.

When I look at any of these pictures, I do not see seven

altars, though there might have been. Thst *is* unsettling

because, in the absence of any similarity in shape

or pattern, seven was the only argument in favor of these

altars being dhiSNya altars. The drawing from Caland and

Henry of the sacrificial enclosure with circular dhiSNyas,

which Parpola puts alongside, does not help: for *circular*

is not what we want. Circulatory was a later option and

the original form of the dhiSNyas was not circular but

square. That is entirely relevant when discussing structures

from before 1800 BC."

 

p. 269

" I hope that these matters will be taken up again by

archaeologists. In the meantime, I am entitled to the

opinion that the Kalibangan evidence, even without comparing

it to what we find at Pirak and apart from being much too

early, should be discarded as possible evidence for

dhiSNya hearths."

 

Hope this is of consideration,

N. Ganesan, PhD