The Message of the Indus Seals and Tablets

Since the publication of the concordances of the inscriptions of the Indus seals many people have been working on the solution of the riddle presented by their 5000-years-old script. At first sight the task does not appear too difficult, as there are pictograms that can easily be recognized. A lot of signs are geometric, but this does not seem to be an insurmountable obstacle either, as they are often combined with the pictograms. The decipherments that were based on these similarities resulted, however, only in the reading of some inscriptions as more or less obscure names, sometimes not even a phonetic value could be given. Nevertheless they are often presented as complete decipherments to the public. On this account, the pretension that the Indus script is deciphered meets with increasing suspicion and is exposed to ridicule even. Many scholars working in this field are nowadays of the opinion that the Indus script is altogether indecipherable, if not a bilingual of considerable size turns up. The approach to a decipherment presented in this volume makes avail of a short bilingual from Failaka, but its master-key is the discovering of the symbolic and the linguistic connection of the Indus signs with the Rg-Veda. More than 200 inscriptions, among them the longest and those with the most interesting motifs, have been decoded here by setting them word after word in relation to Rg-Vedic mantras. The results that were gained by this method of comparison for the pictographic and phonetic values of the Indus signs are surprising and far beyond the most daring phantasy, i.e. beyond the analytic limits of thought. This approach is the opposite of subjectivism. The signs of all inscriptions have been found in this way have been collected in a sign-dictionary improved for a great deal in the present edition. By the deciphering of the Indus signs many problems of the Rg-Veda could be solved too and new insights be won, for example in the question of the age of the Veda and

About the Author :
Egbert Richter has studied several European, Oriental and Indian languages during and after his study of Western and Indian philosophy and science of religion. By the extension 'Ushanas' in his pen-name he refers to his close relationship to the Indian and the Vedic tradition. In 2008 he was awarded the title prachya vidya parangata (expert in ancient Indian culture) by the World Association for Vedic Studies (WAVES) in Orlando. Since 2014 he receives a honorary denotion from the German Federal President in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the human culture. By the extension 'Ushanas' to his author-name he indicates his close relationship to the ancient Indian and the Vedic tradition.