Claims that the Indus Script has been definitively deciphered are, at best, speculative
Exposing the Subjectivity behind the Claim of Deciphering the Indus Script
Dr. J. Ravikumar Stephen G.
In any objective research, a hypothesis must be defended by rigorously disproving previous findings. Let us begin by considering the final episode of Dr. Sabareesh P A’s interview with Dr. Brishti Guha. During the discussion, Dr. Sabareesh asked whether Mr. Bharat Rao would apply to claim the prize money for deciphering the Indus Script. Dr. Brishti Guha’s sardonic laugh in response clearly indicated her awareness that the study in question was a subjective, purposive exercise—one that produced skewed findings to satisfy the agenda of Mr. Rao’s RSS patrons in India.
It is important to remember that Prof. Dr. Iravatham Mahadevan had already claimed, with the aid of computer analysis, to have deciphered the Indus Script. Similarly, Br. Prof. Dr. Sneh Rani Jain asserted that she had decoded the script by interpreting it through Jain symbols. Before making new claims, Mr. Bharat Rao should have first disproved the findings of these earlier scholars, demonstrating where and why they were flawed. However, he has made no such attempt.
Let me illustrate why Mr. Bharat Rao’s findings are inherently subjective:
Subjective Language Selection
Imagine a race where other competitors are barred from entering the field—how valid would it be to declare the sole participant the winner? This analogy aptly describes the situation here. When renowned scholars like Asko Parpola and Kamil Zvelebil , who are not Tamil speakers, have independently affirmed that the language of the Indus Valley Civilization was Dravidian, how could Mr. Bharat Rao justify excluding all agglutinative languages, including Tamil and Telugu?
Walter Ashlin Fairservis Jr., an American archaeologist, proposed a model for deciphering the Harappan script in his book ‘The Harappan Civilization and Its Writing: A Model for the Decipherment of the Indus Script’. Fairservis came close to deciphering the script, connecting its symbols to Tamil meanings.
Despite this, Mr. Bharat Rao not only excluded Tamil—the principal contender—but also disregarded several modern and ancient languages such as Sumerian, Elamite, and Hebrew. Aware that Sumerian, Elamite, Hebrew, Turkish, Finnish, Japanese, and Korean all belong to the agglutinative language family, Mr. Rao avoided including them in his algorithm. He knew that a comprehensive analysis incorporating these languages would undermine his predetermined objective of establishing Sanskrit as the language of the Indus Valley Civilization.
What Mr. Bharat Rao essentially did was load a Sanskrit dictionary into his computer. In computational analysis, outputs are determined by the inputs provided. Notably, the earliest evidence of Sanskrit dates only to the second century AD. Sanskrit is conspicuously absent in Ashokan edicts, which were inscribed in Aramaic, Greek, and Prakrit. Archaeological evidence, literature, and historical records exist in Pali, Tamil, Chinese, and Greek, but Sanskrit is notably missing. When questioned about this absence, proponents of Sanskrit argue that it existed solely as an oral tradition. Yet, if Sanskrit was only oral, how could it have found its way onto Indus seals, which predate these records by millennia?
Furthermore, repetitive words and phrases are not unique to Sanskrit. Dravidian languages, such as Gondi, use expressions like “Jarra Jarra”. When researchers lack familiarity with Dravidian languages, such false claims about Sanskrit’s uniqueness are bound to arise.
Flawed Approach
Claude Elwood Shannon—the “father of information theory”—made ground-breaking contributions to both cryptography and communication science. In his seminal 1949 paper, ‘Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems’, Shannon laid the mathematical foundations for cryptography, offering methods to analyze and break encrypted communications.
However, Shannon never explicitly stated that an undeciphered language, such as the Indus Script, can definitively be deciphered using cryptographic techniques.
What Shannon demonstrated was that encrypted texts—texts intentionally scrambled where the underlying language is known—can, under certain conditions, be decoded through statistical analysis. Techniques such as studying letter frequencies, identifying repetition patterns, and making contextual guesses play a crucial role.
It Is essential to understand that cryptography and undeciphered scripts, though related in methodology, address fundamentally different challenges. Cryptography deals with concealing messages in a known language; the encryption hides the content, not the language itself. In contrast, undeciphered scripts like the Indus Script present a deeper mystery: we do not know the language, the structure of the writing system, or even if it represents linguistic communication at all. It could be symbolic, ritualistic, or even a system of trade notations.
Thus, while cryptographic techniques like frequency analysis may assist in decipherment efforts, Shannon never claimed they would guarantee success—especially when the language is unknown or when the script itself might not be linguistic.
In short, Claude Shannon did not assert that undeciphered languages could certainly be decoded through cryptography. He demonstrated that statistical methods are powerful tools for breaking encrypted messages in known languages, which later inspired some researchers to attempt applying similar methods to undeciphered scripts.
In the case of Vedic literature, where meanings can sometimes appear obscure, cryptographic techniques might hypothetically aid in interpretation. However, what Mr. Bharat Rao attempted is not true reverse engineering. He already knows Sanskrit and is familiar with the content of the Vedas—the “plaintext.” Operating on the assumption that the Indus Script represents a cipher of Sanskrit texts, he subjectively applied a key and an algorithm to force an interpretation aligned with his preconceived expectations.
Cultural Flaws
The Taboo against Sea Voyages
Among the Brahmins, who have traditionally upheld Sanskrit learning, it has long been considered a taboo to cross the ocean and travel abroad. Others outside the Brahmin community were historically prohibited from learning Sanskrit.
However, Dr. Brishti Guha in her slides claimed that the inscription in the Indus Seals to refer to sea voyages, which aligns with the Vedic narrative. This raises a significant question: why would a Sanskrit-speaking individual undertake sea voyages, when such practices were expressly forbidden by their cultural norms?
In the Rig Veda, there is an account where the Ashvins send Bhujyu and others on a sea expedition in the Caspian Sea. This episode appears in Mandala 1, Sukta 116, Richas 3 to 5, and is further narrated in Sukta 117, Richas 14 and 15, as well as in Sukta 182, Richa 6. During this mission, a storm wrecked all the boats, resulting in the deaths of all except Bhujyu, son of Tugra, who survived by clinging to the wreckage for three days. This story highlights that the boats used by the Aryans were not seaworthy, confirming that they were not a seafaring people—unlike the Dravidians, who had a strong maritime tradition. This difference likely contributed to the Brahmanical prohibition against crossing the seas.
Sangam Tamil texts reference seafaring merchants engaged in international trade with Rome and King Solomon of Israel. The seafaring prowess of the Dravidians is further evidenced by the Phoenician Dravidians, who are believed to have reached the American coast using ships with sails. Mark McMenamin’s study of a Phoenician coin suggests that a gold coin minted in Carthage between 350 and 329 BC depicts a map of America. Additionally, the discovery of a Phoenician shipwreck and a rock inscription in Brazil supports this claim. The coin has a horse—an animal the Dravidians only began using after Aryan invasions in the Levant. Even Tamil Sangam literature mentions horses (பரி – Pari), which were imported by Tamil kings from Persia.
Absence of Spoked Wheels and Horses
Horses were first domesticated approximately 5,500 years ago by the Botai culture in Central Asia, initially for their meat and milk. Archaeological and genetic evidence suggests that horse domestication became widespread around 3500 BC, particularly in the Eurasian Steppe, and later in the Volga-Don region of Eastern Europe around 2200 BC.
The Ashvamedha Yajna, or “horse sacrifice,” was a prominent Vedic ritual used by Aryan kings to assert territorial dominance. During this ritual, a horse, accompanied by the king’s army, was released to roam freely; kingdoms that allowed the horse passage were considered subjugated, while those that resisted faced military action. Dravidian rulers, unfamiliar with horses at the time, often lost territory to Aryan invaders who wielded the advantage of cavalry.
The Ashvamedha Yajna is extensively detailed in the Yajur Veda and the Shatapatha Brahmana (Book 13, Kânda 5, 2nd Brâhmana, Verses 1-2) as well as in the Shukla Yajur Veda (23.19–21). In Vedic tradition, gods and kings are often portrayed riding chariots drawn by horses.
In contrast, Indus Valley seals prominently feature bovines and unicorn-like figures but conspicuously lack depictions of horses. Additionally, the carts unearthed at IVC sites like Daimabad , Maharashtra, were built with solid wheels and drawn by oxen, unlike the spoked wheels characteristic of Aryan chariots, such as those mentioned in the Mahabharata.
Differences in Burial Practices
Another cultural distinction lies in funerary practices. Brahmins traditionally cremate their dead, whereas Dravidians practiced burial, as evidenced by the discovery of large burial urns at Adichanallur. Accordingly, the human remains found at Rakhigarhi, Haryana, belong to a Dravidian woman, further supporting the assertion of cultural and ethnic divergence between the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization and the later Aryan settlers.
Questioning Premature Claims: Rulers, Scales, and the Misinterpretation of the Indus Script
Dr Brishti Guha suggested that the Indus Script, as seen on the IVC seals, refers to the use of threads for linear measurements, similar to descriptions found in the Vedas. However, this raises a critical question: why would the people of the Indus Valley rely on threads for measurement when they already possessed standardized tools such as rulers and scales?
Archaeological excavations at Indus Valley sites like Lothal (in Gujarat, India) and Mohenjo-daro (in present-day Pakistan) have uncovered ivory scales, rulers and a bronze rod marked with precise gradations, indicating a sophisticated and standardized system of measurement.
Without a proper understanding of the technological advancements of the Indus Valley Civilization, Mr. Bharat Rao seem to make premature claims—as if they have definitively deciphered the Indus Script—when in fact their interpretations often lack historical and archaeological grounding.
Genetics Do Not Support a Sanskrit-Speaking Brahmin Origin
Genetic research shows that Brahmin and Bhumihar groups—often associated with priestly traditions in North India—possess a notably higher proportion of Steppe ancestry, constituting up to 30% of their genetic profile. This Steppe lineage is even more pronounced when examining the Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a, with over 60% prevalence among various Brahmin communities.
Meanwhile, genetic studies conducted on the mortal remains found at Rakhigarhi reveal a distinct genetic lineage, separate from both Steppe pastoralists and ancient Iranian farmers. These findings establish that the Harappans who lived at Rakhigarhi constitute a significant ancestral source for South Asians. Importantly, Rakhigarhi skeleton genetic profile is more closely related to that of South Indians than North Indians.
If the Harappans of Rakhigarhi were Dravidians, it naturally follows that the inhabitants of Mohenjo-daro would also have been Dravidians. This insight forms a bridge connecting the cultural legacy of Mohenjo-daro to that of Keezhadi in Tamil Nadu.
Therefore, claims that the Indus Script has been definitively deciphered are, at best, speculative—comparable to seeing familiar shapes in drifting clouds. Until a bilingual inscription is discovered, deciphering the Indus Script will remain as subjective and uncertain as the perceptions of the six blind men who each touched a different part of an elephant _(see the sixteenth picture)_ and described it differently.
Read: Uncovering the Secrets of the Indus Valley Civilization and Its Un-deciphered Script
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Dr. J Ravikumar Stephen G., is the Founder, Dravidianism Revival Centre, Peace Coalition of the People of South Asia, and Sages of the New Covenant. He is also the Presiding Bishop of General Convention of the Episcopal Churches in Southern and South Eastern Asia. The Dravidianism Revival Centre is located in Badlapur, Greater Thane Maharashtra, India.
