This post is for physical considerations.
I am making a type of reverse hypothesis, suggesting that what we consider "writing" is derived from a similar use of three-dimensional objects.
One remark was that India would "bring home" something it was interested in, such as a horse, possibly a language. Then mostly they reproduce it on their own. Through all of the digs, so far, in terms of commerce, India barely imported anything as finished goods. The most important find is that it did not "import" people, as invaders, or a mass exodus, or any significant migration. Instead, they mixed partly outwardly, towards Sistan.
This is what that source of curiosity was like. To exit India, enter Bolan Pass:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Pass_1842.jpg
pass this in its heyday:
https://www.harappa.com/sites/defaul...-columns-2.jpg
to arrive at the Hamun:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...9%85%D8%A7.jpg
which would have a larger city just beyond it, and, a route to Kermanseh. This province has a physical corridor going to the narrow point of Hormuz Strait. And it has what may be the origin of writing at Konar Sandal or Jiroft:
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Some archeologists believe the discovered inscription is the most ancient script found so far, predating these others, and that the Elamite Cuneiform and Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform written language originated in Jiroft, where the writing system developed first in its original form and was then spread across the old world.
The success of those is perhaps because they write the sounds of words, whereas Indus script likely does not do this, because each glyph is a word or more that has an explanation. In that case, it's not really possible to read it. We might be able to understand it, as a variant of one of the oldest glyphs, Master of Animals. This is possibly from the fourth millennium at Giyan Tepe in the Zagros Mountains:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...0-4000_BCE.jpg
Now is that abstractly transferred to IVC, yes, but in detail, no.
It is easy to find some commonality.
What we are calling "Ibex" is really the Iranian animal par excellence from time immemorial. This is quite simple if we think in terms of Agriculture:
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Ibex (Bezoar) goat mating season starts at the end of Oct beginning of Nov, when Ibex males, which are normally solitary, gather to fight for females.
Elam (Western Iran) was another place where Ibex (Bezoar) goat was "The Goat of Rain" (rain season started when Ibex goats began mating). Other parts of the world where we find the same link between Ibex (Bezoar) goats, rain season and fertility are Crete, Cyprus, parts of Anatolia, Levant, Arabia, Mesopotamia, parts of Central Asia.
Ibex dominates the oldest religious images in Mesopotamia, which date to the time before the irrigation was invented. During that time, people depended exclusively on rain to water their fields. Hence the veneration of Ibexes who signalled the arrival of rain season.
The main contrast is to Egypt, which had flood-based agriculture. Iran only recognizes two seasons, rainy and dry. India is of course also rain-based, but, originally, observed three seasons, hot, wet, and balanced. Later Sanskrit literature evolves this from four up to six seasons. But if we look in the IVC seals, the Ibex is instead of rain, paired with the Sun. In terms of border-less speak, this feasibly could be Mitra or Aryaman. They are also paired under the so-called "Pashupati", which if anything is perhaps "Mitra".
Painting on pottery is ancient in west Iran at Tepe Sialk:
Zagheh archaic painted ware (c. 6000–5500 BC) is found in Tepe Sialk I
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...-Sialk_pot.jpg
In the current knowledge base, this is where the art of Silver comes from:
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Pieces of charcoal found in one of the furnaces in which litharge fragments were found provided a radiocarbon date of 3660-3520 B.C. which introduces them as the oldest so far known fragments of such process in the ancient world.
That's what will become historically known as the Isfahan region. This is a pendant that still has the loop:
https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/...885/main-image
It has a Ziggurat by around 3,000.
The easy way out of the mountains gets you out into what will become Elam and Susa, where IVC seals have been found. The long way over the Zagros is back towards Armenia and other refugia around the west Caspian shore.
Jiroft figurines were distributed like seals:
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They were found widely, in archeological digs from the Indus Valley in modern day Pakistan to the Persian Gulf and as far north as Gonur Depe, a site in Turkmenistan.
Here is something self-explanatory about iconography.
Animation created with the images on a pottery goblet (c. 3178 BCE) found in Shahr-e Sookhteh:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._animation.gif
From the same milieu, Jiroft Dreadfalls Woman:
https://www.iransafar.co/wp-content/...553bc0142c.jpg
I don't think she matches the...pottery, or, most media. But she is more famous in IVC seals than the one resembling Dolls. Jiroft rather strongly and clearly has its own internal mythos based on Scorpion Centaur. It in fact is extremely interesting. But there is no script. It is possible she may have character development somewhere over there; right now we can only say it is a somewhat drastic and therefor intentional look.
The Iranian source of silver was probably the same as India, galena extractive process. Does that sound like a craft someone would possibly be willing to travel to study. Yes. Again it would probably be close to a thousand years for the chance of curiosity to come up, before there is a corresponding production in IVC.
There are horse remains in India that probably match the late IVC period, and, could possibly be imaged on a few late seals. There are old references to thirty-four ribs, which is a better match for the Arabian rather than the Steppe horse.
The chicken was first domesticated in the Thai highlands about 1,850, and this is the origin of chickens worldwide. One branch went southeast into Oceania. The other went west to India around 1,300. All the rest of the chickens in the world came out of India. The gene for yellow shanks is Indian. There is no such thing as a chicken in the Rg Veda. There is not one in IVC remains, just wild game fowl that may have been a fighting sport.
In the Avesta, rooster is a symbol of holiness due to awakening one for prayers. Consequently I would suggest its time frame is the 1,200 - 1,000 range, whereas Balkh and Yaz Culture more broadly at 1,500. This is its own local resurgence after Gonur Tepe.
IVC is too old to have these concepts. It is, however, outstanding, for an object that may literally get two-dimensionally imaged and converted into a glyph.
Indus Ivory Comb found in Oman from ca. 2,400 B. C. E., and also seen in Turkmenistan.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.co...600/jirof2.jpg
https://blogger.googleusercontent.co...00/jirof32.jpg
A soft-stone flask, 6 cm. tall, from Bactria (northern Afghanistan) showing a winged female deity (?) flanked by two flowers similar to those shown on the comb from Tell Abraq.(After Pottier, M.H., 1984, Materiel funeraire e la Bactriane meridionale de l'Age du Bronze, Paris, Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations: plate 20.150). Ivory comb with Mountain Tulip motif and dotted circles.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.co...00/jirof34.jpg
They seem to have a lot do do with the script, without bearing any particular statement or combination. Comb is, of course, an Elephant glyph. Here are some of the corresponding accoutrements:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.co...eenShot494.jpg
From Mari, of Indian origin:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.co...eenShot493.jpg
An interesting reaction to stones is on the page for Twins:
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Seven EDII seals show contest friezes (Ashmolean Museum) The lapis lazuli seal shows in the lower register geometric motifs reminiscent of the Jemdat Nazr Diyala seals. ram in the thicket has not only horns, fringe, beard, eyes and eye-rims of lapis lazuli, but also part of its fleece is made of overlapping sections of the blue stone. Lapis lazuli was also used in amulets sculpted as frogs, fish, flies, calves, bulls, rams, ibex, monkey, seated bull, eagle.
In Mesopotamian and Sarasvati-Sindhu valley sites, significant numbers of objects of lapis lazuli have been found. In the 'royal' tombs, lapis lazuli, carnelian and gold are the three important materials used. Lapis lazuli is a rare stone found in Badakhshan mines (NE Afghanistan, currently known as Kerano-Munjan), in the Pamirs and near Lake Baikal in eastern Siberia (F. Rutley, Elements of Mineralogy (rev. by H.H. Read 1948), pp. 380-381). "Darius states that his lapis lazuli came from his satrapy of Sogdia, in which province Badakhshan was located; and finally, the colour range from Sar-i-Sang is closely comparable to that of archaeological lapis lazuli. The varying shades of the pieces of veneer on the 'Standard' of Ur, for instance, can be exactly paralleled by modern specimens from Badakhshan...
4 lapis-lazuli mines are at heights ranging from 6000 to 17000 ft.:
Sar-i-sang, S (Stromby), C (Chilmak) and R (Robat-i-Paskaran)
He almost figures this out in some accidental notes:
stem of muńja grass (used for thatching)
the reed Saccharum munja, reed in a weaver's warp
That's because it's self-reflexive to the same place.
The real gate of India was coming in from the Pamir Highway. The original north-south route went through Dorah Pass:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Dorah_Pass.jpg
Dorah is 51.8 km (32.18 miles) long, running from Sanglich (in Badakhshan Province in northeastern Afghanistan) to Imirdin (Chitral, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan).
Citral Today says it goes into Munjan, is the shortest route to Central Asia, and has been used for war and trade as far back as they know of.
The ancient Sar-e Sang mines are in the Kuran va Munjan region. Perhaps closer to Zebak than the valley name indicates.
It's the source of the Oxus or Amu Darya River.
This is the destination of the IVC colony, Shortugai. It of course perished, but, curiously, the current residents of Citral where the pass emerges are the Kalash, that derivative, non-Vedic-Sanskrit speaking group, who are genetically practically pure Sintashta.
They are such the purest people on earth, the genetic expression for them is an "eighth continent". Badakhshan, however, is inhabited by Iranians or "Bactrians".
This is its interior.
Kokcha watershed:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Watershed.jpg
Shortugai is actually on the north side of it. There is a canal coming out of the Kochka and parallel to it, around Dast i Qala, that goes on to the Rustaq. Another link with a map and picture makes it obvious that it is on the fairly distant border to Tajikstan and is effectively at the headwater of the Oxus River. Its location is most likely because this is navigable. It is not quite "on" the Oxus/Amu Darya as most articles state, but connected, and obviously still has a difficult trek to the mines.
There are no signs of catastrophe and no particular guesses on why it seems to have been spontaneously abandoned ca. 1,600-1,200.
To be most precise, the area of activity begins after that horseshoe-shaped conflux where "Kuran e munjan" is printed. The link for its mineral data shows multiple mining interests all the way down river to Jurm. Then if you pop the "15", that is Sar-e Sang, about halfway between or approximately where "Yamgan" appears above.
Munji is still the current name for the language and people. Unlike most others, this does register in the same context in the Rg Veda. The grass is even used to make the sacred thread of Brahmins. But it is a saccharum, which means it could probably be pressed for Soma. In fact, here, in the intermediate stage, we are between Sakar as the Sanskrit original for English sugar. As with other things, history shows the usage of various "wild" sweeteners until the emergence of official "sugar cane" from Indonesia.
In terms of directions, this is the center of the world, and in terms of access, there is none. Other than the river, there is one route that notches through the place. For India to even know about such a strategic location is itself impressive. For at least a few centuries it was successful.
The most legitimate Indian timeline is observable in a vast natural shelter.
Bhimbetka near Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh is rather close to the IVC, and has signs of inhabitation from over 100,000 years ago to the historical period. Therefor, the truly ancient or "Australic" Indians did not only live at the coast. It seems they were as far north as the Shivaliks.
The native testimony is in its Rock Art:
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It's hard to look at these images and not think that there are deep similarities with ancient Indus iconography. The intricate design patterns of Mesolithic art (10,000-5,000 BCE) mesmerize; there is the figure with the bow and arrow; the side profile nature of animal depictions, especially bovines carried through to seals; a hunter spearing a buffalo; bangled women; the ubiquitous use of red oxide paint. It does not seem irrational to suppose a continuity between Neolithic, Mesolithic and later Indus iconography, a continuity from which nearly all traces have been lost to archaeology and science. Except for these rock paintings, that is.
Then there is, in Neumayer's words "the ithyphallic Hero surrounded by - or confronting - animals, a recurring mythologem in Chalcolithic art."
There is even a "Deity of the 'Pashupatinath-type' with a wide out-loading horn-crown from which emanate plant-sprouts."
There are people with spiky or "bulb" hair.
They have re-curved bows.
This *does* use the Boar, heavily, which is perhaps remembered as Panjurli in other areas, but so far remains sanitized from IVC script.
Otherwise, Bhimbetka scenes are added probably through the IVC period, perhaps by Khasis at that. It does seem to portray battles and men on horses. Yet it has no writing, is abandoned and forgotten to the point where its neighbors simply believe it haunted or cursed.
It fails to yield any telling connection to the Veda or IVC. Yet it may be that some of those are "prior Indian ideas" that enter the script.
It comes at a point that does not compete with the oldest forms of writing, but, it does match irrigation-based expansions at Shortugai, Mari, and Kanesh around 2,300. Although some of the glyphs are older, mature IVC script runs about 2,300 - 1,900. Around 2,100, it begins to be copied in Dilmun for about fifty years, at which point they seem to be able to generate their own scribes to work it, and then it goes off on a tangent. Even more bizarrely, they have the presence of untold numbers of grave cities, in just one area is something like an estimated 400,000 interments, as if people went there to die, or they were shipping in human remains for luck.
They have, I think, the obvious digression from IVC script, because they begin using the date palm as the "Tree of Life" or "Asherah Pole", but where do we find this pipal tree? In the National museum of Kuwait:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.co...eenShot222.jpg
That's gold.
It has an orientation. The pipal is supposed to be up.
The presence of Markhor is non-Kuwaiti, and if you continue along, you get to a type of Markhor totem pole where it looks like he has a third eye.
The limited use of Ibex is more proportional to IVC.
You'd almost guess that someone was very interested in Pipal with two Unicorn Heads and perhaps primarily just swapped out the Unicorn for some of its realistic adjuncts.
It's probably more fascinating than Jiroft, and along with Old Syria has what I would call an extremely difficult heraldic art. Unlike anything related to cuneiform, this stuff remains unsolved, and seems thoroughly permeated by Indian antecedent. Maybe if one is solved, they will fall like dominoes. For the time being, I'm going to leave those as their own subjects, as large as or larger than this one.
The most continuous relic spread as far as Mari and is still valid today. It's mathematical -- geometrical. That would be the system of weights based on Ratti Seed. The basic part of this system is binary (2, 4, 8, 16...), and it has other parts that are a little different (such as multiply and divide by two). I would not be surprised, then, if the script handles the difference between multiplication and exponents. This is reported as having been in use all across west Asia, though not necessarily more than a few centuries. In India, you can obviously tell, it never changed.
Otherwise, there are factors that gainsay human memory retaining anything for any length of time.
For example, Armenia is thought to be the home of "Indo-European", whose eastern and western branches differ by a few consonant shifts, and the typical verb last of the east. It's how humanity survived the Ice Age for a few thousand years before this split. But they don't know what happened. Even in later times, there is such a thing at the Lake Van Cuneiform, which was forgotten in about two hundred years. It actually does record history in a way that agrees with Assyrian records from around 900-600. But then we notice around 300, they take in the legendary history of Zoroastrianism, stitching in their national hero. And then when Christianity arrives, the process is repeated in terms of Genesis. Considering that Cuneiform means they must have been subjected to Semitic literati, it sounds like they have taken a re-vamping multiple times. and can't answer our curiosity about how "Hittite" might be related. This represents the source of all languages in its family. Nothingness in the intellectual sense.
In other cases, physical science can pinpoint events, which there is no recollection of. One is the eruption of Thera or Santorini near Crete in the Mediterranean. I've never found a contemporary story that says "this blew up" or "these people fled", you just suddenly find it inhabited by Myceneans who write about something else. The only guess I've come up with it that it may be tied into the rubric of "fear the wrath of Poseidon". It may be indirectly remembered. But there are no records of a verifiable major event.
One of the first mistakes made about India is that people try to push the Zodiac on it.
The oldest known complete Zodiac derives from a couple of Babylonian border stelae from around 1,300 that have added Aries.
To the Greeks, this is the era of Troy, that is, the Golden Fleece. What they consider ancient Olympian legend points to a new definition of a star sign coming from the east. You can try it, but Aries does not call attention to itself. It was specifically designated by someone around this time. The Sumerian records have a different sign, Hired Man or Man with Plough. So, if India makes any attachment to Aries, they have made a mistake. Nothing natively found represents this or its associated belt.
The Zodiac is highly imaginary, hard to see, and circles its own made-up path. India observes the quite physical path of the Moon.
So, humans aren't particularly good at memorializing catastrophes, but they are supposed to be star gazers. Things happen in the sky, and we can read certain x-ray formations to get an idea about the explosion of a star. This has been parsed against the knowledge base of writings and traced the earliest attestation of a Supernova, which happens to be Chinese and around Antares ca. 1,300.
And so our wonderful sky-mapping instruments can detect these x-ray blobs and so forth, and plot what is considered to be "supernova remnants", and the comment matches the plot. it just says there was a new star, it got big, and then faded away, over something like six months. There were no volcanoes or thunderbolts, or panics or revolts of the people, they just noticed this thing happening.
And so you can look around for that in any other cultures, and, I don't think they mention it.
But the time frame is too late to be relevant to the seals.
Here's what happens. You tick the plot readings for supernova remnants back a notch, and you get to something Really Big.
It can't be said *precisely* when this happened. We can only give it a broad range that probably comes out no later than IVC. The extrapolation from the readings is that it would be about 100 times brighter than Venus which means it would be about like the Moon.
Moreover, the place where this happened is already beside a void, and, if we are not sure whether the supernova was 2,000 or 5,000, we could presume it would have called attention to its constellation. In near opposition to Vega and the Galactic Center Sagittarius A*, for Capella or Alpha Aurigae:
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In Akkadian times, Capella may have been Dil-gan I-ku, meaning “the messenger of light,” or Dil-gan Babili, the patron star of Babylon. In Sumerian, it was called mul.ÁŠ.KAR, meaning “the goat star,” and in Assyria it was known as I-ku, “the leader,” meaning the leader of the year. The start of the year is believed to have been determined by Capella’s position relative to the Moon at the vernal equinox before 1730 BCE, when the Sun entering the constellation Taurus marked the beginning of spring.
In Bedouin astronomy, Auriga stars represented a herd of goats. The Bedouin in Sinai and Negev called Capella al-‘Ayyūq ath-Thurayyā, “Capella of the Pleiades.”
In Hindu astronomy, Capella was called Brahma Hṛdaya, “the heart of Brahma.”
Baltic people called Capella Tikutis or Perkūno Ožka, meaning “thunder’s goat.”
We can be sure that, if it has not started this way, Capella moves into what might be the most spiritually powerful position in India.
It's physically un-missable. Capella has a very nice page of its own as the Galactic Anticenter:
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In one hand, the charioteer cradles a goat known as Amalthea...
Sometimes, Capella and Aldebaran are the Pole Star. But that is outside the scope of our consideration.
During the seals, the Crocodile is probably "north", whereas Capella -- Auriga is really "up", and, it may also be a seasonal marker.
This underlying facet of Indian thought is a profound dread of the Cosmic Axis.
The galactic center is literally down, like Down a Well in the Rg Veda, a spiritual prison. It is the worst influence. Astronomers argue it is the best reference because it is the true fixed point. Its opposite is not clearly symbolized by a goat, because it is the heart.
Any kind of "Goat Capella" is an utter change from the Australic Indian Astrology, which has no Zodiac, but is largely a farming scene made mostly of this cluster:
Orion-Taurus-Auriga-Gemini
Their Capella is archaically a Bird's Nest, later a Well, and it is timed such that its heliacal setting indicates monsoon season.
I don't wind up thinking the seals are intellectually sourced from there.
From a Sumerian meaning, Gam for "shepherd's crook" may be the Auriga constellation.
Or it is Mul.Gam for the Shepherd himself.
That is to say, auriga = chariot/eer would be a later, further adaptation.
So, alright. There is an inner Indian view that the star is a Well, being tended by Gemini which is really two sisters drawing water from it. In Sumeria, it is a goat. Not a goat sign like Aries, just a goat star. Carried or led by a person or their staff. Sounds a bit like the Meluhhan interpreter.
Askar the Goat Star or Matu -- Tempest was certainly Akkadian New Year. It is of:
bāb-ilű, meaning "Gateway of the god(s)", translating Sumerian Ka.dingir.ra
or of grove-of-life.
Auriga usually has no chariot, always has a goat. The Sumerian list uses "south" stars as the chariot. We are left with the Age of Taurus apparently being marked by a Goat.
Since the Zodiac was not a factor in the original star gazing, what we call "Age of Taurus" physically looks like a change of two constellations:
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Note that because of the position of the constellations in the sky, it is possible to see Auriga as "taking over" for Gemini, and to see Taurus as "taking over" from Orion (or rather, usurping Orion's position, as it was more often encoded in mythology). Strictly speaking, Taurus took over from Gemini, because the path of the ecliptic rises at an angle (an angle related to one's latitude, as discussed in this previous post). However, mythologically speaking, we find Auriga and Orion playing roles in the stories which the ancients used to preserve the record of this mighty shift from Gemini to Taurus.
The special relation of Amalthea and Zeus is the Greek relegation of that prior age to pure myth.
That's a way of dealing with "ages" -- obliterate them. I'm going to compromise -- that is, disregarding Zodiacal Ages until you can be sure someone was applying that format. If we ignore the constellations, and simply ask what prominent stars would have been appropriate to mark the spring equinox, it is around p. 498:
Castor & Pollux 4,000
Sirius 2,500
Capella 2,000
Betelgeuse 1,600
Aldebaran 700
Pleiades 200
So, even if the star signs or constellations are not just debatable, but actually different in different places, that does not affect which individual star would mark the equinox.
This is relevant because, to study ancient astronomy, you have to look at it in their terms, meaning the first and most important luminaries to be mentioned are Sun and Moon. And most extant astrology relies on Zoroastrianism, such as remarked in the Greek syncretic schools of Egypt in the time of Serapis, in a way that is probably far more flattering than it is true. Yes, there was Zoroastrian astronomy, however it is not from the Avesta, but from later interactions in Babylon. The Avesta hails the Sun and Moon. There is a Star, which is probably Sirius, although this is known from later associations, and not directly producible from the original Avestan text.
It doesn't have planets.
The planets are found creeping in one or two at a time. The classical tradition of Seven Planets is probably only slightly older than the Zodiac. The site of Mudumal in India is so far said to have drawn one planet. Therefor, the expectation would be IVC script is highly reticent about planets or Zodiacal signs. To a limited extent, there may be uses of the same asterism in other ways, for instance the Indian Gemini is Mithuna the Couple.
So we will put up the Twins glyph versus the fact that the west has Gemini Dioscuri, while placing verb first before its object usually.
Consequently, you would think there is an extreme likelihood the script deals with Sun and Moon, and, in descending probability, certain stars or planets, and, possibly, some recognizable constellations. But just as there are not six seasons in the Rg Veda, the full set of Nakshatras or Mansions of the Moon is not attested until the Atharva Veda. Some of its signs are in the Rg Veda, which somewhat implies observations of the moon's trail, but not necessarily that each day has its own house.
Naturally, Astrology is the first science and most important subject for Time and Direction, this is true anywhere. This is in tandem with Agriculture. That is, the year may not have been marked by a star, and what seems to merit strong consideration in the Veda is the Frog as the symbol of Rain.
Egypt's Nile sort of translates to India's Frog.
That matches the seasonal cycle, more easily than a number of days. The number 365 1/4 is again something that was not determined until Serapic or Ptolemaic Egypt. We cannot be sure if IVC might observe the new year by a Frog and Rain, or Sirius or Capella, but a lunisolar opposition is less likely because more difficult to track. Most of history is based in a lunar calendar which is inaccurate, and uses various types of "adjustments" or "corrections" so that its months will fasten to the seasons as desired.
You don't care if you just want the Frogs and Rain to come out. It doesn't matter how many days, it matters that it happens, and realistically usually varies by two weeks. It doesn't matter if a "year" is 358 - 372 days, but it does matter that it is somewhere in that range, because you could get floods and blight, or drought. That would seem to be a priority, although it is possible they may have used an equinox marker and figured out how to contrive a year that way. That seems questionable, or possible, in IVC, but I would not be terribly confident about a calendar based on tracking a moon -- sun Opposition.
Astrology has been used by the Funeral school to suppose that the IVC animals are constellations. It thinks this is the Unicorn:
Auriga is the body, Taurus the head.
But then it winds up using Aries for IVC. And so it turns out to be another unloading of arbitrary assignments without any basis to establish them in the first place. However, it may be possible the themes converge in an India-related track to the west, identifying Pipal with two Unicorn Heads with an Asherah Pole:
This pole is identified
with the goddess Inanna and thereby the Auriga
constellation. The square with the wheel in the
right side lower corner is the symbol of sun
calendar (as per Benght Hemtun).
Out here, it is not a problem to imply the Taurus constellation was in use, so, the question becomes, does "standing on a bull" equate to a "new equinox marker"?
It is a Zebu mounted by Syrian Goddess:
https://art.thewalters.org/images/ar...50_Impr_BW.jpg
Or see one at the British Museum:
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The Syrian goddess stands facing right, wearing a square-topped, horned headdress and a robe with rolled borders, and holding a cup below a disc set in a crescent; before her a small monkey raises one paw in worship. The Syrian goddess faces a naked goddess, with frontal torso, and head and legs turned towards the left, and whose arms hang by her side. Behind her stands a veiled woman with her hand raised in worship; between the two figures is an ankh. A stylised tree terminates the scene.
This culture called Old Syria ran from 1,800 - 1,600.
The Dravidian school is unaware of Capella, which was brought in by Frawley:
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The Milky Way intersects the zodiac around two main points, 0 Gemini and 0 Sagittarius.
The 0 Gemini area is marked by the Nakshatra of Soma called Mrigashira or the antelope’s head (23 20 Taurus – 06 40 Gemini, with 0 Gemini as the central point). It is said to be the head of Prajapati or Brahma, the Creator, who also has the form of a deer or antelope. Mrigashira includes the same region as the constellation Orion, marking its upper portion. If one draws a line directly north from the three stars in the belt of Orion one comes to the star Capella (Alpha Auriga), the star called the heart of Brahma (Brahma-hridaya) in Vedic thought (Surya Siddhanta VIII.20). This appears to be the main spiritual power point in the Vedic zodiac.
A confirmation to the connection between Rashis and Nakshatras can perhaps be found in Harappan archaeological ruins. An Harappan seal dated to 2400 BCE has been found recently that shows a deer and an arrow on one side, the symbol of Mrigashirsha (Orion) and a Scorpion on the other. Scorpio is opposite Orion in the zodiac. When one rises, the other sets. S.M. Ashfaque has argued an astronomical basis for this seal (“Primitive astronomy in the Indus Civilization. In Old Problems and New Perspectives in the Archaeology of South Asia, ed. J.M. Kenoyer, 207-215, Madison, Wisconsin).
The idea has some traction with UNESCO:
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A 3rd-millennium seal from Rehman Dheri, showing a pair of scorpions on one side and two antelopes on the other, suggests knowledge of Vedic themes. It has been suggested that this seal represents the opposition of Orion (Mrigashiras, or antelope head) and Scorpio (Rohini of the southern hemisphere) nakshatras. The arrow near the head of one of the antelopes could represent the decapitation of Orion. It is generally accepted that the myth of Prajapati being killed by Rudra represents the shifting of the beginning of the year away from Orion and it places the astronomical event in the 4th millennium BC.
The dedicated attempt uses Archer Deity as the "Rudra" of the legend. Yes, the physical fact is true that Orion "moved", but there is no particular reason the legend has anything to do with this. Vedic Rudra is Medicine. We aren't sure they had "Scorpio". Brahma, on the other hand, as the name of a star, has simply the meaning of "praise", whether as the verb, the utterance, the practitioner, it is all about mantra, and has nothing to do with an externally conceived creator deity. It has creation, of at least four kinds, but it does not have these later versions of deities or their myths.
If I use the primitive meaning, then I would read the phrase "Brahma Hrdaya" as:
The heart and soul of the practitioner go up.
What happened is that Upanishadic mantras imitated the last line of Sukla Yajur Veda:
Om Kham Brahma
As far as I can tell, that is the only Vedic mantra that begins with Om.
Otherwise, om is an adjusting syllable to keep the verse in meter.
People struggle with this verse as if it were a mystery, but, just by reading it in tune with how we just read the cosmos, it is simple enough that Kham represents:
Heaven
And so it has to do with a direct link of one's mantra to heaven. In that sense, it is fairly straightforwardly translatable, "oh praise heaven". Something not too far from that.
In the long run, I would have to say the Vedic solar myth is its own, would not be apparent in Avestan or IVC, except of course the basis of it would be. And we see the Vasisthas have a common patronymic, Mitravaruna, one word, and Agastya is frightfully close to what seems to be the late IVC to south India establishment. Or possibly before.
South India is different enough that you can see things like Canopus and the Magellanic Clouds.
One of the things that is the same wherever you go is the North Pole, and on this, India actually does have something that is highly structured. Moreover, everyone still uses it today. That is the ceremony of Marriage. In the most superficial aspect, it lacks the intrigue of the solar myth as developed in the Rg Veda. But this is how Sukla Yajur Veda is a bridge from the esoteric into one's household. It's an abbreviated, truncated version, which is not a contradiction, but incomplete.
One of the early and significant events of the Veda is that the Sisumara is bound. Here's how it works with the timing going from Iyengar:
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There are several different Sūtra texts attached to the four Vedas demonstrating not only their lateness, but also their spatial spread in accounting for the variation in the practices. However, the common feature of all these texts, in the historical context, is their memory of Dhruva as a fixed star to be invoked, seen and shown to the bride in the marriage rite. In all cases, the hymn for addressing Dhruva is same as or very similar to the one in the Ekāgni-kāṇḍa (I.9) mentioned above.
and:
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But for the more ancient period we have no exclusive texts other than Lagadha’s Vedānga Jyotiṣa (c 1400 BCE)
Over a long period of time the effect of precession was also felt as with the loss of importance for the constellation Śiśumāra (Draco) and shifting of the Pole Star Dhruva. The astral descriptions and the religious lore behind the above astronomical entities provided the inspiration for the development of observational and mathematical astronomy in India.
That's the "mid" estimate. Shrewd critics want to force the Vedanga to fit the estimation of the "final compilation"; however, the self-evidence within the text fits it to an earlier date. It is not impossible, that, owing to factors like acceleration, or the measurement of signs, it *might* need to be adjusted back to 1,800.
It is probably not later than what he said, and, he is speculating that obviously if you go back far enough, there will be different stars pointing to the pole.
The "Aranyaka" is considered wilderness literature from roughly the same period as the Brahmanas, around 800 or so. This is an instance of naming the Sisumara sign such that it is no longer Draco. Abhaya is not clear as a star, when we are given Simsumara first from Taittiriya Aranyaka:
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….dharmo mūrdhānam brahmottarāhanuḥ yajńo’dharā viṣṇurhṛdayam samvathsaraḥ prajananam aśvinau pūrvapādāvatrirmadhyam mitrāvaruṇavaparapadau agniḥ pucchasya prathamam kāṇḍam tata indrastatḥ prajāpatirabhayam caturtham| sa vā eṣa divyaśśākvaraśśiśumāraḥ…| …….dhruvastvamasi dhruvasya kṣitamasi tvam
bhūtānāmadhipatirasi tvam bhūtānām śreṣṭho’si tvām bhūtānyupaparyāvartante namaste namaḥ……śiśukumārāya namaḥ||
(TA. II.19.1) ….Dharma is the forehead, Brahma is the upper jaw, Yajńa is the lower jaw, Viṣṇu is the heart, Samvatsara is the genital, Aśvins are the forelegs, Atri is the center, Mitra and Varuṇa are the hind legs. Agni is the first stem of the tail, then Indra, then Prajāpati and then Abhayam is the fourth. This is the shining celestial Śiśumāra…….You are fixed (dhruva), you are the place of Dhruva……You are the Lord of Beings; you are the best among them. (All) Beings go around you. Namaste!…… salutations to you the boy-child. The commentary of Sāyaṇa clearly mentions that this hymn is to be used in the evening, turning towards the north and looking at the dhruva-maṇḍala, for meditating on the Cosmic Brahma.
Brahmopasthānamantra
is the name of this for evening meditation.
The Titirri school is intriguing because it remembers the Vaikhanasas, and says the Vatarasanas are Aruna Ketus. It is the source of Mahanarayana Upanishad. Yaska is associated with this lineage.
The bridal hymn is:
60 dhruvakṣitiḥ dhruvayoniḥ dhruvamasi dhruvatasthitam | tvam nakṣatrāṇām methyasi sa mām pāhi pṛtanyataḥ || Ekāgni (I.9)
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Here the quality of Dhruva as a star is said to be fixed. Dhruva is praised as the methī or the fixed column to which the nakṣatras are bound.
Śiśumāra, the 14th star counted from the head and placed on its tail being the fixed Dhruva or the Pole Star. The effect of precession on the sky picture was also felt as recorded in the Maitrāyaṇīya text, where Dhruva was observed to be drifting away from its original position. Notwithstanding such natural effects, the formality of showing the star Dhruva has continued in Hindu marriages over centuries coming down in the same form to this day as a ritual, even though everyone may not know which star was originally invoked by the prescribed hymns. But the orthodox successors to the Vedic tradition have preserved this information quite correctly as will be seen later.
Maitrayana Upanishad says it is "drifting", not where to. Later, he means the correspondence in Brahmanda Purana:
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Listen to this explanation of mine which is real and observable but mystifying people. He, who is at the tail of the 14 stars looking like a śiśumāra; Dhruva the son of Uttānapāda, has become the main pivot of the pole in the sky. Verily, he rotates the sun, the moon and the planets continuously. The stars follow him who is himself circling like a wheel.
His (Śiśumāra’s) upper jaw should be understood as Uttānapāda. Yajńa (Kratu) is known as the lower jaw and Dharma as the head. At the heart is Nārāyaṇa (Sādhya). The twin Aśvins occupy the forelegs while Varuna and Aryamā are at the hind legs. Samvatsara is the genital and Mitra occupies the seat. In the tail are Agni, Mahendra, Mārīca-Kaśyapa and Dhruva. The (previous) four stars of the Śiśumāra never set. It is remembered that Dhruva is the last star after Agni, Indra and Kaśyapa.
Well, if anything, the first change that was made was from Thuban to Kochab:
Kochab was known as the pole star and sometimes called Polaris between 1700 BCE and 300 CE.
The star we call Polaris did not become the North Star until about AD 500.
Uttanapada is:
the star Β in the little bear
which is Kochab.
That name is not present in the Aranyaka, where it may be that Abhaya = Kochab, the Pole Star, Uttanapada.
Rather than forcing the literature to be earlier -- taking it to mean Thuban, as Iyengar seems to do--it seems to us that Astrology has had to re-define "Simsumara" as well as "Dhruva", to account for *three* pole stars, or two changes of them. IVC would not refer to Kochab or deal with this aspect of the legend. So I think the early Rg Veda is establishing a civil calendar on a "new" Sisumara sign as recorded later. As for the name of one of the stars involved, we are directed to a comment on X.72:
the term uttanapAda in yoga means with feet upwards, but is also
used for a woman giving birth, the mother goddess often depicted in early
sculptures.
It may also refer to the Renuka form. In another translation, it is a region. In the Puranas, the region would be of Vishnu and Ganga. In the Brahmanda, Uttanapada appears with the generation of Prasuti and Akuti, which is the Vyuha, or subtle divine creation prior to the material world. The verse cited, Brhaspati X.72, is a "Deva Creation".
It is Brhaspati with Laukya Aditi Daksayani. There, we get the interpretations:
“In the first age of the gods the existent was born of the non-existent; after that the quarters (of the horizon) were born, and after them the upward-growing (trees).”
“The earth was born from the upward-growing (tree), the quarters were born from the earth; Dakṣa was born from Aditi, and afterwards Aditi from Dakṣa.”
WD:
3. in the earliest age of the gods, existence was born out of
non-existence. after this the quarters of the sky were born from her
who crouched with legs spread.
4. the earth was born from her who crouched with legs spread, and from
the earth the quarters of the sky were born. from aditi, dakSa was
born, and from dakSa aditi was born.
Until someone would install Kochab as the new pole star, previous civilizations would have watched Draco crawl over it:
Iota Draconis Edasich 3.29 Draco within 5° used to be the North Star at about 4,420 BC
Alpha Draconis Thuban 3.65 Draco within 0.1° used to be the North Star at about 3,000 BC
Kappa Draconis 3.82 Draco within 6° a near-north star, shares timing with Kochab
Thuban was the most accurate, but rather faint. Not that the others were much better. Starting from Kochab, Indian lore does track the path of Dhruva, which is Axis Mundi.
If, then, the Rg Veda processes a new star sign, IVC would probably refer to its precursory background.
Because the Sisumara sign is a Crocodile, it is associated with Varuna, which is probably an ancient Arya term prior to Sanskrit.
It is possible that nothing actually changed, that in IVC Draco was always Draco and then Sisumara was "fixed" simply by naming Kochab as Dhruva. If Varuna were defined as the Dhruva deity, then Varuna would move. The oldest texts do not use Draco, so, they are not that old, but what they are using could go back well before when they were written. It is like someone calling Kochab "Polaris" and it quits working, and, there is nothing, until what we call Polaris comes along.
That is reinforcing to the chronology if an early Vedic event was valid around 1,700; leaving a couple of centuries for its inherent backstory. The "fixing" is a mantra, that has nothing to do with Vedanga Jyotish, which is an issue about seasons, not the pole star.
Now, here is one of the most impish physical facts.
True then as it is now, which was first brought to my attention by Buddhist mantra. It isn't Buddhist, it is inseparable from any Indian linguistics of any epoch. Here is a riddle for the seals -- what is the Moon?
The Rabbit.
Anyone is welcome to go and check and see what I mean. But in the seals, this thing is hidden. It comes out in the Mohenjo daro Copper Tablets, hides itself in script, and turns into some kind of a Mega Glyph. If this is for the purposes of Archer Deity, it is possible he is on a rabbit hunt.
3 x 3 x 3 = 3 ^ 3 = 27 Nakshatras, approximately.
Have I, personally, seen something more suggestive, or, found any reference from someone on such a blatantly obvious subject?
No.
Did this mark appear suddenly or change significantly since the Ice Age?
No.
Because the Copper Tablets have Mriga -- Deer, is this Orion's head?
Possibly.
If that was a known "Age", I'm not sure people would pay that much attention to it centuries later. Archer Deity is Rudra-esque in that he is a Soma deity, which is Medicine, consisting of Moon, Waters, and Plants.
Rabbit in the Moon is one of the most permanent and ubiquitous natural works of art in the cosmos.
I would guess the script would discuss fortnights and quarters before there would be a star-per-day. Or, Sukla and Krsna Paksha as "two halves" is an underlying metaphor in practically all Indian thought, which is again similar to the way patterns are made in the Copper Tablets. Waxing and waning. I doubt that explains everything, but it is a likely candidate for "dualisms" somewhere in there.
This gives us some linguistic and physical parameters that are important, but not what I want to dwell on. There is a lot of material about the seals and script.
One of the first stumbling blocks in the attempt to form an IVC concordance is the human being. The script is largely based in the use of very childish stick figures. But then they have various tweaks and poses. And so it was attempted to read these sheerly as script, without any context other than projecting pre-determined ideas at it. So I think we will begin a few posts to simply feature the person as seen. The sources we have for Animal or Zoomorphic iconography are actually quite good, and nail down 80-90% of what can be found, without any stray, misleading propositions. Just needs a bit of touching-up. The human subject has not been anywhere near as effectively written up. Referred to, partially suggested, and heavily interpreted, many times, but never really displayed just-as-they-are.
And so as we are able to get better looks at the visual imagery, you will see the script also has "families" or "dialects", that the glyphs are not homogeneously distributed, but that certain kinds of statements are emphasized in certain areas, and oblivious elsewhere. This, combined with the fact that the writing is not strictly linear, but occurs in various geometry, seems significant.
Also, this gives us a "higher ranked" batch of things I might call "instructional or definitive" are more important than a short, common piece of plain text that may have been found in thirty-five copies. For example, if a Donkey or Deer is a very basic creature only found in one area, it was assigned to do that, according to a set of universal rules.
