Studia Orientalia Electronica

Iravatham Mahadevan’s Reading of Indus Script: A Critical Review

C Jyothibabu — 2023-05-02

This paper comprehensively summarizes, analyses, and reviews Iravatham Mahadevan’s attempts to decipher the Indus script. Spanning a period of over thirty five years, Iravatham Mahadevan made continuous attempts to interpret and decipher the Indus script. Mahadevan claimed to have adapted the method of parallels between the symbolic representation and the text, between the written object and its designation, between the written symbol itself and its meaning, and the similarity throughout the ancient East of certain portions of the inscriptions, with the assumption that the underlying language of the script is Dravidian. Mahadevan was very flexible in changing his views and finding new interpretations, and gradually he shifted his interpretation of Indus signs from being phonetic/logographic/word to ideographic, leaving unshaken his core personal hypothesis and belief in the Veḷier clan and Tamil cultural settings. While Mahadevan did not succeed in making a self-consistent system of readings applicable to a large number of discovered pieces of writings, he did make a determined, persistent effort to develop a Dravidian framework for deciphering of the Indus script. This study seeks to find weaknesses in the methodology and assumptions of Mahadevan and searches for possible alternatives within that framework.

Female Characters in Phaswane Mpe's Welcome to Our Hillbrow and Niq Mhlongo's Dog Eat Dog

Aklilu Dessalegn Zewdu — 2023-12-27

This article examines two novels by Phaswane Mpe and Niq Mhlongo, Welcome to Our Hillbrow and Dog Eat Dog, by focusing on how they portray post-apartheid South African women and their experiences during and after the fall of apartheid. Set in the early years of South Africa’s democracy, these novels can be read from a feminist perspective, which offers an opportunity to investigate the condition of black South African women and their struggle in the context of the legacies of apartheid and the persisting male domination. The article employs postcolonial feminism as an approach and studies the two novels comparatively to see how the authors depict South African women in the face of double colonization and how they stand up to it. As the analysis indicates, Mpe and Mhlongo have voiced the plight of South African women through female characters that have continued to carry the burden of the legacy of apartheid and the persistence of patriarchy in the post-apartheid era. They have also demonstrated the resilience of women by featuring characters that reject exploitation and seize the opportunities offered by the newly-democratized nation.

Kālaviphalāny astrāṇi te santu: Story-time in Karṇa’s Defeat as Depicted in the Mahābhārata

Roberto Morales-Harley — 2023-08-24

The paper focuses on three sets of events relating to Karṇa’s defeat in the Mahābhārata: the weapons exchange (MBh. 3.284–294), the chariot ride (MBh. 8.26–69), and the two curses (MBh. 12.2–5). From a narratological perspective, it analyzes them in terms of story-time (the narrative timing of the events in the story). With this literary approach to Karṇa’s character, its goal is to support the claims of consciously designed Mahābhārata, one of whose authorial techniques would precisely be time management.

Fish Symbolism in Indus Valley Epigraphy and Protohistoric Accounts

Shamashis Sengupta — 2023-11-18

The contribution of the Indus Valley civilization to the historic cultures of South Asia is a matter of debate due to a discontinuity in material culture, from the time of its decline to the reappearance of urbanization several centuries later. Progress in the epigraphy of the Indus Valley has been hindered by the absence of a bilingual inscription and the brevity of its texts. One of the most frequent signs encountered in its undeciphered writing system is the pictogram of ‘fish’. On a few seal inscriptions, this sign appears alone, suggesting that it represented a meaningful word or a name. It is noteworthy that Indian literature of later centuries recounts a protohistoric kingdom named Matsya in the vicinity of the Indus Valley sites, as matsya is the Sanskrit word for ‘fish’ and a divinity in the form of a fish is celebrated in the Indian version of the flood myth. An analysis of these narratives is presented in this paper, revealing the possibility of an association with the Indus Valley civilization of the more distant past. These observations indicate that fish symbolism may have occupied a place of prominence in Indus culture from political and religious perspectives. The Matsya territory mentioned in Vedic and epic literature is discussed in light of the chalcolithic cultures of Rajasthan, and it is suggested that this region witnessed successive waves of migration of different cultural groups due to its economic importance related to the exploitation of copper reserves.