Indian Antiquary Vol 48

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 63

MAY, 1919 )
NEW LIGHT FROM PREHISTORIC INDIA
59
Urgeschicte des Menschen and the latest can be found in the Scientia 11 from the learned pen of Doctor W. M. Flinders Petrie. If we take for granted that similar signs have similar acrophonic value and alphabetic character (which is not much donbtful) then we can read with the help of the last table at least three signs. The sign on the extreme left “4” is set down without any difficulty as identical with the Egyptian "Y" and also Carian sign for "Y" and "he third from the left similarly to the sign for "I"in both these places. We should have been surprised if some of the signs from Assam had not presented some difficulty when being judged by a key which holds good of things from faroff Egypt. The second sign from the left resembles more a reversed Asokan "ga" with the two lines more at right angles than the prehistoric Egyptian sign for "g” which can be said to be a reversed Asokan "ga" with a short line joining the lower end at an acute angle. The fourth sign from the left appears to be even much more primitive. It harks back to the flag-like sign from the dolmens of Alvao in Portugal, but with this difference that the loop at the right hand top is not closed in the Assam specimen. It possibly represented the "A" vowel-stroke. The final perpendicular may be taken as a repetition of the "I" sign only joined at the bottom and lengthened a little or it might mark the end of the script in the same manner as the parichchheda mark at the end of a sentence in later days in India. Thus putting things together we get roughly a reading like " Y.G.I.A."
Now the surest test of the correctness of a reading is when it admits of a rational explanation and bears a meaning. In India alone probably of all countries of the world the hard setting of different cultures at different stages can be definitely ascertained, and thus to the wonder of the prehistoric archæologist he can actually hear the language spoken which was perhaps the dominant tongue of a pushing race long before the Semitisation or Aryanisation of the world. Our hopes have not been belied and turning to the primitive tribes of Assam whence came our Neolith, we had little difficulty in tracing the meaning. A Khasi vocabulary and grammar would at once point out that "I". is the diminutive article of both genders as "U" is the masculine and "Ka" the feminine article and "gyo" in Burma and "khiw" in Khasi means a hoe, primitive in shape but still in use locally. Now, why a spanle should be written a spade or a hoe, is clearly realised when we find from the following extract how the word is connected with the thunderweapon in folk-lore especially in the neighbouring districts (vide Coggin Brown's article in Journal of the Asiatic Sociely of Bengal, New Series, Vol. V, No. 8. 1909). Thus Mr. Gurdon writes in his celebrated book The Khasis 13 : "Now the peculiarly shaped Khasi hoe or mo-khiw 13, with its far-projecting shoulders, is merely an enlarged edition of the Naga hoe desoribed by Peal and may therefore be regarded as a modern representative in iron, although on an enlarged scale, of the shoulder-headed celts." Another interesting point. is that according to Forbes, the Burmese name for these stone-celts is mo-gyo. Now the Khasi name for the hoe is mo-khiu. The similarity between the two words seems very great. Forbes says the name "mo-gyo" in Burmese means "Cloud or sky-chain" which he interprets" thunderbolt ", the popular belief there as in other countries being that these implements fell from heaven. ..... When it is remembered that these stone-celts are of a different shape from that of the stone-implements which have been found in India (with 11 1918, I-XII.
. 13 Sesond edition (Macmillan), 1914, p. 12-13. 13 Mo' in Khasi means large, as "I"small.