Indian Antiquary Vol 62

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 24

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ JANUARY, 1933
the god, Vignu. Looking at the Sanskrit, Paliwarehouses and in transit. Their trading activities and modern Marathi forms under which the name appear to have extended over wide arons, both appears, he classifies them thus -
by land and by 80g. Prof. Sastri is inclined to Vithe. Vithu
Vetha think that a colony of Tamils resided more or less Vignu
Vogou
permanently in Sumatra at the time. Taking na (or nu) as a non-Aryan suffix (as he
Antiquity, vol. VI, No. 23, Sept. 1932.-In & noto has elsewhore suggested in the cases of patana
ana on pages 356-7, Mr. Ernest Mackay draws attenand Varuna, he finds the roots Vith, Vię: Veth
tion to the rocont discovery of two more links Ve8. The interchange of th and , he notes, is
between ancient India and Elam. The first is exemplifiod in the Austro-asiatic languages, and
the finding by Dr. H. Frankfort of a cylinder seal the same thing is found in Indian words of non
of Indian workmanship (as shown by the elephant, Aryan origin (cf. karpata and karpara; kirdta,
rhinoceros and ghariyal carved upon it) at Tell kirdta, and kirdsa; Pali kaferuha and kaseruka.
Asmar, about 50 miles NE. of Baghdad, which The variations in the last consonant are them.
he would assign to about 2500 B.C., as it was found selves, M. Przyluski adds, an indication of foreign
in a house of tho time of the Dynasty of Akkad. origin, inasmuch as "while words that are funda
In the same building were found a number of heartmentally Aryan evolve in accordance with more
shaped pieces of inlay and decorated carnelian or less strict principles, foreign words change in
beads, which, as far as yet known, occur only in & moro capricious manner, and this is just one of
the topmost levels of Mohenjo-daro; and the two the signs that enable us to recognise them." M.
cylinder-seals found at Mohenjo-daro also come Przyluski goes on to seek corroboration of his
from the higheet strata. From this evidence Mr. deductions from a study of the old traditions in
Mackay inclines to take 2500 B.C. as the apconnexion with Vignu and Krana. In the field of proximate dato of the upper lovols at M.-d. mythology he troads on perhaps less firm ground. inatoad of 2750 B.C., As proviously suggested). He refors specially to the story of the ten sons of The second is a fragment of a steatite vase found Devagarbha (said to be known as the ten sons at a very low level at Mohenjo-daro, bearing oxact. of Andhakavenhu) in tho Chatajalaka, which hely the same intricate and unusual pattern 88 A takes to be a Pali version of the Krena legend. doublo vase of steatite found at Susa in 888ociation Comparison of the versions of the legend leads with objects of the 2nd Period. That the v680 of him to the hypothesis that Viepu, the ancestral which this fragment formod a part was an importagod, called in Pali Andhaka venhu, is really the tion from Elam is rendered the moro certain, Mr. father of the gods Vasudeva, Bala, etc. Argu-Mackay thinks, by its being of a greenish-groy ments are, further, adduced for suggesting that steatite, of which it is the only piece yet found Vippu may be an ethnic torm for Dravidian poople. in the Indus Valley excavations. As the date of The paper is calculated to gratify the residents of Susa II is about 2800 B.C., this may be taken as Andhradega, if it be distasteful to those of Vrajadesa; the approximate date of the level of the Elamito but tho impartial reader will realise the import find at Mohenjo-daro, thus leaving an interval of of the wider issuos involved.
about 300 years between the two levels, "a conTijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenclusion," writes Mr. Mackay, "to which I am kunde, vol. LXXII, Pt. 2, 1932.-Prof. Nilkanta already inclined on othor grounds." Sastri contributes an interesting paper in this
O. E. A. W.O. numbor, entitled "A Tamil Merchant-guild in Sumatra," in which he discusses the fragmentary Illustrated London News.-In reference to the Tamil inscription found at Loboe Toewe, near above subject attention may be drawn to the Baros, dated Saka 1010, in the light of certain Feb. 13, 1932, issue of this journal, in which Dr. other 8. Indian inscriptions of about the same Woolley brings to notice another link between Ur period. Dr. Hultzsch originally drow attention and Mohenjo-daro, viz., a circular seal, with a (in Mad. Rp. Report, 1892) to the fact that the bull and Indus script, found in a grave shaft of Loboe Toewa record roferred to a gift by & body the second Dynasty of Ur, which may be datod of persons styled the one thousand five hundred. about 2800 B.O. Prof. Sastri has traced five other inscriptions In the same journal interesting light is thrown mentioning a similar corporation of murchants. on the culturo of Porsia and Arabia by tho disHo regards all these records as pointing to the covery of a Sasanian palace at Damghon (Mr. A. existence of & well-known merchant guild in U. Pope, Mar. 26) and other Sasanian antiquities southern India, which appears from certain details at Kish (Feb. 20), by the travels of Mr. Philby given in the inscriptions to have been a powerful through the great desert of Arabia (July 2), and body, who enjoyed a considerable amount of by the accounts by Herr Hefritz of the Hadramaut autonomy, regulated their own affairs, owed no (Apr. 2) and the fish-eating tribes of the south exclusive allegiance to any one king, and ontertained Arabic coast (July 16). merconary troope to safeguard their goods in the
F.J.R.