Harappan Archaeomusicology research to recreate ancient sounds
- ART & ARTISTES HERITAGE & CULTURE
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- 17 minutes read
Team L&M
India International Centre (IIC) recently presented a unique programme on Harappan Musicology and New Linguistic Evidence for Words they may have Spoken. It was an audio-visual presentation by Shail Vyas, Homi Bhabha Fellow, Mumbai, musicologist and composer. The program was chaired by KN Shrivastava, Director, IIC, IAS (Retd.). Others present included archaeologists Dr RS Bisht (Former Joint Director General, Archaeological Survey of India), Dr Vasant Shinde (Former Vice Chancellor, Deccan College), Dr BR Mani (Former Director General, National Museum) and Dr KN Dikshit.
The presentation was moderated by Dr VN Prabhakar, Associate Prof. IIT Gandhinagar; Former Director, Archaeological Survey of India
The programme presented a unique experience of recreated sounds and music of Harappan musical instruments and to hear the words they may have spoken – a new and fascinating research on Harappan Archaeomusicology that attempts to recreate ancient sounds. Harappan music has never been studied so far. Vyas has been working on this subject to solve this problem since 2011. He has identified about 20 possible instruments from Harappan period and many more from other ancient times. He also attempted a recreation of early prototypes of various Harappan instruments, which were shown in context of a musical performance through a beautifully shot high quality video.
This innovative multidisciplinary research also revealed a large set of linguistic data that strongly point towards a language that the Harappans may have spoken, a fiercely-debated question of ancient Indian history with respect to Aryan theory.
Harappans had possibly a large-scale trade with other contemporary civilisations like Mesopotamia. In his research for any cultural exchanges that might have transpired along with the trade, Vyas found many iconographic evidences. He found written records of about 60 terminologies related to music in Sumerian literature, out of which about 30 are found to have Sanskrit originated names, including names of instruments, designations for musicians, musical notations etc. To verify the direction of this exchange, terms related to well known Harappan trade items were studied which revealed 60 more terms with Sanskrit etymologies. These include species of woods, jewellery, beads, seals, units of measurement etc. This is oldest known written records of Sanskrit terminologies found till now. Some examples are given below.
Examples of musical terminologies:
| Sanskrit | Sumerian | Sanskrit meaning | Sumerian meaning |
| ḍiṇḍima | dimdim | a kind of drum | a musical instrument |
| mṛja | meze | a kind of drum | a drum |
| śarkara | šukarak | a kind of drum | a musical instrument |
| vāṇa | bana | arched harp | arched harp |
| ḍamaru | dimmaršu | a sacred drum | a musical instrument |
| śamyā | šamuša | a kind of cymbal or other musical instrument | a type of instrument |
| mangalatūrya | malgatum | an instrument played at festivals | a musical instrument |
| mṛtyutūrya | miritum | an instrument played at funerals | a musical instrument |
| sāyaṃtūrya | sabitum | an instrument played at evening | a musical instrument |
| kinnara | nar | a class of anthropomorphic
musicians and singers |
a musician and singer |
| ṣaḍja | sagida | a musical notation | a musical notation |
| gada | gude | a musical instrument | a lute |
| gargar | harhar/ ĝarĝar | a lute | a musical instrument |
| svara | saĝara | a musical notation | a musical notation |
| stavitṛ | eštalu | a praiser, singer | a type of singer |
| gatṛ/gala | gala | a singer/a musical instrument and throat | lamentation singer |
Examples of other trade items:
| Sanskrit | Sumerian | Sanskrit meaning | Sumerian meaning |
| mes | meṣī | the tree Dalbergia Ougeinensis | a tree (from Meluhha
– i.e. Harappan civilization) |
| Asana
(common names – asain, asin, sain, ain, saaj, aisan, etc.) |
esi | the tree Terminalia Tomentosa | a tree (from Meluhha) |
| abja (Mangrove, Indian Oak,
Itchytree etc.) |
abak | the tree Barringtonia Acutangula | a tree (from Meluhha) |
| śiṃśapā
(śīśam, sisam, |
samazum | the tree Dalbergia Sissoo | a tree |
| sissu, etc.) | |||
| sūtrakāra | šukara | a carpenter | carpenter |
| Ammarā | amra/amru | the second beam of timber over a door | beam, timber |
| praśas | pašu | an axe | a type of axe |
| māna | mana | a particular measure or weight | a unit of weight |
| droṇa | dana | a unit for measuring fields | a unit of length |
| goṇī | gun | a weight measure | a unit of weight |
| Sindhu | hindum | Name of Indus river, used in identity of Indian land, people, religion, products etc. | a bead (the most abundantly found Harappan export all over Mesopotamia) |
| hiraṇya | hiriatum | any vessel or ornament made of
gold |
an ornament of gold |
| nepathya | nabihum | an ornament, decoration, costume (especially of an actor) | an ornament |
| mudrā | musara/ mašdara | seal, inscription | inscription |
| sravadraṅga | šakanka | market, stirring town, a fair | market |
| nidhimat | nakamtum | forming a store or containing treasure | storehouse |
| aṃsakūṭa | asqumbitum | a bull’s hump | hump |
| nandi | ninda | śiva’s bull (a bull calf) | bull calf |
| romaś/lomaś | maš | a goat | goat |
| akṣadevana | EKIDma | dice-playing, gambling | a wooden object used in a game |
| mah/maha | mah | great, strong, powerful | great |
| śaṇḍa | saĝĝa | a priest, a patronym | chief administrator of a temple household, an official |
“There is much work to be done to better understand the data but the musicological data in conjunction with textual, archaeological, botanical, zoological and circumstantial evidence suggest strongly that Old Indo-Aryan (commonly called as Sanskrit) was already present in Indian subcontinent during Harappan period,” says Vyas adding that the group of Harappans who travelled, traded and settled in Mesopotamia may have spoken some form/s of Old Indo Aryan or it was the lingua franca of the Harappan region.
