Harappan Archaeomusicology research to recreate ancient sounds

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.