(Hindi movie , subtitled in English)
DRAVIDIAN CULTURE, DEPICTED WITH FABRICATION AS ARYAN OF MUCH LATER VEDIC PERIOD
The period movie with talented direction by Ashutosh Gowariker tries to depict the Indus Valley Civilization: 2600 – 1900 BCE (revealed through the archaeological excavations, carried out in Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa in 1920s) with the cultural features of Vedic period: 1500 – 50 BCE, which were of much later period
The names, Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa were not original ones of the locations of archaeological significance of Indus Valley Civilization but were coined later. The film expressly says at the beginning with card display that the story happened in 2016 B.C., a fanciful comparison with the current CE 2016. The fabrication of the symbols of Indus Valley Civilization has been technically accomplished in the celluloid for the first time in a magnificent way.
Starting from the Sanskrit like language spoken by the period people, the projection of symbolic logo with the intruding cultural features of the Vedic period based on Aryan theory, the costumes to the characters which are entirely different from the excavated remnants of Indus Valley Civilizations are some of the distortions, deliberately executed by the film maker.
The excavated evidences of the historical project reveal that OX was the popular draught animal of Indus civilization; but the so called scholars of saffron brigades attempted to change the significance of the popular animal from OX to HORSE and failed in depicting the truth as per the vigilant and stiff opposition from the bonafide historians. The projection of horse logo was withdrawn. In the Mohenjo Daro movie an imaginary animal, unicorn deer embedded logo is depicted as the evidential proof of the hero whose parents belonged to Mohenjo-Daro town ship. As such the unicorn deer logo looks like horse. The issue, withdrawn is cunningly re-introduced through the celluloid medium. Besides, the horses are shown moving in Mohenjo-Daro trading market. Actually horses were brought by Aryans much later in the Vedic period. The archaeological excavations did reveal many bone pieces of animals existed during that period. There was no bone material of horses but only of donkeys, called ‘Kutch donkeys’ which were used for draught purposes.
The archaeologist-historians have proved that after death, the human body was buried in Indus Valley civilization. Where as in ‘Mohenjo Daro’ movie, there a scene of cremation of the dead body of the royal priest, which was the practice of Aryans, in later Vedic period.
The remnants of lingas are shown in some scenes suggestively to create a perception in the viewers of the movie that ‘Pooja of Linga’ prevailed during the period of Indus Valley Civilization. Besides, the celluloid scene depicting the carving of linga was shot at the river bank of Shalmala in Karnataka, where the Hindu orthodox used to pay the death anniversary homage to their forefathers with due rituals. What a talented technique of cinematic editing that has been utilised to establish with deceptive motive that ‘Pooja of Linga’ was the practice during Indus Valley Civilization!
What became a failure through print and other media has been meticulously re-introduced in celluloid form with the hope the impact of visual projection would change the perception that the Indus Valley Civilization is nothing but Aryan Civilization, contrary to the established proof with the support of archaeological evidences by many historians Gunno Rosav (Russian scholar), Walter Pier Servy (American anthropologist) and Iravatham Mahadevan (Indian epigraphist and scholar).
The screen play has been scripted with the usual monarch dictatorship and rivalry. The offspring hero of the aggrieved revisits Mohenjo-Daro and the major scenes are shot as the happenings in the city of Mohenjo-Daro viz. Lower City where common people dwell and the Upper City where the residence of royal priest is located. The entire screenplay is webbed around the simple story but projected magnificently through cinematic techniques.
Many movies will conclude with sentimental scenes, the impact of which will remain as the perception of the viewer-audience even after they leave the theatre. Even though there is no archaeological evidence that the city Mohenjo-Daro was immersed or destroyed due to the unpredicted turn of flood water of River Indus, the final scenes of the movie depict so. The hero saves the people of Mohenjo-Daro and the affected people migrate en masse the devastated place. Ultimately, they reach one river bank and settle down, stating that the river was Holy mother for them with the card display, ‘River Ganga’.
Omnihill aborercil ilist, utet
INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION EXCAVATION REVEAL DRAVIDIAN PHONETIC VALUE
The bureaucrat-turned-epigraphist, Iravatham Mahadevan discovered evidences from the Indus texts corroborating the historicity. The critical discoveries are the word aka-tt-(i) (meaning Lord of the House) and its constant association with the jar sign. Besides, he refers to the various grammatical signs in the Indus script, especially the ‘arrow’ sign, the four stroke modifier and the ‘jar’ sign; the last one having been conclusively proved by the discovery of the sign, incised realistically on pottery excavated at Kalibangan.
Going by the Indus sign and its pictorial identification, he arrived at their Dravidian phonetic value by referring to old Tamil parallels.