Asko Parpola

The Indus script: A challenging puzzle

Abstract The Indus script used by the Harappan civilization around 2600–1800 B.C. remains little understood, but is by no means a ‘hopeless case’ as some authorities have maintained. The vexed problems concerning the nature of the script, the identity of the underlying language, and the methods and present state of decipherment are briefly discussed. (For overviews with different emphases, see Parpola 1975 and 1979, with bibliographies). The focus of this paper is on aspects that are of special interest to archaeologists, including the problem of the origin of the Indus script, its forerunners and earliest examples, as well as the types of objects on which the signs occur.

Beginnings of Indian Astronomy with Reference to a Parallel Development in China

Hypotheses of a Mesopotamian origin for the Vedic and Chinese star calendars are unfounded. The Yangshao culture burials discovered at Puyang in 1987 suggest that the beginnings of Chinese astronomy go back to the late fourth millennium BCE. The instructive similarities between the Chinese and Indian luni-solar calendrical astronomy and cosmology therefore with great likelihood result from convergent parallel development and not from diffusion.

Aalto, Pentti (1917–1998)

Pentti Aalto was a Finnish philologist with a very broad spectrum. He worked mainly in the fields of Latin and Greek, Altaic (especially Mongolian) Studies, and Sanskrit and Indo-European. He also was interested in many other languages, including Tibetan, Uralic and Dravidian, as well as methodology of decipherment and the history of learning in Finland (classics, Oriental studies, and modern languages).

IIan[delta]aih and Sita: On the Historical Background of the Sanskrit Epics

The Mahābhārata (MBh) and the Rāmāyana (R) reflect the exploits of the Pandavas following the arrival and dispersal of the Megalithic culture c. 800-400 B.C. The Vedic (Yadava) trio of the two Aśvins and Usas, integrated with agricultural and pastoral deities, became the Vaisnava trio.