Ancient Tamil Corpus: A Key To Understand The Indus Riddle

It has now been one hundred years since Sir John Hubert Marshall announced the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization in The Illustrated London Weekly on September 20, 1924. This centenary is indeed an occasion worthy of commemoration.

I believe that Sangam literature, the Indus Valley Civilization, and the Keeladi excavations align along a single historical continuum. This is precisely why I assert: "Sangam literature is the yet-to-be-fully-excavated Keeladi; Keeladi is the not-yet-fully-read Sangam literature."

When examining the relationship between Sangam literature and the Indus Valley Civilization, one may consider the Indus Civilization as the hardware, while Sangam literature serves as the software that enables us to interpret it. It can be definitively stated that Sangam literature constitutes the interpretive key necessary to unlock the understanding of the Indus Valley Civilization.

-R.Balakrishnan

Balakrishnan is a postgraduate in Tamil Literature. He is the first student of Tamil literature to clear the Civil Services exam. He joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1984. His initial postings in the Tribal areas of Odisha triggered his interest in Indology, Anthropology and Place-name Studies. It was Iravatham Mahadevan who led Balakrishnan into the area of Indus Studies. Balakrishnan has published several research papers on Place-name Studies, Odisha’s history, and it’s plural culture.

Using Geographical Information System tools he formulated the‘Korkai-Vanji-Tondi Complex’, a place name complex in the Indusgeography which was formally announced in 2010. His paper on High-West: Low-East Dichotomy of Indus Cities and it’s linguistic paradigm gained wide attention. His Tamil book on the Dravidianfoundations of Indus Civilization received accolades from Iravatham Mahadevan as the best book written in Tamil on the subject.

Balakrishnan is an author, poet and has published several books in Tamil. After thirty-four years of service with the Government of Odisha and the Government of India, he retired from the Civil Services in 2018. He is currently the Honorary Consultant of the Indus Research Centre of the Roja Muthiah Research Library, Chennai.