Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[RajeshA]

3. Study of regularity of sound change in IE language vocabularies indicates that words for 'chariot'/'horse' were not loanwords or wander-woerter (like camera/TV etc are); but intrinsic part of the vocabulary. So the PIE speakers were already domesticating horses and making chariots before the dispersal started.

#3 specially is crucial to correlating with archaeological evidence of horse domestication and chariotry in the Eurasian steppes that indicates a homeland for IE speakers there.

Arjun-ji: Nice to see you lose the invective.

ManishH ji,

Are there any papers out there publicly available which make the case that chariot/horse were not loanwords or more interestingly were NOT Wanderwörter! It would interest me to know based on what criteria, the scholars have come to this conclusion!

Rajeshji,

This blog has a nice summary ...
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=994

I've posted briefly in this thread on this subject.

Thanks for the link!

After reading the link, it has become all the more clear that neither áśva nor cakrá really are cross-Indo-European words or that the corresponding PIE words are really *éḱwos or *kʷekʷléh₂/kʷekʷlos!

Vedic, Avestan, Old Persian, Lithuanian, Anatolian may have a common word for Horse, but Germanic, Greek, Italic are really stretching credulity. The Tocharian word may be more for yak than for horse!

Too many sound changes are being demanded!

The chances of wheel being a common Indo-European word are slightly better! In Punjab, one still uses the words 'chakla-belan'! So in India both čákla and čakrá are available. It doesn't make sense that in Proto-Indo-Iranian the word *čáklas, needs to be projected, if the word in Iranian is also supposed to go a similar rhotacism. It would be much more reasonable to postulate that the Indian čákla migrated outside Indian Subcontinent and that within India, the sound was refined into Sanskrit through rhotacism, which was then passed on to the Iranians!

Another thing about wander-woerter is that they tend to make their way during the wanderings into unrelated language families. Eg. Camera etc have made their way into Finno-Ugric, Arabic, Dravidian, Sino language families too. But IE cognates of horse, wheel and chariot vocabulary somehow don't go outside the IE family; not even to the neighbouring Finno-Ugrics.

I can imagine that wheel and chariot terminology have a common Indo-European origin, but horse does not. The initial wheel that may have left Indian Subcontinent may or may not have been spoked, would possibly have been attached to a cart and may have been pulled by ass(es)!

Perhaps for that reason alone áśva and ass may even be cognates, though even this I doubt!

Another point to consider is that if the OIT claim for Arabian horse import into India was true, the fact that Arabic word for horse ('hasAn') is totally unrelated to IE ek̂wos or cognates in it's daughter languages, totally runs counter to that.

I don't see why both Indians and Arabs need to have similar words for the same commercial item! The people were not really living next to each other. There were deserts and long distances between! The only connection was the horse traders, and they would have used the local term where ever they were! hasAn in Arabia and áśva in India.


Seen Later

ManishH ji,

I would like to thank you for pointing this out!

According to the Sumerian-Aryan Dictionary by L. Austine Waddell, the word for Horse is indeed 'Aśśa'!

Seems to be a perfect pointer for as a source of dispersion! It seems some proto-Sumerians were indeed the middlemen providing the horses to India. The Sumerian word 'Aśśa' is close to both the Arabic 'hasAn' as well as the Sanskrit áśva! Very asaan indeed!

It seems the hypothetical Central Asian Indo-Aryans (2nd millenium) had nothing to do with providing any horse nomenclature! It is the proto-Sumerians (4th millenium) who gave the word áśva to the Indians! .

Or was it the other way round? Didn't somebody say there are similarities between Sumerian and Telegu?

No wonder the Sanskrit word áśva does not have a cognate in other Indo-European languages! Is the Greek 'hippos' supposed to be a cognate of áśva??? Naayyy!

[member_23700]

IMO, etymology should be the border for linguists. And they should be fenced/caged there . They should be called for references alone but should not at any point, be made to make calls on events that happened and more importantly for setting timelines. They, to quote an oft repeated sentence here, add just noise.
The efforts required to date and describe historic events are better spent on searching for archaeological and scientific evidence than relying on those who make surmises and guesses without moving an inch!

Most of these problems and useless speculation would go away... if these lingiusts can find a 'real' job and then do their 'ham bulglar' 'hum burrrrglar ' 'hfudmdblughduer' in their spare time.

This legislature (that Linguists take a real job first before doing more gymnastics) would make them efficient with their efforts and whatever good that can come out of this babbling field of sociology, would be there for us to see.

Last time I read abou Shrikant Talageri, he was working in the bank. Now someone would complain that he is working on spreadsheets with zero sum game industry, but at least he is 'working'.

[Arjun]

Seems to be a perfect pointer for as a source of dispersion! It seems some proto-Sumerians were indeed the middlemen providing the horses to India. The Sumerian word 'Aśśa' is close to both the Arabic 'hasAn' as well as the Sanskrit áśva! Very asaan indeed!

I agree..this is a clincher. Arabian horse, 34 ribs, and word is cognate in Akkadian, Sumerian & Sanskrit !

[Lalmohan]

seems to me that linguistics is better studied using fractal/chaotic models than linear/deterministic ones...

[RajeshA]

Seems to be a perfect pointer for as a source of dispersion! It seems some proto-Sumerians were indeed the middlemen providing the horses to India. The Sumerian word 'Aśśa' is close to both the Arabic 'hasAn' as well as the Sanskrit áśva! Very asaan indeed!

I agree..this is a clincher. Arabian horse, 34 ribs, and word is cognate in Akkadian Arabian, Sumerian & Sanskrit !

Yup,

The AIT-Nazis just did their Aśvamedha! Horse is sacrificed! No more horse!

Somehow we have not fully appreciated our relations with the Sumerians - Ùĝ saĝ gíg-ga people - "the black-headed people"! They even used to call themselves SDRE! No blond Aryan here!

[pentaiah]

Yes
Dharmo

Was understood as
Thermo


By unkils and aunties intelligence in 1962 conversation with Dr. S Radhakrishnan

And the Chinese went ahead performed their Dharma in 1964 kaboom

Now we live in Karma bhoomi

[Arjun]

By the way, there is a book that has studied cognates between Akkadian and Sanskrit, and claims that Harappa civilization initially started of as Akkadian and gradually developed into Sanskrit: The Language of the Harappans: From Akkadian to Sanskrit

It's not OIT - but at least it is not as outlandish as AMT !!

[RajeshA]

I have a rhetorical question.

What do you think is closer to Sanskrit 'áśva'?

a) Greek 'hippos', or

b) Latin 'equos', or

c) Old English 'eoh', or

d) Sumerian 'aśśa'?

___

Old English sounds more like a horse neighing!

Also to underline the Sumerian origin of the word 'áśva', other old languages considered Indo-European from the region, say from Anatolia, also have similar cognates:

Luvian - 'á-zú-wa'
Lycian - 'esbe'

[Arjun]

I have a rhetorical question.

I think this is 100% conclusive....Assa and Asva. Sumerian borrowed from Sanskrit or vice versa or both Sanskrit and Sumerian have a common ancestor. Any of these three scenarios would only imply that AMT goes for a toss.

[Nilesh Oak]

The AIT-Nazis just did their Aśvamedha! Horse is sacrificed! No more horse!

Somehow we have not fully appreciated our relations with the Sumerians - Ùĝ saĝ gíg-ga people - "the black-headed people"! They even used to call themselves SDRE! No blond Aryan here!

Sumerians believed they came from the EAST.

And in celebrations of Ashva, Assa, and Ashwamedha, SSVC tablet with 'Ashwamedha' writeen on it (in IVC script of course, per Sullivan code) is on its way on this thread......as soon as I get home and also figure out how to post an image.

[Nilesh Oak]

By the way, there is a book that has studied cognates between Akkadian and Sanskrit, and claims that Harappa civilization initially started of as Akkadian and gradually developed into Sanskrit: The Language of the Harappans: From Akkadian to Sanskrit

It's not OIT - but at least it is not as outlandish as AMT !!

Arjun ji,

She (Malati Ben Shendge) could be on right track, just need to educate her on 'back to the future'..... all we have to ask her to do 'U' turn again... i.e. Sanskrit word written using akkadian script - Ashwamedha. I am talking of Harappa seal I referred to in my previous message.

[Arjun]

She (Malati Ben Shendge) could be on right track, just need to educate her on 'back to the future'..... all we have to ask her to do 'U' turn again... i.e. Sanskrit word written using akkadian script - Ashwamedha. I am talking of Harappa seal I referred to in my previous message.

Agree...Based on a quick glean, her language is very crisp and logical and she makes her case using linguistics, comparative religion and other disciplines. Basically what she seems to be saying is Mesopotamia & IVC developed from one culture that subsequently differentiated into Vedic and Semetic. The potential for OIT case here is quite high.

[RoyG]

States in the beginning that Europeans are bias then uses their template of Indian history . Aryan migration, colonial construction of caste which has its origins in rigid medieval European social order, etc. The problems is that their are so many people propagating this nonsense that it drowns out alternative theories.

[youtube]8Nn5uqE3C9w&feature=fvsr[/youtube]

[youtube]n7ndRwqJYDM&feature=relmfu[/youtube]

[RajeshA]

I had earlier listed some books written by Laurence Austine Waddell.

He is the writer of the "A Sumerian-Aryan Dictionary"!

He was of the view that Sumerians were Aryan Pheonicians who had settled in the British Isles thousands of years ago. The same Sumerians brought civilization to India through Aryan Invasion! He was a pukka racist and thought that Brits were the very top of the food-chain! The paper below discusses that!

Bulletin of the History of Archaeology, Vol 20, No 1 (2010)
By Gabriel Moshenska
‘At Variance With Both General and Expert Opinion’: The Later Works of Lieutenant-Colonel Professor Laurence Austine Waddell

Waddell’s career path reflects the opportunities available to bright and energetic young men in the British Empire during the late Victorian era. Having graduated in medicine from Glasgow with the highest honours and worked as a surgeon for two years, Waddell joined the Indian Medical Service in 1880, serving as Assistant Sanitary Commissioner, and later, as Medical Officer for the district of Darjeeling, before taking up a post as Professor at Calcutta Medical College (Thomas 1939). During this period he served as Medical Officer for a number of military campaigns and expeditions both in, and to the north of India, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. This experience, together with his knowledge of Tibetan language and culture, led to his being recruited for the Younghusband mission into Tibet in 1903–4, an exercise in colonialist brutality during which Waddell is alleged to have looted a prodigious quantity of Tibetan Buddhist texts and relics (Carrington 2003).

This guy most certainly belonged to the European Age of Cultural Loot and Academic Racism!

[shiv]

First, there are much more than 15 IA words in Mitanni documents. Dumont himself found 44 proper names.

ManishH ji even if I argue with you I think you are a valuable member. Please excuse me when I piss you off. You gave me another useful clue above that allowed me to screen grab a page by Dumont that explains the problems of figuring out Indian names from Cuneiform.

For all you other phonology challenged louts look at the image. Two things. The original spelling surmised from cuneiform is so odd that figuring out names has been difficult. But once decided these names sound typically - well you read them, you'll know.
David Anthonysays its all Syrian. Witzel says its all pre vedic.Read the names folks read the names

[RajeshA]

States in the beginning that Europeans are bias then uses their template of Indian history . Aryan migration, colonial construction of caste which has its origins in rigid medieval European social order, etc. The problems is that their are so many people propagating this nonsense that it drowns out alternative theories.

Very ironic!

[Nilesh Oak]

Shiv ji,

So much 'Birya', 'Biryan' to be found in SSVC (aka IVC.. for those who followed degeneation of the word.. Sindhu-Hindu-indu- indus) seals, per sullivan code.

Word #12 from your 'Indo Aryan Names from Mittani, Nuzi and Syrian coduments' above made me recall - Birya, Biryan (from Vira, Virya, Viren..to Birya, Biren, Biryan into SSVC )

[member_22872]

In Bengali, Va sound changes to Ba sound, I wonder how this is seen phonetically, is it natural sound change progression or the inter-mixing of two language or ease of usage effect?, if the latter then how can one apply rules of phonetics to conclude Mittani to be older at all (just for argument sake)? all the names are so Indian(Sanskritised names to me), if an Indian looks at them, the first thing he would say is "hey these guys have Indian origin".

[shiv]

I have a rhetorical question.

What do you think is closer to Sanskrit 'áśva'?

a) Greek 'hippos', or

b) Latin 'equos', or

c) Old English 'eoh', or

d) Sumerian 'aśśa'?

___

Old English sounds more like a horse neighing!

Also to underline the Sumerian origin of the word 'áśva', other old languages considered Indo-European from the region, say from Anatolia, also have similar cognates:

Luvian - 'á-zú-wa'
Lycian - 'esbe'

If you try to combine the words "Equus" and Ashwa" into one proto word the sound is very very unconvincing. I am guessing it would be "*ekhwas".

Just thinking how I might combine shiv and rajesh to a proto name that will give you both: *hradzhuvs is a likely proto-name candidate

[shiv]

Shiv ji,

So much 'Birya', 'Biryan' to be found in SSVC (aka IVC.. for those who followed degeneation of the word.. Sindhu-Hindu-indu- indus) seals, per sullivan code.

Word #12 from your 'Indo Aryan Names from Mittani, Nuzi and Syrian coduments' above made me recall - Birya, Biryan (from Vira, Virya, Viren..to Birya, Biren, Biryan into SSVC )

Biryan? Maybe this guy picked up a horse meat and rice dish from there and returned to India to make the first Biryani? But seriously - I look at that name list and I think if those are not Indian names then I am Aishwarya Rai.

Could they have been born there? No information
Could they have reached there there from Central Asia? No information
Where could they possibly have come from? No information.
Where are similar names found to this day? India
Could they have come from India? No information
Given the choices Central Asia , Syria and India as the origin, which is most likely?

If someone tells me such names exist in central Asia, that would be an interesting data point.

[RajeshA]

If you try to combine the words "Equus" and Ashwa" into one proto word the sound is very very unconvincing. I am guessing it would be "*ekhwas".

Just thinking how I might combine shiv and rajesh to a proto name that will give you both: *hradzhuvs is a likely proto-name candidate

*ekhwas has to be used with the old Proto-Indo-European article "b" which was dropped later on just like the laryngeals, which continued only in Hittite.

"b" + "*ekhwas" would then be "the Horse"!

[member_22872]

This is evidence for the soundness of phonetic reconstruction.

Please bear with me, I will go a bit tangential and might seem OT. I see a pattern in this sound reconstruction and what CFD does. I am speaking from what I know and drawing a parallel. As some who work with CFD might know, solution to well studied problems like flow over airfoils is well known. So when a guy writes a CFD code, he first validates his results with known solutions and compares his solution with the well known solutions which have analytical closed form solutions or has experimental data. This is true for simple problems which he can readily verify. But this validation business gets tough when he has to validate his results with complex problems like say combustion. So he just goes with a hunch here that since his code produces results for some simple problems which he has validated, his solution to complex problem must be 'close' to the actual result. But doesn't mean this is proof enough to say his 'solution construction' for the complex problem is correct. It is just a conjecture that his solution could be true. If the same problem is solved by another CFD code, there is high chance that the solutions with his own code might not match with the other CFD code, it could be very similar, but not same. CFD studies just talk about a general trend of the solution, how the flow pattern might look given the user inputs are correct. All this trouble after tediously deriving flow equations with rigor, but still the solution is just an approximate.

Every time you arrive at a solution of a problem, it desn't mean the solution is correct, it is just an approximate, but nothing concrete can be said about the veracity of the solution. But I find it strange that phonetically reconstructed words when are validated with with some sounds of a newly discovered languages are take for granted that what is theorized about phonetics is 100% correct. Is this reconstruction true for every other language discovered and yet to be discovered? just because it is true for couple of cases doesn't necessarily mean it is true in every case and that phonetic sound change law has no exceptions.

[shiv]

"b" + "*ekhwas" would then be "the Horse"!

[ShyamSP]

If you try to combine the words "Equus" and Ashwa" into one proto word the sound is very very unconvincing. I am guessing it would be "*ekhwas".

Just thinking how I might combine shiv and rajesh to a proto name that will give you both: *hradzhuvs is a likely proto-name candidate

*ekhwas has to be used with the old Proto-Indo-European article "b" which was dropped later on just like the laryngeals, which continued only in Hittite.

"b" + "*ekhwas" would then be "the Horse"!

Mittanis seem to be Bengalis (Virya => Birya) or is it Mittanis came on b*ekhwases from Tibet in the north and entered Bengal and killed or converted many Bengalis to Islam? (Adjust timelines as you like like weatsel and co)

[Prem]

"b" + "*ekhwas" would then be "the Horse"!

To make a serious sense of this Hoa"r"xe , see the picture in Nukkad Dhaaga.

[shiv]

The detailed explanation of the phonetic principles can be found in any phonology textbook like Fortson or Clackson's. To take an example, take these cognates : Skt (mīḍha) , Greek (misthos), Avestan (mizda). If the Skt retroflex is the original, then Avestan mizda can derive from it but not the Greek unvoiced sibilant + dental stop - there is no regular condition for consonant clusters to lose voice. If Avestan -zd- is the original, then Skt retroflex -ḍ- can derive from it, but not Greek -sth- (again no regular condition to lose voice).

But if the original sound is (misdhos), then all three can independently derive from it. Eg. Greek can lose voicing of -dh- > -th- due to the affect of the unvoiced sibilant -s-. Proto-Indo-Iranian can gain voice s > z due to affect of voiced aspirated stop -dh-. The PIIr -zdh- can lose aspiration to become Avestan -zd- and in Skt, gain retroflexion to become -ḍh-

Using some guess work and my Uncle Google's help I find that the cognates for the word "being" are
Sanskrit: asti
Latin est
Greek: eimi

Which came earliest?

[shiv]

Mittanis came on b*ekhwases

Well there you are. Indian cuisine Mithai and Biryani from Syria. And West Punjab got first cuisine marriage..

[RajeshA]

When I think about AIT, I think the only reason it can survive, is because we are willing to allow others to fudge our own history.

Let's just consider one little point: if each Indian demands from GoI that the historicity of the Mauryan Dynasty be reestablished.

Code: Select all

Chandragupta Maurya            1534 BCE - 1500 BCE
Bindusara Maurya               1500 BCE - 1472 BCE
Ashoka Maurya                  1472 BCE - 1436 BCE

Now this is a very secular demand. Nothing Hindu fundamentalist about it! At least people would be forced to talk about the various views on history. Today however people do not get hear the various claims at all. Indians are forced to swallow all that is served to them in NCERT books!

This needs to be made an issue!

And then accordingly we should reappraise the dates for Chanakya Kautilya Vishnugupta AND Gautama Buddha (1888-1807 BCE)!

By Stephen Knapp
Reestablishing the Date of Lord Buddha

Once the Age of Buddha is reestablished, AIT would simply die due to suffocation - no time to unfold!

At the time, our method of argumentation is focused on logical inconsistency of an Aryan Invasion or Migration which could be responsible for the current evolution of Indian Civilization! And then we try to convince the skeptics of this logical inconsistency! That is all good and we should do so!

But we can also try to take away the air out of AIT, not just by depriving it of any sustainable arguments in its favor but also to suffocate it of any time to unfold!

[A_Gupta]

Kannada language doesn't have the 'Z' sound, yet the script took the syllabogram for 'J' and put 2 dots below it to represent the Z sound. If indeed the Mitanni's were post vedic, they would have figured out a way to preserve the contrast between the retroflex 'ड' and 'द'/'ध'.

We have the development of script in historic times - the Arabic script. The Quran was a founding document, you can say that the Arabic script was developed to preserve the Quran.

In Luxenberg's book "Die syro-aramaeische Lesart des Koran", the reviewer tells us:

In section four, Luxenberg presents the development of the Arabic script and its central importance to the transmission history of the Quran. He demonstrates that there were originally only six letters to distinguish some twenty-six sounds. The letters were gradually distinguished by points written above or below each letter. The Arabic alphabet used in the Quran began as a shorthand, a mnemonic device not intended as a complete key to the sounds of the language.

{As a result, there are some serious ambiguities because of the indeterminate nature of the Quran's consonantal text.}

And this is for a primary text for a civilization. Even in the case of Kannada, you are talking about the writing for words that have become commonplace, and in a time of mass literacy. You imagine that some few borrowed words from some other language, in a horse-trainer's manual, a highly specialized work, and in a time when basically only scribes were literate, would make accomodations to capture precisely the sounds of that other language.

What kind of gullible idiots do you take us for?

[Vayutuvan]

I don't see why both Indians and Arabs need to have similar words for the same commercial item!

Especially so if there is already another word closer to "hasAn" to describe another concept in Sanskrit, namely "hAsan" meaning mirth or smile.

[A_Gupta]

Absence of phonemes which are clearly later developments supports the fact that Mitanni language is a pre-Vedic form (albeit not necessarily pre-dating composition of Veda in India). IOW, the fact that Mitanni language is a pre-Vedic form in no way rules out OIT.

Re: the occurrence of Indra, Varuna, Nasatyas, Mitra in a Mitanni document:

The Paul Thieme article points out that Varuna is Vedic, not pre-Vedic; and that only a single Nasatya is pre-Vedic; the single Nasatya to dual Nasatya development is Vedic, and is in the Rig Veda (so it cannot be pre-Vedic). Further Thieme argues that it is true that in the Vedic, Indra, Varuna, Mitra, and two Nasatyas are protectors of treaties; while the reconstructed pre-Vedic can only attest to Mitra as a protector of treaties (certainly Indra and Varuna are not; and there is only one Nasatya in pre-Vedic).

Therefore, you are in the position of arguing for a linguistic sequence that is ruled out by all the other evidence. What will it take to change your mind? If it is a matter of faith for you that the Indo-Aryan words in Mitanni cuneiform texts are pre-Vedic, then say so, and we can stop wasting our time. We are secular onlee, and do not attack anyone's faith.

[A_Gupta]

ManishH,

When Indian Sanskritic proper names come to the US, the US English-mother-tongue speakers lose the retroflexes, and second generation desis here start pronouncing their own names without the retroflexes. Therefore, in the future, when some linguist finds recordings of how they were pronounced, they will come to some crazy conclusion about the relative ages of languages (e.g., the retroflex in my name अरुण )

Right?

अरुण
Arun

BTW, Americans and Englishmen have not been kind enough to me to develop a useable notation in the English language (that can be used outside phoneticists' textbooks) to use in every day life to represent the retroflex in my name. This will be true even I become President of the USA. How bigoted they are compared to the cuneiform scribes of the ancient Middle East!!!!

Is the absurdity of the Witzelian arguments apparent?

[member_22872]

^^^ Paul Thieme also mentions that Varuna has no equivalent in Old Iranian or proto-Aryan. Varuna is pretty much a Vedic God. So also he notes that if only the Gods mentioned in the treaty were proto-Aryan, the list would have been:
*Mitra-*Asura-*Vrtraghnas or *Mitra-*Asura, *Indras, *Nastyas. But Mittani texts shows a vedic chain of Gods:
Mitra-Varuna...Asvina (Nasatya), as treaty protecting Gods, it fits in well as in the Vedas.

[A_Gupta]

Even if, for a couple of generations, each and every Fortune 500 company gets a CEO and board of directors who are desis with retroflexes in their Sanskritic names; and such desis become the President of the US for ten generations, the Roman script will not be modified to make retroflexes visible.

[Nilesh Oak]

The image is from a seal - SSVC (aka IVC) seal found in Bactria- Margiana.

Per Sullivan Code, it reads (from left to right) 'Ashwamedha-Vira' (Ashwamedha biren'. Here it is...

[member_22872]

Nilesh ji, a basic Q: Indus script is to be read from R->L no?

[member_22872]

S.M. Sullivan's translation:
It reads 'trik-na-va-ma ma-na-ja-ni,' in Sanskrit, 'twenty-seventh one having beauty.' It seems to refer to the twenty-seventh Nakshatra or lunar mansion, which may have been prominent in this girl's horoscope at the time of her birth. Sanskrit girl names often end in long 'a' or 'ni.' (The arrow sign is 'ni.')

[member_22872]

Sanskrit speaking Aryans supposed to have displaced IVC Dravidians, but the seals seems to suggest, they used to speak Sanskrit. Not sure what do these guys rooting for AMT want? It appears even if you magically transport them to ICV Introduce them to Sanskrit speaking IVC people, Manish ji and SN_Rajan ji are going to deny and may ask for more proof. Not sure why I feel déjàvu, this proof showing, them denying it is proof enough mimics the behavior of our brothers to west side of our boundary, the currents tenants of IVC.

[RajeshA]

Can these seals of Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization somehow be used as janam patrikas, something that was prepared for children when they were born, and on each seal was engraved some word or two - perhaps a name or some desired epithet or some astronomical code consisting of some nakshatra, etc, some story, scene or animal which was supposed to give the child wisdom, courage and a direction of destiny?

May for administrative, commercial and academic tasks one used to write only on parchments, etc. which have long turned to dust or been burned!

[member_22872]

Rajesh ji, seems like it. Some form of identification of the seal bearer they belong to or represent the land of sapta-sindhus. These seals could also be considered as the precursors of monetary coins. Notice the clarity of the impressions on the seals, it might not be for personal use. I surmise that they are meant for official use, hence of high quality.