Abstract: Indus Ideogram for SKILL: The talk will describe the ideogram identified in the Indus Script depicting 'a pair of raised hands with folded fingers' (Sign 358, ASI Concordance) with the intended meaning SKILL > 'the skilled one, Chief Artisan, Scribe’. The Sign is found incised mostly on the copper tablets from Mohenjodaro (20 out of 32 occurrences, ASI Concordance). The sign is therefore interpreted as referring especially to the artisans producing bronze and copper metalware. Dravidian literary and inscriptional evidence includes the scribe among artisans.

Keywords: Indus Civilisation; Indus Script; Indus Artisans; Vedic Artisans; Indus origin of Vedic and later Dravidian Artisans.

 

About the Speaker: M V Bhaskar is the CEO of AuthorCafe (www.authorcafe.com), an online knowledge management system for academia. Bhaskar is a writer, researcher, designer, film maker, archivist, and a publishing technology specialist with decades of experience in media, the last 10 years as Chief Creative Officer of TNQ (www.tnq.co.in), a Chennai-based publishing services company that serves global leaders in science publishing. Using this experience, Bhaskar has established AuthorCafe as a spin-off from TNQ. Bhaskar plies his Indus trade, having worked with Dr. Iravatham Mahadevan, the leading epigraphist in the country, since 2007, initially as the latter’s digital scribe and as a co-author and collaborator in recent times. His knowledge in ancient writing derives from the gurukul learning from Dr. Mahadevan, his experience with constructing an exhaustive digital archive of Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions for the Central Institute of Classical Tamil, and his training in Sanskrit in his formative years.