Preliminary studies on ancientness of Tamil are encouraging, says Udhayachandran

Tamil Nadu’s Finance Secretary T. Udhayachandran on Sunday said preliminary studies by the Department of Archaeology on the ancientness of the Tamil language were encouraging, and details of the same would be released after they were thoroughly cross-checked.

Addressing the centenary celebrations, marking the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilisation, in Chennai, Mr. Udhayachandran, also the Commissioner of Archaeology, said the government was not in a hurry to release them.

“We will send materials that were found during excavations to the best laboratories in the world, get the opinion of eminent archaeologists, and scientifically prove the ancientness of Tamil language. Tamils are emotional and soft-hearted. There will be a sweet shock for them,” he added. On the occasion, Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu, who also holds the Archaeology portfolio, said the Keeladi report reached Tamils across the world. “In the last two years, more than six lakh people visited the Keeladi museum,” he added.

Recalling the findings of Asko Parpola, Iravatham Mahadevan and R. Balakrishnan, he said that the Indus Valley Civilisation had several features similar to the Dravidian Civilisation. If there was a civilisation with similarities to materials, scripts and literature of the Indus Valley Civilisation, it was the Dravidian Civilisation. “This is why our Chief Minister allotted ₹5 crore towards excavation to study the graffiti marks on the mud pots to understand the script of the Indus Valley Civilisation. The graffiti marks found on the pots in Keeladi, Sivakalai and other areas had similarities with the ones of the Indus Valley findings,” he said.

Mr. Thennarasu further said that the bull with a hump, found in the Indus Valley Civilisation, was the horse in Keeladi. “The mother goddess of Adichannalur is the mother goddess of the Indus Valley civilisation. Rhinoceros, buffaloes and tigers were found in the Indus Valley. But the horse was not there,” he said.On the mystery of the Indus Valley Civilisation, he said, “If one kept in mind the urban civilisation, architecture, mud pots, transport facilities and commerce, it had all the features of a fiction. But the mystery over the script of the [Indus Valley] civilisation has remained undeciphered even after 100 years,” he said.