Can the semasiographic/logographic Indus script answer the Dravidian question? Insights from Indus script’s gemstone related fish-signs, and Indus gemstone-word “maṇi”

From archaeogenetic, linguistic, archaeological, and ethnographic evidences, several scholars have linked the people of ancient Indus valley civilization (IVC) with the ancestors of Dravidian speakers. This article argues that the semasiographically/logographically written Indus script (ISC) used certain fish-like logograms, whose iconicity emerged from certain Indus symbolisms, which are linkable with certain linguistic symbolisms found across today’s Dravidian languages. As discussed in the author’s previous articles, ISC was a mercantile script, and different segments of the formulaic ISC inscriptions were usually populated by signs belonging to specific semantic classes. The core-informational segment, which occur preceding the phrase-final and pre-phrase-final signs ( ), arguably encoded names of licensed crafts, and taxed commodities (e.g., the crucible-blowpipe based sign which signified precious-metals/gold-smithy). This article claims that the fish-like ISC signs ( , , , , , , ), which mainly occur in the ‘core-informational’ segments, often accompanying the gold/precious-metal sign (e.g., , ), possibly encoded meanings related to gemstones, lapidary activities, related precious commodities, barter equivalencies, and taxes/licenses. Interestingly, in various Indus settlements, seals/tablets containing fish-sign- inscriptions are found in unusually high concentration in the archaeological contexts of lapidary workshops and jeweler’s shops. Revealingly, the polysemic Proto-Dravidian fish-word “mīn”, a popular fish-word used across present India, also signifies ‘shining’, ‘bright’, and ‘gemstone’ in several Dravidian languages, and is etymologically connected to the Proto-Dravidian root-verb “*mīn”, which signifies “to shine,” “to glitter,” etc. In the Indian subcontinent, this fish-based homonymy for gemstones and related linguistic symbolism for other glittering things (“*min”-based words coined for stars, fireflies, lightning, etc.) are found only in the Dravidian language-group, indicating that the gemstone related fish-sign symbolism of ISC might have emerged from an ancestral Dravidian culture prevalent in IVC. Relevantly, in Mesopotamia, the eye-patterned apotropaic gemstone-beads imported from IVC were called “fish-eye” stones (“NA4-IGI- ḪA”, “NA4-IGI-KU6”), and "eye-stones" of Meluhha ("NA4-IGI-ME-LUḪ-ḪA"), whereas in Dravidian languages, carnelian (“akki-kal”), tiger-eye-like sardonyx (“puli-k-kaṇ-kal”), and cat’s-eye-like chrysoberyl (“pūṉai-k-kaṇ-kal”) have eye-stone related epithets. Moreover, “maṇi”, the Indus word for gemstones, which remained fossilized in ancient documents of Near East, arguably has a Dravidian root. Intriguingly, “maṇi” has been signifying meanings like “amulet” (see Atharvaveda), “bead”, “apple of eye”, and “gemstone” in Indian languages, each which were linked to the amuletic, eye-patterned gemstone beads of Meluhah.