[Buddha-l] Written and oral traditions.

[Timothy C. Cahill]

>> I find their proof fairly conclusive.

> Just out of curiosity, which of Witzel's arguments do you find most
> compelling?

Dear Lance, Richard, and the rest,

    I too find the arguments advanced by Farmer and Witzel quite 
convincing.  Their "one-sentence refutation of the Indus-Script Myth" is 
very clear:

"No ancient literate civilizations are known  not even those that wrote 
extensively on perishable materials  that didn't also leave long texts 
behind on durable materials."

    They go on to provide what is for me pretty compelling evidence:

"Despite the fact that the Indus system was around for at least 700 years 
(and arguably much longer), with 'inscriptions' (if that's the right word) 
found on thousands of objects, the longest Indus 'text' on a single 
surface is 17 signs long*, and the average has under 4.6 signs  as 
expected in many nonlinguistic sign systems."

Of course, if I knew more about the Indus Valley and its material culture 
I might not be so easy to convince.  The circumstantial 'evidence' is also 
kind of persuasive: despite hundreds of attempts to decipher the IVC 
"script" *no one* has been able to do much of anything with it.  (E.g., A. 
Parpola's work is as admirably organized and meticulous as it is 
unsuccessful!)  It makes sense to me that many, many language wizards 
could make no headway here for the simple reason that the signs are not a 
true script, i.e., they don't encode a language.

Obligatory Buddhist content: Some of the descendents of those who were 
able to navigate their way productively through this sign-system might 
have met early followers of the Buddha.

    For the $10,000 challenge issued by Farmer and Witzel see:
http://www.safarmer.com/indus/prize.html
This page also includes the .pdf file titled: "The Collapse of the 
Indus-Script Thesis: The Myth of a Literate Harappan Civilization."

best,
Tim Cahill