Royal "Chariot" Burials of Sanauli near Delhi and Archaeological Correlates of Prehistoric Indo-Iranian Languages

The article describes the royal cart burials excavated at the Late Harappan site of Sanauli near Delhi in the spring of 2018 on the basis of the available reports and photographs. The author then comments on these finds, dated to about 1900 bce, with the Sanauli cart burials being the first of their kind in Bronze Age India. In his opinion, several indications suggest that the Sanauli “chariots” are actually carts yoked to bulls, as in the copper sculpture of a bull-cart from the Late Harappan site of Daimabad in Maharashtra. The antennae-hilted swords associated with the burials suggest that these bull-carts are likely to have come from the BMAC or the Bactria and Margiana Archaeological Complex (c.2300–1500 bce) of southern Central Asia, from where thereis iconographic evidence of bull-carts. The ultimate source of the Sanauli/BMAC bull-carts may be the early phase of the Sintashta culture in the Trans-Urals, where the chariot (defined as a horse-drawn light vehicle with two spoked wheels) was most probably invented around the late twenty-first century bce. The invention presupposes an earlier experimental phase, which started with solid-wheeled carts that could only be pulled by bulls. An intermediate phase in the development is the “proto-chariot” with cross-bar wheels, attested in a BMAC-related cylinder seal from Tepe Hissar III B in northern Iran (c.2000–1900 bce). The wooden coffins of the Sanauli royal burials provide another pointer to a possible Sintashta origin. The Sanauli finds are considered in the context of the author’s archaeological model for the prehistory of the Indo-Iranian languages, which is adjusted to meet recent justified criticism

De novis libris iudicia

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Sanskrit māṇava(ka)- '(Vedic) Student, Pupil, (Brahmin) Boy' and the Religious Fast in Ancient India

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Sāvitrī and Resurrection: The Ideal of devoted wife, her forehead mark, Satī, and human sacrifice in Epic-Purāṇic, Vedic, Harappan-Dravidian and Near Eastern perspectives

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The Sky-Garment: A Study of the Harappan religion and its relation to the Mesopotamian and later Indian religions

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Bronze Age Bactria and Indian Religion

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The Literature and Study of the Jaiminīya Sāmaveda in Retrospect and Prospect

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On the symbol concept of the Vedic ritualists

Different peoples have in their cultural and linguistic systems created individual conceptual categories which best fit their varying needs and surroundings, thus defining and interpreting the world in different ways. While developing universal theories it is useful to take into account as many as possible independent systems of classification, for they can open up new perspectives and refine prevalent concepts. A striking example is supplied by the ancient Indian grammarians who, in spite of their exclusive preoccupation with Sanskrit, have given a lot of stimulation to modern general linguistics. The aim of the present paper is to contribute to the general study of the "ritual symbol", "the smallest unit of ritual which still retains the specific properties of ritual behavior", by drawing attention to, and sketching in basic outline, some central concepts held in this regard by the Vedic ritualists. The Vedic Brahmana texts, composed around 1000-600 B.C., expound the esoteric meaning of the sacrifices which at the time were at the very centre of the cultural activity in the heart of North India

Finnish vatsa ~Sanskrit vatsá- and the formation of Indo-Iranian and Uralic languages

Finnish vatsa ‘stomach’ *-st-, with Greek and Balto-Slavic) and in the Indo-Aryan branch ( > *-tt-, probably due to Uralic substratum). The split of Indo-Iranian can be traced in the archaeological record to the differentiation of the Yamnaya culture in the North Pontic and Volga steppes respectively during the third millennium BCE, due to the use of separate sources of metal: the Iranian branch was dependent on the North Caucasus, while the Indo-Aryan branch was oriented towards the Urals. It is argued that the Abashevo culture of the Mid-Volga-Kama-Belaya basins and the Sejma-Turbino trade network (2200–1900 BCE) were bilingual in Proto-Indo-Aryan and PFU, and introduced the PFU as the basis of West Uralic (Volga-Finnic) into the Netted Ware Culture of the Upper Volga-Oka (1900–200 BCE).Peer reviewe

R. Sivalingam (1935-2019) in memoriam

Non peer reviewe