A team of Finnish scientists yesterday [February 25] announced that they had succeeded in deciphering — by logic, intuition and computer — the language of India’s ancient Indus Valley civilisation that vanished about 4,000 years ago and left a mysterious legacy of thousands of inscriptions on beautifully carved seals. The team, sponsored by the Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies here [Copenhagen], said the break through came only three weeks ago, and provided a key that threw open the doors to a new understanding of the Indus people. “Our key already gave the answer to the mystery of the origin of the Hindu caste system,” said Dr. Asko Parpola one of the four Finnish researchers on the team. “It also approved for certain that the bearers of the Indus culture were Dravidians.” The deciphered Indus inscriptions showed that the caste system existed long before the Aryans swarmed into India.
