The Indus Valley Civilization was naturally on both sides of the Indus River, but Indian civilization in the general sense was not necessarily all located in India. The main areas were even distributed in places such as today's Pakistan and eastern Iran. In fact, there are many civilization sites in the Indus River, but what I am most concerned about is the Harappan civilization where some texts have been unearthed - the name itself generally includes two "cities" or "cultural sites": Harappa and Mohenjo Daro , the former time can be calculated from 3300BC, and the latter time from 2600BC. If the final result is that the origin of Chinese characters is most closely related to this place, I will not be surprised, and readers should not be surprised either, because this cultural site is the closest to China, and it is also the closest to China and the most civilized. However, the spread of civilization is a complex matter and is affected by many factors, so it is not possible to simply connect them. If it were easy, someone would have done it already.
The Chinese region has received many elements of Indian civilization, from Arabic numerals to Buddhism, medicine, etc. The process of civilization transmitted from India to China is just like China to Japan. Traveling in all directions. We can make an analogy with cultural transmission and see how long it takes for words to spread to China. Buddhism originated in ancient India in 552 B.C. and was introduced to China in a folk way about 200 to 300 years later. However, the Chinese "government" officially introduced Buddhism only in the 10th year of Yongping in the Later Han Dynasty (AD 67). To sum up, it means that it only took about 300 to 500 years for the spread of this culture to enter China relatively obviously. For a complex system like writing, I think the process of hundreds of years is also credible.
It is generally believed that the prosperity of the Harappan culture was between 2350 B.C. and 1750 B.C. It lasted for 500 years and suddenly disappeared. As for the cause, there are various speculations. One of my own opinions is that this event may be related to the Aryans rushing into the South Asian subcontinent from the northwest around 2000 B.C. The route of the Aryans happened to be an "X" intersection with the Indus River. , completely cutting off the original civilized order of the Indus River. In any case, these two very distinctive and prosperous cities fell suddenly, and no one even knows where their residents went, nor what ethnic groups they belonged to. Is it possible for this civilized force to enter China? They would at least bring their writing with them, and the 300 years from the 18th century BC (escape) to the 15th century BC (the emergence of Chinese characters) is a "reasonable" time. Of course, it can be calculated from the middle of the prosperous period, and another 200 years can be added. This probably depends on the number of people.
It should be noted that the Harappan writing system is not a particularly developed and complete writing system, I think so. Because basically no long text has been found there, and most of them are seals with 3 or 5 characters. It is said that 2,000 cultural relics with text have been found, and 1,755 of them are seals - they are all similar, I often think that I am seeing It was the same one, but it turned out to be a different seal in every detail. The longest text is 20, and such lucky discovery only happened twice. The rest are short inscriptions of 3 or 5 words. Because the text is too short and there is no reference text for comparison, this writing system has still not been deciphered. But this may be what attracts people, so there are enthusiasts all over the world trying their hand at it, and some people are constantly claiming to have completed the decipherment. The most recent information I saw is that someone claimed that the Harappan script It is an alphabetic text, but I immediately saw someone refute it. It is generally believed that the Indus script is logographic and syllabic, or a combination of the two.
I think Harappan writing is probably not a mature and rigorous writing system like ancient Egypt and Sumer, but just a semi-finished product, or a very simple commercial writing system. This can be seen by the fact that they have no country, they are just commercial cities.
Among the few Indus scripts I have collected, after a quick look I found several traces that are closely related to Chinese scripts. I will try to talk about a few below:
1. Sanxingdui is basically a culture without any written language (because many of its sacrificial pits and other places were before the completion of Shang characters), but among a few simple symbols, one of the extremely special symbols actually has two basic symbols. The same ((left one in the picture below. This is not typical. Ancient characters are unstable and irregular, so it is normal to have small differences. Generally, there are 2 lines on both sides of the mouth edge. There are also other numbers, such as Arrow). I have never found such a symbol in the area west of the Indus River. The meaning of this symbol in the Indus River is a sacred object that holds water, and is mainly used for sacrifice. By extension, such a word means "priest". It is a perfect match among the Sanxingdui artifacts with strong religious connotations. In addition to the unique symbols between Sanxingdui and the Indus River, there are also sporadic discoveries in Southeast Asia, which actually creates an uninterrupted connection route from Sanxingdui to the Indus River. .
In addition, this symbol has appeared in the Indus River 1,395 times according to some statistics. It can basically be said to be the most frequently appearing text. Therefore, it is not surprising that Tian appears among such few symbols as Sanxingdui.
2. What surprised me very much was that a symbol that was exactly the same as the character "大" in Chinese oracle bone inscriptions actually appeared in the Indus Valley Civilization. There was no difference between the two (under the line "Cui" in the picture below The fourth word). But I still don’t know what it sounds like in Indus and what it means. This is no accident. Because the human-shaped characters in Chinese characters are so similar to each other, this will involve the processing of a large number of Chinese characters. In other words, human-shaped expressions during the Oracle period mostly used the Indus method. In addition, the overall text form of the two systems is the same, with line-like hieroglyphs. This gave me an important revelation that the Indus Valley Civilization played a crucial role in the origin of Chinese characters. But it is not clear whether this is due to immigrants from the Indus River among the Shang Dynasty, early accumulation, or whether they finally inspired the creation of Chinese characters. In short, I believe that the Indus Valley Civilization was the most recent catalyst for the emergence of Chinese characters. But Chinese characters are not a copy of the Indus script, but the relationship between "coach" and "athlete".
3. I only occasionally read relevant information. On the same day, I accidentally discovered the possible appearance of another Indus script in Oracle. They are also very similar in appearance. Oracle bone inscriptions are mainly related to divination and sacrifice. A large number of oracle bone inscriptions are used to explain the sacrifices to the ancestors of the king and the king's concubines. Among them, there is a discourse pattern that will be repeated repeatedly. There are different opinions on a word that appears in the middle (see the third word on the left in the picture above), and almost all the famous experts have different interpretations. But for some unknown reason, Luo Zhenyu interpreted it as "He". Shima Kuni-nan rejected his explanation, and his final opinion focused on the meaning of "woman". If we use a word from the Indus River to compare and interpret, I think "He" may make sense, but it is indeed a Tongjia character. Its real meaning is "charge" or "load". In the Indus Valley Civilization, this word is expressed in English as "bearer", which means "bearer". It is generally extended to "official". The so-called "burdened public servant" is also a person in the middle, carrying something in his hand. Many scholars in China, some say it is "shuang" or "shi", etc., all infer from the shape. Dao Bangnan and others finally identified the word as "woman", which may be related to a ridiculed explanation by Guo Moruo; he said that it looked like a person with two breasts on his chest, but in the end it was close to his statement. . However, the current explanation comes from phonetics, saying that "woman" and "wu" are interchangeable, and the word is said to have originally been pronounced "wu". And I think no matter what it means, it is probably a word borrowed from the Indus River (this word is close to the leftmost word in the top seal, but not yet this word). There is no need to have a connection in pronunciation and meaning when borrowing words. There are many such examples of mutual reference in philology, and it is just a matter of taking form.
In addition to the above text symbols, most of the "seal characters" I have seen can be found in the same or similar form in oracle bone inscriptions (of course, do not look at them in the form of seals, but simplify them into lines). There is also one of the "Five Sacrifice" of the Shang Dynasty. Its characters cannot be defined so far, and the font is close to the thing or symbol under the mouth of the unicorn that appears in almost every Indus seal. Research on the Indus Valley Civilization Experts have 5 theories about this symbol that always appears, one of which is that it is a worship object. I think the Chinese sacrificial ceremony is the same, and it may mean "incense".
4. There are some other factors. The Indus script is famous for its "seal script", and almost without exception, every seal has a stout animal that is neither an ox nor a rhinoceros nor a pig. Most of them can be seen as unicorns, so people also call these seals " unicorn seals”. There were two kinds of unicorns in China during the Shang and Zhou dynasties. One was a double-horned unicorn that looked very docile and was considered to be an African giraffe. There was also a unicorn in China that was single-horned. "Shuowen Jiezi" said: " "Qi, a benevolent beast, with the body of an elk and one horn of an ox's tail; (lin), a female ki. "Qilin is one of the "Four Spirits" in Chinese tradition. It is a mythical beast that governs peace, good fortune, longevity, and is an auspicious animal. But where is its origin? People in the Qi State during the Spring and Autumn Period saw the unicorn on the Indus River seal. They must all look familiar, because one of the animal shapes popular there is the majestic and heavily decorated animal of the Indus River. Check again, it can be said that there were similar unique ones all over the country from Shaanxi to Hunan in the Spring and Autumn Period of China. The so-called "sacrifice" of the horned beast, accompanied by many conspicuous elephant sacrificial beasts, is so similar that it is a semi-imaginary animal found only in the Far East and the Indus Valley. I think it is between them. There is an obvious transmission relationship. Shandong is the hometown of merchants, and there is a lot of foreign blood in the tombs of Qi nobles. This should not be a coincidence.
People are still studying Indian unicorns. Continuing, I don’t know what its meaning is. Maybe the Chinese can tell those scholars the story of Qilin in China. It’s that simple. It is an auspicious beast that keeps you safe.
However, the so-called unicorn seals are not really all "unicorn" beasts. Some are like cows with two horns, and some may have no horns at all, but there are more one-horned ones. Presumably they are actually the same thing. , but because it is an imaginary animal, as long as it looks the same and is worshiped devoutly, it is probably not that important whether it has horns or not. (The "Sacrifice Zun" unearthed in Shaanxi, China, an item from the Warring States Period)
In fact, this majestic "unicorn" and the complex and solemn bronze decorative style that suddenly emerged from Shandong after merchants, I wonder if this is all Is it an influence from the Indus Valley Civilization?
(Bronze Sacrifice Zun of Qi State, Shandong, China)
5. The Chinese believe that China is the only nation in the world with a "seal culture", which is of course a series of "independent origins" "The fallacy or narrow illustration has been self-defeating. What I want to point out here is that Chinese seals may have the most obvious direct inheritance relationship with the "seal characters" of the Indus River. The reason is that ancient Chinese seals are mostly square, with few or no circles or rollers, while the Indus River seals are exactly Most of them are Chinese square plates.
With the above speculations in mind, let’s look at several characteristics of the Indus Valley Civilization. Almost all of them are in line with our wishes. The Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro people lived on large rivers. Due to the extremely humid and hot climate in the early days, there must have been many contiguous lakes in that area about 4,000 years ago. They were very good at water, but they also had to avoid water and drain water. They have necessities in life, so these two city-states are famous for their superb urban architectural patterns and drainage facilities. China's drainage facilities during the Shang and Zhou dynasties seem to be particularly developed, and Qi State in Shandong seems to be marked by this (picture below) .
The people in these two cities on the Indus River are mainly businessmen. They are called "commercial geniuses". Their main targets are the Sumerians and ancient Egypt in the Mesopotamia area. Discoveries in the two places There is a large amount of written evidence of business exchanges between each other; these people did not have the idea of ????political country, only business. Their agriculture has been very developed, especially pottery and metallurgy. They use vehicles, have almost all commonly used domesticated animals known so far, and are good at water and navigation. They have also established a port at the mouth of the Indus River that is intended for trade. Writing began in 2600 B.C. There are currently about 500 seal texts collected by Japan, and they are written from right to left. The main purpose of those seals is to indicate ownership of goods, while others have religious or magical significance.
Here we have an important question: relatively developed commercial points are generally connected with supply and demand. If we know that one end of this group of merchants is the luxury consumer group of Lianghe or even ancient Egypt, then the other end is in where? The geographical location of the Indus gives us a clear answer: Far East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia. As for their route to China, I think they mainly entered China through the Kunlun Mountains, but it is obvious that they will not give up the water road in the south. This may be one of the reasons why the Shandong area near the sea is highly civilized, but specifically they It is not clear whether it is related to the Dawenkou Culture, the Longshan Culture or the early Shang Dynasty more than 4,000 years ago. In particular, some coastal cities in Shandong, such as Heitao in Rizhao and other places, are so developed, which seems to imply the existence of a busy coastal waterway. Otherwise, Shandong people would have no need to set up ports on the seaside. This clue seems to explain why there were a large number of black people in China during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, because many black people have always lived in southern India.
I even wonder about their connection with the painted pottery culture and black pottery culture in China. I saw in the pictures that those two city-states still have small mountains of red pottery fragments. Are they the origins of red pottery? Then I saw their high-quality white pottery and black pottery in a video. But why are they divided into two relatively distinct regions in China?
As for the original human race in the Indus River Basin, there are also different opinions. Some think they are Dravidians, others think they are Sumerians or Aryans. I think it may be a relatively mixed group of people, because people in ancient times did not pay much attention to racial distinctions. It should not be surprising that they are mainly Dravidians, just like China was dominated by Mongolians at that time, and there were other races as well. The Dravidians have relatively darker skin color, so they are more yellow than the Chinese. If this group of people is really related to the creation of Chinese characters, the skin color characteristics of this group of people can't help but make people think of the myth that Chinese characters were created by Cangjie, the historian of the Yellow Emperor. The legendary Yellow Emperor of China lived from 5,000 years ago to the Western Zhou Dynasty. If they lived in the Shang Dynasty, there would be no problem logically. And the characteristic of the Yellow Emperor's skin being very "yellow" indicates that he was not a white man. Is the "Yellow Emperor" a right person? What about from the Indus Valley? Is he a certain emperor of the Shang Dynasty? If Chinese characters were indeed created in the "Pangeng" dynasty, then it can be inferred that "Pangeng" is actually the legendary "Yellow Emperor". Pan Geng is a very special character. It makes sense to say that he is the "Yellow Emperor" of China. Even according to modern anthropology, it can be said that "Chinese civilization" began with Pan Geng, because one of the five characteristics of "civilization" in the anthropological sense must have writing. There is also a theory of "Pangu" that seems to be related to "Pangeng". These can be discussed later. Pan Geng reigned for 42 years (?). If he was a promising king during such a long reign, he could indeed make some great achievements.
The language spoken by the Indus River residents is also a topic of endless debate among experts, from ancient Tamil in the Dravidian language family to Vedic Aryan, and Indo-European. However, no matter what these people say, it will not affect the use of their words by people from another language family. Language and writing can be separated. However, what language people spoke during the Shang Dynasty in China is still a problem, so there is no need to worry about this aspect.
In any case, the existing evidence can already show that there is indeed a close and complex connection between China and the lost Indus Valley Civilization. However, it is obvious that Chinese characters (oracle bone inscriptions) and "seal characters" are not completely corresponding systems, because there are only a few hundred "seal characters", while oracle bone inscriptions have now been found to have more than 4,000. It can be seen from the number alone that Chinese characters It is much more developed than "seal writing". But I have no doubt that one of the writing systems that drew the most heavy reference when creating Chinese characters was "seal writing". Some exiled Indus people even directly participated in the creation of Chinese characters, just like the initial spread of Buddhism was actually directly initiated by Some Indian monks got into the operation.
Therefore, the hasty conclusion is that the most direct basis of Chinese characters is the Harappan script!