Fact Check Has the Sindhu Ghati Lipi Indus Script Finally Been Decoded

Sindhu Ghati Lipi: Truth Behind the Latest Decoding Claims

Fact Check Has the Sindhu Ghati Lipi Indus Script Finally Been Decoded

The claim that the Sindhu Ghati (Indus Valley) language or script has been decoded is a topic of significant interest but requires careful fact-checking, as the Indus script remains one of the most enigmatic writing systems in history. 

Based on available information, including recent discussions and scholarly consensus, 

here’s a fact-checked response whether the Sindhu Ghati language has been decoded and can be read.

Fact-Checking the Claim

Claim: The Sindhu Ghati (Indus Valley) language/script has been decoded and can be read.

Verdict: False/Highly Unlikely.

The Indus Valley script has not been conclusively decoded, and no universally accepted method exists to read it as of May 31, 2025. Despite numerous attempts and claims, the script remains undeciphered due to several challenges, though some recent efforts have sparked debate.

Evidence and Analysis - 

Current Scholarly Consensus:

The Indus Valley script, used by the Harappan civilization (circa 3300–1700 BCE), consists of over 400 distinct symbols found on seals, pottery, and other artifacts at sites like Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa.

Despite extensive study, the script remains undeciphered primarily because:

Short Inscriptions: Most inscriptions are brief (4–5 symbols on average), making it difficult to identify patterns or grammar.

Unknown Language: The underlying language(s) of the Indus civilization is unknown, with hypotheses ranging from Proto-Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, or an entirely distinct language family.

Lack of Bilingual Texts: Unlike the Rosetta Stone for Egyptian hieroglyphs, no bilingual inscriptions exist to aid translation.

Leading scholars, including those at institutions like the Archaeological Survey of India and international universities, agree that no definitive decipherment has been achieved.

Recent Claims of Decipherment:

In January 2025, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin announced a reward for decoding the Indus script, highlighting its ongoing mystery and encouraging new research. 

This indicates that the script remains undeciphered, as such a high-profile initiative would not exist if a verified solution had been found.

A Quora post from 2023 mentions a German scholar, Egbert Richter-Ushanas, claiming the Indus script is related to the Rigveda and that the civilization was Vedic. 

However, this claim is not widely accepted in mainstream academia, as it lacks corroborating evidence and peer-reviewed validation. 

Most scholars dispute the direct linkage to Vedic Sanskrit due to chronological and linguistic discrepancies.

Fact-Checking Yajnadevam’s Claim

Claim: Yajnadevam asserts that he has deciphered the Indus Valley script by treating it as a cryptogram, identifying it as a proto-abugida (syllabic) script encoding post-Vedic Sanskrit, with translations of over 500 inscriptions, including references to Vedic deities and cultural practices.

Verdict: Unverified and Highly Contested. 

While Yajnadevam’s work is innovative and has sparked discussion, it lacks peer-reviewed validation, and many experts consider it speculative. 

The Indus script remains officially undeciphered, and his claim that it encodes Sanskrit faces significant skepticism due to methodological issues and historical inconsistencies.

Detailed Analysis

Yajnadevam’s Methodology:

Cryptographic Approach: Yajnadevam treats the Indus script as a cryptogram, applying techniques from Claude Shannon’s information theory, such as regular expressions and set-intersection, to decode symbols sequentially. He claims the script is proto-abugida (segmental, with signs for consonants and vowels) and matches Sanskrit grammar and vocabulary from the Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary.

Key Assertions:

The script encodes grammatically correct post-Vedic Sanskrit, with inscriptions mentioning Vedic deities (e.g., Indra, Rudra, Soma), yajnas (rituals), and trade activities like sea voyages.

Brahmi script evolved directly from the Indus script, supported by physical similarities and mixed Indus-Brahmi inscriptions (e.g., at Keezhadi, Tamil Nadu).

Over 500 inscriptions, including the longest and shortest, have been translated, surpassing Shannon’s criteria for credible decipherment.

Tools Developed: 

Yajnadevam created the “Indus Keyboard,” a web-based tool that maps Devanagari text to Indus script symbols, visualizing translations and highlighting connections to Brahmi.

Lack of Peer Review: Yajnadevam’s paper, “A Cryptanalytic Decipherment of the Indus Script” (last updated November 13, 2024), is available on Academia.edu but has not been published in a credible peer-reviewed journal, a major hurdle to academic acceptance

He dismisses Dravidian and other Indo-European languages (e.g., Avestan) without sufficient justification, focusing solely on Sanskrit.

The cryptographic approach, while innovative, is criticized for “fitting” data to preconceived outcomes, lacking falsifiability.

Yajnadevam’s work is provocative but not accepted by mainstream scholars. His paper’s lack of peer review and selective focus on Sanskrit raise doubts about its validity

Yajnadevam’s claim that the Indus script encodes Sanskrit, deciphered via cryptographic methods, is a bold hypothesis but remains unverified and highly contested. 

While his approach is innovative, the lack of peer review, selective focus on Sanskrit, and inconsistencies with archaeological and linguistic evidence undermine its credibility. 

The Indus script is still considered undeciphered by mainstream scholars

Challenges in Decoding:

Script Characteristics: The Indus script is pictographic or logographic, with no clear evidence of whether it represents a full writing system or a proto-writing system (e.g., for trade or administrative purposes).

Lack of Context: Without knowing the spoken language or having longer texts, statistical and computational approaches (e.g., by researchers like Iravatham Mahadevan or Asko Parpola) have failed to produce a consensus translation.

Historical Context: The Indus civilization’s script predates known Indo-Aryan languages like Sanskrit, and its relation to modern languages like Sindhi, Tamil, or Hindi is speculative. The Sindhi language, for instance, is an Indo-Aryan language with roots in later periods (post-712 CE), not directly linked to the Indus script.

Misinformation and Viral Claims:

Social media posts  sometimes amplify unverified claims about the Indus script being decoded ,many times their aim is just to get popular or make money .

No peer-reviewed study or major archaeological breakthrough reported by May 2025 confirms a successful decipherment.