[0241-2222] THE BURIED SCRIPT – Companion Dossier (PDF)

Description

In the winter of 1921, Archaeological Survey of India officers Rakhaldas Banerji and Daya Ram Sahni broke ground on the ancient mounds of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, uncovering standardized kiln-baked brickwork, sophisticated drainage networks, and mysterious steatite seals. When Director-General Sir John Marshall evaluated the artifacts in Simla, the discovery triggered an ideological crisis for the British Raj. The urban ruins, the ‘Dancing Girl’ bronze, the ‘Priest-King’ statue, and the enigmatic ‘Pashupati’ seal pointed to a complex civilization flourishing by 3000 BCE—predating the purported Aryan migrations by over a millennium. Threatened by findings that contradicted the Aryan Invasion Theory used to justify European colonial rule, establishment philologists such as Dr. A. Berriedale Keith mobilized to marginalize the evidence, dismissing a sophisticated written script as crude amulets. This Companion Dossier reconstructs the paper trail of imperial censorship, assembling original field notes, artifact inventories, and academic correspondence to demonstrate how institutional gatekeepers silenced South Asia’s earliest metropolis to preserve an imperial myth.