Announcing $1 million prize for deciphering the Indus script, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin lamented on Sunday that even a century after the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilisation, which has similarities with Tamil culture, the script is yet to be deciphered for everyone to understand.

Scholars and leaders of the Dravidian movement have long held that the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) is indeed a Tamil civilisation. Eminent historian and Tamilologist Asko Parpola and epigraphist Iravadam Mahadevan have said it was Tamil culture. And Stalin continues to uphold it to counter the recent right wing saffron attempts to present IVC as vedic and rechristen it as Sindu- Saraswati Civilisation.

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“It remains a mystery even after 100 years. Indus Valley Civilisation flourished once but we are unable to decipher the script. Besides archaeologists, Tamil software professionals across the globe continue to make efforts to decipher it. In order to encourage such efforts, the Tamil Nadu government will offer one million dollars to experts and organisations engaged in this task,” Stalin said, inaugurating the centenary celebration of the discovery of Indus Valley Civilisation by Sir John Marshal in Chennai.

A majority of symbols and seals of IVC have similarities with those unearthed in the excavations at Keeladi and Adichanallur, he said. While the similarities was about 60 per cent, it was 90 per cent for the writings found on the mud pots in both IVC and in ancient Tamil Nadu, it was pointed out. Drawing a connection with the bulls found in the Indus Valley seals and the traditional bull taming events (Jallikattu) in Alanganallur and across Tamil Nadu, he said both are part of a cultural continuum. “Bulls have spread from IVC to Alanganallur and wile Sangam literature eulogises ‘Eru Thazuvuthal’ (bull taming), in some IVC seals youth, attempting tane, are lifted by bulls,” he noted “When it was widely considered and imagined that Aryan and Sanskrit were the origin of India, Sir John Marshall’s oath breaking discovery has demystified it.

It was a turning point in history which brought a paradigm shift in understanding our past. Not only that, his argument pointing out that the symbols in the seals used for commercial purposes in the Indus Valley Civilisation had possessed 60 per cent similarities with the symbols found during archaeological excavation in Tamil Nadu,” Mr Stalin said, adding, “Archaeologists had established symbols in the pots of the Indus Valley Civilisation and the symbols found in the mud pots of Tamil Nadu had 90 per cent similarities.

IVC and the language they have spoken could be Dravidian has now got strengthened with new studies,” the chief minister said. On the occasion, Stalin also announced a ₹2 crore grant for instituting a chair in honour of Iravatham Mahadevan for research on IVC to be carried out jointly by the TN Archaeology Department and the Indus Research Centre of the Chennai-based Roja Muthiah Library.