Mountain symbol indicates the ‘land of the dead’ (Kur)

Abstract

The mountain symbol frequently occurs in Indus inscriptions on seals. Iravatham Mahadevan confirms this symbol as grapheme indicating a mountain. I think that this mountain symbol indicates ‘Kur’ that is the land of the dead (netherworld)

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Indian Historians are making a mistake by treating ‘Indus Valley civilization’ as a local development within India without any outside influence. This idea is harming the research on IVC and decipherment of the Indus script. We have to search for similar ideas in Sumerian civilization. That is the only way out for further progress in the Indus inscription decipherment effort.

‘Enlil’ was the mountain god of Sumerians; he has all the characteristics of God Shiva. He can be called as the precursor of the Hindu god ‘Shiva’. According to the ancient Sumerian texts, the Sumerian god, Anu, the “supreme Lord of the Sky“, had two sons. They were Enki (Ea), Lord of the Earth and Waters, and Enlil, Lord of the Air and Lord of the Command. These two half-brothers did not get along. To bring in a settlement, power was divided between two gods and Earth was given to God Enlil to rule over. Whereas the watery realms were given to God Ea. (1)

Enlil was associated with the ancient city of Nippur, sometimes referred to as the cult city of Enlil. His temple was named Ekur, “House of the Mountain.” Such was the sanctity acquired by this edifice that Babylonian and Assyrian rulers, down to the last days, vied with one another to embellish and restore Enlil’s seat of worship. Eventually, the name Ekur became the designation of a temple in general. (2)

Grouped around the main sanctuary, there arose temples and chapels to the gods and goddesses who formed his court, so that Ekur became the name for an entire sacred precinct in the city of Nippur. The term “mountain house” suggested a lofty structure and was perhaps the designation originally of the staged tower at Nippur, built in imitation of a mountain, with the sacred shrine of the god on the top. (2)

Enlil was also known as the god of weather. As Enlil was the only god who could reach An, the god of heaven, he held sway over the other gods who were assigned tasks by his agent and would travel to Nippur to draw in his power. He is thus seen as the model for kingship. (2)

The below-given extract is from the Grihya Sutras, Part 1 (SBE29), by Hermann Oldenberg, [1886], at sacred-texts.com (3) Refer to para no.10 given below, which shows that the mountain symbol indicates ‘god of Death’.

10 [*10]. After having with (the words), ‘A mountain (i.e. a stone) they shall place between themselves and death,’ placed a stone to the north of the fire, and having sacrificed with the four (verses), ‘Go hence, O death, on another way’ (Rig-Veda X, 18, 1-4),

Thus it can be safely assumed that the mountain symbol indicates god Rudra(Shiva) in the Indus Valley context ( God Enlil is the Sumerian equivalent) (3)

‘Kur’ symbol also indicates the same -netherworld

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Sumerian’ Kur symbol’

The ‘Kur’ symbol indicates the land of the dead people in Sumerian civilization. The land of ‘Kur’ could be either underworld or the mountain top. The nether world was indicated by a trifoliate pattern in the Indus symbol. Read my article on ‘Kur symbol indicates the land of the dead’ for more information (4).

This tri-foliate pattern indicates land of ‘Kur’ as per Wikipedia commons (4). It means “land, foreign land, mountain, and the underworld.” It is often used to refer to a distant land or the netherworld. In Inanna’s Descent, kur is the word frequently used to describe the land of the dead.

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Kur symbol in Indus seal inscription (Second symbol from left)

Picture courtesy – (5)

The sign also represents a trio of mountains. (6). In such a situation, the triple mountain symbol used in the Indus seal could be indicating the nether world $C:\Users\user\Desktop\ivc-logos-indus - 3\mountain.jpg$ .

1. halexandria.org. Enki and Enlil. halexandria.org. [Online] August 2015. http://www.halexandria.org/dward184.htm.

2. wikipedia(Enlil). /Enlil. en.wikipedia.org. [Online] August 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlil.

3. booklounge.org. asvalayana-grihya-sutra. religions.booklounge.org/. [Online] November 2015. http://religions.booklounge.org/index.php/hinduism/asvalayana-grihya-sutra.html#_toc332755348.

4. Jeyakumar(Kur-symbol). Kur_symbol_indicates_the_land_of_the_dead. www.academia.edu. [Online] 2016. https://www.academia.edu/26926251/Kur_symbol_indicates_the_land_of_the_dead.

5. commons.wikimedia(Sumerian_signs). Sumerian_signs. commons.wikimedia.org. [Online] 2016. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Sumerian_signs.

6. Sullivan, Sue. Indus Script Dictionary. s.l. : Suzanne Redalia, 2011.

7. allmesopotamia.tumblr.com. sumerian-kur-it-means. allmesopotamia.tumblr.com. [Online] 2016. http://allmesopotamia.tumblr.com/post/27778688368/rsbenedict-sunday-sumerian-kur-it-means.