Pottu and Namaste, 5,000-Year Old Traditions
Source: http://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97/
GUJARAT, INDIA, November 16, 2008: The sindhur, or pottu by which it is known in Southern India, a unique marking on the foreheads of Indians, dates back to the third millennium BCE. Even during the early days of civilization people used to wear the sindhur or tilak on their foreheads, excavations along the now defunct Saraswati river have proved. “The Indian woman had adorned her forehead with sindhur as a symbol of marriage. This perhaps also indicated the existence of a structural family life in an orderly society,” Prof B.B. Lal, former director general, Archaeological Survey of India told Deccan Chronicle.
“We came across the sindhur in terracotta figurines from the sites along the states of Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat. Carbon dating confirmed the fact that these terracotta figurines date back to the third millennium BC,” said Prof Lal. “Similarly the practice of greeting one another with namaste and the criss-cross pattern of furrows on farm lands, seen even today in Haryana and Rajasthan, date back to the Saraswati era,” he said.
The Harappan and Mohenjo Daro civilizations were only extensions of the Saraswati or Vedic Civilization, according to Prof Lal. “Since the excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo Daro happened simultaneously in 1920, they are known as Harappan civilizations. But the Saraswati civilization is much older than that of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro,” said Prof Lal.
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