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Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discussion
Bharat Rakshak -> History & Current Affairs Archive

#1: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discussion
Author: Kaushal, Posted: 12 Jun 2000

I have been going through some of the literature on this topic, and while I understand we have visited this topic before, it is a multi faceted one and merits continuing attention. This is from an excerpt from a book by David Frawley titled Arise Arjuna.
Chapter 17 - The Aryan Invasion of India
Questioned in the Western Textbooks

According to the Aryan Invasion Theory-which is the basis of interpreting the ancient history of India found in most books today-the Vedic people were barbarian
hordes who overran North India after 1500 BC. They destroyed the more advanced Dravidian civilization of the subcontinent, which is evidenced by the ruins of the
Harappan or Indus civilization. This theory is diametri-cally opposed to the traditional Hindu view of Vedic culture which regards it as indigenous from India, arising
on the Sarasvati river west of Delhi, and sees it as a culture of great spirituality ruled by seers and yogis.
The invasion idea was invented by nineteenth century European thinkers, and was mixed with colonial and missionary policies. It was always questioned by Hindus,
including great thinkers like Sri Aurobindo, Vivekananda. B.G.Tilak and Dayananda Sarasvati. It had no basis in the extensive. Vedic and Puranic literature which
speaks of no outside origin for the Vedic people. Yet owing to the European intellectual domination of the world, which followed its political domination, this idea
became regarded as the truth. It reduced the ancient history of India to a brutal invasion and coverup, with the perpetrators given the mantle of sages by the
ignorance of later generations!
Recently, however, this idea has been challenged again by a number of scholars east and west. Its opponents are becoming increasingly more numerous, raising more
and more objections, showing new astronomical, archeological, skeletal and geological evidence in favor of dismissing the theory. Meanwhile there has been no
substantial evidence to support the theory apart from the uncertainty of linguistic speculation. Everything that has been proposed to support it has been found not to
have really occurred or to have other causes.
For example, the Harappan cities were found to have been abandoned by climate and river changes, not destroyed by outside invaders, and the horse, thought to
have been first brought by the invading Aryans has been now been found to have existed already in many Harappan sites. Contrary to the theory, the picture has
emerged of an indigenous and organic development of civilization in ancient India going back to 6500 BC (the Mehrgarh site in Pakistan) with no break in continuity
and no significant outside invasions or migrations. Indeed it appears that in the coming years the Aryan invasion theory will soon be discarded all over the world.
Recently the monthly newspaper Hinduism Today (Dec. 1994) has come out against the Aryan Invasion Theory in its Time Line edition. Hinduism Today is largest
circulating Hindu monthly in the world Hinduism Today is published in the United States, though distributed world wide, including in India.
In defense of the theory, however, people point to the fact that it is still found in textbooks throughout the world, including in India, so that such new data against it
does not appear to have been accepted. Opponents of the theory have claimed that much of the data disproving it is new and has not yet had time to reach
textbooks, which usually represent information some decades old. Yet now the demise of the Aryan invasion theory is entering into the textbooks.
It is strange to see, however, that the first major university textbook to seriously question the theory has not come from India but from the West. In his recent edition
of Survey of Hinduism (Sunny, State University of New York Press 1994), Professor Klaus Klostermaier has noted important objections to this theory. He suggests
that the weight of evidence is against it and that it should no longer be regarded as the main model of interpreting ancient India. Survey of Hinduism is perhaps the
main textbook used in North America for university courses on the study of Hinduism.
Klostermaier is not a Hindu, in fact he is a Catholic priest. He is not speaking relative to any Hindu agenda but as a scholar and academician. Though as a teacher of
Hinduism he appears to have some sympathy with the tradition, he cannot be regarded as promoting Hinduism. He is critical of Hindu beliefs and practices in
different parts of his book. But the Aryan Invasion Theory is something he questions on the evidence.
He states (pg.34): "Both the spatial and the temporal extent of the Indus civilization has expanded dramatically on the basis of new excavations and the dating of the
Vedic age as well as the theory of an Aryan invasion of India has been shaken. We are required to completely reconsider not only certain aspects of Vedic India, but
the entire relationship between Indus civilization and Vedic culture." Later he adds (pg.3: "The certainty seems to be growing that the Indus civilization was carried
by the Vedic Indians, who were not invaders from Southern Russia but indigenous for an unknown period of time in the lower Central Himalayan regions."
He questions the difference proposed between Vedic and Indus culture and shows a continuity or possibility of identity between the two. He mentions the data on
the Sarasvati river, which according to scientific studies dried up around 1900 BC. As the Sarasvati is the main river of the Vedas, he states (pg.36): "If, As Muller
suggested, the Aryan invasion took place around 1500 BC, it does not make much sense to locate villages along the banks of the by then dried up Sarasvati."
He notes skeletal information that shows a continuity of the same racial and ethnic groups in ancient India as today, thus refuting the idea that India was populated by
an outside race in the ancient period. He notes the discovery of the ancient city of Dwaraka in Gujarat, the reputed city of Krishna, and its date to 1500 BC. He
notes astronomical evidence in Vedic texts that suggest early calendars contemporaneous with the Indus era.
He has been most influenced by the work of Subhash Kak and quotes him in several places, including Kak's decoding of what he calls "the astronomical code of the
Vedas." He also mentions from my work on the subject, as presented in my book Gods, Sages and Kings: Vedic Secrets of Ancient Civilization. He quote one long
passage of Kak (pg.3: by the middle of the fourth millennium BCE the Indo-European and the Dravidian words had already interacted and met across Northwest
India and the plateau of Iran....The Indo-European world at this time must already have stretched from Europe to North India and just below it lay the Dravidian
people. The interaction for centuries between these two powerful peoples gave rise to the Vedic language, which though structurally Indo-European, was greatly
influenced by the Dravidian language. The Vedic civilization of these two peoples as was the Harappan civilization.
These arguments represent the new data coming from various archaeologists and Vedic scholars. They do not come from Klostermaier, but clearly they are strong
enough to produce a case that ever Western academicians now have to listen to. They have caused Klostermaier to question the whole Western reading of the
Vedas, "We can be certain that these first efforts to get away from a historicist-humanistic Western reading of the Vedas will be followed by more detailed analyses
and probably quite startling discovers about the character and content of Vedic civilization. (pg. 3"
The same arguments have been raised in India by many writers, archaeologists, scientists and spiritual leaders, but still have not yet entered into the textbooks. Now
the question arises, if textbooks in the West can be changed in regard to the Aryan Invasion Theory, why cannot textbooks in India be changed, particularly as the
theory has frequently been used to discredit the culture of India and the Hindu religion? We would expect that textbooks in India would be the first to change on this
matter and not have to follow those in the West. Surely if new data arose in a Western country and literature, the entire country would be quick to proclaim the new
information.
Unfortunately India does not appear to want to acknowledge its past, particularly if it gives credence to its spiritual tradition which a number of groups oppose. They
Aryan Invasion Theory has become a matter of political importance in the country, and politics is always willing to twist things for its electoral needs.
The British rulers of colonial India, Marxists scholars and politicians, Dravidian nationalists, Caste Reform advocates of various types, Christian missionaries and
Muslim groups have used the invasion theory to discredit or divide Hindu culture, particularly to attack its Brahmanical side. Even today one can see "Brahmins go
home (to Central Asia)," painted on walls as political propaganda in south India. Dravidians, the lower castes, and Muslims have all at times identified themselves
with the pre-Aryan indigenous people of India whom the invading Aryans were supposed to have conquered and enslaved. Clearly several groups have part of their
identify invested in the invasion theory that would be disconcerting to lose. On the other hand, many of the founders of the Indian independence movement like Tilak
and Aurobindo wrote against the theory. It appeared important to them in restoring Indian identity to reestablish the credibility of ancient Indian civilization and its
continuity.
Yet whatever one's social views, history should not be subject to them but should be examined according to the facts. Now the facts severely question the Aryan
Invasion Theory, so that it should no longer be portrayed as the truth. The events in a country today should not be made hostage to its history of over four thousand
years ago, whatever it might have been. Only in India does this occur. Yet India must now look at its ancient history anew, in the light of the collapse of the invasion
theory. A greater continuity to Indian civilization is revealed that hopefully can bring more wholeness to the country.
If the Aryan Invasion Theory is not true it means that India is the oldest most continuous civilization in the world, with the oldest and most extensive literature (the
Vedas), and is therefore one of the great centers of world civilization rivalling those of Egypt and Babylonia. It is a heritage to be proud of, however one may wish to
interpret it.
Back to Table of Contents of Arise Arjuna
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#2: Author: Kaushal, Posted: 12 Jun 2000 Questioning the Aryan Invasion Theory and
Revising Ancient Indian History1
Klaus Klostermaier
NB. The footnotes for this article are linked to a separate footnote page.
Introduction
Tacitus, the classical Roman writer, claimed to have described past events and
personalities in his works sine ira et studio, free from hostility and bias. This motto has
guided serious historians through the ages, and it became their highest ambition to write
history 'objectively', distancing themselves from opinions held by interested parties.
The ideal was not always followed, as we know. We have seen twentieth century
governments commissioning re-writings of the histories of their countries from the
standpoint of their own ideologies. Like the court-chroniclers of former times, some
contemporary academic historians wrote unashamedly biased accounts of events and
redesigned the past accordingly.
When, in the wake of World War II the nations of Asia and Africa gained
independence, their intellectuals became aware of the fact that their histories had been
written by representatives of the colonial powers which they had opposed. More often
than not they discovered that all traditional accounts of their own past had been brushed
aside by the 'official' historians as so much myth and fairytale. Often lacking their own
academically trained historians-or worse, only possessing native historians who had
taken over the views of the colonial masters-the discontent with existing histories of their
countries expressed itself often in vernacular works that lacked the academic credentials
necessary to make an impact on professional historians.
The situation is slowly changing. A new generation of scholars who grew up in
post-colonial times and who do not share the former biases, scholars in command of the
tools of the trade-intimacy with the languages involved, familiarity with the culture of
their countries, respect for the indigenous traditions-are rewriting the histories of their
countries.
Nowhere is this more evident than in India. India had a tradition of learning and
scholarship much older and vaster than the European countries that, from the sixteenth
century onwards, became its political masters. Indian scholars are rewriting the history
of India today.
The Aryan Invasion Theory and the Old Chronology
One of the major points of revision concerns the so called 'Aryan invasion theory', often
referred to as 'colonial-missionary', implying that it was the brainchild of conquerors of
foreign colonies who could not but imagine that all higher culture had to come from
outside 'backward' India, and who likewise assumed that a religion could only spread
through a politically supported missionary effort.
While not buying into the more sinister version of this revision, which accuses the
inventors of the Aryan invasion theory of malice and cynicism, there is no doubt that
early European attempts to explain the presence of Indians in India had much to with the
commonly held Biblical belief that humankind originated from one pair of humans-
Adam and Eve to be precise (their common birth date was believed to be c.4005
BCE)-and that all peoples on earth descended from one of the sons of Noah, the only
human to survive the Great Flood (dated at 2500 BCE). The only problem seemed to be
to connect peoples not mentioned in Chapter 10 of Genesis ['The Peopling of the Earth']
with one of the Biblical genealogical lists.
One such example of a Christian historian attempting to explain the presence of Indians
in India is the famous Abbé Dubois (1770-1848), whose long sojourn in India
(1792-1823) enabled him to collect a large amount of interesting materials concerning
the customs and traditions of the Hindus. His (French) manuscript was bought by the
British East India Company and appeared in an English translation under the title Hindu
Manners, Customs and Ceremonies in 1897 with a Prefatory Note by the Right Hon.
F. Max Müller.2 Abbé Dubois, loath 'to oppose [his] conjectures to [the Indians']
absurd fables' categorically stated:
It is practically admitted that India was inhabited very soon after the Deluge,
which made a desert of the whole world. The fact that it was so close to the
plains of Sennaar, where Noah's descendants remained stationary so long, as well
as its good climate and the fertility of the country, soon led to its settlement.
Rejecting other scholars' opinions which linked the Indians to Egyptian or Arabic origins,
he ventured to suggest them 'to be descendents not of Shem, as many argue, but of
Japhet'. He explains: 'According to my theory they reached India from the north, and I
should place the first abode of their ancestors in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus.'3
The reasons he provides to substantiate his theory are utterly unconvincing-but he goes
on to build the rest of his migration theory (not yet an 'Aryan' migration theory) on this
shaky foundation.
Max Müller (1823-1903), who was largely responsible for the 'Aryan invasion theory'
and the 'old chronology', was too close in spirit and time to this kind of thinking, not to
have adopted it fairly unquestioningly. In his Prefatory Note he praises the work of
Abbé Dubois as a 'trustworthy authority. . .which will always retain its value.'
That a great deal of early British Indology was motivated by Christian missionary
considerations, is no secret. The famous and important Boden Chair for Sanskrit at the
University of Oxford was founded by Colonel Boden in 1811 with the explicit object 'to
promote the translation of the Scriptures into Sanskrit, so as to enable his countrymen to
proceed in the conversion of the natives of India to the Christian Religion'.4 Max Müller,
in a letter to his wife wrote in 1886: 'The translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a
great extent on the fate of India and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It
is the root of their religion, and to show them what the root is, I feel sure, is the only way
of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last 3 000 years.'5
When the affinity between many European languages and Sanskrit became a commonly
accepted notion, scholars almost automatically concluded that the Sanskrit speaking
ancestors of the present day Indians were to be found somewhere halfway between
India and the Western borders of Europe-Northern Germany, Scandinavia, Southern
Russia, the Pamir-from which they invaded the Punjab. (It is also worth noting that the
early armchair scholars who conceived these grandiose migration theories, had no actual
knowledge of the terrain their 'Aryan invaders' were supposed to have transversed, the
passes they were supposed to have crossed, or the various climates they were believed
to have been living in). Assuming that the Vedic Indians were semi-nomadic warriors
and cattle-breeders, it fitted the picture, when Mohenjo Daro and Harappa were
discovered, to also assume that these were the cities the Aryan invaders destroyed
under the leadership of their god Indra, the 'city-destroyer', and that the dark-skinned
indigenous people were the ones on whom they imposed their religion and their caste
system.
Western scholars decided to apply their own methodologies and, in the absence of
reliable evidence, postulated a timeframe for Indian history on the basis of conjectures.
Considering the traditional dates for the life of Gautama, the Buddha, as fairly well
established in the sixth century BCE, supposedly pre-Buddhist Indian records were
placed in a sequence that seemed plausible to philologists. Accepting on linguistic
grounds the traditional claims that the Rigveda was the oldest Indian literary document,
Max Müller allowing a time-span of two hundred years each for the formation of every
class of Vedic literature, and assuming that the Vedic period had come to an end by the
time of the Buddha, established the following sequence that was widely accepted:
Rigveda c. 1200 BCE
Yajurveda,Samaveda,Atharvaveda, c. 1000 BCE
Brahmanas, c. 800 BCE
Aranyakas,Upanishads, c. 600 BCE
Max Müller himself conceded the purely conjectural nature of the Vedic chronology,
and in the last work published shortly before his death, The Six Systems of Indian
Philosophy, admitted: 'Whatever may be the date of the Vedic hymns, whether 1500 or
15 000 BCE, they have their own unique place and stand by themselves in the literature
of the world' (p.35). There were, even in Max Müller's time, Western and Indian
scholars, such as Moriz Winternitz and Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who disagreed with his
chronology and postulated a much higher age for the Rigveda.
Indian scholars pointed out all along that there was no reference in the Veda of a
migration from outside India, that all the geographical features mentioned in the Rigveda
are those of north-western India and that there was no archaeological evidence
whatsoever for the Aryan invasion theory. On the other side there were references to
constellations in Vedic works whose timeframe could be calculated. The dates arrived
at, however, 4500 BCE for one observation in the Rigveda, 3200 BCE for a date in the
Shatapatha Brahmana, seemed far too remote to be acceptable, especially if one
assumed-as many nineteenth century scholars did, that the world was only about 6 000
years old and that the flood had taken place only 4 500 years ago.
Debunking the Aryan Invasion Theory: The New Chronology
Contemporary Indian scholars, admittedly motivated not only by academic interests,
vehemently reject what they call the 'colonial-missionary Aryan invasion theory'. They
accuse its originators of superimposing-for a reason-the purpose and process of the
colonial conquest of India by the Western powers in modern times onto the beginnings
of Indian civilisation: as the Europeans came to India as bearers of a supposedly
superior civilisation and a higher religion, so the original Aryans were assumed to have
invaded a country on which they imposed their culture and their religion.
A recent major work offers 'seventeen arguments: why the Aryan invasion never
happened'.6 It may be worthwhile summarising and analysing them briefly:
1.The Aryan invasion model is largely based on linguistic conjectures which are
unjustified (and wrong). Languages develop much more slowly than assumed by
nineteenth century scholars. According to Renfrew speakers of Indo-European
languages may have lived in Anatolia as early as 7000 BCE
2.The supposed large-scale migrations of Aryan people in the second millennium
BCE first into Western Asia and then into northern India (by 1500 BCE) cannot be
maintained in view of the fact that the Hittites were in Anatolia already by 2200
BCE and the Kassites and Mitanni had kings and dynasties by 1600 BCE
3.There is no memory of an invasion or of large-scale migration in the records of
Ancient India-neither in the Vedas, Buddhist or Jain writings, nor in Tamil
literature. The fauna and flora, the geography and the climate described in the
Rigveda are that of Northern India.
4.There is a striking cultural continuity between the archaeological artefacts of the
Indus-Saraswati civilisation and subsequent Indian society and culture: a
continuity of religious ideas, arts, crafts, architecture, system of weights and
measures.
5.The archaeological finds of Mehrgarh (copper, cattle, barley) reveal a culture
similar to that of the Vedic Indians. Contrary to former interpretations, the
Rigveda shows not a nomadic but an urban culture (purusa as derived from pur
vasa = town-dweller).
6.The Aryan invasion theory was based on the assumption that a nomadic people in
possession of horses and chariots defeated an urban civilisation that did not know
horses, and that horses are depicted only from the middle of the second
millennium onwards. Meanwhile archaeological evidence for horses has been
found in Harappan and pre-Harappan sites; drawings of horses have been found
in paleolithic caves in India; drawings of riders on horses dated c. 4300 BCE
have been found in Ukraina. Horsedrawn war chariots are not typical for
nomadic breeders but for urban civilisations.
7.The racial diversity found in skeletons in the cities of the Indus civilisation is the
same as in India today; there is no evidence of the coming of a new race.
8.The Rigveda describes a river system in North India that is pre-1900 BCE in the
case of the Saraswati river, and pre-2600 BCE in the case of the Drishadvati river.
Vedic literature shows a population shift from the Saraswati (Rigveda) to the
Ganges (Brahmanas and Puranas), also evidenced by archaeological finds.
9.The astronomical references in the Rigveda are based on a Pleiades-Krittika
(Taurean) calendar of c. 2500 BCE when Vedic astronomy and mathematics were
well-developed sciences (again, not a feature of a nomadic people).
10.The Indus cities were not destroyed by invaders but deserted by their inhabitants
because of desertification of the area. Strabo (Geography XV.1.19) reports that
Aristobulos had seen thousands of villages and towns deserted because the Indus
had changed its course.
11.The battles described in the Rigveda were not fought between invaders and
natives but between people belonging to the same culture.
12.Excavations in Dwaraka have lead to the discovery of a site larger than
Mohenjodaro, dated c. 1500 BCE with architectural structures, use of iron, a
script halfway between Harappan and Brahmi. Dwarka has been associated with
Krishna and the end of the Vedic period.
13.A continuity in the morphology of scripts: Harappan, Brahmi, Devanagari.
14.Vedic ayas, formerly translated as 'iron,' probably meant copper or bronze. Iron
was found in India before 1500 BCE in Kashmir and Dwaraka.
15.The Puranic dynastic lists with over 120 kings in one Vedic dynasty alone, fit well
into the 'new chronology'. They date back to the third millennium BCE Greek
accounts tell of Indian royal lists going back to the seventh millennium BCE.
16.The Rigveda itself shows an advanced and sophisticated culture, the product of a
long development, 'a civilisation that could not have been delivered to India on
horseback' (p.160).
17.Painted Gray Ware culture in the western Gangetic plains, dated ca 1100 BCE has
been found connected to (earlier) Black and Red Ware etc.
Let us consider some of these arguments in some detail. As often remarked, there is no
hint in the Veda of a migration of the people that considered it its own sacred tradition.
It would be strange indeed if the Vedic Indians had lost all recollection of such a
momentous event in supposedly relatively recent times- much more recent, for instance,
than the migration of Abraham and his people which is well attested and frequently
referred to in the Bible. In addition, as has been established recently through satellite
photography and geological investigations, the Saraswati, the mightiest river known to
the Rigvedic Indians, along whose banks they established numerous major settlements,
had dried out completely by 1900 BCE-four centuries before the Aryans were supposed
to have invaded India. One can hardly argue for the establishment of Aryan villages
along a dry river bed.
When the first remnants of the ruins of the so-called Indus civilisation came to light in the
early part of our century, the proponents of the Aryan invasion theory believed they had
found the missing archaeological evidence: here were the 'mighty forts' and the 'great
cities' which the war-like Indra of the Rigveda was said to have conquered and
destroyed. Then it emerged that nobody had destroyed these cities and no evidence of
wars of conquest came to light: floods and droughts had made it impossible to sustain
large populations in the area and the people of Mohenjo Daro, Harappa and other
places had migrated to more hospitable areas. Ongoing archaeological research has not
only extended the area of the Indus-civilisation but has also shown a transition of its later
phases to the Gangetic culture. Archeo-geographers have established that a drought
lasting two to three hundred years devastated a wide belt of land from Anatolia through
Mesopotamia to Northern India around 2300 BCE to 2000 BCE.
Based on this type of evidence and extrapolating from the Vedic texts, a new story of
the origins of Hinduism is emerging that reflects the self-consciousness of Hindus and
which attempts to replace the 'colonial-missionary Aryan invasion theory' by a vision of
'India as the Cradle of Civilisation.' This new theory considers the Indus-civilisation as a
late Vedic phenomenon and pushes the (inner-Indian) beginnings of the Vedic age back
by several thousands of years. One of the reasons for considering the Indus civilisation
'Vedic' is the evidence of town-planning and architectural design that required a fairly
advanced algebraic geometry-of the type preserved in the Vedic Shulvasutras. The
widely respected historian of mathematics A. Seidenberg came to the conclusion, after
studying the geometry used in building the Egyptian pyramids and the Mesopotamian
citadels, that it reflected a derivative geometry-a geometry derived from the Vedic
Shulva-sutras. If that is so, then the knowledge ('Veda') on which the construction of
Harappa and Mohenjo Daro is based, cannot be later than that civilisation itself.7
While the Rigveda has always been held to be the oldest literary document of India and
was considered to have preserved the oldest form of Sanskrit, Indians have not taken it
to be the source for their early history. The Itihasa-Purana served that purpose. The
language of these works is more recent than that of the Vedas and the time of their final
redaction is much later than the fixation of the Vedic canon. However, they contain
detailed information about ancient events and personalities that form part of Indian
history. The Ancients, like Herodotus, the father of Greek histo-riography, did not
separate story from history. Nor did they question their sources but tended to juxtapose
various pieces of evidence without critically sifting it. Thus we cannot read
Itihasa-Purana as the equivalent of a modern textbook of Indian history but rather as a
storybook containing information with interpretation, facts and fiction. Indians, however,
always took genealogies quite seriously and we can presume that the Puranic lists of
dynasties, like the lists of paramparas in the Upanishads relate the names of real rulers
in the correct sequence. On these assumptions we can tentatively reconstruct Indian
history to a time around 4500 BCE.
A key element in the revision of Ancient Indian History was the recent discovery of
Mehrgarh, a settlement in the Hindukush area, that was continuously inhabited for
several thousand years from c. 7000 BCE onwards. This discovery has extended Indian
history for several thousands of years before the fairly well dateable Indus civilisation.8
New Chronologies
Pulling together available archaeological evidence as it is available today, the American
anthropologist James G. Schaffer developed the following chronology of early Indian
civilisation:
1.Early food-producing era (c. 6500-5000 BCE): no pottery.
2.Regionalisation era (5000-2600 BCE): distinct regional styles of pottery and other
artefacts.
3.Integration era (2600-1900 BCE) : cultural homogeneity and emergence of urban
centres like Mohenjo daro and Harappa.
4.Localisation era (1900-1300 BCE ) blending of patterns from the integration era
with regional ceramic styles.
The Indian archaeologist S.P. Gupta proposed this cultural sequencing:
1.Pre-ceramic Neolithic (8000-600 BCE)
2.Ceramic Neolithic (6000-5000 BCE)
3.Chalcolithic (5000-3000 BCE )
4.Early Bronze Age (3000-1900 BCE)
5.Late Bronze Age ( 1900-1200 BCE)
6.Early Iron Age (1200-800 BCE)
7.Late Iron cultures
According to these specialists, there is no break in the cultural development from 8000
BCE onwards, no indication of a major change, as an invasion from outside would
certainly be.
A more detailed 'New Chronology' of Ancient India, locating names of kings and tribes
mentioned in the Vedas and Puranas, according to Rajarama9 looks somewhat like this:
4500 BCE: Mandhatri's victory over the Drohyus, alluded to in the Puranas.
4000 BCE Rigveda (excepting books 1 and 10)
3700 BCE Battle of Ten Kings (referred to in the Rigveda) Beginning of Puranic
dynastic lists: Agastya, the messenger of Vedic religion in the Dravida country.
Vasistha, his younger brother, author of Vedic works. Rama and Ramayana.
3600 BCEYajur-, Sama-, Atharvaveda: Completion of Vedic Canon.
3100 BCE Age of Krishna and Vyasa. Mahabharata War. Early Mahabharata.
3000 BCEShatapathabrahmana, Shulvasutras, Yajnavalkyasutra, Panini,
author of the Ashtadhyayi, Yaska, author of the Nirukta.
2900 BCE Rise of the civilisations of Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and the
Indus-Sarasvati doab.
2200 BCE beginning of large-scale drought: decline of Harappa.
2000 BCE End of Vedic age.
1900 BCE Saraswati completely dried out: end of Harappa.
Texts like the Rigveda, the Shatapathabrahmana and others contain references to
eclipses as well as to sidereal markers of the beginning of seasons, which allow us by
backward calculation, to determine the time of their composition. Experts assure us that
to falsify these dates would have been impossible before the computer age.
Old verses new? Or scientists verses philologists?
We are left, at present, with two widely differing versions of Ancient Indian History, with
two radically divergent sets of chronology and with a great deal of polemic from both
sides. Those who defend the Aryan invasion theory and the chronology associated with
it accuse the proponents of the 'New Chronology' of indulging in Hindu chauvinism. The
latter suspect the former of entertaining 'colonial-missionary' prejudices and denying
originality to the indigenous Indians. The new element that has entered the debate is
scientific investigations. While the older theory rested on exclusively philological
arguments, the new theory includes astronomical, geological, mathematical and
archaeological evidence. On the whole, the latter seems to rest on better foundations.
Not only were the philological arguments from the very beginning based more on strong
assertions and bold guesses, civilisations both ancient and contemporary comprise more
than literature alone. In addition, purely philologically trained scholars-namely
grammarians-are not able to make sense of technical language and of scientific
information contained even in the texts they study.
Consider today's scientific literature. It abounds with Greek and Latin technical terms, it
contains an abundance of formulae composed of Greek and Hebrew letters. If scholars
with a background in the classical languages were to read such works, they might be
able to come up with some acceptable translations of technical terms into modern
English but they would hardly be able to really make sense of most of what they read
and they certainly would not extract the information which the authors of these works
wished to convey to people trained in their specialities. The situation is not too different
with regard to ancient Indian texts. The admission of some of the best scholars (like
Geldner, who in his translation of the Rigveda, considered the best so far, declares many
passages 'darker than the darkest oracle' or Gonda, who considered the Rigveda
basically untranslatable) of being unable to make sense of a great many texts-and the
refusal of most to go beyond a grammatical and etymological analysis of these-indicates
a deeper problem. The Ancients were not only poets and litterateurs, but they also had
their sciences and their technical skills, their secrets and their conventions that are not
self-evident to someone not sharing their world. Some progress has been made in
deciphering medical and astronomical literature of a later age, in reading architectural
and arts-related materials. However, much of the technical meaning of the oldest Vedic
literature still eludes us.
The Rigveda-a code?
The computer scientist and Indologist Subhash Kak believes he has rediscovered the
'Vedic Code' which allows him to extract from the structure, as well as the words and
sentences of the Rigveda, and the considerable astronomical information which its
authors supposedly embedded in it.10 The assumption of such encoded scientific
knowledge would make it understandable why there was such insistence on the
preservation of every letter of the text in precisely the sequence the original author had
set down. One can take certain liberties with a story, or even a poem, changing words,
transposing lines, adding explanatory matter, shortening it, if necessary, and still
communicate the intentions and ideas of the author. However, one has to remember and
reproduce a scientific formula in precisely the same way it has been set down by the
scientist or it would not make sense at all. While the scientific community can arbitrarily
adopt certain letter equivalents for physical units or processes, once it has agreed on
their use, one must obey the conventions for the sake of meaningful communication.
Even a non-specialist reader of ancient Indian literature will notice the effort to link
macrocosm and microcosm, astronomical and physiological processes, to find
correspondences between the various realms of beings and to order the universe by
establishing broad classifications. Vedic sacrifices-the central act of Vedic culture-
were to be offered on precisely built geometrically constructed altars and to be
performed at astronomically exactly established times. It sounds plausible to expect a
correlation between the numbers of bricks prescribed for a particular altar and the
distances between stars observed whose movement determined the time of the offerings
to be made. Subhash Kak has advanced a great deal of fascinating detail in that
connection in his essays on the 'Astronomy of the Vedic Altar'. He believes that while
the Vedic Indians possessed extensive astronomical knowledge, which they encoded in
the text of the Rigveda, the code was lost in later times and the Vedic tradition was
interrupted.11
India, the cradle of (world-) civilisation?
Based on the early dating of the Rigveda (c. 4000 BCE) and on the strength of the
argument that Vedic astronomy and geometry predates that of the other known Ancient
civilisations, some scholars, like N.S. Rajaram, George Feuerstein, Subhash Kak and
David Frawley, have made the daring suggestion that India was the 'cradle of
civilisation'. They link the recently discovered early European civilisation (which predates
Ancient Sumeria and Ancient Egypt by over a millennium) to waves of populations
moving out or driven out from north-west India. Later migrations, caused either by
climatic changes or by military events, would have brought the Hittites to Western Asia,
the Iranians to Afghanistan and Iran and many others to other parts of Eurasia. Such a
scenario would require a complete rewriting of Ancient World History-especially if we
add the claims, apparently substantiated by some material evidence, that Vedic Indians
had established trade links with Central America and Eastern Africa before 2500 BCE. It
is no wonder that the 'New Chronology' arouses not only scholarly controversy but
emotional excitement as well. Much more hard evidence will be required to fully
establish it, and many claims may have to be withdrawn. But there is no doubt that the
'old chronology' has been discredited and that much surprise is in store for the students
not only of Ancient India, but also of the Ancient World as a whole.
Sorting out the questions:
The 'Revision of Ancient Indian History' responds to several separate, but interlocking
questions that are often confused.
1.The (emotionally) most important question is that of the original home of Vedic
civilisation, identified with the question: where was the (Rig-)Veda composed?
India's indigenous answer to that question had always been 'India', more precisely
'the Punjab'. The European, 'colonial missionary' assumption, was 'outside India'.
2.The next question, not often explicitly asked, is: where did the pre-Vedic people,
the 'Aryans' come from? This is a problem for archeo-anthropologists rather than
for historians. The racial history of India shows influences from many quarters.
3.A related, but separate question concerns the 'cradle of civilisation', to which
several ancient cultures have laid claim: Sumeria, Egypt, India (possibly also
China could be mentioned, which considered itself for a long time the only truly
civilised country). Depending on what answer we receive, the major expansion of
population/civilisation would be from west to east, or from east to west. The
famous lux ex oriente has often been applied to the spread of culture in the
ancient world. India was as far as the 'Orient' would go.
4.It is rather strange that the defenders of the 'Aryan invasion theory', who have
neither archaeological nor literary documents to prove their assumption, demand
detailed proof for the non-invasion and refuse to admit the evidence available.
Similarly, they feel entitled to declare 'mythical' whatever the sources (Rigveda,
Puranas) say that does not agree with their preconceived notions of Vedic India.
Some conclusions:
If I were to judge the strength of the arguments for revising Ancient Indian History in the
direction of 'India as Cradle of Civilisation' I would rate Seidenberg's findings
concerning the Shulvasutra geometry (applied in the Indus civilisation; Babylonian and
Egyptian geometry derivative to it) highest. Next would be the archeo-astronomical
determination of astronomical data in Vedic and post-Vedic texts. Third is the satellite
photography based dating of the drying out of the Saraswati and the
archeo-geographical finding of a centuries long drought in the belt reaching from
Anatolia through Mesopotamia and Northern India. Geological research has uncovered
major tectonic changes in the Punjab and the foothills of the Himalayas. At one point a
section rose about sixty metres within the past 2 000 years.
'Vasishta's Head', a bronze head found near Delhi, was dated through radio-carbon
testing to around 3700 BCE- the time when, according to Hicks and Anderson, the
Battle of the Ten Kings took place (Vasishta, mentioned in the Rigveda, was the advisor
to King Sudas). A further factor speaking for the 'Vedic' character of the Indus
civilisation is the occurrence of (Vedic) altars in many sites. Fairly important is also the
absence of a memory of a migration from outside India in all of ancient Indian literature:
the Veda, the Brahmanas, the Epics and the Puranas. Granting that the Vedic Samhitas
were ritual manuals rather than historic records, further progress in revising Ancient
Indian History could be expected from a study of Itihasa-Purana, rather than from an
analysis of the Rigveda (by way of parallel, what kind of reconstruction of Ancient
Israel's History could be done on the basis of a study of the Psalms, leaving out Genesis
and Kings? Or what reconstruction of European History could be based on a study of
the earliest Rituale Romanum?)
An afterword:
Hinduism today is not just a development of Vedic religion and culture but a synthesis of
many diverse elements. There is no doubt a Vedic basis. It is evident in the
caste-structure of Hindu society, in the rituals which almost every Hindu still undergoes
(especially initiation, marriage and last rites), in traditional notions of ritual purity and
pollution, and in the respect which the Veda still commands. There is a large area of
Hindu worship and religious practice for which the Veda provides little or no basis:
temple-building, image worship, pilgrimages, vows and prayers to gods and goddesses
not mentioned in the Veda, beliefs like transmigration, world-pictures containing
numerous heavens and hells and much more which appear to have been taken over from
non-Vedic indigenous cultures. There have been historic developments that led to the
developments of numerous schools of thought, sects and communities differing from
each other in scriptures, interpretations, customs, beliefs.
Apart from its Vedic origins Hinduism was never one in either administration, doctrine or
practice. It does not possess a commonly accepted authority, does not have a single
centre and does not have a common history. Unlike the histories of other religions,
which rely on one founder and one scripture, the history of Hinduism is a bundle of
parallel histories of traditions that were loosely defined from the very beginning, that
went through a number of fissions and fusions, and that do not feel any need to seek
their identity in conforming to a specific historic realisation. While incredibly conservative
in some of its expressions, Hinduism is very open to change and development under the
influence of charismatic personalities. From early times great latitude was given to
Hindus to interpret their traditional scriptures in a great many different ways. The ease
with which Hindus have always identified persons that impressed them with
manifestations of God has led to many parallel traditions within Hinduism, making it
impossible to chronicle a development of Hinduism along one line. The presentation of a
history of Hinduism will be a record of several mainstream Hindu traditions that
developed along individual lines; only very rarely do these lines meet in conflict or merge
to generate new branches of the still vigorously growing banyan tree to which Hinduism
has been often compared.

#3: Author: Kaushal, Posted: 12 Jun 2000
Footnotes and references for
Questioning the Aryan Invasion Theory and Revising Ancient Indian
History
References
Feuerstein, George, Subhash Kak and David Frawley, In Search of the Cradle
of Civilization, Quest Books: Wheaton, Ill. 1995
Frawley, David, The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India, New Delhi: Voice of
India, 1994
Frawley, David, Gods, Sages and Kings: Vedic Secrets of Ancient Civilization,
Passage Press: Salt Lake City, Utah, 1991
Hinduism Today, November 1991 (International Edition): 'Invasion or
Indigenous?' p. 13
HIND.TXT;1 (Internet) communication of 9, April 1996: 'A History of India and
Hindu Dharma' (Hinduism Today)
Kak, Subhash, The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda, New Delhi: Aditya
Prakashan, 1994
Kak, Subhash, 'Archaeoastronomy and literature', Current Science Vol. 73, No.
7 (October 10, 1997): Historical Notes, pp. 62-47
Mueller, Georgina, The Life and Letters of Right Honorable Friedrich Max
Muller, 2 vols. London: Longman, 1902
Rajaram, Navaratha S., 'The Puzzle of Origins: New Researches in History of
Mathematics and Ancient Ecology', MANTHAN, Oct. 1994-March 1995,
pp.150-71
Rajaram, N.S. and David Frawley, Vedic Aryans and the Origins of
Civilization, 2nd ed New Delhi: Voice of India, 1997
Seidenberg, A. 'The Geometry of the Vedic Rituals' Agni: The Vedic Ritual of
the Fire Altar, Vol. II, ed. by Frits Staal, Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press,
1983, pp. 95-126
Seidenberg, A. 'The Origin of Mathematics', Archive for History of Exact
Sciences, Vol. 19, No.4 (1978), pp.301-42
Talageri, Shrikant G. The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism, New
Delhi: Voice of India, 1993
Zabern, Philipp von, (ed.) Vergessene Städte am Indus: Frühe Kulturen in
Pakistan vom 8 -2 Jahrtausend v.Chr. , Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von
Zabern, n.d. (c. 1984) (Contains important contributions by C. and J.-F. Jarrige,
as well as by G. Quivron on Mehrgarh, R. Mughal, G. F. Dales and others on the
Indus Civilisation).

Footnotes
1.This paper is a slightly revised version of a seminar presentation at the
School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS) University of London on
21, January 1998.

2.Dubois, Abbe, Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, English
translation by Henry K. Beauchamp, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906
(third edition reprint, 1959)

3.Ibid., p.101

4.Preface to New Edition of M. Molier-Williams Sanskrit-English
Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899 (Reprint 1964), p. IX

5.Muller, Georgina, The Life and Letters of Right Honorable Friedrich
Max Muller, 2 Vols. London: Longman, 1902. Vol. I, p.346

6.G. Feuerstein, S. Kak, D.Frawley, In search of the Cradle of
Civilization, Wheaton: Quest Books, Ill., 1996

7.See A. Seidenberg.

8. See Philip von Zabern (ed.).

9. See N. S. Rajaram.

10.See entries under S. Kak.

11.The substance of S. Kak's essay 'The Astronomy of the Vedic Altars' is
found in S. Kak's book The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda. The
article itself was originally published in Mankind Quarterly, 33 (1992),
pp. 43-55.

#4: Author: Kaushal, Posted: 12 Jun 2000
A response to
Questioning the Aryan Invasion Theory
and Revising Ancient Indian History
by Klaus Klostermaier, ICJ Vol. 6, No. 1
Edwin Bryant
Klostermaier has provided a useful summary of some of the main tenets of a version of
ancient history which is on the ascendancy amongst Indian historians and archaeologists.
Indeed, the basic idea of indigenous version of ancient history, which is on the
ascendancy amongst Indian Indo-Aryan origins (or at least openness to reconsidering
the Aryan Migration thesis), is rapidly becoming the dominant, but by no means
uncontested point of view amongst specialists in India. It has also recently been receiving
considerable attention in Western Indological circles. It is, however, only one point of
view. In fairness to those defending the status quo of Indo-Aryan migrations (few speak
of invasions anymore and modern scholarship has long since moved beyond the biblical
or colonial exigencies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) the matter is far more
complex than many Indigenous Aryanists appear to acknowledge. Most representations
of the Indigenous point of view are, at best, highly selective in their appropriation of the
available and relevant data and, at worst, completely neglectful or dismissive of the
fundamental and essential infrastructure of the problem.
The first glaring lacuna in many Indigenous Aryan publications is the almost complete
lack of reference to the linguistic evidence. Given that the Indo-Aryans are a linguistic
entity and that their existence is entirely a postulate of the linguistic data, such neglect is
not likely to be seen as indicative of thorough or detached scholarship. Few Indigenous
Aryanists seem to be even aware of the implications (or even the existence) of such data
as linguistic substrata, linguistic palaeontology, dialectical geography, and loan words
(amongst a host of other things), all foundational to the theory of external Aryan origins.
Even from within the context of the evidence that the Indigenous School does
addressnotably the archaeological, philological and astronomical dataalternative points of
view recalcitrant to the Indigenous position deserve at least some token
acknowledgement. Scanning the list of items Klostermaier offers for consideration, we
can grant that the Mitanni evidence, for example, is not incompatible with an indigenous
position, but neither does it by any means disprove the migrationist theory. The urban
references often noted in the Rg are peripheral at best (and completely far-fetched at
worst), and it seems only fair to note that whatever meagre evidence of horse bones in
Harappan and pre-Harappan sites has been brought forward has been disputed by
authorities in the field. The layout of the fire altars at Kalibhangan does not seem to
correlate with the prescriptions of the Srauta Sutras and so assigning them a ritual
function is highly questionable. Moreover, while the Sarasvati may have been drying up
by 1900 BCE, I am not aware of any evidence demonstrating that it had completely
dried up by then. And as for the correlation of the Indus script with Brahmi, this is hardly
a fait accompli, but only accepted by a small group of scholars even from within the
Indigenous camp. The list goes on.
All this is not to say that the evidence supporting the theory of Aryan migrations is not
without problems. Far from it: my own research concludes that the debate (where it is
conducted in a rigorous fashion) is a legitimate one and that the Indigenous position has
its merits. The whole theory of Aryan migrations does indeed need to be subject to
intense scrutiny. But this will only be fruitful when it is done by examining all the evidence
and all rational points of view in a detached and thorough fashion. Selective or one-sided
interpretations of the evidence are ultimately detrimental to such reconsiderations. As a
result much Indigenous Aryanist scholarship is understandably viewed with suspicion, or
dismissed as the product of predetermined conviction rather than objective scholarship.
ISKCON devotees, of course, are likely to greet the new version of events with
enthusiasm. But since some of them are proving to be sincere about open-minded
dialogue and interaction with the academic community, they would be better served by
being exposed to the full spectrum of data and the plethora of opinions in the complex
matter of Indo-Aryan origins. The Indigenous Aryan position certainly merits
consideration, but not at the expense of honest scholarship.

Back to Vol. 6, No. 2 Contents

#5: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 12 Jun 2000 — BIBLIOGRAPHY ON INDUS CIV., ARYANS, ANCIENT INDIAN HISTORY/ARCHEOLOGY,
RECENT AND NOT-SO-RECENT ACADEMIC DEBATES
Linda Hess
Compiled from fall 1996 discussion on RISA-L, electronic discussion list
for the American Academy of Religion's Religion in South Asia Section. Some
comments from the List discussion are included. This biblio isn't perfect,
in either form or content. It is occasionally updated, with new
information or corrections. (Last update: 12-2-96)
Allchin, Bridget and Raymond Allchin. The rise of civilization in India
and Pakistan. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Allchin, B., F.R. Allchin, B.K. Thapar, editors. Conservation of the Indian
heritage. New Delhi, India : Cosmo Publications, 1989.
Allchin, F. Raymond. The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: the
emergence of cities and states, with contributions from George Erdosy ...
[et al.]. Cambridge : New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press,
1995.
Allchin, F.R. See also Possehl 1995.
Balmuth, Miriam "Searching for the Origins of Indo-European Languages" in
Journal of Interdisciplinary History 20 (1989) pp, 257-62.
Converse, H. S. "The Agnicayana Rite: Indigenous Origin?" in History of
Religions IV.2 (Nov. 1974), pp.81-95.
Good for introducing the kind of thinking that has to be done with the
archeological data at hand [Dennis Hudson].
Crossland, Ronald, "When specialists collide: archaeology and
Indo-European linguistics" in Antiquity 66 (1992) pp. 251-54.
Deo, S, B & Kamath Surynath eds, 'The Aryan Problem' Pune: Bharatiya
Itihasa Sankalana Samiti, 1993.
If nothing else, this publication gives an idea of how widespread the
reconsideration of the external origin of the Aryans has become in India.
[E. Bryant]
Deshpande, Madhav M. and Peter Edwin Hook, eds. Aryan and non-Aryan in
India. Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, The
University of Michigan, 1979. Michigan papers on South and SE Asia; no.
14.
Dyson, Robert. See Possehl 1995.
Elizarenkova, Tatyana J, ed. Language and style of the Vedic Rsis, with an
introduction by Wendy Doniger. Albany : State University of New York, 1995.
I have my doubts about the usefulness of the archaeological record in
general when it comes to things Vedic (cf. refs to Rau and Elizarenkova).
[G. Thompson]
Erdosy, George ed., The Indo-Aryans of Ancient south Asia: Language,
Material Culture and Ethnicity (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1995).
articles by Erdosy, K.A. R. Kennedy, M. Deshpande, M. Witzel, J. Shaffer.
Erdosy, George. Urbanisation in early historic India (Oxford, B.A.R.,
1988).
Feuerstein, Georg, Subhash Kak, and David Frawley. In Search of the
Cradle of Civilization. Wheaton, Illinois: Quest Books, 1995. Also in
short form, "In Search of the Cradle of Civilization: New Light on Ancient
India," article in recent Yoga Journal.
Flood, Gavin. An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University Press,
1996. [P. Olivelle says best intro currently available, and pays sensitive
attention to the Aryan/IVC question as well as modern issues.]
Frawley, David. Gods, Sages and Kings. Salt Lake City: Passage Press,
1991; New Delhi: Voice of India, 1993.
Frawley, David. "On the Banks of the Saraswati: The ancient history of
India revised." The Quest, Autumn 1992, 22-30.
Uses evidence of the Saraswati river and astronomical data from the
Vedas to prove that Aryans have been in India forever, well at least 7500
BCE. [V. Narayanan]
Frawley, David. The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India. New Delhi: Voice
of India, 1994. More Frawley: Hinduism Today, Dec. 1994 vol. 16/no. 12.
Summarizes Kak, Frawley and others; gives timeline paying special attention
to astronomical details. Hinduism Today, Nov. 1991 "Invasion or
Indigenous?" [V. Narayanan] [ Some of this material also available
through http://zeta.cs.adfa.oz.au/Spirit/Veda/myth-of-invasion.html ]
Frawley, David with N.S.Rajaram. Vedic Aryans and the Origins of
Civilization. New Delhi: Voice of India, 1996.
Frawley, David. See also co-authored work under Feuerstein.
Garrett, Andrew. "Indo-European reconstruction and historical
methodologies" in Language 67 (1991) pp. 790-804.
Gila-Kochanowski, Vania de. Aryan and Indo-Aryan migrations/ tr. by L.
Regnier in Diogenes v. 149 (Spring, 1990) pp. 122-45
Gupta, S. P. Archaeology of Soviet Central Asia and the Indian
borderlands. foreword, V. A. Ranov. Delhi : B.R. Pub. Corp.; New Delhi :
D.K. Publishers' Distributors,1979.2 v.
Gupta, S. P. The Indus-Saraswati Civilization. Delhi: Pratibha Prakashan,
1996.
Kak, S.C. A frequency analysis of the Indus script. Cryptologia, vol.
12, 1988, 129-43.

Kak, S.C. The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda. Puratattva: Bulletin of
the Indian Archaeological Society, Number 25, 1994/5, 1-20.
Kak, S.C. On the classification of Indic languages. Annals of the
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, vol. 75, 1994, pp. 185-195.
Kak, S.C. The astronomy of the age of geometric altars. Quarterly Journal
of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 36, 1995, pp. 385-396.
Kak, S.C. An Indus-Sarasvati signboard. Cryptologia, vol. 20, 1996, pp.
275-279.
Kak, S.C. See also co-authored work under Feuerstein.
Lal, B.B. & Gupta S.P, eds. Frontiers of the Indus Civilization. New
Delhi: Books and Books, 1984. Includes Lal's "Some Reflections on the
Structural Remains at Kalibangan."
Lal, B.B. See also Possehl 1995.
Lochtefeld, Jim. A very interesting article on Hindutva in the Spring
(96?) issue of the journal RELIGION.
Lukacs, John ed. The People of South Asia. N.Y & London: Plenum Press,
1984. Includes article by J. Shaffer.
Menon, Shanti. "Archeology Watch: Chariot Racers of the Steppes."
Discover, April 1995, short and magazine-style readable. (No page numbers
in my copy.) Features the research of David Anthony, archeologist from
Hartwick College, NY. [V. Narayanan]
Misra, S.S. The Aryan problem, a linguistic approach. N. Delhi: Munshiram
Manoharlal, 1992.
Misra, S.S. The Avestan : a historical and comparative grammar.1st ed.
Varanasi : Chaukhambha Orientalia, 1979. Chaukhambha oriental research
studies; no. 13.
Misra, S.S. A comparative grammar of Sanskrit, Greek and Hittite. With a
foreword by Suniti Kumar Chatterji. Calcutta, World Press, 1968.
Misra, S.S. The laryngeal theory : a critical evaluation / Satya Swarup
Misra. 1st ed. Varanasi : Chaukhambha Orientalia, 1977.
Misra, S.S. New lights on Indo-European comparative Varanasi: Manisha
Prakashan, 1975. Manisha oriental research series ; no. 1.
Misra, S.S. The Old-Indo-Aryan, a historical & comparative. Varanasi :
Ashutosh Prakashan Sansthan, 1991-1993.
Misra, S.S. Fresh light on Indo-European classification and chronology.
Varanasi : Ashutosh Prakashan Sansthan, 1980.
Mitchiner, John E. Studies in the Indus Valley Inscription. New Delhi:
Oxford, 1978.
Nayak, B.U. and N.C. Ghosh, eds. New Trends in Indian Art and Archaeology.
New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan 1992.
Pal, Yash, et al. "Remote Sensing of the 'Lost' Sarasvati," in B.B. Lal &
S.P. Gupta, Frontiers of the Indus Civilization (see above).
Parpola, Asko. Prof. Parpola sent a list of his important works for this
bibliography, with comments:
Parpola, Asko, 1988. The coming of the Aryans to Iran and India and the
cultural and ethnic identity of the Dasas. Studia Orientalia 64: 195-302.
Helsinki. (This paper was reprinted, without my permission and in fact
against my express wish to the contrary, in the International Journal of
Dravidian Linguistics, without mentioning the original place of publication
and with unindicated deletions.) This paper is now partially antiquated, as
my views have been evolving with new evidence and continued deliberation.
Successive revisions which however do not repeat much material of the above
article that I still subscribe to are:
Parpola, Asko, 1993. Margiana and the Aryan problem. Information Bulletin
of the International Association for the Study of the Cultures of Central
Asia 19: 41-62. Moscow.
Parpola, Asko, 1994. Deciphering the Indus Script. Cambridge and New York:
Cambridge University Press. Pp. 142-159 =3D chapters 8.4 The coming of the
Aryans, and 8.5 The horse argument.
Parpola, Asko, 1995. The problem of the Aryans and the Soma: The
archaeological evidence. Pp. 353-381 in: George Erdosy (ed.), The
Indo-Aryans of ancient South Asia: Language, material culture and ethnicity
(see above).
Parpola, Asko, in press. Formation of the Aryan branch of Indo-European.
In: Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs (eds.), Language and Archaeology, vol.
3: Combining archaeological and linguistic aspects of the past. London:
Routledge. (Paper read at World Archaeological Congress 3, New Delhi, 4-11
December 1994.)
Parpola, Asko, in press. The Aryan languages and archaeology, with an
excursus on Botaj. In: Bridget and Raymond Allchin (eds.), South Asian
Archaeology 1995. New Delhi: Oxford and IBH Publishing Company. (Paper read
at the conference on South Asian Archaeology held at the University of
Cambridge, England, in July 1995.)
Parpola, Asko, in press. (I do not have the exact title at hand.) To
appear in: The Journal of Indo-European studies. (Paper read at the
symposium on Bronze and Iron Age peoples of eastern Central Asia organized
by Victor H. Mair, University of Pennsylvania, 19-21 April 1996.)
(Following are other works of Prof. Parpola from RISA-L discussion or from
library catalogs. He has been publishing on Indus civ. and script as well
as Aryans and other aspects of ancient Indian history/archeology for about
30 years. Pre-1985 publications are not included here.)

Parpola, Asko, ed. Association of South Asian Archaeologists in Western
Europe. International Conference (12th : 1993 : Helsinski, Finland) South
Asian Archaeology, 1993 : proceedings. Helsinki: Suomalainen
Tiedeakatemia, c1994.
Parpola, Asko & Jagat Pati Joshi, eds., with the assistance of Erja
Lahdenpera and Virpi Hameen-Anttila. Corpus of Indus seals and
inscriptions. Helsinki : Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1987-<1991> Memoirs
of the Archaeological Survey of India ; no. 86. Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian
toimituksia. Sarja B ; nide 239,
Parpola, Asko. Deciphering the Indus script. New York, NY : Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1994.
Parpola, Asko. The sky-garment : a study of the Harappan religion and its
relation to the Mesopotamian and later Indian religions / by Asko Parpola.
Helsinki : Societas Orientalis Fennica, 1985.Series title: Studia
Orientalia 57.
Parpola, Asko & Bent Smidt Hansen, eds. South Asian religion and society.
London : Curzon Press ; Riverdale, MD : Riverdale Co., 1986.
Possehl, Gregory, ed. "Harappan Civilization: A Recent Perspective" 2nd
rev. ed. (New Delhi : American Institute of Indian Studies and Oxford & IBH
Pub. Co. c1993)
Includes: Allchin,"The Legacy of the Indus Civilization"; B.B. Lal, "West
was West and East was East, but When and How did the Twain Meet?"; Robert
Dyson, "Paradigm Changes in the Study of the Indus Civilization"; Jim
Shaffer, "Harappan Culture: A Reconsideration"
Possehl, Gregory. 1996 book on Indus script, exact title not at hand.
Univ. of Penn. Press.
S.R. Rao. Dawn and Devolution of the Indus Civilization. N. Delhi:
Aditya Prakashan, 1991.
S.R. Rao. Lothal and the Indus Civilization. Bombay: Asia Publishing,
1973.
Rau, Wilhelm. A whole bunch of stuff in German. I have my doubts
about the usefulness of the archaeological record in general when it comes
to things Vedic (cf. refs to Rau and Elizarenkova). [G. Thompson]
Renfrew, Colin. " Origins of Indo-European Language." Scientific American,
Oct. '89, 106-14.
Renfrew, Colin. Approaches to social archaeology. Cambridge, Mass. Harvard
University Press, 1984.
Renfrew, Colin. Archaeology and language : the puzzle of Indo-European
origins London : J. Cape, 1987. New York : Cambridge University Press, 1988
Saussure, Ferdinand de.
PhD diss.: "Memoire sur le systeme primitif des voyelles dans les langues
indo-europeenes" [Paris: Vieweg, 1887; reprinted 1879]
It has been excerpted [very briefly] and translated into English by
WinfredP. Lehmann in his "A Reader in Nineteenth-Century Historical
Indo-European Linguistics" [Indiana Univ. Press, 1967].
A lucid and accessible discussion of it [with a refreshingly
biographical touch] can be found in Emile Benveniste: "Problems in General
Linguistics" [eng transl. publ. by Univ. of Miami Press, 1971]. Chapter
Three: "Saussure after Half a Century".
It might also be interesting for Indologists in general to consult
Hans Heinrich Hock's "Principles of Historical Linguistics" [Mouton de
Gruyter, 1986], where a fairly extensive and more technical discussion is
offered.
The migration model has been generated by principles that really work.
Admittedly, the model is hypothetical. It exists in that land alluded to
by Laurie, to the east of the asterisk. But think of in 1879 applying
these principles and concluding that there *had* to be a "coefficient
sonantique", attested in no known language, but necessary nevertheless in
order to explain IE ablaut. Of course, a generation later Hittite was
discovered, and -- guess what -- laryngeals were *right there* where
Saussure thought that the coefficient sonantique should have been. In his
skillful hands the principles worked [G. Thompson]
Seidenberg, A. "The Ritual Origin of Geometry" in Archive for Exact
Science, vol. 1.1, 1960, pp. 488-527.
Seidenberg, A. "The Origin of Mathematics," in Archive for Exact Science,
vol. 18, 1978, pp. 301-42.
Sethna, K.D. 'The Problem of Aryan Origins (from an Indian Point of View)
Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1992.
This 1992 ed (as opposed to the 1980 one), has a 200 pg. supplement
which meticulously critiques Asko Parpola's speculations on the coming of
the Aryans into India. Sethna's book is generally well written and
provocative. It is also free from Nationalistic undertones. [E. Bryant]
Shaffer, James. See Erdosy 1995, Possehl 1995, Lukacs 1984.
Sharma, G.K. "the horse was buried under the dunes of..." in Puratattva no.
23, 1922-3 pp 30-34 "a poignant article with a few ref's" [E. Bryant].
Singh, Bhagavan . The Vedic Harappans. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1995.
Is the Rig so nomadic? What do we do about ref's to thousand pillared
houses, thousand doored houses, pillars of copper covered with gold, purs
made of stone (asanmaya), and of plaster? (dehya) which are prthvi, bahula
and urvi. What about ships with a hundred oars and the numerous references
to boats and maritime trade? What about the oceanic imagery in cosmology
and other cosmic references? Is this compatible with a nomadic tribesmen
who had never seen the ocean? I will defer to G. on this, for the time
being, but would be curious as to his (or anyone's) opinion on a book
recently published called 'The Vedic Harappans' by Bhagavan Singh, New
Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1995. It seems that if we look for nomadic Aryans
in the Rig, we will come away with a nomadic reading of the text. Singh,
at least, has not shared those assumptions. Extracting all the words from
the Rig dealing with material culture (which result in sizeable lists) his
reading is of a culture fully aware of urbanity and pastoralism
simultaneously--just like India today. I haven't had time to check all his
references yet, so I cannot give an informed opinion as to his accuracy.
[E. Bryant]
Talageri, Shrikant. Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism. New
Delhi: Voice of India, 1993.
Talageri is explicitly of the Hindutva camp, and the first part of his
book can be critiqued accordingly. The rest of his work, though, reveals a
very keen mind examining the 'evidence' upon which the Aryan invasion
theory was put together and merits a response in kind (he is at his worst,
I should note, when he tries to propose Maharashtra as the IE homeland).
[E. Bryant]
Talbot, Cynthia. "History, Ethnicity, and Identity: Who is Indian?" paper
presented at Univ of Texas South Asia Seminar, March 28, 1996. Abstract
(and maybe the rest by now?) is on the U of Texas Asian Studies website.
I would echo Talbot's words: "Rather than summarily dismissing the
revisionist historiography [concerned with the medieval Hindu-Muslim
encounter and the question of India's protohistory]...I urge professional
historians to seize this opportunity to ressess the premises of the
standard historiography." [Leslie Orr]
Thapar, Romila. From Lineage To State. New Delhi, 1984.
I spent several weeks last spring reading through all the Arya
controversy literature that I could lay my hands on--including all the
titles specified thus far in your mailings. I think that Romila Thapar has
done the best job so far of sifting through the evidence. [Nancy Falk]
Thapar, Romila. Interpreting Early India (Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1993).
Nancy adds an important point about Thapar, and she reminds me that I
have found Thapar's work actually quite good for pedagogical purposes on
this issue. I have assigned Thapar's essay, "Imagined Religious
Communities?" and "Ideology and the Interpretation of Early Indian History"
in a collection of her essays, **Interpreting Early India** (Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1993), at the END of classes on early Indian religious
history. These two essays in particular are quite helpful because they do
present some of the counter-evidence in some simple, straightforward ways.
They raise the issue of identifying race with language, BOTH in terms of
Orientalist and communalist historiographies of Aryan identities. For that
sort of even-handedness it is quite helpful in classes. And she agrees
with Dyson in questioning the usefulness of the invasion hypthesis, but for
political, not archaeological, reasons. She argues in **From Lineage to
State** (New Delhi, 1984) that there is a kind of symbiotic
relationship between Aryan and non-Aryan, with an adoption of vocabulary,
linguistic structures, technologies and religious practices in a bi-lingual
situation.
But I would argue for assigning these essays by Thapar at the end
of a class, or a section on this material, not at the beginning. The
essays expect a lot of historiographical sophistication--sometimes
problematic for the beginning student. Much of the intriguing points she
makes would NOT be lost on the student who is a little more familiar with
issues of representing India, etc. [Laurie Patton]
Thappar, B.K. "Kalibangan: A Harappan Metropolis beyond the Indus Valley"
in Expedition,17.2 (1975) 19-33.
I was unable to recognize the fire altars that he depicted. I tried
without success to obtain further photos from him, and to my knowledge he
has not published any more on the subject. What he did publish did not
resemble (at least not very easily) any Vedic fire altars that could be
recognized from the 'Srautasuutras. Nevertheless, it is possible, if not
likely, that he is correct. [Fred Smith]
On horse controversy (from larger discussion), E. Bryant: I mentioned
previously that, due to the politicization of this whole issue. . . a
Hungarian horse bone specialist was called in to examine the specimens in
Surkotada. He confirmed that they were equus caballus Linn. I would have
to add, now, that a prominent archaeologist (who asked to remain unnamed on
the list) informed me yesterday that this identifi-cation has been rejected
by Meadows. I'll have to hunt down the article. Of course, one would have
to allow the Hungarian specialist, Sandor Bokonyi, to defend his
identification, but I had not been aware of any controversy on these
particular findings, at least, which there now evidently is.
Here is a select Bibliography:
1. Aryan Invasion Theory: An Update by Koenraad Elst; Aditya Prakashan; Delhi 1999
2. Rigveda: A Historical Analysis; Shrikant Talageri; Aditya Prakashan; Delhi; 2000
3. Decphering the Indus Script; N S Rajaram and Natwar Jha; Aditya Prakashan; Delhi; 2000
4. India 1947-1997: New Light on the Indus Civilization; Braj Basi Lal; Aryan Books International;New Delhi; 1998
5. The Indus-Sarawati Civilization: Origins, Problems and Issues; Pratibha Prakashan; Delji; 1996
6. Shrikant G. Talageri; The Aryan Invasion Theory: A Reaprraisal; Aditya Prakasha; New Delhi; 1993
7. The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India; David Frawley; Voice of India; Delhi; 1994
8. The Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization: A literary and Scientific Perspective; David Frawley and Navaratna Rajaram; Voice of India; Delhi; 1997
9. Karpasa in Prehistoric India: A Chronological and Cultural Clue; K D Sethna; Biblia Impex; Delhi; 1981
10. Ancient India in a New Light; K D Sethna; Aditya Prakashan; Delhi; 1989
11. The Aryan Invasion of India: The Myth and The Truth; Navaratna Rajaram; Voice of India; New Delhi; 1993
12. Politics of History: Aryan Invasion Theory and the Subversion of Scholarship; Navaratna Rajaram; Voice of India; 1995
13. In search of the Cradle of Civilization; Subhash Kak; Georg Fuerstein and David Frawley; Quest Books; Wheaton, IL; 1995

#6: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 12 Jun 2000 — The reason I am revisiting this topic and stirring the pot so to speak, is that the implications of overturning the AIT are profound. This has not of course been lost on BR members or others who are following this heated academic discussion. Consider the following;
If AIT is false or discredited what takes its place ?
If it is an Indigenous Vedic/Indus/Saraswati civilization did the denizens of such a civilization in fact fan out to other parts of the world ?
I am slowly laying my hands on the vast literature on this topic. Needless to say, a knowledge of Sanskrit is extremely helpful in these discussions (which I must admit I lack, except at a rudimentary level) and those who have familiarity with the Rig V in the Sanskrit original and the Puranas will be able to add immensely to this discussion.
I trust we do not get into religious discussions here. The thrust is historical/anthropological on 'who are we, the people who inhabit this vast subcontinent, where did we spring from or to put it in another way, did we always reside in the confines of the Indian subcontinent ?
Also I trust we do not get into ' I dont like your viewpoint, therefore you must be reincarnated as a cockroach ....'. Immensely more satisfying to say why 'I think your viewpoint is not cogent or logical or not borne out by evidence or based on implied assumptions, not clearly stated'.
K

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 11-06-2000).]

#7: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 12 Jun 2000 — Previous archived thread;
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/ubb/Archives/Archive-000004/HTML/19990930-2-001523.html
K

#8: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 12 Jun 2000 — NEW CODE TO DECIPHER INDUS SCRIPT
Times of India, February 15, 1994
New Delhi: The key to unravelling the secrets of the great Indus Valley
civilization lies in the Rig Veda, according to a German writer, who has
developed a new method to decipher and decode the Indus script, that has
defied researchers and scriptographers for centuries.
Experts are no doubt impressed by the method, but would like more in-depth
study beore they put the seal of approval. Of the few scholars, who have
claimed to have succeeded in deciphering the Indus script, the method evolved
by the German, Mr Egbert Rochter Ushanas, gives a new dimension to the
tantalising search.
After over six years of research, he has come up with a method that relies
heavily on the verses of the ancient Rig Veda, and the premise that the holy
scripture was influenced by the Indus way of thinking. He has found striking -
if not parallel - similarities between the translations of the motifs on
Indus seals and the verses in the Rig Veda....
(The news item provides the details of the connection between Rig Vedic
hymns and the writings on Indus seals.)
According to him (mr Ushanas), it is impossible to arrive at a translation
of an Indus inscription without the Rig Veda for comparison. All the Indus
signs on the seals, including the number signs, were originally names of
gods....
Mr M.C. Joshi, former director general of the Archaelogical Survey of India
(ASI) is clearly excited about the conclusions. The deduction that the
inscriptions have parallels in the Rig Veda may need further probe, but the
methodology adopted by Mr Richter-Ushanas certainly has an interesting logic,
he told the TOINS...

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 13-06-2000).]

#9: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 13 Jun 2000 — Rajarama, N. S. and David Frawley. 1995. _Vedic "Aryans" and the Origins
of Civilization: A Literary and Scientific Analysis_. Foreword by Dr.
Klaus K. Klostermaier. St-Hyacinthe, Quebec: World Heritage Press.
pp. US$19.95. ISBN 1-896064-00-0
The impact of colonization during the British domination of India was not
merely political and economic. It extended to the collective psychology of
the people and in the latter's perception of its own culture. This was
noticeable in the manner in which the educated Indian citizen came to view
his or her past. The myth that quickly gained credence in academic circles
arose from the Western Indologists' view that ancient Indian history was
initiated by an invasion of Aryans coming from somewhere in Central Asia.
Several generations of Indian scholars, honestly mistaken by the
assumption that the learned philologists trained in the scientific and
''objective'' methods of research in Western academe, conscientiously
taught and wrote the history of their country by taking the myth of the
Aryan invasion as a starting point.
Of late, however, some Indian historians and Indologists have
deemed it necessary, under the imperative of truth-seeking, to reexamine
the premises (1) of the Western philologists' claim of the veracity of an
Aryan-invasion theory and (2) of its cultural consequences. Drs. N. S.
Rajaram and D. Frawley have, in this context, brought forth a cogent,
coherent argument that purports to lie to rest once and for all the
erroneous theory of the Aryan invasion of India around 2000 BCE. To
buttress their thesis the authors use the resources of their deep
knowledge of the Sanskrit language, their acquaintance with the most
recent archaeological discoveries, their expertise in mathematics and in
computer science. In short, they bring to a focus a remarkable synthesis
of several ''disciplines'' to unlock the arcane secrets of Sanskrit texts
that the early Indologists overlooked. The evidence thus brought forth
from several original sources provides sound reasons to refute the earlier
invasion theory. The dominant idea that gives the clue to their theme is
that while the Aryans have a literature, but no history or geography, the
Harappans have a sophisticated urban civilization, a history and
geography, but no language or literature. The paradox disappears when the
two are assimilated into a unitive history and geography. It becomes
logical then to argue for North India as the original home of the Aryans.
The authors further argue for a reversal of the movement of the Aryans:
they moved _out_ of India into the outlying areas, in ancient Persia and
beyond. This new theory receives support from archaeology and from a
comparative analysis of Mesopotamian and Egyptian mathematics with Vedic
mathematics. It is evident that the polyvalent learning of the authors
provides a vastly superior key to the secrets of the past than the mere
gratuitous speculation of earlier Indologists, of Friedrich Max Muller in
particular. In fact the authors do pay a worthy tribute to Max Muller for
his many attainments and for his contributions to the discovery of India
by Western scholars. At the same time, faithful to their own insights and
convictions, based on their own findings, they demonstrate how the
foundation of the invasion theory was more an expression of the prejudice
fed by racist theories that were spawned by Western academic anthropology
and supported by the triumphant colonial enterprises of West European
countries.
The significance of this work consists in its being an important
confirmation of Indian history having at last decisively come into its
own, freed from the distortions of the arbitrary normative conclusions of
earlier Western historians. The authors pay tribute to other scholars--D.
Sethna, S. Talageri, S. B. Roy, K. C. Varma, and others--whose
contributions have altered the perception of ancient Indian history with
the evidence that it actually had an indigenous genesis. With a fair
measure of self-reliance and confidence, they even propound the thesis
that the early Vedic civilization was not merely a locally restricted way
of life, but actually spread out to other parts of West Asia and Africa. A
welcome aspect of this work is its refutation of certain Marxist Indian
historians who persist in their attachment to the superstitious theories
bequeathed by the Indologists of Max Muller's generation. The authors
rightly point out that ''not one significant contribution has been made by
Indian historians belonging to the elite 'establishment'.'' At the same
time they make it clear that they are not driven by the need to write an
apology of Indian chauvinistic nationalism. Theirs is a statement of
veracity based on hard evidence. At the same time the authors recognize
that their work is not the last say in the ongoing process of unveiling
the truth about ancient Indian history. They acknowledge that gaps still
remain in the task of reinterpreting Vedic history. Nevertheless, their
contribution provides substantial material that will enable the historians
of India to work towards the common goal of knowing what happened at the
beginning of the Vedic civilization and to collaborate with one another to
bring about a synthetic reconstruction of the historical integrity of the
country.
Vedic "Aryans" and the Origins of Civilization stands out as a
major original and fresh statement of what India was. It is lucidly
written. The intricacies of the mathematical discussions and of Vedic
linguistics, are expressed with clarity in a language which will appeal to
both the scholar and the layperson. This is indeed a felicitous way of
writing about a difficult and abstruse subject. The book is commendable
for its style, the seriousness of its purpose, and for the originality of
the thesis that claims to establish that the moral and intellectual order
that marked the early Vedic culture arose in that part of India irrigated
by the Sarasvati River, a region that then stood as a greenhouse in which
were grown the saplings that were subsequently transplanted and grew into
the trees of civilizations in the surrounding lands.
The reader must rush to read this very well written book on a
subject that will fascinate even those unacquainted with the history of
India.
Dr. K. D. Prithipaul
Emeritus Professor of Religion at
University of Alberta, Edmonton
ORDERING INFORMATION:
TO: World Heritage Press
1270 St-Jean, St-Hyacinthe
Canada J2S 8M2
Price: US-$19.95
Student: US-$9.98, a 50% saving off the regular price
S&H: add US-$5 for first copy, US-$1.50 each additional copy
[Sept. 1997]
see also
http://www.tamilnation.org/books/History/aryan.htm

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 25-11-2000).]

#10: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 13 Jun 2000 — BOOK REVIEW
ARYAN INVASION THEORY AND INDIAN NATIONALISM
by Shrikant Talageri
(a Voice of India Publication: ISBN 8185990026)
The Author: Shrikant G. Talageri: Born in 1958, Shrikant G.Talageri was educated in Bombay where he
lives and works. He has been interested in Wildlife, Comparative Music, Religion and Philosophy, History
and Culture and Linguistics. He has made a special study of the Konkani language, his mother tongue. He
has devoted several years, and much to study, to the theory of an Aryan invasion of India, and interpreted
the Vedas with the help of the Puranas, Itihasapuranabhyam, vedam samupabrinhayeta.
The Reviewer: Sita Ram Goel, Author and Publisher.

History is a very potent subject. Politics can be, and very often is, based on it. A nation which forgets, or
falsifies, or wilfully ignores, or glosses over the lessons of its history is a nation heading toward doom. And,
conversely, when a nation is intended toqbe sent to its doom, a process of falsification of its history can be
profitably launched.
Indian 'history', as it is formulated, taught, and propagated today, has been the handiwork of the Leftist
'intellectuals', ever since Leftist intellectualism came into vogue. And since destruction of national identity is
one of the basic tenets of Leftist ideology, it is no wonder that Indian history, as an academic subject, has
been falsified on a grand scale, with the sole aim and intention of uprooting and destroying India's national
identity and ethos.
Recent publications in India and abroad, have contributed a great deal toward exposing most of the fallacies
and falsehoods perpetrated by Leftist historians, and their scularist fellow travelers, in respect of medieval
and post-medieval history. There is, however, one remote period of history, or prehistory, which, inspite of
its remoteness, has come to acquire a major propaganda value for the Leftists and their ilk the period of the
so called "Aryan invasion of India".
A race of people, called the "Aryans", is supposed to have invaded India somewhere around 2000-1500
BC from the north west. These Aryans, after centuries of warfare and bloodshed, are supposed to have
destroyed, or driven southward, or subjugated and absorbed (as lower castes) most of the natives in the
north of the 'subcontinent', and then themselves occupied the northern areas.
Originally formulated by European scholars, mainly for imperialistic reasons, this theory has been perfected
by Indian Leftists into a powerful weapon to be used against Indian nationalism.The theory has been
accepted on such a scale that any text book or scholarly book the world over, which deals with, or refers
to, India's early history, mantions the Aryan invasion of India in the second millenium BC, as if it were a
natural and indisputable part of proven history.
To the Leftist propagandists, however, the theory means much more. It means that just as the British and
the Muslim invaders came from outside, so also the Aryan invaders came from outside. Hence, Christianity,
Islam and Hinduism are all eqaully foreign to India; or, conversely, all three are equally Indian.
Further, it means that just as Christianity and Islam were imposed on Indians by foreign invaders, so was
Hinduism imposed on native Indians (Dravidians) by foreign invaders (Aryans).
For the Leftist, of course, the matter does not end there. He goes further and propounds that while the
Aryans conquered India and reduced its natives to the level of lower castes within their social structure and
hierarchy, in the name of Hinduism, the other invaders sought to liberate the natives from this bondage, in
the name of Islam and Christianity. Hence these original natives, the 'Dravidians', must reject Hinduism and
align with Islam and Christianity.
Incidentally, the Aryan invasion theory is just one part of a larger scheme which seeks to brand India as a
kind of Imperialists' paradise, into which people of different races and cultures poured in at various points of
time; an area, therefore, with no native people of its own, to which no people can lay claim, and which
belongs to anyone who has the power to acquire overlordship over it.
The first section of the book deals with the question of Hindu Nationalism in the context of Aryan invasion
theory, and makes it absolutely clear that Hindu Nationalsim is identical with Indian Nationalism,
irrespective of whether any Aryan invasion from outside took place or not. The Second section examines
the evidence presented and the arguments advanced by invasionist scholars. In the third section, the author
demolishes the invasion theory, and propounds with plenty of evidence, that India was the Original
Homeland of the "Aryan" or Indo-European languages.

#11: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 13 Jun 2000 — This is a forum thread on the question of the Indigenous origin of the races who inhabit India (in particular the 'Aryans'). Most of the participants are American born and happen to be from the academic community. It is interesting to see the spirited give and take ... almost as lively as that in BR.
http://www.acusd.edu/~lnelson/risa/d-iaryan.txt
K

#12: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 13 Jun 2000 — Title: Language of Indus seals is Vedic Sanskrit: new book
Author: Sridhar Krishnaprasad
Publication: The Times of India
Date: April 26, 1999
A new book by two scholars N.S. Rajaram from Bangalore and Natwar Jha
from Farraka, West Bengal, based on readings of over 2,000 seats of
the Indus Valley civilisation sourced from the ruins of Mohenjo-Daro
and Harappa, will present the conclusion that the language of the
Indus seals is Vedic Sanskrit, of the Sutra period of Vedic
literature.
The remnants of the Indus Valley civilisation still generate
controversy ever since they were first discovered in 1921, when the
Aryan invasion theory had already been formulated by European
scholars. Subsequently, they had decided that the Indus Valley must be
an earlier, "Dravidian" civilisation, destroyed, pushed southwards, by
the Aryan migrants. Over the last few years, the Aryan invasion theory
is being seen as just that by many scholars -a theory without basis in
fact.
Mr Rajaram, a former consultant to NASA, U.& in the field of computer
science and artificial intelligence, told The Sunday Times of India
that the book, scheduled to be out later this year, shows that the
decipherment does not support the popular view that the Harappan
civilisation is different from the Vedic, that the language of the
seals is Proto-Dravidian (a theoretical construct for which not a
single syllable has been found), or even that it is the ancestor of
the Vedic (proto-Indo-Aryan).
"The language of the seals is Vedic Sanskrit, with a significant
number of them containing words and phrases traceable to the ancient
Vedic glossary Nighantu, compiled from still earlier sources by Yaska.
The language is less archaic than that of the Rigveda, and corresponds
closely to that of the later Vedic works like the Sutras and the
Upanishads," he said.
Despite the shortness of most messages, the rules of Vedic grammar and
phonetics are clearly discernible in the structure of the Indus
script, he said. Consonants are used but there is a deficiency of
vowels - making them difficult to read without a knowledge of the
context. Symbols for the "sa" and "ma" sound for example, can be read
as either "soma" or "sama." In style, the messages are similar to the
cryptic aphorisms for which the Sutra literature is famous. "Those
familiar with the Sutras (Panini, Ashwalayana, Baudhayana) will
recognise this immediately."
In addition, the images on the seals are often symbolic representation
of Vedic themes. The written messages often serve as Sutras or short
formulas that when elaborated, serve to explain the symbolism of the
image.
"For example, the famous horned deity known as the Pashupathi seal has
the message Ishya Dyata Mara -forces of destruction controlled by
Iswara. Read along with symbolism, it means that the forces of
creation and destruction of the universe belong to the Supreme," he
said.
Mr Rajaram and Mr Jha, a traditional Vedic scholar, have come together
for this book. Mr Jha first made the announcement that the writings on
the seals were Sanskrit in the World Archaeology Conference in
December 1994. "I first encountered Mr Jha when he published his
'Vedic glossary on Indus seals connecting the writing to the Shulba
Sutras, in October 1996. I am a mathematician and familiar with the
Shulba Sutras. Every other month, there is someone claiming a
decipherment. But I new this had substance," says Mr Rajaram.
A major outcome of the decipherment is a clearly- defined historical
context for the Harappan civilisation, radically different from
conventional history. "It further demolishes the myth of the Aryan
Invasion, a creation of European scholars with their own vested
interests, using an artificial Biblical chronology. It has only served
to divide the Indian people and pit one against another," he said.
It also takes care of a paradox. There is a great body of Vedic
literature, but no archaeological evidence. There is the
archaeological evidence of the Indus valley, but no literature. How
can that be?" asks Mr Rajaram.
see also http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/koenraadelst/articles/Indusscr.html

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 10-11-2000).]

#13: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 14 Jun 2000 — The Edwin Bryant in the thread, who did his doctoral work at Columbia, has now written a book called The Indo-Aryan Migration debate - the quest for origins, Oxford Univ.Press. It has an ISBN number but is not yet published. While he is a skeptic, he is willing to entertain the Indigenous Aryan theories, which many white 'Aryans' will not concede as yet. It is still too much of a shock that a country like India could have produced the vast Vedic and Puranic literature prior to 3000 BC (when the pyramids were not built as yet) .
K
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/indology.html
[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 13-06-2000).]

#14: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 14 Jun 2000 — Now that there is increasing evidence that the Aryan Invasion Theory is false. Why don't
this information be made khown to every indian
While the average Indian will scoff at the notion that he is descended in some fashion from Armenians or Georgians (in the Caucasus)the establishment in India , especially JNU is firmly in the hands of the Communists and they are controlling the agenda. There are profound implications of abandoning the AIT. For one , with the AIT, an argument can be made that everybody in India is an invader and nobody has a claim to victimhood or being the 'original Indian'. This is the undercurrent of the secularists in India. It is a gaggle of communists, pseudo seculars, minorities who now support this bankrupt theory. India is one of the countries in the planet which has been robbed of her own history. Indians have now to defend why they have always been in the subcontinent and they have always been Indians.
The other major reason widely prevalent among Europeans and some Indians, is that they cannot fathom the idea that the Vedas were conceived by Indians. IOW, it is beyond the capabilities of the present day Indian to compose the vast literature of the Vedas and the Puranas. Ergo, the Vedas were composed anywhere but in India and then they swooped down the Hindu Kush on horse drawn chariots and defeated the dark skinned but highly skilled and urbanized Dasyus and Dravidians living in the Indus Valley. Does this seem vaguely reminiscent of divide and rule.
Read "The Politics of History" by Navaratna Rajaram, Voice of India, 1995, ISBN 81-85990-28-X.

#15: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 14 Jun 2000 — The Druids are evidence of the converse of the Aryan Invasion theory, i.e.the reverse Aryan migration of Indigenous aryans;
HISTORY
Our Druid Cousins
Meet the brahmins of ancient Europe, the high caste of Celtic society
By Peter Berresford Ellis
The Celtic people spread from their homeland in what is now Germany across Europe in the first millennium bce. Iron tools and weapons rendered them superior to their neighbors. They were also skilled farmers, road builders, traders and inventors of a fast two-wheeled chariot. They declined in the face of Roman, Germanic and Slavic ascendency by the second centuries bce. Here Peter Berresford Ellis, one of Europe's foremost experts of the Celts, explains how modern research has revealed the amazing similarities between ancient Celt and Vedic culture. The Celt's priestly caste, the Druids, has become a part of modern folklore. Their identity is claimed by New Age enthusiasts likely to appear at annual solstice gatherings around the ancient megaliths of northwest Europe. While sincerely motivated by a desire to resurrect Europe's ancient spiritual ways, Ellis says these modern Druids draw more upon fanciful reconstructions of the 18th century than actual scholarship.
The Druids of the ancient Celtic world have a startling kinship with the brahmins of the Hindu religion and were, indeed, a parallel development from their common Indo-European cultural root which began to branch out probably five thousand years ago. It has been only in recent decades that Celtic scholars have begun to reveal the full extent of the parallels and cognates between ancient Celtic society and Vedic culture.
The Celts were the first civilization north of the European Alps to emerge into recorded history. At the time of their greatest expansion, in the 3rd century bce, the Celts stretched from Ireland in the west, through to the central plain of Turkey in the east; north from Belgium, down to Cadiz in southern Spain and across the Alps into the Po Valley of Italy. They even impinged on areas of Poland and the Ukraine and, if the amazing recent discoveries of mummies in China's province of Xinjiang are linked with the Tocharian texts, they even moved as far east as the area north of Tibet.
The once great Celtic civilization is today represented only by the modern Irish, Manx and Scots, and the Welsh, Cornish and Bretons. Today on the northwest fringes of Europe cling the survivors of centuries of attempted conquest and "ethnic cleansing" by Rome and its imperial descendants. But of the sixteen million people who make up those populations, only 2.5 million now speak a Celtic language as their mother tongue.
The Druids were not simply a priesthood. They were the intellectual caste of ancient Celtic society, incorporating all the professions: judges, lawyers, medical doctors, ambassadors, historians and so forth, just as does the brahmin caste. In fact, other names designate the specific role of the "priests." Only Roman and later Christian propaganda turned them into "shamans," "wizards" and "magicians." The scholars of the Greek Alexandrian school clearly described them as a parallel caste to the brahmins of Vedic society.
The very name Druid is composed of two Celtic word roots which have parallels in Sanskrit. Indeed, the root vid for knowledge, which also emerges in the Sanskrit word Veda, demonstrates the similarity. The Celtic root dru which means "immersion" also appears in Sanskrit. So a Druid was one "immersed in knowledge."
Because Ireland was one of the few areas of the Celtic world that was not conquered by Rome and therefore not influenced by Latin culture until the time of its Christianization in the 5th century ce, its ancient Irish culture has retained the most clear and startling parallels to Hindu society.
Professor Calvert Watkins of Harvard, one of the leading linguistic experts in his field, has pointed out that of all the Celtic linguistic remains, Old Irish represents an extraordinarily archaic and conservative tradition within the Indo-European family. Its nominal and verbal systems are a far truer reflection of the hypothesized parent tongue, from which all Indo-European languages developed, than are Classical Greek or Latin. The structure of Old Irish, says Professor Watkins, can be compared only with that of Vedic Sanskrit or Hittite of the Old Kingdom.
The vocabulary is amazingly similar. The following are just a few examples:
Old Irish - arya (freeman),Sanskrit - aire (noble)
Old Irish - naib (good), Sanskrit - noeib (holy)
Old Irish - badhira (deaf), Sanskrit - bodhar (deaf)
Old Irish - names (respect), Sanskrit - nemed (respect)
Old Irish - righ (king), Sanskrit - raja (king)
This applies not only in the field of linguistics but in law and social custom, in mythology, in folk custom and in traditional musical form. The ancient Irish law system, the Laws of the Fénechus, is closely parallel to the Laws of Manu. Many surviving Irish myths, and some Welsh ones, show remarkable resemblances to the themes, stories and even names in the sagas of the Indian Vedas.
Comparisons are almost endless. Among the ancient Celts, Danu was regarded as the "Mother Goddess." The Irish Gods and Goddesses were the Tuatha De Danaan ("Children of Danu"). Danu was the "divine waters" falling from heaven and nurturing Bíle, the sacred oak from whose acorns their children sprang. Moreover, the waters of Danu went on to create the great Celtic sacred river--Danuvius, today called the Danube. Many European rivers bear the name of Danu--the Rhône (ro-Dhanu, "Great Danu") and several rivers called Don. Rivers were sacred in the Celtic world, and places where votive offerings were deposited and burials often conducted. The Thames, which flows through London, still bears its Celtic name, from Tamesis, the dark river, which is the same name as Tamesa, a tributary of the Ganges.
Not only is the story of Danu and the Danube a parallel to that of Ganga and the Ganges but a Hindu Danu appears in the Vedic story "The Churning of the Oceans," a story with parallels in Irish and Welsh mytholgy. Danu in Sanskrit also means "divine waters" and "moisture."
In ancient Ireland, as in ancient Hindu society, there was a class of poets who acted as charioteers to the warriors They were also their intimates and friends. In Irish sagas these charioteers extolled the prowess of the warriors. The Sanskrit Satapatha Brahmana says that on the evening of the first day of the horse sacrifice (and horse sacrifice was known in ancient Irish kingship rituals, recorded as late as the 12th century) the poets had to chant a praise poem in honor of the king or his warriors, usually extolling their genealogy and deeds.
Such praise poems are found in the Rig Veda and are called narasamsi. The earliest surviving poems in old Irish are also praise poems, called fursundud, which trace back the genealogy of the kings of Ireland to Golamh or Mile Easpain, whose sons landed in Ireland at the end of the second millennium bce. When Amairgen, Golamh's son, who later traditions hail as the "first Druid," set foot in Ireland, he cried out an extraordinary incantation that could have come from the Bhagavad Gita, subsuming all things into his being [see sidebar right].
Celtic cosmology is a parallel to Vedic cosmology. Ancient Celtic astrologers used a similar system based on twenty-seven lunar mansions, called nakshatras in Vedic Sanskrit. Like the Hindu Soma, King Ailill of Connacht, Ireland, had a circular palace constructed with twenty-seven windows through which he could gaze on his twenty-seven "star wives."
There survives the famous first century bce Celtic calendar (the Coligny Calendar) which, as soon as it was first discovered in 1897, was seen to have parallels to Vedic calendrical computations. In the most recent study of it, Dr. Garret Olmsted, an astronomer as well as Celtic scholar, points out the startling fact that while the surviving calendar was manufactured in the first century bce, astronomical calculus shows that it must have been computed in 1100 bce.
One fascinating parallel is that the ancient Irish and Hindus used the name Budh for the planet Mercury. The stem budh appears in all the Celtic languages, as it does in Sanskrit, as meaning "all victorious," "gift of teaching," "accomplished," "enlightened," "exalted" and so on. The names of the famous Celtic queen Boudicca, of ancient Britain (1st century ce), and of Jim Bowie (1796-1836), of the Texas Alamo fame, contain the same root. Buddha is the past participle of the same Sanskrit word--"one who is enlightened."
For Celtic scholars, the world of the Druids of reality is far more revealing and exciting, and showing of the amazingly close common bond with its sister Vedic culture, than the inventions of those who have now taken on the mantle of modern "Druids," even when done so with great sincerity.
If we are all truly wedded to living in harmony with one another, with nature, and seeking to protect endangered species of animal and plant life, let us remember that language and culture can also be in ecological danger. The Celtic languages and cultures today stand on the verge of extinction. That is no natural phenomenon but the result of centuries of politically directed ethnocide. What price a "spiritual awareness" with the ancient Celts when their culture is in the process of being destroyed or reinvented? Far better we seek to understand and preserve intact the Celt's ancient wisdom. In this, Hindus may prove good allies.
The Song of Amairgen the Druid
I am the wind that blows across the sea; I am the wave of the ocean;
I am the murmur of the billows; I am the bull of the seven combats;
I am the vulture on the rock; I am a ray of the sun; I am the fairest of flowers;
I am a wild boar in valor; I am a salmon in the pool; I am a lake on the plain;
I am the skill of the craftsman; I am a word of science;
I am the spearpoint that gives battle;
I am the God who creates in the head of man the fire of thought.
Who is it that enlightens the assembly upon the mountain, if not I?
Who tells the ages of the moon, if not I?
Who shows the place where the sun goes to rest, if not I?
Who is the God that fashions enchantments--
The enchantment of battle and the wind of change?
Amairgen was the first Druid to arrive in Ireland. Ellis states, "In this song Amairgen subsumes everything into his own being with a philosophic outlook that parallels the declaration of Krishna in the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita." It also is quite similar in style and content to the more ancient Sri Rudra chant of the Yajur Veda.
Peter Berresford Ellis is one of the foremost living authorities on the Celts and author of many books on the subject, including "Celt and Roman," "Celt and Greek," "Dictionary of Celtic Mythology" and "Celtic Women."
PETER BERRESFORD ELLIS, 30 GRESLEY ROAD, LONDON, N19 3JZ, ENGLAND (from Hinduism Today)

#16: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Neshant Sajen, Posted: 15 Jun 2000 — I don't know how you people maintain your interest in the myraid of mind-numbing aryan theories.

#17: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 15 Jun 2000 — Neshant, There are only 2 major theories (apparently you have not read the thread).
Aryan Invasion Theory - where the denizens of the Mahabharata (the Kurus and the Purus) came from elsewhere - anywhere but India around 1500 BC, long after the Saraswati dried up.
Indigenous Aryan Theory - where they have not come from anywhere but have evolved in India. The Rig was composed around 4000 BC. Pl. see the post by Klaus Klostermeier where he lists the problems (17 bullets) with the AIT, including the fact that the Saraswati dried up long before (circa 2000 BC) they made numerous references to it in the Rig.
K

#18: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 15 Jun 2000 — Typical of the racism exhibited by the Brits and other Europeans is W.W. Rouse Ball in 'A short account of the History of mathematics' Dover Publications,1960, (originally appeared in 1908), page 146.
'The Arabs had considerable commerce with India, and a knowledge of one or both of the two great Hindoo works on algebra had been obtained in the Caliphate of Al-Mansur (754-775 AD)though it was not until fifty or seventy years later that they attracted much attention. The algebra and arithmetic of the Arabs were largely founded on these tretises, and I therefore devote this section to the consideration of Hindoo mathematics.
The Hindoos like the Chinese have pretended that they are the most ancient people on the face of the earth, and that to them all sciences owe their creation. But it is probable that these pretentions have no foundation; and in fact no science or useful art (except a rather fantastic architecture and sculpture) can be definitely traced back to the inhabitants of the Indian peninsula prior to the Aryan invasion. This seems to have taken place at some time in the fifth century or in the sixth century when a tribe of Aryans entered India by the north west part of their country. Their descendants, wherever they have kept their blood pure, may still be recognized by their superiority over the races they originally conquered; but as is the case with the modern Europeans, they found the climate trying and gradually degenerated.'
Note the blatant racism in the second paragraph and the venom that this author exhibits.
K

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#19: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 16 Jun 2000 — From a speech given in Madras,
The Myth of Aryans and Non-Aryans
By Swami Vivekananda
"The mind jumps back several thousand years, and fancies that the same things happened here, and our archaeologist dreams of India being full of dark eyed aborigines, and the bright Aryan came from - the Lord knows where. According to some, they came from Central Tibet, others will have it that they came from Central Asia. There are patriotic Englishmen who think that they were all black haired. If the writer happens to be a black haired man, then the Aryans were all black haired.
Of late there have been attempts to prove that the Aryans lived on the Swiss lakes. I should not be sorry if they had been all drowned there, theory and all. Some say now that they lived at the North Pole. Lord bless the Aryans and their habitations. As for as the truth in these theories, there is not one word in our scriptures, not one, to prove that the Aryans came from anywhere outside of India, and in ancient India was included Afganistan. There it ends.
All the theory that the Shudras caste were all non-Aryans and they were a multitude, is equally illogical and equally irrational. It could not have been possible in those days that a few hundred Aryans settled and lived there with a few hundred thousand slaves at their command. These slaves would have eaten them up, made "chutney" of them in five minutes.
The only explanation can be found in the Mahabharatha, which says, that in the beginning of Satya Yuga there was only one caste, the Brahmanas, and then by difference of occupation they went on dividing themselves into castes, and that is the only true and rational explanation that has been given. And in the coming of the Satya Yuga all the other castes will have to go back to the same condition. The solution to the caste problem in India, therefore, assumes this form, not to degrade the higher castes, not to crush out the Brahmana."

#20: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 16 Jun 2000 — http://www.indolink.com/Book/aryan4.html

#21: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 18 Jun 2000 — Book review, June 17,2000
The Politics of History, Aryan Invasion Theory and the subversion of scholarship by Navaratna S Rajaram, Voice of India Publications, 1995
This is a very interesting book. Much scholarship, especially in the west, in the social sciences is tainted by political and racial considerations. However, most Indians have accepted Max Mueller as being an unbiased and admiring student of the ancient Indian Vedic literature. While the second part of Max Muller’s motivation may be true, few Indians are aware that he brought an agenda into his scholarship, which he barely tried to conceal.
This book discusses the motivations of European scholars and especially Max Mueller, in great detail In another book titled Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization, Frawley and Rajaram give a brief account of the political forces that went into the creation of the Aryan Invasion Theory. The present book takes a more detailed look at these political forces and their underlying motives.
The present book focuses on two clearly identifiable causes that brought about this subversion of scholarship. European politics and ignorance of science and scientific method on the part of its practitioners. One interesting observation that the author makes is that, the ancient Indian civilization was blessed with a plethora of riches in one particular area – namely the vast literary treasures that the Vedic people have left behind. This is a unique feature of ancient Indian civilization. Neither Egypt nor Mesopotamia is blessed with a continuous living tradition of Vedic and other scholarship preserved through millenia.
The first chapter is devoted to recounting in summary the arguments that have bedeviled the Aryan Invasion Theory. I will not go into them here in detail but they include
1. the ecological and geographical evidence of the drying of the Sarasvati River, to which they made numerous references in the Rig V, long before the Aryans were supposed to have arrived in India
2. Frawley’s paradox – a literature without history or archaeology for the Aryans, and a history and archaeology for the Harappans but no literature.
3. Evidence of Mathematics – Sulbasutras and the Ancient world
4. The Harappa-Sutra-Sumeria equation
5. The Harappan language and script , now shown to be Sanskrit.
The second chapter is devoted to the early years of discovery of the vast literature in Sanskrit by Sir William Jones and the subsequent realization that this was indeed part of a Indo-European family of languages. All is well so far, but this is where the colonialist and missionary impulse starts to assert itself and a deliberate agenda is put in place by colonialists such as Thomas Babington Macaulay. This was also the start of the Boden Professorship at Oxford. Max Mueller, who coveted this Professorship himself, was never actually awarded this chair (Is it because he was German, in a land where the elite were ashamed of their boorish Royal family who happened to be from Germany). But Max Mueller was financed by the East India Company for a considerable part of his work, and the motive was quite clear . In a letter to his wife , he writes ‘…this edition of mine (Sacred Books of the East) and the translation of the Veda, will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion and to show them what the root is, I feel sure is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last three thousand years’ (Max Mueller , Life and Letters, Vol.I, edited by Georgina Mueller, London, Longmans, 1902, p.328).IOW, the subtext is very clear, all that is noteworthy and immemmorial in India came from outside the geographical borders of the subcontinent. The rot had set in, the implied racial superiority of the European races could not be challenged even when faced with overwhelming literary evidence to the contrary. Under such a milieu, the coming of a Hitler was almost pre-ordained.

There is a separate chapter on Max Mueller’s ghost, which describes both the vast scope of his contributions as well as his erroneous conclusions which have bedeviled this field of scholarship for over a 100 years. The rest of the book is devoted to the status of the field of scholarship of Ancient Indian civiliations and how it has been usurped by a small band of scholars who are Marxist in their outlook, and who have an agenda of their own.
Every Indian should read this book from cover to cover, not merely to understand the massive fraud that has been perpetrated on the subcontinent by a small group of sometimes well intentioned but mostly ill-intentioned gaggle of scholars, colonialists, missionaries and communists, but also to discriminate between what is good science and scholarship and what is a mass of unsubstantiated hypotheses.
Kaushal

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#22: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 18 Jun 2000 — This is the interview of Subhash Kak, the Information Theorist from Louisiana State University. This appeared once before in BR.
K
http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/nov/18inter.htm
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#23: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Johann, Posted: 18 Jun 2000 —

quote:
The Harappan language and script , now shown to be Sanskrit.

Don't you mean that Brahmi and Harappan scripts show some similarity? That's not quite the same thing. Without any real knowledge of harappan syntax, vocabulary, etc you can't really compare languages. A language could borrow a script from another totally unrelated language- eg, Pinyin; Mandarin Chinese and a latin phonetic alphabet

#24: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: rupak, Posted: 18 Jun 2000 —

quote:
Originally posted by Johann:
Don't you mean that Brahmi and Harappan scripts show some similarity?

No the scripts are very different.The latter is pictographic. I believe the Kharosti script was used to unlock the Harrapan script in circumstances similar to the discovery and use of the Rossetta stone.

#25: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 18 Jun 2000 — Johann, rupak is right the Harappan script is pictographic, and all the efforts of the Europeans (e.g.Asko Parpola) have been to tie it to a Proto-Dravidian (the supposed ancestor to my native tongue).
The Indian archaeologists and scientists have discounted this hypothesis and have tied the sounds to a Proto-Vedic language which is a predecessor to Sanskrit. The Indians now believe that the so called Dravidian languages and the Vedic language are derived from a Proto language which was spoken in Harappa .The distinction between Dravidian and Vedic is purely a concoction of European philologists which is really the topic of this book (The Politics of History).
Of course the Brahmi scripts, which is the script that Telugu (Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam)uses, came into use far later in time. We are talking the mists of time here (3000 bce for Harappan and 1000 BCE for Brahmi). One has to read the books mentioned in the posts above to follow this fascinating story. I am just skimming the surface, but this is not something you can reach a conclusion by one afternoon's reading.
For some visuals of the pictography of Harappa, a good book is that of Jonathan mark Kenoyer 'The ancient cities of the Indus Valley'. While he is not definitive(he simply says not all scholars agree with the Dravidian identification), he expounds the conventional European explanation that it is a ProtoDravidian language. The Europeans and the West in general is extremely reluctant to embrace the Indian decipherment , with the exception of a few (Klaus Klostermeier, Edwin Bryant).
Kaushal

#26: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 18 Jun 2000 — For a chronology and timeline of indian History, see for instance Klaus Klostermeier, A Survey of Hinduism, State University of NY Press, 2nd edition,1994, p.481. Klostermeier borrows this from,
http://www.hinduismtoday.kauai.hi.us/ashram/Resources/TimeLine/HinduHistory.html
Kaushal

#27: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/swar/Invasion.htm
Note the initial years of discovery of the literature of India were accompanied by great adulation of the Indian tradition. Voltaire was one such admirer. But everything started to change after the British military conquest of India was complete by the end of the 17th century (coinciding approximately with the defeat of Tipu). In one century the British had managed to accomplish the task of converting India from a wealthy country to a penurious one. More importantly, so complete was the British brainwashing in cultural terms, that even today we in India self flagellate interminably about the evils of our indigenous culture. Forgotten in all this by our Dalit brothers, especially those who choose to believe the firengi, is the admonition of Ambedkar;
B. R. Ambedkar is our second example. Known in India chiefly for his campaign in support of the lowest castes (he himself was a Harijan) and his work on the
Indian Constitution, it is often overlooked that in order to find out the truth of the European theories about Aryans and non-Aryans, high and low caste, he did
precisely what Sri Aurobindo exhorted Indians to do: he went to the source, and studied the Veda for himself, with an open mind. His conclusions are unequivocal,
though regrettably they are largely ignored by those who profess to follow his lead - and who more often than not make a strident use of the very theories he sought
to demolish:

"The theory of invasion is an invention. This invention is necessary because of a gratuitous assumption that the Indo-Germanic people are the purest of
the modern representatives of the original Aryan race. The theory is based upon nothing but pleasing assumptions, and inferences based on such
assumptions. The theory is a perversion of scientific investigation. It is not allowed to evolve out of facts. On the contrary, the theory is preconceived
and facts are selected to prove it. It falls to the ground at every point.23
"[My conclusions] are:
1. The Vedas do not know any such race as the Aryan race.
2. There is no evidence in the Vedas of any invasion of India by the Aryan race and its having conquered the Dasas and Dasyus supposed to be the
natives of India.
3. There is no evidence to show that the distinction between Aryans, Dasas and Dasyus was a racial distinction.
4. The Vedas do not support the contention that the Aryas were different in colour from the Dasas and Dasyus....
"If anthropometry is a science which can be depended upon to determine the race of a people... [then its] measurements establish that the Brahmins and
the Untouchables belong to the same race. From this it follows that if the Brahmins are Aryans the Untouchables are also Aryans. If the Brahmins are
Dravidians, the Untouchables are also Dravidians...."24
Despite these remarkable protests, none listened - we Indians have long had the inexplicable habit of accepting change only if it comes to us from the West. Yet in
recent years, some voices have begun to be heard, both in the West and in India, asserting that the time has come to chuck out this worm-eaten theory once and for
all. The cumulative evidence from all scientific branches of knowledge, especially archaeology, has become simply too overwhelming to be ignored, except for
historians with dubious motives.
K

#28: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — http://www.eu.spiritweb.org/Spirit/myth-of-invasion.html
Another on-line resource courtesy of our friendly mlechha David Frawley, with lots of links to other sites.
K
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#29: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — Anantha, thank you for the link. See if you can persuade Dr. Kak to contribute to the forum and give us a synopsis of where the debate stands today and who the ongoing contributors to the debate are. There is no date on the link mentioned above. I am assuming it is not more than a year old.
Kaushal
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#30: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Sagar, Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — Well it seems that the 'invasion' theory is dead for all practical purposes and except for Marxists, Nehruvian Marxists, Islamists, neo-imperialists and some Dalit activists this theory is not believed by many. The main contention is between 'Aryan migration Theory' and 'Aryans out of India theory' and it seems to me that there are points in favor of both theories. It does not seem to me that the 'Aryans out of India' theory is unequivocally proven. What is surprising is that although both sides now agree that there was no 'Aryan race' they are still using the terms to denote a people. May be they should use terms like 'Vedic and proto-Vedic people'.

Have our school books been changed to reflect the present debate?

#31: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — Well it seems that the 'invasion' theory is dead for all practical purposes
Would that it were so. Alas, reality intrudes and such is not the case.
Sagar, go back and visit the link to the discussion (ca.1995) I posted earlier. Except for a few, the majority of the firengi who took part in that discussion still believe in the AIT. Of course to make it more palatable they no longer call it such. The new name is Aryan Migration Theory. But the belief and the proselytization continues - there was a race called Aryans. They spoke a proto-Aryan language. They came from a Ur-heimat, and lo and behold that heimat was not India, but the Central Steppes of Southern Russia (the Kurgan theory) OR from Anatolia (present day Turkey) - IOW anywhere but India.
The battle is not over and it is premature to declare victory. And unfortunately there are plenty of Bharatiya who are willing to spout this nonsense, for tasting the meager crumbs of a favorable citation from a patronizing firengi.
Kaushal

#32: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Rkam, Location: Canada Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — With regards to the Aryans out of South Asia theory, in a book on Indian History, by John Keay, it was stated that linguists who have studied Sanskrit believe that several uniquely Indian words in Sanskrit are actually borrowed from other languages, which presumably had a need for these words. For example, it was stated that the Sanskrit words for elephant and peacock were not in origin Sanskrit words. This was used to lead to the assumption that if the Aryans did not originally have words for these animals, it must be because when their language was developing, these animals were unknown, thus supporting an out of India origin.
Of further interest, the author refers to studies claiming other words such as plough and mortar, supporting what we know of them as pastural nomads.

#33: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Sagar, Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — Kaushal,
Migration and invasion are entirely different business altogether e.g. we migrated to North America while the white settlers initially invaded it.
I personally think that the proto-Vedic culture existed in an area which would roughly include present-day North, North-West India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and perhaps Eastern Iran. If there was a migration it was within this region and later it may have spread into heartland India and Asia and Europe - so in effect my belief is a synthesis of the two contending theories. In my belief both the contending theories can be explained to a great extent if we assume that there was migration from East and West taking place from this region. Anyway, since I am not a "professional" I better shut up. -
[This message has been edited by Sagar (edited 19-06-2000).]

#34: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — Guruji, you are absolutely right.The NCERT and JNU are riddled with leftists whose only aim is to create discord in India so that they can come to power with 60 MPs in Parliament. Until that battle(the textbooks) is won, one cannot declare victory.Make no mistake, this is a battle for the soul of India. The leftists want to destroy all vestiges of tradition, so that they can replace it with their religion(communism), and the more the mayhem the better they like it. Most of us in the flush of independence did not realize what the 'game' was. It is not too late and ultimately the truth will prevail, but it will not happen without the participation of all concerned.
Kaushal

#35: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — Rkam, there is now a fundamental debate on the meaning of linguistics and its relevance to the movement of human populations. I cannot go into this in detail right now since this is the subject of Ph.D thesis. I do have a problem with linguistics, when it says authoritatively that the origin of a people is from '-----' without any reference to archaeology. As far as I can tell it is difficult to tell in linguistics, which version of language came first.
I may be wrong, but is it crystal clear that the Gathas of the Avesta came before or after the Rig veda. It is ironic that the Zoroastrians themselves believe that their religion evolved from India, which is the main reason they chose to emigrate to India when faced with extinction by the Islamic invasions. Almost every Parsee I know believes that his forefathers came back to India certain in the belief that they would receive a welcome because it was the land of their ancestors.
Needless to say I am not an expert in linguistics. But this is the crux of the problem - that reliance on linguistics alone cannot answer the problem of determining if , when and where there was a cradle of civilization.
Kaushal
[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 19-06-2000).]

#36: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — Sagar, when the experts talk of migration, they do not mean migration within the region you describe. The school of Indian Indologists which include Talageri, believes that to be the case, that the heart of the Vedic civilization was in an area encompassing present day India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia.
But that is not what the AIT protagonists maintain. Their preference is that the migration took place either from Turkey or Southern Russia.
To participate in this debate one needs a knowledge of linguistics (primarily Sanskrit), archaeology, the history of science and mathematics, informatics and the deciphering of scripts. Each one of these topics involves a lifetime of study and research.
The point of the discussion is that in the past claims have been made on the flimsiest of reasons and without the kind of scrutiny that I described. Max Mueller had only basic knowledge of Sanskrit and no knowledge of the other disciplines I mentioned.
Like you, I do not claim to be an expert. All the more reason to educate oneself on these issues and not let it be hijacked by persons claiming to be experts. As I said earlier in this thread , the issues raised here cannot be resolved in an afternoon of reading.
Kaushal
[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 20-06-2000).]

#37: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: shashidhar, Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — Kaushalji,amazing work!!We got to know our roots.we must learn about our ancestry.I wish sanskrit reemerges.I have no knowledge of sanskrit and am ashamed of it.The so called Indo-European is allergic to me.There is only Indian and european.We are the people from the banks of saraswathi and sindhu.We started there.How we did,what we did is what we neeed to know.The splendor of our civilization is necessary in this era.We have to know the devas from dasyus.Our wisdom lies there.We are foolish not because we are hindus but because we aren't.Good job.I always felt we were and are more powerful than we think.we have restrained ourselves.We must let loose our energy.

#38: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: acharya, Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — check this out http://www.harappa.com/script/index.html
Iravatham Mahadevan
Iravatham Mahadevan has been studying the
Indus writing since he put together the first script
concordance of Indian seals in 1970. He is also
known for his breakthrough decipherments of
the earliest Tamil Brahmi writing. Parpola calls
Mahadevan his most valuable critic.
Interview:
My first paper on this was read in Tokyo in 1983. Ten years later, when I went to Helsinki to
read another paper on this, fortunately the Harappan excavation team under Kenoyer's
leadership had found an ivory piece, for the first time a physical representation of this device had
been found. I saw good color photographs of the ivory object and that the holes were drilled
deeply into hemispherical vessel shows very clearly that it was meant to be a filter, a colander
type. Now the question to ask is this: Since we know that the unicorn seals were the most
popular ones, and every unicorn has this cult object before it, whatever it represents must be
part of the central religious ritual of the Harappan religion. We know of one religion whose
central religious cult was a filter, that is the soma of the Indo-Aryans.
Now this poses a very grave puzzle. We say that the Harappan civilization is pre-Aryan. Now
how come you have a soma filter centuries before the Aryans ever came in?
Well, you can say from this that the Indus Civilization itself is Aryan and the Dravidian
hypothesis is wrong. I do not believe that that is the correct answer. We do not have the horse
in the Indus Civilization. There is no evidence for the wheeled chariot. There is no evidence for
the spoked wheels. The RgVeda, the earliest document of the Indo-Aryan has no mention of
great cities like Harappa or Mohenjo-daro, so the only other possibility is that a soma-like cult
based on some kind of hallucinogenic drug, crushed and filtered out of a plant and drunk ritually,
must have existed in Harappa and that it was taken over by the Indo-Iranians and incoming
Indo-Aryans.

#39: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — Mahadevan is closer to the thinking of Parpola than to the school that now believes the Sindhu/Sarasvati civilization is Vedic. As mentioned in the posts earlier, the horse has now been found in this civilization in sufficient numbers (so that cannot be adduced as a reason ). The spoked wheel argument has also been found to be false. See the 17 bullets in the Klostermeier post(the 2nd post in this thread)enumerating the inconsistencies of the AIT. The new school (Kak, Frawley, Rajaram, Jha) believe also there is no difference between Dravidian and Vedic languages and that they both spring from the same root language. I have yet to read all these works ( I am in the process of ordering the books).So, it is too early to say who is right, but it appears that AIT has too many holes in it.
K

#40: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: gerard, Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_797000/797151.stm
Indian archaeologists say that gold treasure found early this month in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh could be highly significant.
The treasure belongs to the Indus Valley civilisation and may be about 5,000 years old.
[snip]
This also means that the area of the Indus civilisation is much larger than previously presumed.
[snip]

#41: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — Gerard, you (and the article) are right. The area of the Sarasvati/Sindhu civilization is vast and extends to a lot of Western and Northern India, all along the banks of the dried up Sarasvati river and other river valleys. In fact the name Indus Valley Civilization is a misnomer, because if it was truly a Indus valley civilization (IVC) more sites should have been found by now along the Indus(Sindhu) river. The IVC sites are a very late stage in the Sarasvati/Sindhu Civilization (SSC) presumably after the Sarasvati river dried up. More and more sites along the banks of the old Sarasvati are being discovered. The significance of this is that there are numerous references to the Sarasvati in the Rig. Why would the Vedics refer to a river that had already dried up, if indeed they came to India in 1500 BCE, as is alleged by Max Mueller, long after the Sarasvati had dried up.
Kaushal

#42: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Sagar, Posted: 20 Jun 2000 — Kaushal,
I haven't read Talegeri so I can't comment but it seems we agree that this region was both the proto-Vedic and Vedic areas and all migrations occurred from here both towards the east and west.
The migration theory I am talking about is those that propose an Aryan (?) homeland in Iran or Afghanistan or central asia. There have been suggestions of the Haravati in Afghanistan being the real Saraswati and an eastward movement. Some have suggested Eastern Iran and others Bactria in Afghn. All of them are basically trying to retrace the steps back to the start of this migration. Asko Parpola suggests two major waves of migration, etc. I do not think that there is anyone proposing the Vedic civilization in Russia or Turkey. What they are proposing however is that the proto-Indo-Europeans - the theoretical ancestors of the Indians, Iranians and Europeans came from near the Caspian sea. So it seems to me that we are talking of two different events here although the esteemed debaters do not seem to make a clear distinction.
So to me it appears that there are two events that are being discussed:
1) One is a pre-Vedic migration (no one except those Indian text books is seriously considering an invasion) which 'migration' theorists believe occurred from the traditionallly thought PIE homeland near the Caspian sea. What are the indegenous theorists suggesting on this one?

2) Development of the proto-Vedic and Vedic civilizations. The latter is clearly Indo-Centric IMO and here I seem to agree more with the indegenous theorists.

#43: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 21 Jun 2000 — http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/indology.html
This site has an active thread on Aryan Migration theories and related topics. One can search by author, title or subject.
K

#44: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 21 Jun 2000 — Sagar, do not know enough to agree or disagree with you. Need to read up some more. But I am inclined to agree. Apropos the distinction between Aryan Migration vs. Aryan Invasion, Edwin Bryant (he is writing a book on the topic)has this to say,
K
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 21:36:24 -0500
Reply-To: Indology
Sender: Indology
From: Edwin Bryant
Subject: Re: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration (scholarly debate)
In-Reply-To: <01iury2f51qc96vwir@rullet.leidenuniv.nl>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Jan E.M. Houben wrote:
> the Aryan-Invasion theory in the strong sense of the term is not any more
> seriously defended by Indologists for the last so many decades (Edwin Bryant,
> am I right?).
> They are combating an outdated theory which modern scholars do not take serious
> any more. They are positively wrong in suggesting that modern Indologists are
> still defending the very theories which Max Mueller and others suggested more
You are right that no serious scholar talks of invasions anymore (although
see Allchin as late as 1993 in Possehl's "Harappan Civilization").
However, we should be aware that many people (including scholars in many
universities in India) do not have access to state-of-the-art material
such as your "Ideology and Status of Sanskrit" volume, or Erdosy, etc
(except in a few universities, and even then, maybe). Many people in India
*are* still reading Muller--he *is* still being reprinted--you can buy
him in any Indological bookstore.
Also, even though people are talking about linguistic migrations,
nowadays, and not invasions, most of the infrastructure for the idea that
these Indo-Aryans came from outside the subcontinent was put in place
decaades ago when scholars *were* talking of invasions. Hence it is easy
(and perhaps understandable) for people who have taken it upon themselves
to critique this infrastructure to utilize the same terms as are used in
such sources. Best, Edwin Bryant.

#45: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 21 Jun 2000 — http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/nsindex.htm
A site devoted to the Sarasvati/Sindhu Civilization. There is an on-line book at this site by a Dr.Kalyanaraman and several other goodies.
K

#46: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 21 Jun 2000 — http://www.discoveringarchaeology.com/0800toc/8feature1-indus.shtml

This is a site with an article written for the layman. Kenoyer (one of the authors) was born and brought up in India). Gives a layman's overview of the artifacts found at Harappa.
K

#47: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Calvin, Posted: 21 Jun 2000 — This is an excellent thread, and one hopes to find more discussions of this sort on the forum.
Kaushal: Are you considering a thesis of some sort on this topic?
Perhaps even a 2-5 page paper/op-ed that lists the main issues, rebuttals etc would be worth putting together for Rediff or one or the other of the major Indian papers.

#48: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 21 Jun 2000 — Calvin, thank you for the suggestion. I am still in the learning stage. It took me 3.5 years to complete my Doctoral work, and that was when I was a lot younger. It is still too early for me to formulate strong opinions on this topic. While intentions are always running ahead of execution, the thought is to embark on a 2 to 3 year program of educating myself on the language (Sanskrit), The Rig, Archaeology, decipherment of scripts in order to decide for myself where things stand. Clearly this is an exciting time, with the resources that Information Technology brings to these fields.
K

#49: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Rkam, Location: Canada Posted: 21 Jun 2000 — With regards to the river in Afganistan, while some scholars have suggested that the Vedas were originally written in Afgansitan and that Aryan-Dasa contact occurred there, Elphinstone notes that the geography of the Rig Veda does not refer to the geography or climate of Afganistan. He found it strange that nobody would note in the vedas the change from a mountainous, arid, cold climate to a lush, temperate climate.
I have some questions, with regards to the Indus Valley Civilization. A previous post noted the presence of what appears to be a soma filter, which would link this civilization to the Aryans, however, I cannot recall the unicorn motif, which was so popular in Harrapa, being similiarly popular in later Indian civilization. Can we defintely link the Indus civilization and later Indian civilizaton.
Some scholars, have suggested recently, that there was a gap of between 2 to 5 hundred years between the end of the Harrapan and the beginning of the Aryan age. This of course suggests that there was no connection between the two, and at best these scholars are willing to concede that some elements of Harrapan culture may have lingered on after the collapse of the Indus Valley to later influence the Aryans.
We could refer to bull veneration, and the presence of the great seal with its figure reminscent of Shiva as proof of the connection, but, bull veneration was equally popular throughout the world, for example, Crete, and the figure on the seal as the look of a human archtype, present in many cultures, for example the bowl of Cernourous found near Paris, or perhaps Enkidu of Gilgamesh fame.
The question becomes, how closely can we tie together the Aryans and the Indus Valley?
With reference to some other intriguing elements, the word "Mleccha" so loved in the Vedas, is believed to not be of Sanskrit origin. It is startling similiar to the Sumerian word "Meluhha", which was the name by which the Sumerians referred ot the Harappan civilization.

#50: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 22 Jun 2000 — Some URL's relevant to AIT, Vedic, Indology etc.etc.
K
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1999 09:54:16 +0200
Reply-To: Indology
Sender: Indology
From: IreneMaradei
Subject: Re: URL of the Indology homepage
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Here is a list of URLs on subjects relevant to what is discussed in this
list and other topics of interest (some of the URLs gleaned on the list
itself!), including of course the Indology home page.
Indological pages
-Jambudvipa http://www.agora.stm.it/P.Magnone/indology.htm
~Indology.UK http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucgadkw/indology.html
-Academic Info Eastern Religions http://www.academicinfo.net/Eastern.html
-Alain Danielou
http://wwwusers.imaginet.fr/jcloarec/danielou/ANGLAIS/index.html
-Middle East Quarterly http://www.allenpress.com/mieq/index.html
-Indology list homepage: http://www.uclakuk/~ucgadkw/indology.html
-International Journal of Sanskrit Studies mailing list .If you want to
subscribe to the list (avg. 3 msgs per year, free of charge) mail to:
ijts-subscribe@asiatica.org subject and/or body: subscribe
You can submit papers, read abstracts, subscribe on our page
http://www.asiatica.org/

History-Aryan Invasion Theory debate
-http://www.rediff.com/news/jan/23iron.htm ( on date of iron age)
-Itihaas historical site: http://www.itihaas.com/
-History of India: http://www.historyofindia.com/ (then you choose the
period you want)
-Links to the history of India
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Harbor/8761/history/
-Aryan Invasion Theory :
http://www.stanford.edu/class/wct3b1/sjaiswal/aryanintro.html
-`The Bible of Aryan Invasions' by Prof. Uthaya Naidu at
http://dalitstan.org/journal/brahman/bibai/bibai.html (full book)
-http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/resources/Indoaryanproblem.htm an excellent
summary(and bibliographical notes) of Dr. Huben, on the state of the art in
confused evaluation of dates without archaeological evidence of movements of
people or languages and without palaeographic evidence (I mean, epigraphs)
of PIE...
-www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/1999/11/07/stories/13070671.htm Article in
"The Hindu" about Rajesh Kochhar's recent book _The Vedic People: Their
History and Geography_ (Orient Longman, 1999).
-Michael Witzel's (Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies-Harvard University)home
page:
-www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm
-Koenraad Elst home page.( Fervent "hindutva " fan. Many articles of his
against A.I.T. ) http://members.xoom.com/KoenraadElst/
-Arun Shourie's column http://www.indiaconnect.com/prevash5.htm
-Ram Swarup http://www.hindu.org/publications/ramswarup/index.html
- Anwar Shaikh http://www.hindutva.org/AnwarShaikh/

-World Association of VEdic Studies http://www.sunsar.com/waves/
- Dr. Herman Somers http://users.skynet.be/sky50779/home.htm
-American Institute of Vedic Studies http://www.vedanet.com/
-Free India (facts, anniversary, opinions): http://www.freeindia.org/
World Archaeological Congress
http://www.soton.ac.uk/jmg296/croatia/
American Friends of India http://www.americanfriends.org/
Hindu Web Universe http://www.hindunet.org/
Harappa http://www.harappa.com/
Samacar http://www.samachar.com/
Indiastar.com http://www.indiastar.com/
Stichting VADA http://www.vada.nl/
Religion-Spirituality
Links to India Information: Religion:
http://www.inpros.com/india/india222.html
The Hindu Universe: Introduction ( by the Global Hindu Electronic Network.
Guide to Hinduism, including the entire text of the Ramayana, Mahabharata
and other scriptures) http://www.hindunet.org/
World Congress of Ethnic Religions http://www.wcer.org/
HinduismToday http://www.spiritweb.org/HinduismToday/index.html
Guidance through Gita http://www.tezcat.com/bnaik/gita/guide.html
Jainism in India: http://www.bangalorenet.com/system1/vinod/
Zoroastrianism:
http://hindubooks.org/sudheer_birodkar/hindu_history/zoroastrianism.html
Mirror of India ( illustrated index of major philosphical systems and deitis
in Hinduism):
http://members.xoom.it/kundalini/kundalini-eng/
Mrs Donn's Special Selections: Daily Life Site Index ( educational site
about daily life in Greece, Egypt, Rome, India, China):
http://members.aol.com/Donnclass/indexfile.html
Books
Vedam's books( immense selection,online ordering, search facilities)
http://www.vedamsbooks.com/
India Nelines Books http://w.x4all.nl.~netlines/books.html
Findians Paradise: Latest News about books on India
http://w.netppl.fi/~findians/indiabk.html
IndiaStar Review of Books http://www.indiastar.com/
Books from India http://www.edoc.com/jrl-bin/wilma/oth.820731869.html
Sarasu Books http://www.sarasu.hypermart.net/
India Internet Book Fair http://www.oscarindia.com/
India Bookhouse&Journals (based in U.S.A.) http://www.indiabookhouse.com/
India Books http://www.indiaookstore.com/
India Club (Indian publishers and distributors)
http://www.indiaclub.com/aboutus.htm.
Oxford Bookstore Gallery (in Calcutta) http://www.oxford-india.com/
Nesma Books India (on spirituality and religion)
http://www.nesmabooksindia.com/
Radiff Bookshop (India)
http://www.rediff.co.in/cqi-bin/ncommerce3/ExecMacro/therediffbookstore
Roli Books (books on India) http://rolibooks.com/
Verandah Books http://www.verandah.demon.co.uk/
Navneet Publication (children's books) http://www.navneet.com/
Asia bookhouse http://www.wespawner.com/users/ASIABOOKHOUSE/
Bombay's unique philosophy bookshop
http://www.hindunet.org/alt_hindu/1995/Jan_2/msg00047.html
India Info: Books http://indiafocus.indiainfo.com/media/books
Asian Studies WWW Virtual Library
http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVL-AsianStudies.html
India Books http://members.tripod.com/adaniel.books.html
Prentice Hall of India http://www.phindia.com/
Manohar Books-India http://members.tripod.com/ravindrapc/Books.html
India Search Worldwide http://hindustan.net/Culture/Books/
Search Engine for India http://search.keralanadu.com/Books_and_Periodicals/
Indian Imprint http://www.bookindia.com/
Music of India: Books (books on Indian music) OOPS! I didn't write down the
URL!
Virginia University Library
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia
History, religion, philosophy, ayurveda http://www.Ipppindia.com/
Indus books (online ordering) http://www.teleport.com/~indus/
Books on Jainism http://www.ddb.com/~raphael/jain-list/resoffs.html

Tamil culture
Learn spoken Tamil http://www.iupui.edu/rravindr/learn.html
A collection of Tamil-related web pages
http://dcwww.epfl.ch/icp/ICP-2/KK/tlinks.html
The Tennessee Tamil Server http://tamil.math.utk.edu/

#51: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 22 Jun 2000 — Mlecchas, Melukhas and related matters.
With reference to some other intriguing elements, the word "Mleccha" so loved in the Vedas, is believed to not be of Sanskrit origin. It is startlingly similiar to the Sumerian word "Meluhha", which was the name by which the Sumerians referred ot the Harappan civilization.

Rkam, you raise many interesting points. It is again a case of making assumptions. The problems is that the debate is really about these assumptions. I will try to answer as many of these points (one at a time) as time permits. Let us take the last one , since this one has a seemingly simple explanation.

Again you make the assumption that Sumerian came first chronologically. Do you have a basis for saying that ? This is not a rhetorical question, as I do not have information one way or the other. I can only quote from Rajaram (1)

quote:

This(the Harappan, Sumerian, Sulba sutra connection) receives additional support from the following remarkable fact discovered by KD Sethna in 1981 (2). He noted that the Sanskrit word karpaasa for cotton appears for the first time in Sutra literature; the Samhitas and the Brahmanas do not know the word and show no knowledge of cotton. Harappan sites OTOH have revealed that cotton was widely used by their inhabitants. Also, the Sumerians who traded with the Harappans, called it kapazum which is obviously a corruption of the Sanskrit karpaasa The modern indian word kapda for cloth is also related to the same word.) But what is most interesting is that kapazam was a commodity that was imported from the country of Meluhha or Melukha.
The word Melukhkha is a corruption of the S'krit word Mleccha (which becomes Malekhkha in Prakrit, the cognate word in Telugu is also very similar). And Mleccha is the word used in the Brahmanas and the early sutras for both the language and the country of the Western people, that is to the say the people we now call the Harappans.

IOW, Mleccha does not imply what we commonly assume today , an untouchable, it simply means a Westerner. Furthermore, one can conclude from this that the Vedic civilization predated the Harappan civilization, since if it was the other way around there should have been references to cotton in the Rig Veda. It is a case of the dog that did not bark.
References
1.Rajaram, NS, 'Politics of History', Voice of India, ND,1995
2.Sethna , KD, 'Karpaasa in Prehistoric India, A chronology and cultural clue', Voice of India, ND (then known as Biblia Impex).

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 04-07-2000).]

#52: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Raj, Posted: 22 Jun 2000 — NCERT must learn history lessons: BSM
http://www.deccan.com/lead1.htm
Hyderabad, June 21: “The Aryans wrote long poems about their kings and
heroes, about their bravery and the battles which they fought. These poems were
later collected and became the two epics of ancient India, the Ramayana and the
Mahabharat.”
This is a passage from a textbook published by the National Council of Education
Research and Training for Class VI, written by the noted historian Romila
Thapar.The Class IX Social Studies textbook states that Aurangzeb’s empire
extended all over Bharat and Afghanistan except Kerala and northern hilly regions
of Uttar Pradesh, Nepal, Bihar and Assam.
In reality, Aurangazeb could not defeat the Hindu kingdom established by Shivaji
and could not proceed south beyond Golconda. The rest of Andhra, Tamil Nadu
and southern Karnataka were not touched by him, says D Visweswaram, former
professor of Andhra University and national general secretary of the Bharatiya
Sikshan Mandal.
“The contents in the textbooks are totally misleading,” he said.The Mandal has the
self-professed aim of promoting academic excellence through research and
discussions.
It strongly resented the “distortion of facts” in history text books published by
NCERT.The BSM has launched a campaign to counter the “distortion,” he said.
Visweswaram also appealed to academicians to raise their voice against such
distortions.
He also decried the Left campaign about the “saffronisation” of education.
This is from Deccan Chronicle

#53: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 22 Jun 2000 — Some scholars, have suggested recently, that there was a gap of between 2 to 5 hundred years between the end of the Harrapan and the beginning of the Aryan age. This of course suggests that there was no connection between the two, and at best these scholars are willing to concede that some elements of Harrapan culture may have lingered on after the collapse of the Indus Valley to later influence the Aryans.
The problem with this paragraph is the first sentence which is an assumption. The problem with this assumption is that it is just that, a conjecture or a hypothesis. And the 'some scholars' is none other than Max Mueller himself. Max Mueller had his biases. One of them was that he was a staunch believer in the Bible and an opponent of Darwins Theory of Evolution. He believed that the Earth was created in one day in the year 4005 BCE or thereabouts. He could not conceive that an Indian civilization was older than this date. The thought did not even occur to him. Remember that the IVC was not discovered by then. So he pulled the date of 1500 BCE out of his hat working backwards from the date of the Buddha. He essentially gave 200 years for each of the Vedas. Dont ask me why, because to this day nobody can satisfactorily explain the chronology of Max Mueller. While Max Mueller'reasoning has been discredited his chronology has survived to this day .
When the discoveries of the IVC came along and they were dated prior to this date to 2600 BCE, Indologists in Europe were in a quandary. They either had to give up the whole edifice that Max Mueller had built up and concede that the Vedic civilization was older than 1500 BCE or come up with an alternate explanation. They came up with the ingenious Aryan Invasion Theory. I do not wish to go into it in detail but the entire sordid story is laid out in the posts above.
But there were several holes in this explanation and these are the 17 points that are laid out by Klostermeier. The main ones are the drying up of the Sarasvati river in 1900 BCE long before the Aryans were supposed to be there. The only problem is that the Rig makes numerous references to the Sarasvati( a river that flowed from the mountains to the sea). Why would the Vedics make reference to a river that did not exist ?
And there are other problems. The hypothesis that there was no connection between the 2 is a motivated hypothesis to create the illusion that India was always invaded from time immemorial and that no single ethnic group could claim prior territorial rights to the land.
I can go on but it is all laid out in the posts above. I have yet to see a satisfactory explanation of the anomaly of the dried up Sarasvati river.
In actuality of course the more plausible explanation always was that the Harappan and the Vedic civilization were one and the same, and this civilization for purposes of identification is now known as the Sarasvati/Sindhu civilization. Once you accept that the Rig was composed around 3000 BC and the Harappan civilization was the tail end of the Vedic civilization, it all begins to make sense.
Ashok Kumar has summarized the arguments in the previous thread very well, and in case some have missed his post, it is worth repeating (Ashok , I hope you are out there, ready to join in this discussion).
Ashok writes;
I believe AIT has too many holes. The alternative theory that Indus valley civilization was Vedic has been gaining more evidence as compared to AIT. Any new evidence typically doesn't support AIT, but either supports vedic Indus valley or is pretty neutral. Below are few of the points that I want to talk about. (There was a thread on this topic few months ago too).
1. Horses: Initial excavations of Indus Valley sites didn't show evidence for horses. AIT supporters assumed it to mean that Aryans must not be realated with Indus valley as horses were so prominent in Vedas. But later excavations found several horse remains. In a couple of instances horse bones were found in a fire altar, similar to Ashvamedha Yajna of Vedas.
1. Fire Altars:] Vedic ritual is intimately tied with fire altars. Several of these have also been found in Indus valley sites.
3. Swastika symbol: Swastika symbol, which held in esteem by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains is second only to Om symbol. Swastika is quite common in countries having Indo-European languages. Indus valley seals have been found with swastika symbols on them.
4. Paradox of a civilization without literature and another without archaeological evidence:
Vedic literature is vast. But where are the Aryan archaeological sites? Indus valley civilization shows vast archaeological remains. Where is its literature? We have a curious paradox of a huge civilization without literature and huge literature without civilization! Why this mismatch? One resolution of the paradox is that Indus valley was vedic civilization.
5. No evidence of Aryan invasion: Initial AIT proposed marauding hordes of nomadic Aryans coming and destroying an advanced urban civilization of Indus valley. But Archaeological evidence shows no signs of any cataclysmic destruction. Lower layers of cities show an advanced urban culture, while the upper layers show successive decay spanning thousand years. There was no massacre, no cataclysmic invasion but a slow decay.
6. Paradox of Indus valley sites in desert:
Initial Indus valley sites were found along Indus river. But since then a majority have been found in Haryana and Rajasthan in essentially a desert. No old civilization built its cities in a desert. A river nearby was a must. In fact these sites that don't fall along any river are many more in number than those along Indus.
Apparently satellite pictures show a dried up bed of a vast river in Thar. Its biggest span was 12 km. It is not clear whether 12 km was the full part or it includes the flood plains too. But this dried up bed was a large river.
A majority of Indus valley sites are found along this dried up bed.
6. Paradox of Sarasvati River: In Rigveda Sarasvati is paramount amongst all rivers. She is called "Naditame". Sarasvati flew from himalayas to the sea according to Rigveda. In Atharvaveda, importance of Sarasvati is declining. In Mahabharata Ganga and Yamuna become paramount. In Mahabharata there is a mention of a pilgrimage along the Sarasvati and Sarasvati is said to have dried up in the desert. There seems to be a clear transition in significance of Sarasvati. Vedic civilization had Sarasvati as the main river, while the civilization of epics is Ganga-Yamuna centered.
Sarasvati apparently dried up around 3000BC. If true this puts vedic period squarely within Indus valley period.
7. Astronomical evidence:
Earth's axis precesses at a very slow rate. Zodiac is divided into twelve signs of 30 deg intervals. Indians also placed 27 Nakshatras (bright stars) along the zodiac, so the zodiac gets divided into approx. 13 deg intervals by the Nakshatras. Earth's precession rate is about 1 deg per 73 years. Therefore one Nakshatra is crossed in approximately a millenium.
Solstices and equinoxes are easy to mark by primitive means. A astronomer has to simply keep track of shadows cast at noon of a certain stick (gnomon) throughout the year. On summer solstice the shadow is shortest. On Winter solstice it is the longest. Equinoxes for the middle points of these two. Another easier way to keep track of equinoxes is to remember in which constellation Sun rose on the equinox day (i.e. which constellation of the Zodiac or which Nakshatra would be right behind the Sun). Measurements based on Stars are easier and people did depend upon them. Equinoxes became the beginnings of year in all major cultures. In North India the vernal equinox is considered new year, while in many other parts of India the New year starts from autumnal equinox.
The key point is that every 1000 years or so, the Nakshatra in which the equinox occurs changes. So earth's precession provides a clock that can measure in thousands of years, which is very convenient for ancient history.
Rigveda talks of equinox in Orion (Mrigashira Nakshatra or Sirius). It doesn't talk of equinox in Krittika (Plaedeis). Brahmanas mention equinox in Krittika Nakshatra. Mahabharata talks of Rohini-Krittika transition and mentions vernal equinox in Rohini.
Dating by present astronomical knowledge would put RigVedic age with equinox in Orion at around 4500-5000BC, Brahmanic age at 4000BC, Mahabharata at 3000BC.
Interestingly Kaliyuga is supposed to have started after Mahabharata war and conventional Kaliyuga starting date in Hindu calendar is 3102 BC. This date for Kaliyuga was mentioned by Hariswami (1st century BC) and Aryabhata (500AD).
This dating based on Astronomical evidence puts Indus valley civilization in the late vedic and Brahmanic period.
These dates were too bold for early historians, as mesopotamian, Indus valley, egypt, china etc hadn't been excavated then. Biblical timeline seemed thoroughly appropriate to early historians, but not any more.
8. Dasyus and Dasas and Aryas:
Battle of ten Kings mentioned in Rigveda is often mentioned as a battle between Aryans and local natives, where king Sudasa won against Dasyus and Dasas and Panis. But a detailed reading of the passage makes it clear that Sudasa's enemies were fellow Aryan tribes. Aryan tribes mentioned in the battle of Sudasa are Puru, Trstu, Anu, Druhyu etc. Kavasa who fought against Sudasa was a Vedic seer. It appears that Sudasa's battle of ten kings was an internecine war between Aryan clans. Still Sudasa's enemies are called Dasyus, Dasas etc. They are called of foul speech (mridhravachah), which AIT proponents take to mean "speaking foreign toungues". It could as well mean "speaking foul language" which is a common way to describe an enemy. His enemies are called "ayajnan" menaning they don't perform vedic sacrifices. It is like calling someone heretic. It doesn't necessarily imply a racial difference. They were called "Anasah", literally without a nose. AIT supporters take it to mean people with flat noses. But a flat nose is very much a nose. Why this added interpretation of "Anasah" which simply means "without nose". We often describe our enemies as without brains or without heart, but we don't mean it literally. "Without nose" could equally mean without honor. Recall that one usual punishment was to chop off noses to humiliate the offenders.
It is amusing to note that this very Aryan King Sudasa has a name that literally means "A good Dasa" (a good servant). Well then would you call Sudasa also a Dasa? There were other Aryan kings like Divo-Dasa, same reasoning with his name.
9. Vested interests of AIT proponents
AIT was not proposed in a vacuum. Original proposers' personal biases and agendas did play a role. Very few people know that MaxMuller who is considered an authority on India, and who was the one who basically proposed AIT, never even visisted India!
Even fewer people know, that MaxMuller was funded in his studies by Lord Macauley in England. The same Macauley who had such nice plans of robbing Indians of their soul and converting them into brown sahibs!
A letter written by MaxMuller to his wife in 1866 about his translation of Rigveda reads thus:
This edition of mine and the translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent...the fate of India, and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what the root is, is, I am sure, the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last 3000 years"
Talk of hidden agendas!

[This message has been edited by rupak (edited 22-06-2000).]

#54: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 23 Jun 2000 — Dholavira, a peep into India's past (how past - 5000 years past) glory.
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/dholavira_perspectives_19992000.htm

#55: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 23 Jun 2000 — http://link.lanic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/saraswatisindhucivization.html
A short monograph on the Sarasvati/Sindhu civilization.
K

#56: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 23 Jun 2000 — Communication from Edwin Bryant, K
Subject:
Re: Aryan Migration Theories etc.etc.
Date:
Fri, 23 Jun 2000 08:27:08 -0400 (EDT)
From:
Edwin Bryant
To:
Kaushal Vepa

Dear Kaushal,
I am out of town and away from e-mail, hence the delay in replying. I
glanced at the web site you mention, and notice that there is an excellent
list of recommended reading material that was posted by, I think, Linda
Hess or someone on RISA. That is an excellent place to start if you are
interested in researching this vast issue. BUt you will need to have
access to scholarly journals in linguistics, since the INdo-Aryan issue is
ultimately a linguistic one, and this evidence is almost completely
neglected by the Indigenist school. My book should be out with OUP by the
end of the year. I t will contain a full biblio of all relevant material,
as well as a complete discussion of the problem. Hope this helps. Edwin
On Tue, 20 Jun 2000, Kaushal Vepa wrote:
> Dear Dr.Bryant, I am a retired person of Indian origin in the US,
> following this controversy for some time and came across your name. as
> one who is not dogmatic in subscribing a particular theory. I have some
> questions for you;
>
> 1.When is your book going to be published and is it going to discuss the
> issues raised in this debate ?
>
> 2. What is the latest status and where can i read up on this, and who
> are the main contributors to the research on this topic ?
>
> 3. I am intending to pursue this area or field of study as a hobby. What
> is the minimum that one needs to understands the issues , and perhaps do
> some research ( i have the time, for the rest of my life) .
>
> I would be interested in your response to these questions. I participate
> in a forum called www.bharat-rakshak.com (go to the Bharat rakshak forum
> for the threads, and in particular the Economics and Politics forum)
> where there is currently a thread on this topic. Your views and
> critique on any misstatements in the thread are welcome. YOU ARE OF
> COURSE QUOTED THERE.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Kaushal
>

#57: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Prakash, Location: USA Posted: 24 Jun 2000 — Excellent thread - thanks Kaushal.
Also, if I may be a bit personal for a moment, I would like to note Calvin's appreciation of Kaushal's scholarship.
This is noteworthy because in other threads,
the two often have been antagonists and even have accused each other of personal attacks. I think that Calvin's appreciation of Kaushal's scholoarship on this thread demonstrates that despite our many differences on the BR forum, we respect one
another and learn from each other.

#58: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 25 Jun 2000 — The Hittite/Mitanni treaty, Kassites and related Matters
In the text of a treaty, the people of Mitanni, (1)a kingdom of the upper Euphrates came to an agreement with the Hittites , one of the dominant empires in the fertile crescent , and fourteen hundred years before Christ, call upon the Gods to witness it. The astonishing fact is that the list of these Gods is entirely Indian, Indra, Mitra, Varuna and the Nasatyas. The prevailing theory of the linguistic chronology is that the Indo-Aryans migrated from Iran to India in 1300 BCE. This poses a problem. Because if these Gods are Indian, how did they show up prior to 1300 BCE as far away as the Upper Euphrates. Even assuming that the Migration from Iran to Mesopatamia, took place earlier than 1300 BCE, there is still a problem. Because Indra is not regarded as a God in the Iranian pantheon. In fact he is a featureless minor demon and anybody worth their salt would hardly invoke him to bless a peace treaty.. The only possible answer to this conundrum is that there must have been a migration much earlier from the Sarasvati/Sindhu valley, and these Mitanni were the descendants of the Westward migration of the Vedic people.
Rajaram has this to say ‘In the years since the discovery of the Hittite Mittanni treaty with its Sanskrit names, the linguistic situation has grown only murkier and bedeviled by more contradictions. For instance among the Hittite records in Anatolia has been found to be a manual on horse training written in what is virtually pure Sanskrit. Now there are more than a hundred such records …’ (2).
Then there are the Kassites who ruled in Babylon (near to present day Baghdad) for over 500 years after their overthrow of Hammurabi. The Kassites worshipped Indian deities. There is a Kassite record in 1750 BCE in which a deity named Himalaya is mentioned.. This is only possible if these people were already in India and had awareness of the Himalayas. Again the only explanation is that the Kassites migrated westward from the Sarasvati/Sindhu upon the drying up of the Sarasvati. In fact it is safe to say that there was a fairly sizable migration out of the Sarasvati Valley, lasting probably at least hundreds of years and the entire Tigris Euphrates civilization was impregnated with worship of Indian deities.
References;
1.The Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology, Hamlyn, London, 1968, p.311
2.Rajaram and Frawley ‘Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization’, Voice of India , 1995, p.122

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 10-07-2000).]

#59: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Ashok Kumar, Posted: 25 Jun 2000 — Wow! Kaushal, great effort!
Mittannis and Kassites having Indo-Aryan gods does create a problem for Max Muller's date of Aryan invasion/migration into India. Rajaram and others have proposed a westward migration to explain this.
I read somewhere (can't recall where) that another way to explain this is by assuming that Indo-Aryan gods were worshipped from Syria till India and there was a sort of single cultural entity spanning this whole region. Zarathustra already mentions Devas as being worshipped in Iran where he introduced Asura (Ahura) worship. Zoroastrianism may have created the pocket of Iranian Aryans who didn't worship Devas, thus separating the Indians and Syrian/Mesopotamian Indo-Europeans (Mittannis etc.).
The conventional date for Zarathushtra is 500-600BC. But Zoroastrians themselves consider Zarathushtra to be much more ancient. Gathas of Zarathushtra are written in virtual Vedic Sanskrit like language suggesting their ancient nature too.
Westward migration is not inconsistent with one single Indo-Aryan culture spanning Syria to India. Just that the migration would have happened earlier.
There may also be some connection with Deva-Asura, Sura-Asura, Syria-Assiriya, Suryaa-Asuryaa etc.
Note that etymologically the word Asura is not a negation of Sura although that is the sense in which it is often used. It derives from root "Asu".

#60: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: bal, Posted: 25 Jun 2000 — Kaushal, great thread.
>>Why would the Vedics refer to a river that had already dried up, if indeed they came to India in 1500 BCE, as is alleged by Max Mueller, long after the Sarasvati had dried up.
Bryant makes a reasonable argument on this: ... while the Sarasvati may have been drying up by 1900 BCE, I am not aware of any evidence demonstrating that it had completely dried up by then.
You would not expect the river of its size to dry up over a short period of time.
>>Bryant:... ultimately a linguistic one ...
For the proponents of AIT this is one of their main weapons. But Talageri uses linguistics and mythology to state that though there was an aryan invasion, it was the Aryan invasion of Europe. If linguistics can be used both ways, can it be the ultimate factor?
I have only recently started to read about this and it is fascinating.
[This message has been edited by raka (edited 25-06-2000).]

#61: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: acharya, Posted: 26 Jun 2000 — No sarasvathi/sindhu civilization discussion can be held without looking at Koenraad Elst work on repudiating AIT theory.
http://members.xoom.com/_XMCM/KoenraadElst/articles.html

#62: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 26 Jun 2000 — The drying up of the Sarasvati (Ghaggar/Hakra) and its tributaries (the Drishadvati)
Raka says Bryant makes a reasonable argument on this: ... while the Sarasvati may have been drying up by 1900 BCE, I am not aware of any evidence demonstrating that it had completely dried up by then.
First, I will enumerate some resources before returning to this question. Bear with me through the reasoning and the readers patience will be well rewarded. However, , one must understand that while one makes conclusions based on the weight of evidence, certainty is elusive, especially when we are discussing events which happened over 4000 years ago, before the time of Rameses and Moses.
Resources
1. http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/nsindex.htm
This is a fairly comprehensive resource with much valuable information of the geological and other information pertaining to the mighty Sarasvati and its tributaries the Drishadvati and the Shatudri (modern day Sutlej).. The data from Landsat images is also shown. I believe one of the Indian satellites has also extensive data on the dried up river bed. There is an extensive Bibliography.
2.Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, ‘Ancient cities of the Indus Valley Civilization’, Oxford University Press, 1999
‘The gradual drying up of the Sarasvati river (also known as the Ghaggar-Hakra in the central stretches) is an event documented both geologically as well as in the sacred Vedic and Brahmanic literature of ancient India. The Rig V is a compilation of sacred hymns …These hymns tell of a mighty river, the sacred Sarasvati, that flowed from the mountains to the sea ’. (unlike the Afghan river, mentioned in Iranian texts, the Haraivati, which dries up in the desert and is relatively puny)
3. N.S.Rajaram., ‘The Politics of History’, Voice of India,1995, Ch.1, ‘Evidence of geography and Metallurgy’, p.19-23. This is a fairly good discussion on this phenomenon, and refutes the contention that it dried up in a short period of time. In fact Rajaram says ‘ that there is new evidence to suggest that the upper reaches of the Sarasvati – corresponding to the RigVedic heartland – had begun to go dry as early as 3000 BCE or about a 1000 years before what we can call the Great Drought… As a combination of data from the French SPOT satellite, and the Indo-French field study now informs us: -we now know, thanks to the fieldwork of the Indo-French experition, that when protohistoric peoples (Harappan c.3000 BCE) settled in this area no large perennial river had flowed there for a long time (Francfort,1992:91)’
4. Rajaram and Frawley, ‘Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization’ , Voice of India, 1995,p.102-104

Discussion
The first point is that there is very little disagreement on the basic inference that the Sarasvati existed and that it dried up. The satellite data is pretty conclusive on this. There is debate on the causes of the drying up. One of them is tectonic movement which shifted the direction of the tributaries away from draining into the Sarasvati. Whatever, may be the causes, it is pretty unanimous that such a drying up did indeed take place. The fact is that the Rig makes copious (more than 50 ?) references to the mighty Sarasvati, in its full glory as the greatest of all rivers and providing good pasture for cattle and horses.
The second point is that it took a fairly long time to dry up perhaps over five centuries or even a millenium. On this there is less unanimity, although nobody is suggesting that it happened over time periods shorter than 2200-1900 BCE. ‘In the Mahabharata, the Sarasvati is a perennial stream but dries up in the sdesert after creating a series of lakes , and measures a distance of forty days journey by horse from its origin.’ (4).
In any event , the Vedics were very present in India when the Sarasvati was present and were also present when it began drying up. This seriously puts in question the date of 1300 BCE as the date of arrival of the Vedics into India. Another equally troubling question is , if indeed the Sarasvati was drying up or already dried up by the time the Vedics arrived in India, why would they not stop at the tributaries of the Indus the Sutudri (Sutlej), the Vipas (Beas), and the Iravati (Ravi) and instead go on further to a less promising land, to start their civilization on the banks of the dying Sarasvati.. The answer is obvious.

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 04-07-2000).]

#63: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 26 Jun 2000 — I read somewhere (can't recall where) that another way to explain this is by assuming that Indo-Aryan gods were worshipped from Syria till India and there was a sort of single cultural entity spanning this whole region. Zarathustra already mentions Devas as being worshipped in Iran where he introduced Asura (Ahura) worship. Zoroastrianism may have created the pocket of Iranian Aryans who didn't worship Devas, thus separating the Indians and Syrian/Mesopotamian Indo-Europeans (Mittannis etc.).
Ashok, it is fairly important to me to answer the question of the origin of the Vedics. It is of significantly less importance (at least to me) whether they in fact fanned out of India to spread their culture, much as the later Dharmiks did to SE Asia and Indonesia.
It does seem incongruous if there was a eastward migration or a migration emanating from Iran, that Iran would be an anomaly stuck as it is between India and the Tigris/Euphrates civilization, adhering to a form of 'Vedic'heterodoxy different from the other contiguous regions of Asia.
It is possible you have the right answer, although those who belong to the linguistic school apparently have difficulty believing that such a large area could have developed along similar lines without the catalyst of extensive networking and communication.
Incidentally, you are right about the age when Zoroaster lived. 600 BCE is much too late even according to the Parsees. Xanthos of Lydia writing in about 450 BCE, (Rajaram) explicitly noted that Xoroaster lived 600 years before the Trojan war, which place him on or about 1900 BCE (again about the same time as the drying of the Sarasvati).
In any event I believe we are further along than we were at the beginning of the 20th century in our quest to understand the origins of the Vedics in India and maybe answer the question of the hypothesis of a 'cradle of civilization' (at least in the old world).
K

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 26-06-2000).]

#64: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 28 Jun 2000 — Publications of the Harvard Oriental Series. Books can be obtained from Harvard U Press.
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/hos.html

#65: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: rrikhye, Posted: 29 Jun 2000 — Kaushal: I've been trying to follow your thread on the Aryans. I cant contribute much, but did have a few comments.
Of course we must now all accept that the Indus Valley civilization died due to changes in the course of the Indus. I've been looking at this river on maps because of my scenario project, and it is one big, bad river: the amount it shifts around over the years even in the North is amazing.
Now my points:
In last two millenia we have ample documentation of invasions of India. Surely invasions took place in the two millenia before Christ. India was fabulously wealthy and I suspect the climate was a lot cooler because the country was heavily forested. It must have been a natural magnet for outsiders. So while Hindusim as we know it may well have developed indigenously as you say, a bunch of people who we call the Aryans could well have been among the invaders.
If India has exported Buddhism, why could we not have imported important elements of Hinduism, given the adapability of our culture?
In the good old days, people were actually in contact with each other far more than we give them credit for. I am inclined to believe that every religion/culture has influenced every other. Aside from what I am told is the linguistic evidence that Sanskrit belonged to an older language along with Greek, if you read the Illiad you will see an almost exact correspondance with the Ramayana, and of course, Greek gods and Indian gods share an uncanny correspondance.
Now, of course you can say that rather than invaders giving us the language and culture, we exported it to the west: after all, Homer wrote around 800 BC, so Indian ideas and religion which could be a great deal older would have had plenty of time to reach the rest of the world. Is there evidence for my speculation?
Last, consider Jung's theory of the universal conciousness and the current theory that many ideas develop simultaneously and independently. By this theory the Greeks could have developed gods and stories similar to India's on their own, with reinforcement going on with travel.
If I recall right, someone tested the theory that ideas develop simultaneously (wasnt this the Sheldrake thesis?) by teaching rats in London to run a maze. Then rats in New York were taught to run the same maze: they learned faster than the London rats. And, of course, in science this happens all the time.
I leave you with a thought. Hinduism says all creation is the physical manifestation of Brhama's dream. If so, regardless of race, color, creed, political belief etc., all humans and everything else are a unity.
When you have a moment, could you summarise the larger implications of your thesis? I feel you are driving at a political point, but I have not been able to give your very considerable writing the attention it deserves. So for us dum dums, how about a brief summary? Hinduism was not brought by invaders, it developed indigenously - then what?
Thanks for a stimulating discussion!
Ravi

#66: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 29 Jun 2000 — Ravi, you bring up interesting speculations, especially that ideas develop simultaneously in different parts of the world, and possibly in other parts of the galaxy.
At this time we do not know with any degree of certainty whether the Vedics ( i prefer to use that term to Aryans - aryan is not used as a noun in the Vedas only as an adjective, and we do not refer to people simply as the 'good')developed wholly in India or in fact migrated to other parts of the world. In a subject involving 6000 years of antiquity , certainty is elusive, all we can do is grope in the darkness, illuminated by the occasional candlelight gleaned from our ancient texts and from archaeology. The references I cited in this thread discuss the shortcomings of the various theories, but in the end one has to come to a judgement, based on analysis and reasoning.
But for those who say, the Vedics
originated somewhere (anywhere but in India)I ask how is it that there is not a single individual anywhere in these lands who can chant any part of the Veda ? I am of course excluding those who learnt the Veda in a University as part of their higher studies. I am talking about those who learnt it as part of their upbringing.In contrast, I, hardly a representative example, can chant my Sandhya and the Gayatri, reputed to be 6000 years old, with relative ease. Furthermore , why is it that only in India do we have such a huge amount of literature on the ancients. I am familiar with Greek Mythology and in fact quite fond of it, but Homer was a Johnny come lately compared to the age when the Vedas were composed. Neither Egypt nor Mesopatamia have left this abundance of living literature.
I do not have a political point to make (as yet). But there is an intense rage burning in me that I was forced to learn a history of my people, which was essentially a fraud and the elaborate effort on the part of otherwise honorable individuals who participated in executing this fraud (MaxMueller, Macaulay, Boden), and their successors today, many of them Indian who insist on perpetuating this fraud. I take some comfort in the fact that i am in distinguished company (Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Tilak, Ambedkar et al). On the contrary, the proponents of the AIT/AMT do make the point that India has been constantly invaded, invasions are really nothing new to the Indian people, and ergo there is no such thing as an original Indian or an Indic civilization
My aim at this point is simply to get at the truth. Who am I ? Who were my ancestors ? What did they really mean to convey (to me) when they brought out the prodigious output of literature in the mists of time ?. Where did they come from, if they came from anywhere. Incidentally, I have been interested in these questions all my life , but it is only now that I am able to indulge in the luxury of trying to answer them to my satisfaction.
K

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#67: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 30 Jun 2000 — Book review, June 29,2000 – ‘In Search of the cradle of civilization’ by Georg Feuerstein, Subhash Kak, and David Frawley, Quest Books, Wheaton, Ill, 1995.
This is a remarkable book which packs a lot of material in about 340 pages. It is a book which is a pleasure to read and assumes little prior knowledge of ancient Indian history. The authors come from diverse backgrounds. Feuerstein is a Yoga researcher and a historian of religion. Kak is a information theorist and cryptologist who has written extensively on the decoding of the Rig Veda. Frawley is director of the American Institute of Vedic studies and an Ayurvedi specialist, who trained at the Aurobindo ashram and has also studied with Ramana Maharishi.
The book brings together recent advances in the knowledge of the ancients in India in what is an unusual compilation. The only book comparable in scope to this that I have read is that of A.L.Basham ‘The Wonder that was India’. Much new information has come to light since Basham’s book was published in 1954.
The book is divided into 2 parts, the first part concentrating on the history of the Vedic peoples and the second on their spiritual and cultural legacy. Part I makes engrossing reading, starting with the goals of the book. Many questions are posed. How did the ancients meet life’s challenges ? How did they view nature ? What trials and tribulations shaped their experiences of the world ?. In seeking to answer these questions, the authors present the evidence of the astonishing role that India played as one of the giants, if not the pre-eminent giant in these ancient urban cultures. India has one of the largest extant literatures of the ancient world. It is unfortunate that the modern average Indian pays little heed to the contents of this vast and gigantic literary tradition.
The book ties together the evidence connecting the Sarasvati/Sindhu civilization(SSC) with the Vedic people, and shows that the evolution of civilization began far earlier than most western historians admit, ca 6000 BCE, that the progress of this evolution was relatively steady and that there were no discontinuities as is hypothesized by the proponents of the Aryan Invasion Theory/Aryan Migration Theory (AIT/AMT). There are chapters on the Indus Valley civilization also known as the SSC, the drying up of the Sarasvati River, the deciphering of the SSC script, the literature of the Vedas, among others.Incidentally, it is at the end of the first part of the book, in Capter 9, p.153, that the authors set forth their famous 17 arguments against the AIT/AMT. Readers can glance through these in the 2nd post in this thread on 'Questioning the AIT ...' by Klaus Klostermeier.
The second part of the book contains material that is less original. However , there is a chapter on the Astronomical aspects of the Vedic myths. It is particularly satisfying at least to this observer to note the extent to which the present day practices of the Indian Hindu have hardly changed from time immemorial.
I am confident that the reader will not want to lay down the book until he or she is done. I strongly recommend this as an addition to the library of all those who have an interest in the prehistoric era of India.
Kaushal

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#68: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: bal, Posted: 30 Jun 2000 — This is a site I found - seems like it has been setup by rajaram.
Take a look at the book reviews:
http://members.tripod.com/nsrajaram/kalidas.html

#69: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: rrikhye, Posted: 30 Jun 2000 — Kaushal:
Very well said! Like the other members of the Forum, may I extend my complete moral support to your venture in understanding our past!
Three more points to extend your investigation:
1. While you have been working very hard on your thesis, I have been working on a scenario which has its foundation: a belief by certain powers-that-be that the 21st Century will not be the American century, but the Indian century, and that the Indian model, in its ideal form, will be the model for the world, not the American model. Indian model: duty, scholarship, toleration for all, respect for all life, cultural diversity, celebration of the unity of all existance, modesty, moderation etc, etc. American model: freedom without responsibility, rights without responsibilities, setting man against man in a competition for existance, winner take all and the loser be damned, one truth and we're ready to kill you if you dont agree (be it Kosovo or tobacco), extremism in all forms, lack of respect for family, amazingly high level of discourtsey in every day life, etc etc. True the ideal Indian model has been very much tarnished: worst effect of the caste system, exploitation of the poor, etc. etc. That does not mean that the model itself should be rejected, any more than the evil of slavery in America means the best parts of the American model - democracy, respect for individual rights, etc. should be thrown away because it failed to live up to the ideal. The powers-that-be act to lay the foundation of a new world order that one day will be an Indian-model world order: setting our house right within, and setting our security situation right is all I cover, but that takes us only to the year 2010, leaving 90 years for building on these foundations.
My point: you and I, completely unknown to the other, have been working along identical lines, using different methods, and in complementary fashion. In essence, you are laying the philosphical basis for the assumption I use in my scenario for a future India-model world. So this is an example of different people in different parts of the world coming up with the same ideas at the same time.
2. Your experience of the way Indian history and civilization has been presented has obviously proved a soul-searing experience and made you into something of a revolutionary. The way Indian history and civilization was presented to me by my elders was totally different, even though they accepted the Aryan buisness in toto. I was brought up to believe that India is in fact unique, and in theory at least a far superior civilization to others. So the Arayan buisness never disturbed me in the least: just one more example, as far as I was concerned, of the superiority of our civilization that we could take the best of what others brought, adapt it to our own purpose without xenophobia, and remain convinced of our superiority without the need to ram it down everyone else's throats as Islam, Christianty, American capitalism, etc. have done. You will see from this that while I am an extreme nationalist in security matters, the anti-Muslim and anti-Christian violence taking place in India represent to me a betrayal of our unique contribution to the world - this is, of course, another matter.
3. I wonder if you have read Emmanual Velikovsky. He was dismissed as a crank and persecuted, but many of this theories have held up (and many have not). He believed that because of various reasons, the history of antiquity is made out to be longer than it actually is: he focused on the Jewish and Eygptian histories in the BC period, and believed that several hundred years had been added on. My point? Well, let me give you another example. After World War 2, anthropologists working in Papua-New Guinea learned of a cargo cult: a time when the gods showered manna from the heavens and no one had to work. The natives even showed the anthropologists the remains of a sky chariot: an American forces Dakota! You will no doubt know that in air drops in the good old days, upto 90% of the material used to land somewhere else. Imagine if you were an islander living in promiximity to the Stone Age, and then all of a sudden wonderful goodies - ciggerettes, chocolate, canned meat, etc. - start falling from the sky! The point here is that within one generation, within the living memory of many of the people who spoke to the anthropologists, this event was converted into a near-religious myth of ancient times!
You have given a lot of evidence for why the Vedas are very old, and they may not actually be that old. As you say, we just dont know a lot of things right now, and unless people like you enquire, we never will. I wonder why some of our internet billionaires dont spare a few hundred thousand to set up a foundation to study the issues you are bringing up. We must have a new awareness of our national conciousness, and you are on the right track. In my generation and earlier we Indians just sat around, drank tea, patted ourselves on the back for being great and unique, and went for our afternoon siestas. You are making a great effort to work this out - very American, if I may say without offence, ha ha - or as they say on BR MIlitary Forum, he he.
On a lighter note: I am very disappointed that the Aryan invasion theory has gone bust. Myself along with 50 million of my Punjabi, Sardar and Jat bros will be very upset to learn that we do not have, among our anscestors, a bunch of murderous thugs who looted and raped their way across Northern India. I do not know which part of India you are from, but to us Punjabi types this is very important as a way of justifying our natural tendency to bad behavior - its in the genes, yaar, nothing we can do about it! I hope now you are not going to prove there were no invasions from Central Asia: at least leave us Punjabis that little hope!

#70: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 30 Jun 2000 — Ravi, always fascinating to read your own unique mix of humor and thoughtful analysis.

On point one, you flatter me by comparing your own considerable work and authorship with my tentative attempts to unravel my past. Having said that the commonality that you see in our goals is a unique quality of Indians , in my opinion, and is in the best traditions of synthesizing various streams of thought going back to the ancients and continued by Shankaracharya, and more recently by Dayananda Sarasvati and Vivekananda. There is a good case to be made that the 21st century will be India’s century. After all a civilization that has outlasted its conquerers for 8 millenia, must have staying power. My personal view is that Indian civilization is still in repair mode (I am haunted by VS Naipaul’s imagery of a wounded civilization) after 2 centuries of concentrated efforts by the colonialists to destroy the vestiges of the ancients and to deny the inhabitants of the subcontinent a modicum of dignity and self-esteem. Contrary to what some may believe in BR, I do not feel that the damage done by the Muslim invader during the 6 or 7 centuries of domination compares to the damage done by 2 centuries of British rule in India (‘Unbritish rule as Dadabhai Naoroji called it). But like Sir Vidhyadhar, I am hopeful that the repair process is well under way. Human beings and civilizations are extraordinarily resilient and the Indian is no exception. I am confident that the Indian will once again occupy his rightful place in the councils of the world along with the Western European, the Chinese and other modern powers. Furthermore , as you rightly observe India brings some uniquely Indian traits to the table and you have listed them – duty, scholarship, toleration for all, celebration of diversity etc. India will synthesize once again as it has done many a time, the contributions of Islam and Christianity, to evolve a new but essentially the same Indian.
On point two , I take a different approach than you. The intensity with which I have expressed my feelings against the AIT/AMT, is precisely because some have argued that the rejection of this hypothesis automatically consigns one to an ‘anti Islam’ and ‘anti Christian ‘ posture. Such an approach is foreign to the way a Hindu thinks. In fact the word Hindu is too confining. I look upon myself as a follower of the Sanatana Dharma – the eternal path. I owe no allegiance to .any prophet or sage be he Yajnavalkya or Vyaasa. To me the Dharma of the Buddha is hardly very revolutionary, and easily fits into my essential ethos and philosophy. I am immodest enough to think that my way of thinking permeates the thinking of most Indians, and ideas of dominating another country, much less invading them to prove my superiority as a civilization and breaking the Kaaba in Mecca simply do not occur to the average Dharmik. To regain our lost heritage is not to denigrate anybody else and none need fear the Dharmik on that score. So please do not confuse the hunger and curiosity of getting to know our ancients and their contributions with some crass ‘anti-this or anti-that’ sentiment as the Marxists would have us believe. There is a lot more I can say on this, but as you can imagine, it probably deserves a book and some of the books we have reviewed in this thread address aspects of this question. But I will say this . efforts to denigrate the Dharma, and to put down the search for our roots. will no longer succeed in the guise of ‘it is against other cultures’, if they ever did.
As far as the current spate of incidents of interreligious violence, this is not within the immediate purview of this thread. But I like many of my fellow Dharmiks approach this from a certain perspective. When widely dissimilar weltanschauungs like the Dharmik religions and the Middle eastern faiths collide as they do in India, the resulting interaction is bound to be more eventful, than an afternoon of English ladies in Shimla discussing the growing of Begonias over crumpets and tea. Regardless of our abhorrence to unnecessary violence there is an inevitability to such a clash. This clash of civilizations is especially difficult to stem since India is finally free after centuries of domination . The role model of the modern Indian is the Intellectual Kshatriya (vide Bharat Rakshak) and meekness and turning the other cheek not to mention Gandhiism becomes less relevant, and it is my thesis that cultures emanating from outside of India have yet to grasp this fundamental transformation of the Indian. To cast this clash in civilizational terms is not to condone the violence of individuals and lawless elements of the society, but neither should it be an excuse to cast aspersions on all Hindus or their faith or to impute evil motives to those who like me take up the cudgels in defense of the Dharma. Our job as informed observers is to ensure that in the process, the truth does not become a casualty and to confine the violence to a war of words. I did not wish this thread to go the way of many others and slide into discussions of religious violence. If you wish to discuss the same we can take it off line.
I have not read Emmanuel Velikovsky but the name does ring a bell.I think I understand what you are getting at but I am afraid I do not see the connection. The notion that the antiquity of one’s heritage equates to superior moral conduct or to some special place at the table, would of course be rejected if not ridiculed by nations such as America. In fact Madeleine Albright did precisely that in response to Iraq’s contention that it deserved to be treated better simply because it is the inheritor of a great civilization. The popular american expression ‘what have you done for me lately’ applies here, and one must earn one’s stripes everyday and cannot rest on laurels of a bygone era, as Indians know only too well . My quest for my origins is an intensely personal one. I am not seeking any great ancestry or to claim that I am descended from Alexander the great or that I am a philosophical successor to the ancients. It is simply to answer the questions that I have posed earlier nothing more, nothing less.
Ravi, you need not feel crestfallen that the AIT never indeed took place. The Punjabis are the Vikings of India. They bring a unique and highly colorful dimension to the mosaic that is India. I would be proud to call myself a Punjabi, but alas I am not. But what I am or am not, linguistically or culturally, is not as important, than what I have revealed of myself in this thread.
K

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#71: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Sagar, Posted: 01 Jul 2000 — Raviji,
I thought for some reason you were Marathi but I guess I was wrong. Anyway, India is a land of many migrations and invasions - so all of us probabaly have some blood from somewhere else - more so the people of the North West which has seen invasions over many millenia. So Punjabis can still feel some Central Asian connection if they want to. -

The Jat family is indeed thought to be descended from a section of Scythians and are hence classified as an Indo-Scythian ethnic group in origin. And the Scythians indeed came in order to invade but later adopted Buddhism and Hinduism and melted into that 'Mother of all Melting pots' called India (America you still have a long way to go). I believe that the Churidar-pyajama (pathan suit) that is common in India today (and is very common in Punjab, Pakistan, Afghn) may have been Scythian in origin.

To add to what Kaushal said:
Kaushal makes a very important point that struck me quite hard when I was still a young history buff venturing on the fringes of this debate. That there is something very unique about Indian culture, religion and civilization that is not present anywhere else. I found it quite surprising that our supposed civilization should originate from a location where no trace of it exists at present and we are talking about a civilization which has taken a few millenia to evolve. We know the Greco-Roman civilization came from Greece and Rome, the Egyptian from Egypt, the Mesopotemian from Mesopetemia, but the Indic civilization must have evolved somewhere else when in continuity and diversity the latter outstrips the former by miles. This dichotomy was never clear to me - apart from the notion that nomadic barbarians as in the 'Aryan' race could actually be writing some of those very lucid Vedic verses and making some of the most profound philosophical observations while they were running on horseback and munching the deer they just killed and roasted. The contradiction was too obvious to even a kid like me.

My personal belief is that when false ideas become entrenched, new ideas which contradict such false notions usually come from outside the establishment. The Indian establishment consisting of mainly upper-caste Hindu elite suffering from severe inferiority complex actually liked the idea that they were also invaders to India just like their masters the Muslims and British. This idea therefore took their imagination by storm that they were also on the side of the rapists of India and the elite liked it inspite of the fact that philosophers of India like Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo have consistently spoken against it. Later on as the Marxists began taking over the Nehruvian institutions they further approved of it as they attempted to create an atmosphere of class struggle and anti-imperialist struggle surrounding caste struggle where the imperialist upper caste Aryan invaders ruthlessly suppress the native people who were then asigned to the lower castes. Thus, other than real scholarship we had everything going for the AIT and it became the status quo. The Nehruvian elite comprising the upper-caste Hindu elite liked the idea that they were also fair-skinned invaders just like the Turks and Moghals and the British. The challenge to these ideas came from outside the establishment and now that I come to think of it this seems logical given the nature of the status quo. The challengers are mostly not 'professional' historians (as our good friend Salman likes to point out) but wannabes who are not confined by set ideas. It is probably correct to accept now that they have generated a debate which can no longer be discounted as being some devious Hindu fanaticism working to delegitimize all minorities as illegitimate. The irony is that people most shouting this thesis are the ones who trumpted 'we are the Aryans who invaded from the West' proudly. So we upper-castes are still not clear in our mind whether we want to be the grand Aryan invader from the West like our oppressors - the Mughals, Turks, and the British or should we be the native people who were wronged by outsiders.

The truth is as always somewhere in between.
My emperical thesis after some more thoughts.
*************

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#72: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 01 Jul 2000 — The irony is that people most shouting this thesis are the ones who trumpted 'we are the Aryans who invaded from the West' proudly
I dont believe it is entirely accurate to say these are the same people who supported the AIT. But it is true that many of the leftists in India come from the higher castes (Namboodiripad, Hiren Mukherjee, Jyoti Basu,Dange, Harkishen S Surjeet- i definitely regard the Sikhs as one of the upper castes or classes, Romila Thappar, Kosambi). The Nehruvians are a very small minority in India and they will slowly fade away from the scene as they follow the dynasty into the wilderness.
I do not believe we should turn this again into a caste thing. The vast majority of Indians regardless of caste never felt comfortable with the AIT, since they couldnt see anything in common with these mythical invaders from a mythical land.But they were intimidated from speaking out because of the supposed reputation of Max Mueller as a Sanskritist, a reputation that was definitely not justified. Secondly the vast majority of Indians do not know Sanskrit, and you definitely need a knowledge of Sanskrit (knowing Hindi is not enough)to repudiate these theories. Both these conditions are changing now. The number of people in India who know Sanskrit is definitely on the rise.
But the AIT ands its corollary the Aryan/Dravidian theory did the trick for the Brits though, as they encouraged the Justice Party in Madras, which was specially created as an anti-Brahmin party and was a forerunner for the plethora of DMK parties. The Indians fell for it hook, line and sinker.
Of course these sentiments(identifying with the invasions) dont mean much. The Rajputs who are supposed to be descended from the Kushans, were so completely Indianized in a couple of centuries, that they certainly did not feel much kinship with the succeeding invaders, like the Moghuls until they really did not have a choice in the matter.
K
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#73: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 04 Jul 2000 —

quote:
Instead of wasting time on long-winded ancient crap on the so-called AIT, its better to focus on the "out of Africa" theory and the latest on the Human Genome project.

While your suggestion is good, I must point out that it is exactly this AIT crap that abounds the history textbooks in India. I learned about the so called AIT in my 6th grade, thanks to the (mis)informative books chalked out by the mandarins at NCERT and the Commies sitting in JNU. This AIT is also used extensively by the missionaries as "water", to incite the tribals against other Hindus, thus reaping a good "harvest of souls".

quote:
Those working on the Human Genome project discovered that race has no scientific basis.

The anti-AIT has been gaining more ground in the recent past including one genetic investigation which negates this farcicial theory. Didn't we have a thread on the topic a while back here in BR? Or is it just me?

#74: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 04 Jul 2000 — Book Review – July 3,2000, ‘Aryans and British India’ by Thomas Trautmann, University of California Press,Berkeley 1997

In a review of the book titled ‘Politics of History’, which I have posted earlier in this thread, I remarked that the study of History in Europe and Britain, especially Ancient Indian History or Pre-history as some would call it, has been tainted by racial and political considerations. The story of why and how this happened, is worth recounting, and has been done fairly thoroughly by Thomas Trautmann in a book titled ‘Aryans and British India’, published by University of California Press,1997. Trautmann is a Professor of History and Anthropology at the University of Michigan, where he teaches Indian History, among other subjects. He has also written a book on Dravidian Kinship. Trautmann was a student of AL Basham , to whom the book is dedicated.
The book is scholarly in tone and a little difficult to read, with somewhat long sentences, but that should not be a hindrance to Indians, who tend to favor long sentences. Even so, it is well worth the effort. Starting with the meaning of the word Arya and its interpretation by the Europeans , the author leads the reader through the history of this subject, to where we are today. The spectacle of a dark skinned people who were evidently civilized challenged the Victorian ideas of that age.’ Race science’ responded to this enigma of India by redefining the ‘Aryan’ concept in narrowly ‘white’ racial terms.
‘By the end of the nineteenth century , race science and Orientalism ( the study of linguistic affinity between Indo European languages) reached a deep and lasting consensus in regard to India – what Trautmann calls the racial theory of Indian civilization’. So we come to the state of affairs as it exists today. This theory holds that India’s civilization was produced by the clash and subsequent intermixture of the fair skinned Aryans, supposedly from Europe and the dark savages native to India.
While MaxMueller was the one primarily responsible for this so called racial theory of Indian civilization, he was far from being a racist himself. MaxMueller believed that ‘the same blood ran in the veins of the soldiers of Clive as in the veins of the dark Bengalese (sic). But he could not accept that the antiquity of the Vedic people stretched back in time much farther than the creationist view to which he was wedded.
I recommend this book for reading not so much for the attractiveness of these views, or lack thereof, but to get a glimpse of the manner in which a people and a society will subvert scholarship, in order to rationalize ordinary human frailties such as lust for conquest, greed, and the almost universal need to feel superior to every other race, creed, religion, ethnic etc.
Kaushal
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#75: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Faizi, Posted: 07 Jul 2000 — As an aside there is an interesting volume of the New Cambridge History of India titled something like "Liberalism and British rule in India" which is an interesting account of the British historical perspective of india. It says among other things that the british liberals chose to interpret india's history as that of a civilization which had stagnated after an early and glorious period. It also goes on to say that the british attempted to model the administrative setup in india according to their perception of how india was governed in ancient times. I'll put up the accurate reference soon if someone is interested.

#76: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 07 Jul 2000 — It says among other things that the british liberals chose to interpret india's history as that of a civilization which had stagnated after an early and glorious period.
Such a stance is of course very convenient, especially when you want to explain to your liberal friends why it was necessary to deny the natives of India, the basic rules of decency and human dignity that you afforded even the most disadvantaged in British society and why it was essential to conquer them. I am particularly dismayed at the total lack of questioning by the British intelligentsia of the period, knowing fully well that this was an ancient civilization, of the need for British rule in the first place.
Kaushal
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#77: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 10 Jul 2000 — July 9,2000 – Book Review – Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism by Shrikant Talageri, Voice of India, 1993
This is without doubt one of the most extraordinary books I have read in a long time. Talageri , with his own individual research and scholarship in the field of linguistics, Sanskrit and knowledge of the Vedas has demolished the whole Aryan Invasion Theory in a scant 400 pages packed with arguments and facts.
The Book is divided into 3 sections. The first section examines the impact that the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) has had on modern politics in India and the study of history as it is taught to schoolchildren in India today. The second section describes the basic aspects of AIT as it is propounded by its various protagonists. The 3rd section is the real meat of the book and deals with Talageri’s examination of the evidence and his conclusion that many of the premises and the conclusions of the AIT are simply untenable when examined under a microscope.
In the author’s own words ‘…The basic fact, which cannot be ignored, is that the traditional version(that the ancient Indians have always resided in India since recorded history) is the only version which was known in India since time immemorial, till the AIT was mooted by Europeans in the 18th century. Before the AIT was mooted, no one in India or anywhere else, had ever thought of the possibility that the ancient Indians could be classified as ‘Aryans’ and ‘pre-Aryans’, and those classified as ‘Aryans’ could be supposed to have come from somewhere outside India and taken over the land from the ‘pre-aryans’. This theory is therefore purely a product of the 19th century’
Many of the arguments presented and the material are original and until this publication came along, were not presented in this form anywhere else. The last few chapters in the book are particularly engrossing, as they deal with the lack of evidence for the AIT in the Rig Veda and the Puranas.
I strongly recommend this book to everybody interested in the ancient history of India and then make up their own mind as to the validity of the arguments presented.
Kaushal

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#78: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Calvin, Posted: 10 Jul 2000 — Does he address the linguistic questions?

#79: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 10 Jul 2000 — Joe, i am referring to the period up to 10,000 BCE. You are talking about Geologic time which is several hundreds of thousands of years ago when the human species (homo erectus)was still evolving. Ultimately they say man migrated out of Africa (100,000 years ago, who knows), but recorded history is less than 10,000 years old. India,according to some of the authors listed above, has the oldest recorded history, dating back to 4000 BCE for the Rig and the Puranas. Neither Mesopotamia, Egypt nor China have left any records going back that far. Again, you must understand we are talking about the mists of time, and as i have said repeatedly, certainty is elusive, all we can say at this point is that the AIT has fatal holes in it and can therefore safely be discarded as a hypothesis.
Kaushal

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#80: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: psmith, Posted: 11 Jul 2000 — For a little balance, below is an excerpt from the indology mailing list page - http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/indology.html ; taken from a section with "writings which seek to give an overview or a critical assessment of a topic of central importance to indological studies. The papers...are chosen for their scholarly acumen, intelligibility, and importance."
It deals primarily with the date of the Rg Veda (RV) with the date of the iron age in India and horses thrown in. http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9912&L=indology&P=R2
------------------------------------------
"...About the only thing we can say about the date of the RV , based on the RV itself, is that
* it is a pre-iron age (copper/bronze) age text of the Greater Panjab (incl. parts of Afghanistan). This sets a date ante quem of c. 1200, the earliest iron in India.
(iron is, not surprisingly, found in an old section of the linguistically slightly later text, the Atharvaveda, both SS and PS)
* a date ad quem is the linguistically and mythologically closely related Mitanni Indo-Aryan in Syria/Iraq of c. 1380 BCE
with the names of the major gods: Mitra, VaruNa, Indra and Naasatya (Azvin) and slightly *earlier*, pre-RV forms such as -azd(h)- for Vedic -ed(h)-,
e.g. Mitanni: Priyamazda :: Ved. Priyamedha.
...
* a date post quem is more difficult.
Nowadays we usually invoke the absence of Indus civ. cities in the RV and thus put it after c. 1900 BCE, the date of the demise of the Indus civ.
...horses are indeed not found in South Asia before 1700 BCE, all other reported finds are fom UNSTRATIFIED or BADLY recorded excavations: such bones belong to the native half-ass (khor, hemiod, onager) which is very similar to a horse (see R.Meadow's various papers).
...
Chariots of Indo_Aryan type first occur around 2000 BCE west and east of the Ural mountains.
This points to a group of people using the horse drawn chariot, using an Indo-Iranian (and Indo-European)-derived language and IE/IIr-derived complicated poetry all of which were introduced into the Greater Panjab after the demise of the Indus civ., which has neither chariots nor horses nor IE type language, religion, rituals etc.

A possible date post quem thus is 1900 BCE, probably closer to 1700 BCE (horses in the Kachi Plain of the Baluchi/Sindh border).
* In addition, the trail of the speakers of Indo-Iranian increasingly becomes clearer: there is a strong Central Asian substrate (of Bactria-Margiana), both in the RV and in the Avesta/Old Persian... This substrate most likely comes from the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Comlex (BMAC, calibrated radiocarbon dates 1950-1700 BCE) and nearby areas.
-- Which again points to c. 1700 (and later) for the Indo-Aryans of the RV.

This is about as much as we can say today. Max Mueller has nothing to do with the sketch given above (he simply guessed well -- for his time!), nor inertia. On the contrary, with new evidence, the picture is fine-tuned year by year...."

Michael Witzel
Harvard University
----------------------------------------

#81: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 11 Jul 2000 — Witzel, along with a handful of other Western Indology scholars are squarely in the AIT camp. They refuse to refute Talageri.The spoked wheel argument(and the chariot) has been proven false by its presence in the Sarasvati/Sindhu civilization. The problem here is that none of these guys addresses the issues raised in the 17 bullets(the drying of the sarasvati river, the astronomical data, lack of references to any geography outside of India in the Rig) first put forward by Feuerstein, Kak and Frawley in any meaningful way, other than dismissing it arrogantly. I would hardly consider Witzel balanced.
OTOH, Edwin Bryant whose communication with me I have posted in this thread, is far more balanced in his opposition to the Indians, and is a skeptic while avoiding the dogmatic position that all the points raised by Talageri are inconsequential. His book is coming out later this year. It will be an expensive book but will contain an extensive bibliography on the topic.
The only hook that the foreign Indologists hang their hat on is Comparative Linguistics. Now contrary to what Witzel says, this is a field that originated with MaxMueller. He lost the Boden Chair of Sanskrit at Oxford to Monier Williams and was looking for new endeavors to make a name and came up with comparative linguistics. Now comparative linguistics, for those who are not aware, is not physics or chemistry and does not have a lot of the essential qualities that a 'science'has. This subject is very much in the stage of 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' with very few standards of rigor.
Incidentally both of those sites posted by psmith have been posted by me earlier in this thread. In fact there is currently a debate going on at the Indology site between another gentleman and Konraad Elst on the decipherment of the Sarasvati/Sindhu script by Jha and Rajaram.
Kaushal

#82: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 16 Jul 2000 — Bhagwan Singh in the ‘The Vedic Harappans’, Aditya prakashan, ISBN 81-86471-04-9, 1995, makes the following observations about the reaction of the English when they first learned about the antiquity and richness of Sanskrit;
'The Europeans had a very poor opinion of India and Indians till they had their first real encounter with the Sanskrit Language and the ancient literature of India. Their sense of shock and surprise was most eloquently expressed by Sir William Jones (1788,’Third annual discourse”,Asiatic researches, I, London 422-423)

quote:
‘The Sanskrit Language , whatever be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure;more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them stronger affinity both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar than could have been produced by accident; so strong that no philologer could examine them at all without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which perhaps no longer existed

Exactly the same sense of surprise and disbelief was expressed by Europeans when they held their first encounter with the splendid Indus cities rising up from their slumber with the touch of the digging tools and the analytical fingers. ….If all the enduring and salient fetures of Harappan urbanity are found preserved in Vedic tradition alone, the connection could be denied by inventing or exaggerating the paltry differences arising due to regional variations or historical changes.'

I am fascinated by this magnum opus which has a wealth of information including photographs of the Sarasvati Sindhu civilization, with several pages of references. I am hoping to complete the book in a week, and then I will be able to report some findings
Kaushal

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 15-07-2000).]

#83: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 07 Aug 2000 — Book review. The Problem of Aryan Origins - Fom an Indian Point of View' by KD Sethna. Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi,1992. Available from IndiaClub House.
KD Sethna is a Parsee,with an inordinate interest in this subject. He has one eminent qualification above all else . He was educated St.Xaviers College, Bombay, my alma mater.
This post is still under construction since I havent finished reading the book. But i did not want the thread to slide of the bulletin board.
Punaha Milaamaha, Dhanyavad.
K

#84: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: shashidhar, Posted: 07 Aug 2000 — Kaushalji,
I have been hearing about the terms like Indo=aryan,Indo-iranian and Indo-european.What do these mean?Is it that the perverted minds of the above Indo+traditions put their seals to share with a civilisation that had surpassed them in thoughts,action,lingustics,culure,science and life as such?What is this really?Why can't it be that it was the Indians who migrated from India to these areas as the eastern civilisation migrated to the west US?
I fully agree with the peninsular facts.there is a time line gap and these are not even close.
I have a fundamental problem in arya as a race since there was none.We must erase this myh and get back our identity.
It is INDIAN, NOT INDO-EUROPEAN,INDO-IRANIAN AND INDO-WHATEEVER.

#85: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Amitabh, Posted: 07 Aug 2000 — Kaushal,
I do not have even the barest grasp of the issues involved in this lengthy debate but my concern is that the bulk of your citations appear not to be mainstream historians and archaeologists.
I am as suspicious of Sangh Parivar-affiliated academics and "independent scholars" as I am of Leftists. There seem to be far too many Voice of India types in your list!

#86: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 07 Aug 2000 — shashidhar, some of the questions you ask have been answered in the books reviewed in the posts above (especially the books by Rajaram, and Trautmann, 3 of which are reviewed in this thread). Fundamentally it is a racial/colonial mentality that seeks to deny that a complex civilization such as that of the Vedic people could have originated in India.
While certainty is still elusive in these matters, somethings I can assert.
1. There is no such thing as a Aryan race. This is a figment of the white man's imagination partly to justify his superiority to the semitic people who dominated Europe for several centuries. All the corollary words such as Indo-Aryan, Indo-european etc.,when they have a racial connotation, are therefore without foundation.
2. There is a connection between Samskrtam and other European Languages, but whether this necessarily postulates a proto-Indo European language is a debatable point and in my view the proof is not conclusive. What is most likely is that there was significant commerce, intermingling and networking even in ancient times between the Tigris Euphrates civilization and the Sarasvati Sindhu civilization
3. As for migrations in and out of India, one must be careful. There is always migration of people. A little accepted fact even by Indians is that Indians have always migrated out of the subcontinent except for brief periods when they were ruled by foreign rulers and were prevented from doing so. I have given my reasons as to why i am skeptical of Aryan migration theories into India. You have to follow the arguments carefully but there are several of these enumerated by Kak, Frawley, Feuerstein, Klostermeier, Rajaram and Talageri. Several of these arguments are discussed in the posts above. For those who say the Veda originated somewhere else, I say how is it that I have yet to find a European(or a person from any other part of the world) who can pronounce Samskrtam correctly.
4. It seems highly likely that the Vedic peoples migrated out of India (clearly the ancestors of the Parsees did emigrate from the Sarasvati Sindhu doab into present day Iran. There is evidence they emigrated also to other parts of the world (mid-east, Ireland and others).
5. We are only at the beginning of this quest for understanding or knowledge of our past which was robbed from us by systematic de-culturalization over 100's of years. To that extent it behoves each and every one of us to learn our ancient heritage (reading, and speaking Samskrtam is a good start) so we can read our ancient texts in their original and make up our own mind. Fasten your seat belt because the next 50 years will be exciting years of discovery.
Tejasvinavadhitamastu, May our study be full of light,
Kaushal

#87: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 07 Aug 2000 — Amitabh, it is impossible to refute an argument like yours. I do not disbelieve matters relating to my heritage just because many of of the people making the claims happen to be of the same heritage. You have to take each argument separately. We are talking about events that happened 6500 years ago. Rest assured there was no Sangh Parivar then. Make up your own mind. I cite 3 instances.
1. The drying up of the Sarasvati river around 1900 BCE
2. Karpasa (cotton) in the Sarasvati sindhu civilization.
3. Absence of any references to any geographic entities outside of the Indian subcontinent in the Rig.
I dont expect an answer from you in 1 day, or even a month. These are weighty issues and require some degree of study, reflection and analysis to make up one's mind. Do not worry about who is making the claim. The point is does it make sense ?
Maa vidvishaa vahai ((May we not cavil, be contentious) at each other
Kaushal

#88: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 07 Aug 2000 — Incidentally Chaitanya, there are a large number of Western scholars I have quoted (Kenoyer, Trautmann, Edwin Bryant) and none of these can even remotely be considered to be part of the Sangh Parivar.Klostermeier is I believe a Catholic priest who has great reverence for the Hindu spiritual tradition that he has made a lifelong study of the same. Dr. Ambedkar, the father of the Indian constitution, is certainly not part of the Sangh Parivar and he dismisses the AIT as a fiction. Neither are Swami Vivekananda or Sri Aurobindo. KD Sethna, as I have said earlier is a Parsee,educated at St.Xaviers, like me, hardly a Sangh Parivar institution who has written this wonderful book (cited a couple of posts above) which I am in the process of reading
The issue is not, whether one is a member of the Sangh or one is communist, the issue is whether you let ideology and narrow partisan considerations color your judgement and reason. Bhagwan Singh is a communist but his book is a treat to read.
I ask readers of this thread not to indulge in knee jerk reactions and then brag about them. If you havent taken the time to read the posts then at least refrain from commenting. If ignorance is bliss then consider the alternatives.
The point is not to gloat over India's ancient heritage however great it may have been, but to remind each and every one of us that this is a common heritage of all Indians(and of the world) and that if Indians could do it once before they can certainly 'do it' again.
Kaushal
Sahanaavavatu, Sahanau bhunaktu Sahiviryam karavaavahai;
Tejasvinaavidhatamastu maavidhvishavahai;
On shantih shantih shantih
May He protect us both
Mey He nourish us
May we acquire the capacity to sudy
May our study be enlightening
May we not cavil(make trifling objections) at each other
This is an ancient invocation which dates to the Vedic times, and is generally invoked before any study session. It is not religious and does not ask that you subscribe to a particular religious tradition.
K

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 07-08-2000).]

#89: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 16 Aug 2000 — The Theory of the Aryan Invasion(Francois Gautier)
The first and foremost explanation for this inferiority
complex could be the theorem of the Aryan invasion, which
is still taken as the foundation stone of the History of
India. According to this theory, which was actually
devised in the 18th and 19th century by British linguists
and archaeologists, who had a vested interest to prove
the supremacy of their culture over the one of the
subcontinent, the first inhabitants of India were good-
natured, peaceful, dark-skinned shepherds, called the
Dravidians. They were supposedly remarkable builders,
witness the city of Mohenjo-Daro in Pakistani Sind, but
had no culture to speak-off, no written texts, no proper
script even. Then, around 1500 B.C., India is said to
have been invaded by tribes called the Aryans : white-
skinned, nomadic people, who originated somewhere in
Ural, or the Caucasus. To the Aryans, are attributed
Sanskrit, the Vedic - or Hindu religion, India's greatest
spiritual texts, the Vedas, as well as a host of
subsequent writings, the Upanishads, the Mahabharata, the
Ramanaya, etc...
This was indeed a masterly stroke on the part of the
British : thanks to the Aryan theory, they showed on the
one hand that Indian civilisation was not that ancient
and that it was posterior to the cultures which
influenced the western world - Mesopotamia, Sumeria, or
Babylon - and on the other hand, that whatever good
things India had developed - Sanskrit, literature, or
even its architecture, had been influenced by the West.
Thus, Sanskrit, instead of being the mother of all Indo-
European languages, became just a branch of their huge
family; thus, the religion of Zarathustra is said to have
influenced Hinduism - as these Aryan tribes were believed
to have transited through numerous countries, Persia
being one, before reaching India - and not vice versa. In
the same manner, many achievements were later attributed
to the Greek invasion of Alexander the Great : scientific
discoveries, mathematics, architecture etc. So
ultimately, it was cleverly proved that nothing is
Indian, nothing really great was created in India, it was
always born out of different influences on the
subcontinent.
To make this theory even more complicated, the British,
who like other invaders before them had a tough time with
the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas, implied that the Aryans
drove the Dravidians southwards, where they are still
today; and that to mark forever their social boundaries,
these Aryans had devised the despicable caste system,
whereby, they the priests and princes, ruled over the
merchants and labourers... And thus English missionaries
and later, American preachers, were able to convert
tribes and low caste Hindus by telling them : " you, the
aborigines, the tribals, the Harijans, were there in
India before the Aryans; you are the original inhabitants
of India, and you should discard Hinduism, the religion
of these arrogant Aryans and embrace, Christianity, the
true religion".
Thus was born the great Aryan invasion theory, of two
civilisations, that of the low caste Dravidians and the
high caste Aryans, always pitted against each other -
which has endured, as it is still today being used by
some Indian politicians - and has been enshrined in all
history books - Western, and unfortunately also Indian.
Thus were born wrong "nationalistic" movements, such as
the Dravidian movement against Hindi and the much-
maligned Brahmins, who actually represent today a
minority, which is often underprivileged.... This Aryan
invasion theory has also made India look westwards,
instead of taking pride in its past and present
achievements. It may also unconsciously be one of the
reasons why there was at one time such great fascination
for Sonia Gandhi, a White-Skinned-Westerner, who may have
been unconsciously perceived as a true Aryan by the
downtrodden Dravidians and a certain fringe of that
Indian intelligentsia which is permanently affected by an
inferiority complex towards the West. It may even have
given a colour fixation to this country, where women will
go to extremes to look "fair".
But today, this theory is being challenged more and more
by new discoveries, both archaeological and linguistic.
There are many such proofs, but two stand out : the
discovery of the Saraswati river and the deciphering of
the Indus seals. In the Rig Veda, the Ganges, India's
sacred river, is only mentioned once, but the mythic
Saraswati is praised on more than fifty occasions. Yet
for a long time, the Saraswati river was considered a
myth, until the American satellite Landstat was able to
photograph and map the bed of this magnificent river,
which was nearly fourteen kilometres wide, took its
source in the Himalayas, flowed through the states of
Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan, before throwing itself in
the sea near Bhrigukuccha, today called Broach. American
archaeologist Mark Kenoyer was able to prove in 1991 that
the majority of archaeological sites of the so-called
Harappan (or Dravidian) civilisation were not situated on
the ancient bed of the Indus river, as first thought, but
on the Saraswati. Another archaeologist , Paul-Henri
Francfort, Chief of a franco-american mission (Weiss,
Courty, Weterstromm, Guichard, Senior, Meadow, Curnow),
which studied the Saraswati region at the beginning of
the nineties, found out why the Saraswati had
'disappeared' : " around 2200 B.C., he writes, an immense
drought reduced the whole region to aridity and famine "
(Evidence for Harappan irrigation system in Haryana and
Rajasthan -Eastern Anthropologist 1992). Thus around this
date, most inhabitants moved away from the Saraswati to
settle on the banks of the Indus and Sutlej rivers.
According to official history, the Vedas were composed
around 1500 BC, some even say 1200 BC. Yet, as we have
seen, the Rig Veda, describes India as it was before the
great drought which dried-up the Saraswati; which means
in effect that the so-called Indus, or Harappan
civilisation was a continuation of the Vedic epoch, which
ended approximately when the Saraswati dried-up.
Recently, the famous Indus seals, discovered on the site
of Mohenja Daro and Harappa, may have been deciphered by
Dr Rajaram, a mathematician who worked at one time for
the NASA and Dr Jha, a distinguished linguist. In the
biased light of the Aryan invasion theory, these seals
were presumed to be written in a Harappan (read
Dravidian) script, although they had never been
convincingly decoded. But Rajaram and Jha, using an
ancient Vedic glossary, the Nighantu, found out that the
script is of Sanskrit lineage, is read from left to right
and does not use vowels (which like in Arabic, are
'guessed' according to the meaning of the whole
sentence). In this way, they have been able to decipher
so far 1500 and 2000 seals, or about half the known
corpus. As the discovery of the Saraswati river, the
decipherment of the Indus scripts also goes to prove that
that the Harappan Civilization, of which the seals are a
product, belonged to the latter part of the Vedic Age and
had close connections with Vedantic works like the Sutras
and the Upanishads. In this light, it becomes evident
that not only there never was an Aryan invasion of India,
but, as historian Konraad Elst writes, it could very well
be that it was an Indian race which went westwards : "
rather than Indo-Iranians on their way from South Russia
to Iran and partly to India, these may as well be the
Hitites, Kassites or Mitanni, on their way from India,
via the Aral Lake area, to Anatolia, or Mesopotamia,
where they show up in subsequent centuries" .

#90: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: O Vijay, Posted: 16 Aug 2000 — Kaushalgaru, my compliments on your efforts. Following article may be of some help.
Vijay
----------------------
T. Kivisild et. al., Deep common ancestry of Indian and western-Eurasian mitochondrial DNA lineages, Current Biology, Vol 9, No 22, pp 1331-134, 1999.
The summary is take verbatim from this paper:
"The first and the most profound layer of overlap between the
western-Eurasian and the Indian mtDNA lineage relates to haplotype U, a complex mtDNA lineage cluster with an estimated age of 51,000-67,000 years. We calculated the coalescence age essentially as described (ref 15,17) and estimate the split between the Indian and western-Eurasian U2 lineage as 53,000 +/- 4,000 years before present".
"Typical western-Eurasian mtDNA lineage found in India belongs to haplogroups H,I,J, T,X and to subclass U1,U4, U5 and K haplogroup U. Frequencies of these lineages in Indian populations are more than an order of magnitude lower than in Europe:5.2% versus 70%. This finding might be explained by gene flow. Neverthless, we note that the frequency of these mtDNA haplotypes reveals neither a strong north-south, nor language-based gradient; they are found in both among Hindi speakers from Uttar Pradesh (6%) and Dravidians of Andhra pradesh (4%). Assuming that they are largely of western-Eurasian origin, we may ask when their spread started. We obtained divergence time of 9300 +/- 3000 years. This is an average over an unknown number of various founders and therefore, does not tell us whether there were one or many migration waves, or whether there was a continuous long-lasting gradual admixture. Their low frequency but still general spread all over India plus the estimated time scale, does not support a recent massive Indo-Aryan invasion, at least as far as maternally inherited genetic lineage are concerned. Furthermore, the spread of these western-Eurasian-specific mtDNA clusters also among Dravidic-speaking populations of India lends credence to the suggested linguistic connection between Elamite and Dravidian populations".

"The supposed Aryan invasion of India 3000-4000 years before present therefore did not make a major splash in the Indian gene pool. This is especialy counter-indicated by the presence of equal, though very low, frequencies of the western Eurasian mtDNA types in both southern and northern india. Thus, the `Caucasoid' features of south Asians (Indians) may best be considered `pre-caucasoid' -that is, part of diverse north or north east western Eurasian and southern Asian populations over 50,000 years ago".

#91: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 17 Aug 2000 — Thank you vijay. This news item got lost in one of the previous threads and I am glad you have resurrected it. DNA evidence is powerful confirmation that if there were any migrations into India around 1500 BC they were insignificant enough not to affect the gene pool. Let us see if this convinces the protagonists of the AIT/AMT who continue to insist that the origin of the Rig is anywhere but India .
More importantly , this should eventually percolate into the Indian consciousness, especially the leftists at NCERT and JNU, that all these divisions between aryan and dravidian are a figment of the imagination of a handful of European scholars and an elaborate hoax played on India. Indians are the inheritors of one of the oldest literary traditions in the history of humankind. Let us first understand what this tradition is trying to tell us before we attempt to tear it down so eagerly.
see also
http://www.egroups.com/files/IndianCivilization/kivisild.pdf
K
[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 26-10-2000).]

#92: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: ramana, Posted: 25 Aug 2000 — NS Rajaram writes in Pioneer, 8/25/00..
The games that historians play
NS Rajaram
Of late the air has been rent by cries of `saffronisation' by eminent historians who, until recently used to
monopolise the history establishment.
The most recent example of this is the complaint launched by some JNU professors over what they claim to be
the `saffronisation' of archaeology following the discovery of demolished Jain, and possibly Hindu, temples in
excavations at Fatehpur Sikri. This, of course, raises serious questions about the secular credentials of Akbar and
other Moghul rulers, which is anathema to our secularist historians. But what is increasingly becoming apparent
is the dismal record of these scholars during their decades of monopoly of influential institutions like the ICHR.
This makes their cry of `saffronisation' look suspiciously like a diversionary tactic meant to draw attention away
from their own failure as historians, while significant progress was being made by less heralded scholars outside
the establishment.
The last 20 years have witnessed momentous advances in our understanding of ancient Indian history. Beginning
with US Wakanakar's discovery of the Vedic river Sarasvati, it culminated in the decipherment of the famed
Harappan script by N Jha, with whom this writer collaborated, leading to the book The Deciphered Indus Script
containing deciphered readings of nearly two thousand seals. This period also witnessed the Vedic-Puranic
synthesis effected by the gifted young linguist and historian Shrikant Talageri. This was accompanied by
Seidenberg's discovery showing that Vedic Mathematics was the source of both Babylonian and Egyptian
mathematics. We are now on the threshold of revolutionary changes in our understanding of ancient India and
even the world. Curiously, the key figures in this revolution N Jha, KD Sethna, David Frawley, A Seidenberg,
Shrikant Talageri are not members of the history establishment. In contrast the `eminent historians' of the ICHR
and other institutions have little to show and have been content to rehash the Colonial-Marxist model of ancient
India.
Recently, the ICHR brought out a volume called Sourcebook of Indian Civilisation edited by Niharranjan Roy,
BD Chattopadhyaya, Ranbir Chakravarti and VR Mani. This volume, twenty years in the making, should have
been an authoritative reference work. Yet, even a cursory examination shows that it is not useful for any serious
student. Instead of primary sources, the Sourcebook is made up of nothing more than excerpts of English
translations made largely in the last century. Another book, supported by the establishment scholars The Vedic
People: Their history and geography by Rajesh Kochhar makes Afghanistan the seat of all ancient Indian works,
notably the Rigveda, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The absurdity of this claim can be made manifest by
noting that the Rigveda is full of references to oceans and ships. There are numerous verses praying for the safety
of ships and passengers bound on ocean voyages. The image of the ocean is the most common poetic device
used by the Vedic poets. The famous creation hymn known as the Nasadiya Sukta of the Rigveda describes the
time of creation as Darkness concealed in darkness, the whole universe was like an ocean without light. To say
that such poetry was composed in landlocked Afghanistan is like making Switzerland a great naval power.
These scholars have little notion of either the language or the contents of primary sources. It seems that the only
time one hears of them is when there is a scandal or when they are involved in a political exercise. In contrast
scholars like Jha or Talageri have received media notice only because of their fundamental contributions. These
eminent historians have got away only because they had a monopoly over establishment institutions. But,
following changes in the establishment, their true worth as scholars is being exposed. So they resort to a
diversionary tactic and the cry of saffronisation.

#93: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 15 Sep 2000 — I post this here to contrast the differing views on the role of history in the 2 countries. Of course , the leftists in India have a similar motive to 'bend' the facts of history to fit their thesis. In Pakistan, history apparently begins on 712 AD when Mohammad bin Qasim invaded Sindh.
K
http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/sep/14gopi.htm

#94: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 18 Sep 2000 — http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20000918/books3.shtml
Gallic Veda
A book review by Swapan Das Gupta
K

#95: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 19 Sep 2000 — assuming that all that has been said to refute AIT is true and that saraswati was the site of this ancient civilization, its drying up must have made a massive impact on the society in those times. where, in all of the ancient texts is the drying up of saraswati mentioned and is there a description of the massive drought and subsequent migration or relocation of the populace?
Apparently you have not read the thread in its entirety or you would not have asked this question. See the post dated 25/6/2000,22:34hrs, which refers to the drying of the sarasvati river. Se also the post on 11/6/2000, 19:30 hrs.
>8.The Rigveda describes a river system in North India that is pre-1900 BCE in the
case of the Saraswati river, and pre-2600 BCE in the case of the Drishadvati river.
Vedic literature shows a population shift from the Saraswati (Rigveda) to the
Ganges (Brahmanas and Puranas), also evidenced by archaeological finds.
The reference to the Sarasvati is extensive in the Rig (roughly about 50 times). This simply says that the antiquity of the Rig is even greater than originally thought, whereas in the later Vedas it slowly loses its importance. See (and read) the references mentioned in the post.
One difficulty as far as making references to the drying of a river, is that it does not happen like a hollywood movie in 2 hours. This event took probably about 500 years So, it is not something that somebody would notice in one lifetime. It is simply the case that references to the river and its importance simply vanish until it becomes a distant memory. Satellite data leaves little doubt that the river dried up around 1900 BCE and the process may have started even earlier.
Furthermore, as I have said repeatedly in this thread, one cannot be certain of anything when talking about events as old as this (6000 years). It is therefore difficult to talk about inferences as 'truth'. One can only deduce from whatever data is available and make reasonable conclusions. In this instance, there is ample geologic, satellite data as well as copious references in the sacred Vedic literature to the gradual loss of importance of this river.
K

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 19-09-2000).]

#96: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Milind, Posted: 22 Sep 2000 — (Another) Claim to unravelling Harrappan script
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/09/22/stories/14222183.htm

Hi-tech Harappa gallery is open
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/09/20/stories/14202183.htm
[This message has been edited by Milind (edited 01-10-2000).]

#97: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 01 Oct 2000 — Apparently the debate is getting acrimonious. Regardless of the merits of the arguments, it is clear that much is at stake in the outcome of this debate,
K
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 03:15:49 -0400
Reply-To: Indology
Sender: Indology
From: Edwin Bryant
Subject: Re: RAJARAM EPISODE
In-Reply-To:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Sat, 30 Sep 2000, hans henrich hock wrote:
> If we fail to introduce more civility and impartiality we will not
> only talk past each other, we will actually be providing aid and
> comfort to those we are trying to combat, by creating the appearance
> that it's simply one ideologically-based and problematic approach
> opposing another one.
I too would like to beg the indulgence of this list and second these
comments. Despite having spent most of my academic career researching the
problem of Indo-Aryan origins -- a fascinating intellectual and
historical problem -- I have become completely disillusioned, and
somewhat repulsed, by the emotional, sarcastic and condescending tenor of
much of the exchange from *both* sides of the debate in this regard. Yes,
stereotypes are simply being reinforced by all this -- western
neo-colonialist/Indian leftist Marxist vs Hindu fundamentalist/Right-wing
Nationalist.
It was Mallory, as I recall, who mentioned in one of his articles that
"History cannot be written by decibel."
Although impartiality might be asking too much, civility would be most
welcome.
Regards, Edwin Bryant

#98: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Varun Shekhar, Location: Toronto, CANADA Posted: 02 Oct 2000 —
Kaushal- The latest issue of Frontline has a cover story or feature on the Harappan/Vedic controversy. Michael Witzer has written a long,dry, soulless piece trying to refute the idea of a relationship between the Vedic and Harappan societies.
Honestly,the Frontline people! They will go to any length to undermine the development of a healthy national feeling in India,including bringing in soulless American scholars into the debate.I'm going to write a letter saying that what's important is not whether a horse is really a unicorn,but whether your heart is in the right place; Frontline's isn't.

#99: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 02 Oct 2000 — http://www.orientalthane.com/newsviews/feb00/27-02-00/5.htm
TWO MAJOR WORKS ON VEDIC INDIA
The following two major works on Vedic India have been released by Aditya Prakashan of Delhi:
The Deciphered Indus Script: Methodology, Readings, Interpretations by N. Jha and
N.S. Rajaram, Rs 950 (H
The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis by S. Talageri, Rs 750 (H
K

#100: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 02 Oct 2000 — Varun, I just finished skimming the Frontline articles (including one by Marxist JNU (?)historian Romila Thapar, who is no friend of rajaram. Michael Witzel, who is influential in the US, being a professor of Sanskrit (OTOH, how much influence does a professor of sanskrit have in the US ?)is a long time basher of Saraswati Sindhu civilization (as being Vedic). Steve Farmer is a sidekick of his. I am not perturbed by their virulence. This will arouse Indians out of their stupor and make them aware that there are powerful forces trying to propagate 'anywhere but India' as a hypothesis for the origin of Samskrtam and the Vedas.
Their desperation shows.If the seals of the Sarasvati Sindhu civilization are proven to be Samskrtam, then the whole edifice they have built up since the time of MaxMueller breaks down.
This is the old Indian disease - looking to a firengi to adjudicate on matters which are predominantly Indian in scope. I do not know when we will get out of this slavish habit but it will happen.
K
[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 01-10-2000).]

#101: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 02 Oct 2000 — Raj Chengappa writes in his usual clear style;
http://www.atributetohinduism.com/aryan_invasion_theory.htm#The Indus Riddle - By Raj Chengappa
scroll down to the list of articles and then click on Raj Chengappa.
Also to be found in,
http://www.itihaas.com/ancient/indus4.html#1
K

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 15-10-2000).]

#102: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Calvin, Posted: 02 Oct 2000 — There is an interesting article on teh drying of the Saraswati in Current Science (june 25, 2000)
http://tejas.serc.iisc.ernet.in/~currsci/june252000/JUNE25.PDF
Look forward to Kaushal's comments.

#103: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 02 Oct 2000 — The above is not an article but a letter to the editor and is filled with inaccuracies. I am not going to spend my time refuting every statement every individual makes.
Two statements stand out in the brazenness of their falsehood;
>This literature does not contain a single reference to anything remotely resembling the scale and majesty of the Harappan civilization at its peak.
This is totally absurd. There are numerous references to many cities and hundreds of buildings .
>Nor does it refer to the cataclysmic drying of the Sarasvati river; or to the demise of the Harappan civilization
I have already addressed these questions earlier. See my earlier posts and go through the whole thread
Sudhanshu Ranade is a journalist whose writings I have come across more than once. Suffice it to say that every thing he writes is with an axe to grind and with little regard to the truth.
K

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 02-10-2000).]

#104: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 07 Oct 2000 — I have referred to this site before in this thread
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/ratha1.htm

The unicorn is a recurring motif in the Sarasvati Sindhu seals and clearly shows familiarity with the anatomy of a horse, so the argument that the horse was not present in this civilization or in its seals is not entirely accurate. The unicorn is a stylistic rendering of a mythical animal (we can only surmise) that may have significance in ritual .
‘The pair of bulls hooked to the chariot are extremely interesting in as much as the modelling of their hind part has lent them the appearance of a horse rather than that of a bull, and their tails look more like a horse's tail. And what is more, their mouth too resembles that of a horse. This bull-horse combination of the body is strikingly similar to that of the unicorn which is so commonly depicted on Indus seals. It is equally noteworthy that a unicorn with two horns has been carved on a seal from Kalibangan (Lal 1979: 91). The most remarkable feature of these bulls is their projecting horns. This is a feature which is characteristic of the terracotta bulls from Chanhu-daro excavations and we are told that they are even today seen in Sind (Mackay 1943: 164, Pl. LVIII, 1 and 1a). Such bulls, however, are not represented in the chalcolithic art of the Deccan’

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 07-10-2000).]

#105: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 12 Oct 2000 — The Discussion of the Astronomical Evidence of the Age of the Rig Veda
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/aryan/koenraad1.html
Playfair's argumentation, "Remarks on the astronomy of the Brahmins", Edinburg 1790, is reproduced in Dharampal: Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century, Academy of Gandhian Studies, Hyderabad 1983 (Impex India, Delhi 1971), p.69124.
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/vedicage.htm
This requires some knowledge of Astronomy and the stars. But as usual when there is an argument to be made against the antiquity of the Rig, Michael Witzel is not found wanting. His rebuttal is to be found at this site also.
Tilak was the first to bring attention to this astronomical evidence.

quote:

Absolutely in an independent way, working at Bonn, far away from Poona where Tilak had his residence, H.G. Jacobi had arrived almost at the same time at a conclusion by his careful study of the Vedas and the Bra_hman.as that the anient Indo-Aryans knew of a Naks.atra-series viz. the Mr.gas'iras-series older than the Kr.ttika_-series which lasted according to Tilak from about 5000 BC to 3000 BC in which the R.gveda was composed. Jacobi was of opinion that the beginning of Vedic literature should be placed in 4500 BC...Buhler's reaction to the almost identical views of the two scholars resulted in the publication of his 'Note on Professor Jacobi's Age of the Veda andProfessor Tilak's ORION' in the Indian Antiquary, 1894 (September), in which he declared that both of them had made good their main proposition,viz.that the ancient Indo-Aryans had once an older Series of the Naks.atras with Mr.gas'iras at the vernal equinox...

Ashok Kumar's explanation - simple and elegant -

quote:
7. Astronomical evidence:
Earth's axis precesses at a very slow rate. Zodiac is divided into twelve signs of 30 deg intervals. Indians also placed 27 Nakshatras (bright stars) along the zodiac, so the zodiac gets divided into approx. 13 deg intervals by the Nakshatras. Earth's precession rate is about 1 deg per 73 years. Therefore one Nakshatra is crossed in approximately a millenium.
Solstices and equinoxes are easy to mark by primitive means. A astronomer has to simply keep track of shadows cast at noon of a certain stick (gnomon) throughout the year. On summer solstice the shadow is shortest. On Winter solstice it is the longest. Equinoxes for the middle points of these two. Another easier way to keep track of equinoxes is to remember in which constellation Sun rose on the equinox day (i.e. which constellation of the Zodiac or which Nakshatra would be right behind the Sun). Measurements based on Stars are easier and people did depend upon them. Equinoxes became the beginnings of year in all major cultures. In North India the vernal equinox is considered new year, while in many other parts of India the New year starts from autumnal equinox.
The key point is that every 1000 years or so, the Nakshatra in which the equinox occurs changes. So earth's precession provides a clock that can measure in thousands of years, which is very convenient for ancient history.
Rigveda talks of equinox in Orion (Mrigashira Nakshatra or Sirius). It doesn't talk of equinox in Krittika (Plaedeis). Brahmanas mention equinox in Krittika Nakshatra. Mahabharata talks of Rohini-Krittika transition and mentions vernal equinox in Rohini.
Dating by present astronomical knowledge would put RigVedic age with equinox in Orion at around 4500-5000BC, Brahmanic age at 4000BC, Mahabharata at 3000BC.
Interestingly Kaliyuga is supposed to have started after Mahabharata war and conventional Kaliyuga starting date in Hindu calendar is 3102 BC. This date for Kaliyuga was mentioned by Hariswami (1st century BC) and Aryabhata (500AD).
This dating based on Astronomical evidence puts Indus valley civilization in the late vedic and Brahmanic period.
These dates were too bold for early historians, as mesopotamian, Indus valley, egypt, china etc hadn't been excavated then. Biblical timeline seemed thoroughly appropriate to early historians, but not any more.

See also Ch.12 in Kak , Frawley and Feuerstein's 'In search of the cradle of civilization'
K

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 17-10-2000).]

#106: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 12 Oct 2000 — Kaushal,
I wanted to tell you that I was able to lay my hands (by accident) upon a book called "The Geography of Rgvedic India", by Late. Lt.-Colonel Manohar Lal Bhargava (Indian Medical Service), published by The Upper India Publishing House Ltd., Lucknow, 1964. I don't know if you know about this book since I was unable to find it referenced in BRF (did a keyword search). Notwithstanding the results of my keyword search, I surmise that it is highly unlikely that you won't know about this book.
I see that there are many posts in this thread which talk about/seek information on physical geography in the hymns of the Rg. I wonder if you would mind if I actually quoted the verses (from the above mentioned book) which talk about the same? Also, I wanted to do it using Devanagari font instead of the usual transliteration scheme which I find cumbersome and confusing.
Now since this board supports HTML code, all one has got to do is to download the Webdunia.ttf font from the Webdunia site. This will enable members to read Sanskrit in the original font i.e. Devanagari.
I hope the proposed exercise is not redundant. Do let me know.mnltJJ;w mnltiCwl¢;w

#107: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Sagar, Posted: 12 Oct 2000 — VRaghav,
Could you please give us a brief summary of the above? For those that may not know Hindi or Sanskrit.

#108: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 12 Oct 2000 — Vraghav, excellent suggestion. I had the same idea but you got around to it. In my screen the 'Ka', in Bhunakthu is not showing up.
But anyway I hope all those who know samskrtam will join in the discussion. It is best to go to the original sources rather than depend on somebody's interpretation, which is why some of these controversies have arisen. I believe the Harvard site has the entire Rig in Devanagari on line.
K

#109: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 12 Oct 2000 — Sagar,
the above is called shAnti mantra and is usually chanted at the end of an Upanishadic preaching session. I have merely written it in the Devanagari font. For the meaning/summary, please refer Kaushal's post on 07-08-2000 at 11:53. To paraphrase him:
Let us both (guru and the shishya) be protected together, let us put in our best efforts to further our knowledge, let our study be resplendent and let us not hate or quarrel.
Kaushal,
thank you so much. I have to say this which I have admitted before in the "What led to the decline of Sanskrit" thread, that my knowledge of Sanskrit is average. I can only understand words that I have come across during the 4 years of my studying the language, which in any case was quite basic. So I would request (and as you have said) other knowledgeable members to chip in whenever they see some glaring mistake either in my explanation or grammar. (sahavIryam karavAvahai!)
The Rg Veda has been composed in Vedic Sanskrit. I have already enumerated the essential differences between VS and Classical Sanskrit (CS) in the "What led...Sanskrit" thread. Presence of new words, forms and above all the accented format are the main stumbling blocks in the way of interpreting VS. Since our goal is to know the physical geography of India during the Rg Vedic time, it would be safe and prudent to interpret the words in a way which would bring out their most closest natural meaning without going too much into the esoterics.

quote:
In my screen the 'Ka', in Bhunakthu is not showing up.

Did you try reloading the page? I first thought it may be due to Internet Explorer (if you are using one) but when I checked it, it was working fine on my PC.

#110: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 12 Oct 2000 — Sagar,
I just realised that you could have meant "how to write Hindi/Sanskrit using the Webdunia font" when you asked me to "give a summary of the above". Please let me know.

#111: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 13 Oct 2000 — From Rajaram's article in the Pioneer:

quote:
To say that such poetry was composed in landlocked Afghanistan is like making Switzerland a great naval power.

According to the AIT campers, the Rgvedic Aryans did not know about seas and oceans. This is in clear contradiction to the innumerable allusions to them as well as large ships and navigation in stormy waters. In fact the Rg mentions four names which under the context they have been used can mean nothing else but oceans/seas.
One can find words like samudra, sindhu and arNava -- mbwŠ, rmà"w , yKoJ which are synonyms for sea/ocean.
IX-33-6 -- samudrAnshchaturo -- mbwŠtkëa;whtu and
X-47-2 -- chatuhu samudram -- a;w&mbwŠk
The above two phrases mean four samudras i.e seas.

quote:
the Rigveda is full of references to oceans and ships.

Some other indirect references are:
I-48-3 -- samudre na shravasyavaha -- mbwŠu l ¶JôgJ& which means like people who are desirous of wealth (send ships) to the sea.
IX-97-44 -- rayim cha na aa pavasvA samudrAt -- hrgk a l yt vJôJt mbwŠt;T rayim = wealth; cha = and; pavasva = beget; samudrAt = from the sea.
More later.
PS, a complete online Devanagari version of the Rg with English translation can be found here. Incidentally, the site has a link to saraswati.simplenet site which Kaushal has posted in this thread earlier.

[This message has been edited by VRaghav (edited 14-10-2000).]

#112: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 13 Oct 2000 — References to the sea apparently appear also in (Sethna, p.413, Problem of Aryan Origins, 2nd edition)
X,73,3
VII,6,7
VIII,26,17
I,46,2
K

#113: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 15 Oct 2000 — References to the sea apparently appear
That is a nice qualifier. Because in many of the verses quoted by Kaushal from Sethna's book both sindhu and samudra have been used.
I-46-2 -- sindhu mAtarA -- rmà"w bt;ht | sindhu = either river or sea and mAtara = mother. This verse describes Ashwins as sons of the sea i.e they were born or they came out of a sea every morning.
I-163-1 -- udyant samudrAduta -- W'àÀmbwŠt=w; | The same after breaking up becomes: W'à;T + mbwŠt;T + W; which respectivley mean rising (as in the morning)+ from the sea + up.
Since the Ashwins and the sun are intimate to one another, it makes more sense to interpret the word sindhu in I-46-2 as describing a sea rather than the river Sindhu in the light of I-163-1.
Two seas are mentioned frequently together in the context of the sun residing in both i.e. rising from one in the morning and retiring in the other in the evening. The following verse makes it clear:
X-136-5 -- ubhau samudrAvA ksheti yashcha pUrva utAparaha -- WCti mbwŠtJt Gur; gëa vqJo W;tvh& | ubhau = both; samudrAvA = seas; ksheti = dwells; yashcha = who (masculine); pUrva = east(ern sea); utAparaha = after rising up.
The above is further qualified by the mentions in VII-6-7 (ref.: Sethna's book)
VII-6-7 -- aasamudrAdavarAda parasmAt -- ytmbwŠt=Jht=t vhôbt;T | After breaking up it becomes (IMO): yt + mbwŠt;T + yJht=t + vhôbt;T, which respectivley mean: or + from the sea + near/this + from the other/far.
in association with in the same verse, from heaven or earth:
VII-6-7 -- diva aa prithivyAhA -- r=J yt v]r:Ôgt& | diva = heaven; aa = or; prithivyAhA = from the earth
VIII-26-17 -- yad ado divo arNava iSHo vA madatho grhe -- g=T y=tu r=Jtu yKoJ RMtu Jt b=:tu d]nu | The word divo meaning heaven before arNava meaning sea, could mean some sort of sea in the heaven. Hence I am not too sure about it. But the important thing is the use of the synonym arNava for sea.

[This message has been edited by VRaghav (edited 14-10-2000).]

#114: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 15 Oct 2000 — The Myth of Aryan Invasion of India
By Dr. David Frawley

Ch.9.The Rediscovery of the Sarasvati River
http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/myth_aryan_invasion/page11.shtml
Ch.10.The Vedic Image of the Ocean
http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/myth_aryan_invasion/page12.shtml
References
10. Manu Samhita II.17-18.
11. Note Rig Veda II.41.16; VI.61.8-13; I.3.12.
12. Rig Veda VII.95.2. This is in a hymn of the rishi Vasishta who has the greatest number of hymns in the Rig Veda.
13. Studies from the Post-Graduate Research Institute of Deccan College, Pune, and the Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), Jodhpur. Confirmed by use of MSS (multi-spectoral scanner) and Landsat satellite photography. Note MLBD NEWSLETTER (Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass), Nov. 1989.
Note also Sriram Sathe, BHARATIYA HISTORIOGRAPHY (Hyderabad, India: Bharatiya Itihasa Sankalana Samiti, 1989, pp. 11-13.
14. David Frawley, GODS, SAGES AND KINGS: Vedic Secrets of Ancient Civilization. Salt Lake City, Utah: Passage Press 1991/ Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass 1993.
15. R. Griffith, THE HYMNS OF THE RIG VEDA (Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976).

#115: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 16 Oct 2000 — More passages from the Rg on the Sarasvati,
http://link.lanic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/saraswatisindhucivization.html

#116: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: rrikhye, Posted: 16 Oct 2000 — Kaushal, Sorry to take up space on your thread, but I dont have an email for you. I was wondering if you had time/interest to start a thread (or to do yourself) some ancient Orders of Battle that I would put on my site. I think a good many people would be very curious to know what the line-up was say at the 1st Battle of Panipat, or even the wars detailed in the Ramayana and Mahabharata. You'd be the first person as far as I know to do this, and you'd have the copyright to the page in case you wanted to sell it someone else. I know you dont need more fame, but this is a worthwhile project that would help the new generation to see their past military history in a context they can understand. Think about it! My email is rikhye1@hotmail.com

#117: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 22 Oct 2000 — This was originally posted by Harshavardhan Vedak in another thread on Ancient Navies. I thought the relevant excerpts would be of interest here.
K
http://sino-sv3.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/FULLTEXT/JR-ENG/cha.htm
Naval Warfare in ancient India
By Prithwis Chandra Chakravarti

The Indian Historical Quarterly

Vol.4, No.4 1930.12, pp.645-664

p. 645
I
Introduction
India has an extensive sea-board, being bounced
on three sides of her borders by the sea. She has a
net-work of large and navigable rivers, free from the
freezing effects of a severely cold climate. She has
also a wealth of forests, abounding in strong timber
which might be readily utilised for the construction
of ships and boats. These natural advantages--coupled
with the steadiness in the direction of the monsoons
over the Indian Ocean and China Sea--aided the Hindus
to acquire that nautical skill and enterprise for
which they were justly famous in the ancient world.
The history of Indian shipping and maritime
activities goes back probably to the early times of
the Rgveda (I, 48, 3 and I, 116, 5). The Jatakas, the
Greek and Roman authors, the early Tamil poems as
well as a host of archaeological discoveries in India
and abroad--all go to prove that long before the
birth of Christ the Hindus had acquired a fair
knowledge of the art of navigation and that they
plied their boats not only on the inland rivers but
also on the high seas. There were ports and harbours
all along the coast-line, such as Tamralipti,
Kaviri-pattanam, Bharukaccha and Surparaka; and it
was practicable to attain to any of them starting
from up the Ganges, not only from Campa (Bhagalpur)
but even from Benares. The Samudda-vanija Jataka (iv.
159) relates how a settlement of wood-workers,
failing to carry out the orders for which pre-payment
had been made, made a 'mighty ship' secretly, and
emigrated with their families, shipping down the
Ganges, by night, and so out to the sea, till they
reached a fertile island. The Mahajanaka Jataka (vi,
34) tells us that prince Mahajanaka set out for
Suvannabhumi from Campa. And according to the Vinaya
(iii, 338) Mahinda travelled by water from Patna to
Taimalitti, and to Ceylon. Not only were coasting
voyages round India frequent, but distant over-sea
journeys were also carried out with equal boldness
and alacrity. The Baveru-Jataka indicates "that the
Vanijas of Western India undertook trading voyages to
the shores of the Persian Gulf and of its rivers in
the 5th, perhaps even in the 6th century B.C. just as
in our
p. 646

own days." The author of the Periplus of the
Erytlhraean Sea saw Hindu merchants settled down in
the desert island of Socotra off the coast of Africa.
Tacitus refers to "some Indians who sailing from
India for the purpose of commerce had been driven by
storm into Germany." Euxodus speaks of the famished
Hindu sailor who piloted the Greeks across the
Arabian sea to the Malabar coast.
There were obvious risks attending sea-voyages.
Sanskrit and Pali literature contains innumerable
allusions to vessels wrecked on the high seas so much
so that we seem to hear across the ages the piteous
wailings of souls lost in the ocean. But nothing
could daunt the people into passivity. Love of
adventure and wealth stimulated them to defy death;
and in storm and tempest these early navigators and
their comrades learned the art and craft of the sea.
They established commercial relations not only with
Burma and the islands of the Indian Archipelago on
the east but also with Mesopotamia, Arabia, Phoenicia
and Egypt on the West. And the same volkerwanderund,
which had impelled the primitive Aryans to move out
of their original home, found expression in the
colonial empire which their descendants built up in
southern Asia. Ceylon was colonised before the 3rd
century B.C., and Burma and Siam not much later. The
colonial movement went on apace, and by the 2nd
century A.D. Hindu soverignty and Hindu culture
dominated almost all the lands and islands, which
constitute the Indian Archipelago.
It is not the purpose of the present writer to
attempt anything like a history of the art of
navigation in ancient India, nor even of the colonial
activities of that distant past--however fascinating
such a study might be--but to limit himself to the
less ambitious subject of navy, meaning thereby ships
and vessels employed for military and police
purposes.
II
Early traces in literature
That the art of employing boats and ships for
military purposes was known and practised in very
remote days is testified to by the ancient literature
of India. The Rgveda retains the echo of a naval
expedition, on which Tugra, the Rsi king,
commissioned his son Bhujyu. Bhujyu, however, was
ship-wrecked on the ocean,"where there is no support,
no rest for the foot or the hand," but was rescued by
the twin Asvins in their hundred-oared galley (Rv. i.
112, 6;

p. 647
116, 3; 117, 14-15; 119, 4; iv. 27, 4; vi, 62, 6).
The Mahabharata relates how the Pandavas, ingeniously
escaping from the 'house of lac' by a subterranean
passage, came upon the Ganges and got on board a
vessel, which 'was provided with machinery and all
kinds of weapons and was capable of defying storms
and waves': sarvavatasaham navam yantra-yuktam
patakinim (Adi Parva, ch. 15). Elsewhere in the same
work we read how Sahadeva, the youngest of the
Pandava brothers, continued his march of conquest
till he reached several islands in the sea (no doubt
with the help of ships) and subjugated the Mleccha
inhabitants thereof.(1) In the Santi Parva there is a
verse which specifically refers to the navy as one of
the angas of a complete army(2). In the Ramayana we
have a picture of the preparations made by a Nisada
chief for an impending naval encounter with Bharata.
Finding the huge folIowing of Bharata from a
distance, the tribal chieftain thus ordered his
retinue:
tisthantu sarvadasas ca Gangam anvasrita nadim/
balayukta nadirakasa mamsamulaphalasanah//
navam satanam pancanam kaivartanam satam satam/
sannadhanam tatha yunam tisthatv ity abhyacodayat //(3)
Naval warfare was also well-known in the days of
Manu, for he had laid it down that boats should be
utilised for military purposes when the theatre of
hostilities abounded in water (VII, 192). A very
much later work, the Yuktikalpataru, specifies a
class of boats called agramandira (because they had
their cabins towards their prows) as eminently
adapted for naval warfare (rane kale ghanatyate).(4)

#118: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 22 Oct 2000 — The following is a compilation of the literary evidence in the Rg in favor of the Aryan Migration Theory (Invasion is out and Migration is in as long as you stick to the basic premise that the Vedics originated 'Anywhere but India').
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/AMT.html
This is a mirror site for
http://www.voi.org/vishal_agarwal/AMT.html
Michael Witzel is one of the proponents of the AMT, as we have seen earlier in this thread as well as the Rajaram's fraud thread. But he has only come forward with one passage in the Rg on this (again that is subject to conflicting interpretations)topic.
At the same time he has been trigger happy in dubbing Rajaram as a fraud, while he himself has been very sparing of demonstrating evidence for his views.
K

#119: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 23 Oct 2000 — http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/KoenraadElst/articles/vedicevidence.html
"The Vedic corpus provides no evidence for the
so-called Aryan invasion of India"
by Koenraad Elst, Leuven (Belgium), 22 October 1998
Ed.note - the conclusion that Koenraad Elst makes is noteworthy and interesting;
>The status quaestionis is still, more than ever, that the Vedic corpus provides no reference to an immigration of the so-called Vedic Aryans from Central Asia. This need not be taken as sufficient proof that such an invasion never took place, that Indo-Aryan was native to India, and that India is the homeland of the Indo-European language family. Perhaps such an invasion from a non-Indian homeland into India took place at a much earlier date, so that it was forgotten by the time of the composition of the Rg-Veda. But at least, such an "Aryan invasion" cannot be proven from the information provided by the Vedic narrative itself.

One cannot disprove a negative (i.e. a AIT/AMT never took place in pre-history)at least on these grounds, but one can assert with a fairly high degree of confidence that there is no evidence of such a invasion/migration in the Rg.
K

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 22-10-2000).]

#120: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 23 Oct 2000 — http://www.voi.org/reviews/rev-trha.html

BOOK REVIEW
The Rigveda
A Historical Analysis
Shrikant Talgeri
New Delhi, Aditya Prakashan, 1992
520 + xxiv pgs., Rs. 750 (H
Reviewed by N.S.Rajaram
A Major New Work On Vedic History
K

#121: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 23 Oct 2000 — http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/indusaryan.htm
The Sindhu-Sarasvati Civilization
and
its Bearing on the Aryan Question
by Michel Danino
Text of a lecture given on 29 September 1999 at Chennai’s Indian Institute of Technology, at the invitation of the students’ Vivekananda Study Circle. The talk was accompanied by a slide-show illustrating most aspects of the life of the Indus Valley civilization, and followed by a long question-and-answer session.
K

#122: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 24 Oct 2000 — I am not sure whether Krishna is mentioned, but Godavari definitely is. Maybe somebody else can confirm this.
As for Manu, there are apparently several Manus. See for instance,
http://www.yrec.org/yogatimetable.html
4000-3500 This is the period of Manu Svayambhuva, the first Manu (who is credited with the authorship of the Manu-Smriti), as well as the next five Manus. Contemporaries of the first Manu were the seven great seers Marici, Angiras, Atri, Pulaha, Kratu, Pulastya, and Vasishtha. This is also the time of the wicked King Vena, who was killed by the power of mantras, and his sagely successor Prithu, who was a great visionary emperor ruling benignly over the people of India (Bharata).
Feb. 18, 3102 Traditional but unverified Hindu date (according to the later Puranas) for the beginning of the Dark Age (kali-yuga), which, according to some pundits, coincides with the end of the great war chronicled in the Mahabharata (see under . Others think that this date coincides with the reign of Manu Vaivasvata, the seventh Manu and the first ruler after the great flood reported in some Hindu scriptures. His son Ikshvaku founded the solar dynasty of North Indian kings to which the God-man Rama belonged (see see under 2380 B.C.E.). His grandson Candra, son of the sage Atri, founded the lunar dynasty to which the God-man Krishna belonged (see under 1450 B.C.E.). This is the era of the seven great seers Vasishtha, Kashyapa, Atri, Jamadagni, Gautama, Vishvamitra, and Bharadvaja. Also the venerated sage Bhrigu lived at this time. Many later sages adopted their names, which has caused some confusion.
K

#123: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: SandeepA, Location: Canada Posted: 24 Oct 2000 — This is the result i get on searching for 'Indus valley civilisation' at www.encylopedia.com
Indus valley civilization
c.2500-c.1500 B.C., ancient civilization that flourished
along the Indus R. in present-day Pakistan. Its chief
cities were Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, where
archaeologists have unearthed impressive public and
private buildings that are evidence of a complex society
based on a highly organized agriculture supplemented
by active commerce. The arts flourished, and examples
in copper, bronze, and pottery have been uncovered.
Also found were examples of a pictograph script that
long baffled archaeologists but was finally deciphered in
1969. The fate of the Indus valley civilization remains a
mystery, but it is believed that it fell victim to invading
Aryans.
So what is it that was deciphered in 1969? And also is the AIT still the official position on the fate of the Indus civilization? I'm sure most of the official references(encycl's/hist' books etc)would still tow that line. What do Indian text books teach our children?(sorry i'm out of tune with all that for a sometime now). I remember being taught abt IVC and AIT in 6th class and feeling distinctly uncomfortable with the whole idea!! No, I'm not saying I was as smart as Kaushal then!

#124: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 24 Oct 2000 — Sandeep, You have to read the whole thread or at least the first page to answer your question. The AIT is now known as the AMT (Aryan Migration Theory), IOW 'they' concede that there was no Invasion, but a steady migration of nomadic Aryans who brought with them the Sanskrit language and the Vedas and gently 'persuaded' the original inhabitants of the IVC/SSC to move to Tamilnadu or Andhra Pradesh(my home state). Incidentally the AIT is still taught in schools and textbooks in INdia , AFAIK.
What was deciphered was the pictograph script found on the seals, of which the archaeologists found several hundred.
Pl. follow the arguments and links and you will be well rewarded.
K

#125: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: wasu, Posted: 25 Oct 2000 — Kaushal,
Rajaram refutes witzel here. http://www.pragna.org/Art21001.html
From what I gather, the biggest hole in the indigenous theory is the absence of horse in Indus.
Rajaram argues about Indus 17-rib horse vs. European 18-rib horse in the article.
But there is something far more significant: the smaller Indian horse,
like the horse of Southeast Asia, is a different variety from the Central Asian or the Eurasian horse.
Here is what one expert (Paul Kennai Manansala) has to say:
Deep in the specialized literature on horse classification, we can find that In
dian and other horses extending to insular Southeast Asia were peculiar from oth
er breed. All showed anatomical traces of admixture with the ancient equid known
as Equus Sivalensis. However, like that equid, the horse of southeastern Asia
has peculiar zebra-like dentition. Also both were distinguished by a pre-orbital
depression. The orbital region is important because it has been demonstrated as
useful in classifying different species of equids. Finally, and most importantl
y in relation to the Vedic literature, the Indian horse has, like Equus Sivalens
is, only 17 pairs of ribs. (Emphasis added.)
Inere is verse 18 from hymn I.162, which is devoted to the sacrifice (authors t
ranslation):
The horse of victory has thirty-four ribs on the two sides that face threat in t
he battle. O skilled men, treat these uninjured parts with skill, so they may re
cover their energy! (RV, I. 162.1

I never came across this until now. If this is true, it totally demolishes the theory about an outside horse. Of course, I heard the argument that the Indus horse is not a horse at all. What's u'r take on this.

#126: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 25 Oct 2000 — Wasu, your citation is an important one. Certainly, it had escaped my attention that the horse of the Rg and the horse of the SSC each had 17 ribs on each side. As you say this completely demolishes the theory that the Rg Vedic Horse was imported from Central Asia ( a hypothesis which is otherwise quite tenable).
See also , R.gvedic horse has 34 ribs, a breed distinct from the Arabian equus caballus
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/horse2.htm
Contrary to what has been alleged in the Rajaram fraud thread (admins - methinks you terminatd it prematurely, there was a lot of good info in the thread) Rajaram is not a fraud. He has spent several years on this topic and he is a talented individual specializing in the field of 'archaeological and literary forensics' IOW trying to decipher what happened in ancient India from literary as well as archaeological evidence. As he rightly observes professional Indologists and Historians feel threatened since they do not possess the manifold skills he possesses (knowledge of Samskrtam, accompanied by knowledge of various branches of the sciences and mathematics). This coupled with an inxhaustible energy and a passion for truth make a lethal combination but also an inviting target for polemically inclined individuals like Witzel.
I agree in large part with Rajaram. The Horse is not central to the argument and neither is the decipherment. I agree also with those who say that decipherment of the SSC script is difficult and will take more effort to be sure of what the script is saying. But the central argument always has been the drying up of the Sarasvati river around 1900 BCE. Why would the Vedics, if they immigrated to India ca.1500 BCE, as the Western Indologists claim, refer to this(as a mighty) river about 50 times, if it was already dried up. It simply does not make sense.
The answer to people like Witzel is for Indians to learn Samskrtam and read the texts in the original. There is of course no reference to any Immigration or Customs anywhere in the Rg or even to any geography outside of the subcontinent. References to what is now Afghanistan(Gandhara - Kandahar) do not count , since Afghanistan was part of India in those days, and the Vedics were spread far into that region. The AMT theorists, when they talk about immigration, talk about immigration from places such as Turkey and Central Europe.
I do not want to give the impression that I know exactly what happened 5000 years ago, but of this I am fairly certain. The Vedics did not come from Central Europe and Turkey ca 1500 BCE and bring with them a finished language called Samskrtam, spoken only in India, and the Vedic texts, studied only in India.
More on the palaeontology of horses
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/horse5.htm
K

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 22-11-2000).]

#127: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 25 Oct 2000 — Cross posting from egroups Indian civilization listserve
From: Subhash Kak
Date: Tue Oct 24, 2000 6:01pm
Subject: Kazanas

I have just received an excellent article on the Rgveda and
the larger Indo-European problem by Nicholas Kazanas, the Greek
Sanskritist. Here's the complete reference:
Nicholas Kazanas, "The Rgveda and Indo-Europeans." ABORI, vol.
80, 1999, pp. 15-42.
This paper synthesizes different kinds of evidence: linguistic,
mythological, literary, archaeological, to develop the arguments.
Check it out and tell us what you think,
-Subhash Kak

#128: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 25 Oct 2000 — http://www.yrec.org/cradle.html
Why the Aryan Invasion of India Never Happened

The following is an updated excerpt from In Search of the Cradle of Civilization,
authored by Georg Feuerstein, Subhash Kak, and David Frawley,
published by Quest Books in 1995. Copyright 1998. All rights reserved.
In our book In Search of the Cradle of Civilization, we have covered enormous ground-from the rediscovery of the sacred canon of the Hindus by nineteenth-century Western scholars to the discrediting of the Aryan invasion theory, to the discovery of the Indus and Sarasvati towns and villages and the likely geological and environmental cause of their demise, and finally to the archaeological surprise of the large neolithic town of Mehrgarh dated back to 6500 B.C.E. The following is an overview of the reasons for our rejection of the Aryan invasion theory and for dating the Rig-Veda before 3100 B.C.E. (marking the beginning of the Indus towns):.....

#129: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 27 Oct 2000 — http://www.jps.net/kabalen/vedicindia.html
A new look at Vedic India
I have yet to go through his arguments in detail before i can comment on them, But basically he is espousing the idea that there was interaction between the Vedics ,SE Asians and Austronesians (?)
K

#130: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 27 Oct 2000 — http://www.egroups.com/database/IndianCivilization?method=reportRows&tbl=1&sortBy=1&sortDir=down&start_at=0&query=
A recent bibliography on Vedic History and related matters at the e-groups Indian civilization site.
K

#131: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 29 Oct 2000 — http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/koenraadelst/articles/hock.html
The official pro-invasionist argument at last
A review of the Aryan invasion arguments in J. Bronkhorst and M.M. Deshpande: Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia
by Koenraad Elst, Leuven (Belgium), 26 November 1999
Invasion, not just immigration
To start with a clear understanding about the terminology used, please allow me me explain why I have chosen to retain the term "Aryan invasion" where most contributors to this volume use "Aryan immigration". Some of them have, in other forums, insisted that I drop the term "invasion" as this represents a long-abandoned theory of Aryan warrior bands attacking and destroying the peaceful Indus civilization. Well, I disagree.
Immigration means a movement from one country to another, without the connotation of conquest; invasion, by contrast, implies conquest or at least the intention of conquest. Yet invasion should not be confused with military conquest; it may be that, but it may also be demographic Unterwanderung. What makes it into an invasion is not the means used but the end achieved: after an invasion, the former outsiders are not merely in, as in an immigration, they are also in charge, just like after a military conquest.
In today's immigration debate, we can vividly see the contrast between the two terms. Those who expect Mexicans in the US to blend in, use the neutral term "immigrant", even when prefixed with "illegal". Some people, however, speak of a "Mexican invasion", by which they mean that the Mexicans, whether "wetback" or legal, have no intention of becoming Americans, of respecting the existing system, but want to impose their identity on Texas or California, making them Spanish-speaking rather than English-speaking states. Likewise, some French opinion leaders, including former president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and former actress Brigitte Bardot, have spoken of a "Muslim invasion" in France, though most Muslims concerned are perfectly legal "immigrants" who entered France without any violence. What raises alarmist cries of "invasion" is the perception that these North-Africans want to impose a Muslim identity on French society.
It is the end result which decides whether an "immigration" can be called an "invasion". If the newcomers end up imposing their (cultural, religious, linguistic) identity rather than adopting the native identity, the result is the same as it would have been in the case of a military conquest, viz. that outsiders have made the country their own, and that natives who remain true to their identity (like Native Americans in the US) become strangers or second-class citizens in their own country.
In the case of the Aryan invasion, the end result clearly is that North India got aryanized. The language of the Aryans marginalized or replaced all others. In a popular variant of the theory, they even reduced the natives to permanent subjugation through the caste system. So, whether or not there was a destructive Aryan conquest, the result was at any rate the humiliation of native culture and the elimination of the native language in the better part of India. It is therefore entirely reasonable to call such development an "invasion" and to speak of the prevalent paradigm as the "Aryan invasion theory" (AIT).
K
[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 05-11-2000).]

#132: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 30 Oct 2000 — This is the charge that Witzel fabricated literary evidence in support of his thesis that there were references to the Aryan Migration in the Vedic texts.
K
http://www.voi.org/vishal_agarwal/AMT.html
The Aryan Migration Theory: Fabricating Literary Evidence

Revision B on October 10, 2000

Note: All ‘Notes’ and ‘References’ are located at the end of the article.

Contents:
1.0 Background
2.0 The Literary ‘Evidence’
3.0 A Critique of the ‘Direct’ evidence for AMT
4.0 Arguments and Counter-Arguments
5.0 Cover Ups?
6.0 Discussion
7.0 Epilogue

#133: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 31 Oct 2000 — http://www.hindubooks.org/HinduPhe/apex1.htm
Girilal Jain reviewing young Talageri's work.
K

#134: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 03 Nov 2000 — Witzel's recant and admission that
>>It seems clear now that the Vedas were entirely composed in India, not in Central Asia as sometimes conjectured. Vedicists now stress that the term "Aryans" in the Vedas referred not to a 'race' but to members of a particular culture that was already indigenous in northwestern South Asia by the time the earliest Vedic texts were composed.
Finally a hundred years of obfuscation about Aryan races and the rest of the paraphernalia that is a legacy of the ghost of Max Mueller, is being put to bed. Coming as this does from the high priest of AIT, the only question is when did this metamorphosis happen;
http://www.infinityfoundation.com/ECITmessagesframeset.htm ;
K

#135: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: acharya, Posted: 06 Nov 2000 — Were Indus, Vedic civilizations the
same?
Deepshikha Ghosh
Nov 06, 2000 01:15 Hrs (IST)
http://news.indiaabroad.com/2000/11/06/06indus.html

New Delhi: A debate over whether the Harappan and
Vedic civilizations were the same has been stirred by the
contention of some Indian archaeologists that the former
should be renamed the Indus-Saraswati civilization.
A pamphlet by the National Museum on an exhibition
'Harappan Civilization', however, claims that around 500
sites have been dug up on the Saraswati basin, whereas
the number of similar number of sites on the Indus is only
150.
It says the excavations point to three broad phases of the
civilization, the early phase (3,500 B.C.-2,600 B. C.), the
mature phase (2600 B.C.-2000 B.C.) and the late phase
(2,000 B.C.-1,500 B.C.)
A recent publication, "Harappan Script on the Way of
Decipherment," interprets some of the discoveries as
indicative of early Harappan people (3200-2700 B.C.)
and early Vedic people existing at the same time,
disputing the earlier theory that the Indus Valley
civilization was destroyed by the Aryans.
[This message has been edited by acharya (edited 05-11-2000).]

#136: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: acharya, Posted: 06 Nov 2000 —
Any idea who these guys are?
http://www.SerIndian.com/aboutus.htm

Serindian: Site for Education and Research-India,aims at
bringing you the best and latest information on Indian
archaeology, anthropology, Quaternary geology; and ecology.
Amateurs and professionals, young and old-we have something
in store for all of you. From popular articles to databases of
information... a storehouse of information on India's past. We
are totally dedicated to the ideology of secularism, and are a
non-communal and apolitical site.

#137: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 06 Nov 2000 — acharya, in the Rajaram reply thread i had posted the news that the National Museum had a pamphlet out saying that the SSC was a Vedic civilization. There is an immediate connotation and allusion to the fact that this is an RSS plot. Never mind that all these decades the accusation was that the Vedic civilization was a bunch of elite snobs, who started the caste system. Now that the distinctions between the 2 are disappearing, such claims have to be re-evaluated.
In any event apart from the politics, the National Museum should be worth seeing. I have yet to see Egypt and Mexico city but once the National museum is filled it should be comparable in scope to the other two. Many of the artifacts from the SSC are extremely intriguing and are some of the oldest in the world.
The new Serindian site should be interesting. It has a good article on the Brahmi script. The next step is to bridge the missing link between Brahmi and Harappan . There are of course no archaeological finds in the intervening time period(1700 BCE to 500 BCE) between Pre_maurya and the end of the SSC, to shed further lighton the matter. This has also been the weak point of the AIT since they say the Aryans swooped into India around 1300 BCE but of course there are no archaeological finds to confirm that either.
K

#138: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: SandeepA, Location: Canada Posted: 06 Nov 2000 — A site with a lot of interesting links
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/india/indiasbook.html
Sandy

#139: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 06 Nov 2000 — http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/horse1.htm
A reply to Frontline’s cover story (October 13 issue)
by Profs. Michael Witzel, Steve Farmer & Romila Thapar
[Note : Michel Danino, a French researcher settled in India for more than twenty years, has translated and edited many books related to Sri Aurobindo and Mother and given lectures on Indian culture and civilization, some of which have been published in book form. He has also made a study of the Aryan invasion theory in the Indian context, published under the title The Invasion That Never Was (co-authored with Sujata Nahar, 2nd edition, 2000)(ed.this has been posted in this thread already). The above reply to Frontline was not published in the two issues that followed the October 13 number.]
The two articles in Frontline’s cover story (October 13 issue) regrettably show more prejudice than scholarly objectivity, and call for the briefest of answers on several distinct points : 1) the horse question in the Harappan civilization ; 2) N. Jha’s and N. S. Rajaram’s proposed decipherment of the Indus script ; 3) the relationship, if any, between the Harappan and the Vedic worlds ; 4) the deeper question of "Indology" vs. Indian civilization....
K

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 06-11-2000).]

#140: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 07 Nov 2000 — http://www.egroups.com/message/IndianCivilization/1183
Apparently this was found in the web site of Kurdistan. The Kurds as we all know are the disenfranchised people who occupy the same area today as the Mitanni did 3500 years ago. We have already cited the Hittite Mitanni treaty circa 1450 BCE, which makes reference to Vedic Gods (Varuna, Indra and the Natasyas)
K
[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 07-11-2000).]

#141: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 08 Nov 2000 — In reply to a question, Vishal Agarwal gives the following reply, at the Indian civilizations site. Most of these citations have been posted by me earlier, although I may have missed a couple.
http://www.egroups.com/message/IndianCivilization/1184
K

#142: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: wasu, Posted: 08 Nov 2000 —

quote:
Originally posted by Kaushal:

The new Serindian site should be interesting. It has a good article on the Brahmi script. The next step is to bridge the missing link between Brahmi and Harappan . There are of course no archaeological finds in the intervening time period(1700 BCE to 500 BCE) between Pre_maurya and the end of the SSC, to shed further lighton the matter.
K

Kaushal,
I was gonna post a link to that article. U already got it. Isn't amazing/perplexing that no proof any writing (1700 BCE to 400 BCE) hasn't been found yet. That'll be a big find, whenever that happens. I wonder if we would be havin' this discussion if places like Nalanda were not destroyed.

[This message has been edited by wasu (edited 07-11-2000).]

#143: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 09 Nov 2000 — I wonder if we would be havin' this discussion if places like Nalanda were not destroyed.
The burning down of Nalanda, Vikramshila and Odantipura in Vihar by Ikhtyar-ud-din Muhammed bib Bukhtiyar Khalji (a forerunner of Allauddin Khalji a hundred years later) ca. 1200 AD is one of the seminal events of Indian history comparable to the burning of the Library of Alexandria 600 years earlier by the Arab Khalifs. We will never know the extent of the knowledge that was irretrievaby lost in the process.
But I have a hope that eventually it will be established that some of this knowledge may have been preserved in the monasteries of Tibet by Padmasambhava and his disciples, hopefully before the Communists destroy what is left. Which is why in order to study Indian history it is important to have a knowledge of Tibetan also.
In the meantime it is important to continue archaeological studies to determine the missing link between Harappan and Brahmi scripts. See the article i posted on the connection between the SSC script and the script of the Santhals of Bihar in the Indic traditions thread.
K

#144: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 09 Nov 2000 — This is in response to an analogy made by Steve Farmer,comparing the AIT to the Spanish Invasion of South America and the British Invasion of India. On the one hand , Witzel and Farmer take the position that it was not an invasion but an immigration, but then they immediately compare it to the proliferation of English in India and to the proliferation of Spanish in South America. This is in response, explaining the use and misuse of analogies, which is well understood by modern Indians and also by the ancients. Compare this to the remarks by Koenraad Elst on the same topic, which I have posted earlier in this thread.
K
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 21:29:07 GMT
Reply-To: Indology
Sender: Indology
From: Vidyasankar Sundaresan
Subject: Analogies,
valid and invalid (was Re: Scenario of language replacement)
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>I've heard counterarguments like Arun Gupta's repeatedly, but
>they always overlook a glaring problem. Indo-European languages
.....
>Anatolia, Greece, and the Italian peninsula. The Indian problem
>is not as unique as chauvinistic writers make it out to be.
Alas, here we go again. I daresay Arun Gupta can respond to this himself,
but I need to make certain points here, as the points he raised struck me as
curious too. This post is addressed to all those who agree with Steve
Farmer's comments quoted above.
1. Just as "Western Indologists" do not all want to be clubbed together into
one stereotypical category, "Indian amateurs" do not want to be stereotyped
either. To make a comment about the analogies used by Parpola (and by most
everybody else in "mainstream" academia) is not to be chauvinistic about
India. Every once in a while, can we just discuss issues, instead of
attitudes?
2. Those list members who are interested in Indian philosophical thought may
appreciate the following. Some schools of thought accept perception
(pratyaksha), inference (anumAna), analogy (upamAna), postulation
(arthApatti), non-being/non-availability (abhAva/anupalabdhi) and testimony
(Sabda) as valid sources of gaining knowledge. Other schools, e.g. the nyAya
school of logic, accept only three, perception, inference and testimony,
taking the others to be special cases of inferential argument. In the nyAya
structure of valid logical argument, analogy does find a role, through the
example (d.r.s.tAnta) that needs to be cited to make the argument complete.
If the example does not satisfy the conditions of the propostion sought to
be proved, the argument is invalid.
3. In modern science, analogy plays an important role. When people first
discovered that electricity can flow, they tried to understand it through
analogy with fluid flow. It succeeded quite well, at least with respect to
Newtonian fluids and current through a simple ohmic resistor. Electric
current was analogous to flow rate and voltage was analogous to pressure
drop. It succeeded so well that today students first learn about electricity
and when they come to learn about fluid flow, they are taught to first think
of it in terms of electric flow. When we model new things based on our
knowledge of previously known things, we look for at least a few points of
similarity. If we can't find them, we reject the proposed model and look for
better models. All this is simply to say that although Aristotleian logic
does not put much emphasis on the validity of analogy, human beings look for
existing examples of something similar when trying to understand a new
phenomenon. If the analogy fails on certain counts, our understanding of the
new phenomenon correspondingly fails or remains faulty, till something else
happens to improve the state of knowledge.
4. From the perspective of standard patterns of Indian thought, and from the
perspective of modern patterns of scientific thought, the analogies cited by
Prof. Parpola fail on all the counts cited by Arun Gupta. The reason they
fail is that one cannot substitute the word "migration" for "invasion" and
then proceed to cite examples where linguistic change took place because of
naked aggression. If the idea is to retain the model of linguistic change
implied by the Spanish and Portuguese presence in south America or the
English presence in India, then call a spade a spade and assert boldly that
there was an Aryan invasion of the Indian subcontinent. Indian scientists
and traditionalists may not agree with you, but at least they will grant
that you are being consistent in your effort to understand the problem. If
the word "invasion" is being replaced by "migration" in order to placate the
chauvinists, then that is just a silly and useless compromise. If the word
"invasion" is being replaced by the word "migration" for solid linguistic,
textual and/or archaeological reasons, then please put your heads together
and cite examples that do not involve European aggression and violence upon
the rest of the world. If you can't do that, then don't label everyone who
points to the flaw in the analogy as a chauvinist. Some of us think with our
heads too, not just with our hearts.
Vidyasankar
[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 08-11-2000).]

#145: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 10 Nov 2000 — http://www.iisc.ernet.in/~currsci/august/articles21.htm
Antiquity of the Narmada Homo erectus, the early man of India
Arun Sonakia* and S. Biswas
Palaeontology Division, Geological Survey of India,
Nagpur 440 006, India
The fossilized skull of Narmada Homo erectus was found embedded in a conglomerate bed in the Narmada valley of central India. This bed occurs at the basal part of a formation sandwiched between two other formations of 0.73 Ma and 74000 yrs BP. The conglomerate bed has also preserved fossils of Hippopotamus namadicus, Equus namadicus, Stegodon namadicus, Sus namadicus, etc. having Middle Pleistocene affinity. All these stratigraphic and palaeontological evidences point to a Middle Pleistocene age of the Narmada Homo erectus.
A hundred years of investigation on human ancestry in India was rewarded in the year 1982 with the discovery by the first author of a skull cap of Homo erectus from the Quaternary alluvial deposits of the Narmada valley

K

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 09-11-2000).]

#146: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 10 Nov 2000 — http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/rajaram.htm
Rajaram' statement to the media to the latest onslaught in Frontline, Kaushal
November 8, 2000
THE ‘HORSE SEAL’ CONTROVERSY
Statement to the media by:
Dr. N. Jha and Dr. N.S. Rajaram
In recent weeks there has been a flurry of publicity and controversy
based on unsubstantiated charges and conjecture relating to a little known Harappan seal (Mackay 453) printed in our book The Deciphered Indus Script (Aditya Prakashan, Delhi) and our identification of the animal on it as a horse. Ignoring the political overtones, the controversy has two aspects: first, the existence of the horse at Harappan sites, including its depiction on the seals and as artifacts; secondly, charges of ‘computer enhancement’ of a unicorn bull to make it look like a horse. We want to categorically state that there has been no ‘computer enhancement’ by either of us. The only computer processing done was scanning a photocopy while printing,
the original of which is in our possession.The relatively poor quality of the image is due to the photo being enlarged from its original size of approximately 2 cm by 3 cm (in Mackay’s book) to about 9 cm by 14 cm in the photo in our possession. As this was taken from a published source and not the artifact itself, it introduced ‘paper marks’ in the form of dots and lines in the enlargement— something that every photographer knows. Further, the supposedly ‘telephone-like trough’
below the horse is nothing but three lines of handwritten identification
marks consisting of: Mac PLATE XCV, 453 & 443. This is clear from the photograph and the enlarged presentation of these marks that accompany this statement. (See photo.) These became scrambled, compressed and smudged during scanning, reduction and printing. And the imagination of our critics supplied the rest.We feel that the importance of the ‘Harappan horse’ has been blown out of proportion by supporters of the Aryan invasion, which requires the Harappan Civilization to be non-Vedic. The real issue is the Vedic-Harappan
link, which our decipherment establishes by connecting Harappan archaeology to the Vedic literature....

#147: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 10 Nov 2000 — The reason I post this is that this author makes reference to Pontic Indians (Indians in the Black Sea region - apparently Pontic is the name of a range of mountains in Turkey) as one of the waves who immigrated (invasion is now taboo)to India. Of course there is nothing that says they did not emigrate from India either.
http://tied.narod.ru/archive/article17.html
Ways of Indo-Aryan Migrations
This is from a Russian site , an article by an individual by the name of Cyril Babaev.
K
[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 10-11-2000).]

#148: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 10 Nov 2000 — I am not sure whether Krishna is mentioned, but Godavari definitely is. Maybe somebody else can confirm this.
Kaushal,
I am not sure either if Godavari, Krishna and other below the Vindhyas rivers have been mentioned. I am still reading the Bhargava book and so far I have not come across these rivers. Nevertheless, Ganga and Yamuna have been mentioned. But neither have been given much imprtance or praises as they got during the post-Rg vedic period.
I shall soon quote the verses where the most important rivers have been mentioned by their names.

#149: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 12 Nov 2000 — Pl. refer to post dated 24-10-2000 15:13, on this thread. Also, the horse remains at Rana Ghundai are discussed in a complete chapter by KD Sethna in The Problem of Aryan Origins, Aditya prakashan, 1992, p.182.
We have also discussed the Mitanni in previous posts, Kaushal

Crossposted from the Indic traditions site
From:
Date: Sat Nov 11, 2000 12:14pm
Subject: Domestication of horse prior to 3500 BC

Please reload URL and see the following and additional info. on equus
sivalensis in a table at http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/horse2.htm
Rana Ghundai, a chalcolithic site is in North Baluchistan. What
is found ain't a pony, it ain't equus caballus. Does Meadow discuss
this archaeological report?
E.J. Ross reported the discovery of bones scattered over an area of
about 40 ft., of a domesticated horse in the lowest level of Rana
Ghundai I, close to Mohenjodaro and Ga_ndha_ra (pre-Harappan,
contemporary with Hissar IA, Susa B and Middle Uruk in Iraq, assigned
to ca. 3500-3400 B.C.) in a chalcolithis site of Northern Baluchistan.
`It should be noted, however, that these remains are not, as might be
expected, those of small pony-like animals. The teeth were well
examined by an expert veterinary officer before their dispatch to the
Archaeological Department and he assured us that they are
indistinguishable either in structure or in size from those of our
modern cavalry horses. This points to a very long previous period of
domestication'. (E.J. Ross, Rana Ghundai, a chalcolithic site in
Northern Baluchistan, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 5, 1946, pp.
284-516; R.H. Dyson, Problems in the relative chronology of Iran
6000-2000 B.C. in R.W. Ehrick, Chronologies in old world archaeology,
Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1965, pp. 215-50).
This is what Sandor Bokonyi said about the Surkotada equus: "The
occurrence of true horse (equus caballus L.) was evidenced by the
enamel pattern of the upper and lower cheek and teeth and by the size
and form of incisors and phalanges (toe bones). Since no wild horses
lived in India in post-Pleistocene times, the domestic nature of the
Surkotada horses is undoutbtful. This is also supported by an
intermaxilla fragment whose incisor tooth shows clear signs of crib
biting, a bad habit only existing among domestic horses which are not
extensively used for war."
A Hurrian text from Yorgan Tepe uses Indic words to describe the
colour of the horses, for example, babru (Indic babhru 'brown'),
parita (palita 'grey') and pinkara (pingala 'reddish'). The Mitanni
charioteer is called marya (Indic-Vedic marya 'warrior, young man').
Added to these are a series of names of the noblemen or aristocracy of
Mitanni which are clearly Indic. The conclusions are: "an element of
Indic-speaking chariot warriors superimposed themselves on a native
Hurrian-speaking population to form a ruling dynasty that endured for
several centuries...there are also possible (though disputed) Indic
traces in the names of a few gods revered by the Kassites (Surias and
Marytas: i.e. Su_rya and Maruts)...By the thirteenth century the
Mitanni kingdom collapses which sees an end to the Indic presence in
Southwestern Asia..." (J.P. Mallory, opcit, 1989, p. 3.
http://www.egroups.com/message/IndianCivilization/1471
>>The Hun Period - Denis Sinor
from the Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, 1990, pg203
"Information on the horse, faithful and indispensable companion of
the Hun warrior, is also lopsided. Written sources contain many
references to the ugly but sturdy Hun horses and the veterinary
surgeon Vegatius Renatus described them in some detail. On the basis
of contemporary descriptions one may safely conclude that the typical
Hun horse was from a breed of the Mongolian pony. There is a strange
contrast between the vivid descriptions given by the authors and the
absence of any information provided by burials. To quote S.Bokonyi,
a foremost authority on the subject, "We know very little of the Hun's
horses. It is interesting that not a single usable horse bone has
been found in the territory of the whole empire of the Huns".
There is yet no answer to the question of what happened to the mortal
remains of these fearful conqurors and their strange mounts. Hun
domination was short lived and if the dead were cremated and and the
horse bodies not put into graves, the likelihood of finding their
bones is necessarily limited."
Bokonyi is quoted from his "History of Domestic Mammals in Central and
Eastern Europe"
Absence of horse bobes in the SSC is cited as confirmation of scarity or absence of horses in the SSC. But no horse bones have been found of the Hun horses (of Attila the Hun). Does that mean Attila or his Mongolian pony did not exist ?
[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 16-11-2000).]

#150: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Milind, Posted: 12 Nov 2000 — Europe's 10 founding 'fathers'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1015000/1015670.stm

quote:
Scientists believe that 80% of European men inherited their Y chromosomes from primitive hunter-gatherers who lived up to 40,000 years ago.
The other male ancestors are likely to have
been migrants who arrived in Europe from the
Near East about 10,000 years ago bringing
with them farming technology.

European men descend from 10 forefathers -- Study
http://my.aol.com/news/news_story.psp?type=1&cat=0200&id=00111109231326

quote:
Virtually all European men descend from 10 genetic forefathers who lived tens of thousands of years ago in various parts of the continent, researchers reported.
They all seem to have been descended from men who moved to Europe from the Ural mountains of Central Asia and the Middle East in three successive waves, the international team of genetic researchers reported in the journal Science on Friday.

#151: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 13 Nov 2000 — The best mentioned geographical features in the Rg are the rivers, many of which have been called by special names.
1. In one verse the rSHi Agastya speaks of ninety-nine rivers and claims to have secured all their names. But he does not mention them, nor are they enumerated anywhere else. The verse is as follows:
I-191-13 -- lJtltk lJle;tltk rJMôg htuvwNeKtbT
2. The rSHi of yet another verse speaks of ninety-nine flowing rivers:
I-32-14 -- lJ a gàlJr;k a m{Jà;e&
3. In another verse Agastya first probably speaks of twenty-one beautiful rivers and then of seven main rivers:
I-191-14 -- rºt mË; bgqgo& (literally twenty-one peahens)
I-191-14 -- mË; mJmthtu (literally seven sisters)
4. In certain other verses, the rSHis speak of twenty-one rivers, but they do not supply the names of all of them:
I-34-8 -- rºthrëJlt rmà"wrC& mË;bt;]rC&
IX-86-21 -- rmà"wÇgtu rºt& mË;
5. The most frequently used term is however, the 'Seven Rivers':
I-32-12 -- mË; rmà"qlT
I-71-7 -- mË; gñJe&
I-164-3 -- mË; ôJmth&, mË; Jnrà; etc.
It would thus appear that among the ninety-nine rivers, twenty-one were fairly large and seven were main. It is on account od this that the country had been called 'Sapta Saindhava' -- mË; mià"J (Avestic Hapta Hendava). One would be tempted to jump the gun here and identify the seven rivers as the present five rivers of the modern day Punjab and the Indus and the Sarasvati.
Bhargava says that people obsessed too much with AIT are unable to conceive that the now very insignificant Sarasvati could ever have been big enough to deserve the honour of being one of the Sapta Sindhus. He says that had they cared to know the size of the Sarasvati either from the Mahabharata or the old beds of the river itself, they probably would have realised how palpably wrong they were.
Now to the main rivers of the Sapta Saindhava:
A verse shows the VitastA (the Jhelum) and the AsiknI (the modern Aik(?)) as the tributaries of the MarudvrdhA (the Chenab) and the ParuSHNI (the Ravi) as that of the ShutudrI (the Satluj). The Bias (Rgvedic VipAs) is not at all mentioned in that verse. Thus out of the modern five large rivers of the Punjab, three viz. the Bias, the Ravi and the Jhelum were not the main rivers but mere tributaries.
The verse is as follows:
X-75-5 -- Rbk bu dkdu gbwlu mhôJr; Nw;wrŠ ô;tubk ma;t vh¥íãgt>
yrm¢lgt bh¥=TJ]"u rJ;ô;t_gtLsfUegu ¶]KwÊt mwMtubgt>>
Translation: O! Ganga, O! Yamuna, O! Sarasvati, O! ShutudrI with the ParuSHNI accept my laud. O! MarudvrdhA with the AsiknI and the VitastA and O! AarjIkIyA with the SushomA listen. The verse following this i.e. X-75-6 is addressed to the Sindhu (ÀJk rmà"tu ), which is described as as going forward to unite with several other rivers one after another.
Hence the main rivers of the Sapta Saindhava were the Ganga, the Yamuna, the SarasvatI, the ShutudrI (Satluj), MarudvrdhA (Chenab), AarjIkIyA (?) and the Sindhu (Indus).

#152: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 13 Nov 2000 — Good work , Raghav.
Article in TOI, the URL will disappear , hence I am posting part of the article. Some have questioned in this thread, why there was no mention in the ancient texts to the drying up of the Sarasvati. We have pointed out that such is not the case, and this article makes mention of the Panchavimsa Brahmana confirming the disappearance of the Sarasvati.
http://www.timesofindia.com/today/13edit5.htm

Saraswati: River Beyond the Myth
By V G Rao
The sacred literature of every religion abounds in parables and semantically loaded symbolisms, usually contrived for easy comprehension of spiritual ideas by lay followers. Hindu texts are no exception to this convention. It is easy to be misled by the unyielding layers of meaning informing our age-old scriptures, accumulated over time and open to subjective interpretations. One particular problem concerns the authenticity of the river Saraswati, venerated by Hindus throughout India with the fervency of the faithful and long believed to be a product of poetic reverie. But not anymore. Scientific studies have dispelled this ambiguity and helped restore the reality behind the myth.
In 1910, G E Pilgrim published a landmark paper in which he drew attention to an alluvial deposit of great antiquity found stretching all the way from the Himalayan foothills to the Sind gulf. Pilgrims imagined the deposit to have been laid by a primitive river that he named appropriately as the Siwalik river. Geological changes brought about a vivisection of this river leading to the formation of the Gangetic system, the Indus system and its five Punjab tributaries. Pointedly, the Rig Vedic poets appear to have been aware of such a one as this, for the Saraswati of their vision is also looked upon as a gargantuan river flowing from the Himalayas to the sea. One cannot but wonder at the similar imageries.
Though the Vedas are fundamentally religious texts their contents are supposed to encrust a core of history. The number of allusions to Saraswati in the Rig Veda far outnumber those to other rivers, a fact that corroborates the all-important position assigned to her in the Vedic pantheon. For instance, in the Rig Veda she is praised as the Mother among rivers, the Goddess Saraswati - ``Ambitame Naditame Devitame Saraswati'' (RV II.41.16). Saraswati was also revered as Haraohati in the parallelly evolving culture that flourished in Iran under the stewardship of Zarathustra. The precincts of Saraswati were home to a large population belonging to an avowedly pastoral society given to religious persuasions. The Manu Samhita describes the land between Saraswati and Drishadwati, created by the gods as ``the land of brahmins'' (MS II.17-. But before the end of the early Vedic period, the Saraswati began to ebb away from public consciousness, and in the Panchavimsa Brahmana we come across a clear reference to her disappearance. ...
K

#153: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Sagar, Posted: 13 Nov 2000 — Excellant work Raghav, Kaushal. Keep 'em coming.
BTW, after reading the article I could not but notice that they (TOI being one of the unofficial mouthpieces of the Nehruvian-Marxists) are trying to resurrect the fallen pantheons of the Nehruvian-Marxist family and therefore the ruling deity of the pantheon Romilla Thapar - the eminent historian' - gets to comment positively on the importance of the Saraswati in the Rig Veda and North Indian geography. I thought that was one of the points that Frawley, Rajaram, Kalyanaraman, Elst, etc were trying to make all the time. I guess unless 'the old lady speaks' nothing is official in India. They have mastered the art of mutation.
[This message has been edited by Sagar (edited 12-11-2000).]

#154: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 14 Nov 2000 — http://www.picatype.com/dig/dm2/dm2aa06.htm
Colonial Indology–Sociopolitics of the Ancient Indian Past
by D.K. Chakrabarti. 1997. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal
pp.257. Price Rs 350/-.
Reviewed by D.P. Agrawal

#155: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 14 Nov 2000 — Thank you Kaushal and Sagar. However I honestly think I do not deserve your compliments. Coz all I am doing is reading, plucking and paraphrasing stuff from Bhargava's book and planting it here. I am however being careful in cross-checking the numbers of the Rgvedic verses from a couple of sources and also paying attention if the translation makes sense as given in the book.
I think I may have some more on the "mythical" Sarasvati in my following posts on this thread. In fact I have numerous verses with me where she has been heaped with praises which even the mightiest Sindhu would be envious of.
[This message has been edited by VRaghav (edited 13-11-2000).]

#156: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 14 Nov 2000 — For those who jettison as myth faster than one could even say Mahabharata or those who relegate Krishna as a funky spook, please visit the following URL:
http://www.atributetohinduism.com/Dwarka.htm

#157: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 14 Nov 2000 — Apropos of the discovery of Dwaraka, it is my considered opinion that SR Rao is probably one of the greatest archaeologists of India. He has written among others 2 books , one on the SSC in general and one on Lothal.
K

#158: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 15 Nov 2000 — This is not a new article and is included here for completeness. The Russian school of Indologists basically subscribe to AIT, placing the Urheimat in present day Armenia.Even though we may not agree with the conclusions, the references are important enough to understand the context of the claims being made. Colin Renfrew does not subscribe to the AIT.
Kaushal
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/6507/chronicle120.html
Contents
The Authors
The Indo-European Superfamily of Languages
Grimm's Law of Lautverschiebung ("Sound Shift")
The Place of Armenia and the Armenian Language
The Words Describing Agricultural Technology
The Landscape Described by the Indo-European Protolanguage
The Terminology for Wheeled Transport and Smelting of Metals
The Migratory Paths of the Indo-Europeans
The Anthropometry Measures
Further Reading
Ref:
INDO-EUROPEAN AND THE INDO-EUROPEANS: A RECONSTRUCTION AND HISTORICAL TYPOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF A PROTOLANGUAGE AND PROTOCULTURE. Parts I and 11. Thomas V. Gamkrelidze and Vjacheslav V. Ivanov. Tbilisi State University, 1984.
ARCHAEOLOGY AND LANGUAGE: THE PUZZLE OF INDO-EUROPEAN ORIGlNS. Colin Renfrew. Cambridge University Press, 1988.
RECONSTRUCTING LANGUAGES AND CULTURES: ABSTRACTS AND MATERlALS FROM THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL INTERDISC1PLlNARY SYMPOSIUM ON LANGUAGE AND PREHISTORY, ANN ARBOR, NOVEMBER 8-12, 1988. Edited by Vitaly Shevoroshkin. Studienverlag Dr. Norbert Brockmeier, 1989.
IN SEARCH OF THE INDO-EUROPEANS: LANGUAGE, ARCHAEOLOGY AND MYTH. J. P. Mallory. Thames and Hudson, 1989.
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: INDO-EUROPEANS AND PRE-INDO-EUROPEANS. Edited by John Greppin and T. L. Markey. Karoma Publishers, Inc., 1990

see also
http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~twier/mimungsociety/mimungglottalic.html

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 15-11-2000).]

#159: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 17 Nov 2000 — Before proceeding to the verses which refer to the Sarasvati river, I thought it might not be a bad idea to quote some verses which point towards other geographical features in the Sapta Saindhava region viz. the desert.
1. The Rg speaks of deserts ("àJ) in plural number. One verse speaks of three desert regions indicating that there were three deserts in the country:
I-35-8 -- ºte "àJ gtuslt
2. There are references like passing over deserts:
III-45-1 -- "àJuJ ;tâ Rrn
3. Parjanya made the deserts passable:
V-83-10 -- yfU"okàJtàgÀgu;Jt W
4. Like water brought to a man in the desert:
VI-34-4 -- slk l "àJàlrCmk g=tv&
5. Overcame by thrist in the desert:
IX-79-3 -- "àJàl ;]íKt mbhe;
6. Bless us in paths and deserts:
X-63-5 -- ôJrô; l& vÚgtmw "àJmw
7. How many leagues in the desert?:
X-86-20 -- "àJ a gÀf]à;ºtk a fUr; rôJútt rJ gtuslt
8. In a verse rivers are said to cut their paths through the deserts:
V-45-2 -- "kJKokmtu l‘& Ft=tuyKto&
9. There are expressions like deserts got flooded and water flowed:
IV-17-2 -- yt=oà"àJtrl mhgà; ytv&
10. Indra inundated thirsty desert plains:
IV-19-7 -- "àJtàgs{tâ yv]K¢;]MtKtâ
11. Rain falls over deserts:
V-53-6 -- ylw "àJlt grà; J]³g&
12. Plants spread over deserts:
IV-33-7 -- "àJtr;²àltuM"e& etc.
The above references show that there were deserts in the Sapta Saindhava which were passable and in fact were crossed frequently by men. Also some verses allude to rivers meandering through the deserts and good rainfall occurring over them, which sort of corroborates with the life-sustainable semi-arid or temperate climate which geologists predict to have been enjoyed by the people of the Sapta Saindhava.

[This message has been edited by VRaghav (edited 17-11-2000).]

#160: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 17 Nov 2000 — crossposted from Indic traditions site, K
From:
Date: Wed Nov 15, 2000 12:43pm
Subject: AIT, Let us not forget the Ocean

I am including a recent collection of references to the ocean that occur in
the Rig Veda. This makes any outside India basis for Vedic culture absurd.
The references are numerous and show that the Vedic culture arose in
proximity to the ocean, so much so that the ocean became one of the
predominant images in Vedic thought.
Vamadeva
Geographical References in the Rig Veda, the Ocean
by David Frawley
The Rig Veda has a certain geographical horizon. It projects a land of
seven great rivers bounded by several oceans and many mountains. It mainly
shows the geographical sphere of the Bharatas and their neighbors.
In the following chapter we will explore the geographical implications of
the Rig Veda. Much of this I already covered in my book Gods, Sages and
Kings. Here I will summarize that data and add some new information. The
Vedas reflect a vast knowledge of the earth, mentioning various mountains,
rivers, deserts and oceans quite befitting the great subcontinent of India. A
hymn of Hiranyastupa Angirasa in the Rig Veda makes this clear:
Savitar (the Sun God) has revealed eight mountains of the earth, three desert
regions and seven rivers. RV I.35.8
The Ocean
I must emphasize the numerous oceanic and maritime references in the
Vedas, as scholars keep ignoring this obvious point while projecting origins
for the Vedic culture outside of India. The term ocean (samudra) occurs
commonly in the Rig Veda, about a hundred times. In fact the ocean is
mentioned many more times than any river or group of rivers by name. Besides
the term samudra, related terms like sagara, arnas and sindhu can also mean
sea.
Whole theories of the location of the Vedic people have been built around
a few scanty references to rivers like the Kubha in Afganistan, while much
more common references to the ocean are ignored. Only one river, the
Sarasvati, which is clearly in India, has an extensive mythology about it.
Yet the ocean, not only has an extensive mythology about it, there are
oceanic symbolisms about all the main Vedic Gods including Indra, Agni, Soma,
Surya and Varuna, just to name a few.
References occur to two oceans, eastern and western (RV X.136.5), to
inferior and superior oceans (RV VII.6.7; X.98.6), or to two seas called
samudra and purisha (RV I.163.1; IV.21.3). There are additional references to
four oceans, corresponding to the four directions (RV I.164.42; IX.33.6;
X.47.20). These four oceans may relate to the eastern, western and southern
seas, and to the lake in Kashmir in the north. An ocean with seven
foundations is described (RV VIII.40.5). Sometimes the Rig Veda speaks of
many oceans (RV I.161.14: VI.50.13; VI.72.3; VII.70.2; VIII.20.25; IX.80.1).
Given India's proximity to the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and the Persian
Gulf this idea of several oceans is not surprising. The common Brahmana great
anointing of kings (AB viii. 15) is "from one end up to the further side of
the earth bounded by the ocean as sole ruler." Similarly, the purohit as
chief priest guards the king, "as the ocean does the earth (AB viii.25)."
Such statements emphatically rule out Central Asia or Afghanistan.
Indra as the Ocean
The main Vedic myth is of Indra slaying the dragon and releasing the
seven rivers to flow into the sea. This is a myth of the land of the seven
rivers that extends to the ocean.
All songs give increase to Indra who is as expansive as the sea. RV I.11.1
Indra has an extent like the sea. RV I.30.3
He slew the dragon laying at the mountain. The creator fashioned for him his
Flashing thunderbolt. As milch cows bellowing as they flowed, directly the
waters entered the ocean. RV I.32.2
Indra, an ocean of wealth. RV I.51.1
Indra, extensive as the sea. RV I.52.4
Hymns to Indra like the ocean in their convergence. RV I.56.2
Indra, not by the seas or mountains is your chariot contained. RV II.16.3
As rivers according to their impulse go forth, the floods as if chariot borne
entered
into the sea. As rivers uniting to the sea, to Indra they carry the
well-pressed Soma.
RV III.36.6-7
The Soma drops, like rivers into the sea enter into Indra. RV III.46.4
You destroyed the dragon who withheld the waters. Earth in her awareness
furthered your thunderbolt. You gave energy to the ocean-going floods. RV
IV.16.7
Come to us quickly, Indra, from Heaven or Earth, from the ocean or the
heavenly sea. RV IV.21.3
You slew the serpent who encompassed the floods. You released the waters to
the
Ocean. RV VI.30.4
You destroyed the dragon and Heaven approved. You sent forth the flood of the
rivers and filled manifold seas. RV VI.72.2
As rivers to the ocean strong hymns and songs have entered Indra whose extent
is
vast. RV VI.36.3
By which you released the great floods to the ocean, Indra that power of
yours is vigorous. RV VIII.3.10
In the slope of the mountains, in the concourse of the rivers, by the power
of the hymn the sage RV Indra) was born. Hence arisen conscious he looks down
upon the sea, from which awakening he stirs. RV VIII.6.28-9
To Indra and Agni, like the seer Nabhaka, direct your prayers, who poured out
the sea with seven foundations, whose opening is above. RV VIII.40.5
Whether you in the east, the south, the north or the west you are called by
men, come quickly with your powers; whether you exult yourself on the slope
of Heaven, in the Sun-world or in the ocean of Soma. RV VIII.65.2-3
Whether you are in the luminous realm of Heaven or in the domain of the sea,
whether in the station of the Earth or in the atmosphere, come to us, Indra.
RV VIII.97.5
The thunderbolt lies within the ocean enclosed by the waters. RV VIII.100.9
Indra is a fourfold ocean, the support of treasures. RV X.47.2
To Indra I direct my songs in an unceasing flow, like waters from the bottom
of the sea. RV X.89.4
Agni as the Ocean
Agni, the Divine Fire, also has his ocean-going form, which is often a
ship.

Who shake the mountains across the wavy ocean. May Agni come with the Maruts.
RV I.19.7
All delights converge in Agni, as seven mighty streams the ocean. RV I.71.7
Agni, you move to the ocean of Heaven...to the waters which are beyond the
luminous heaven of the Sun and to those which stand below it. RV III.22.2-3
All the universe rests within your nature, in the ocean, in the heart, in all
life. RV IV.58.1,11
From the inferior and superior oceans, he received them, from Heaven and
Earth.
RV VII.6.5-7
Oh Agni, for your firm law our words like cattle are spoken, as rivers to the
sea. RV VIII.44.25
Agni, whose vesture is the ocean. RV VIII.102.4-6
Agni, the one ocean, the upholder of treasures. RV X.5.1
In the ocean, in the Waters, as the God-mind, you are enkindled as the Divine
vision, oh Agni, in the udder of Heaven. RV X.45.1
Soma as the Ocean
Soma is not simply a mountain God as he is often portrayed, he is also a
water God is often the sea. This also reflects that the Soma cult pervaded
India from the mountains to the sea.
Flow on Soma as wealth from four oceans to us, a thousandfold and from every
side. RV IX.33.6
Flow on Soma as peace for us, draw out for our milk an ambrosial juice,
increase the ocean of the hymn. RV IX.61.15
Forming the ray from Heaven, you flow through all forms. Soma, as the ocean
you
overflow. Soma, beloved enter the ocean. RV IX.64.8,17,27
To the ocean the Soma drops, like cows to their home, have come to the source
of truth. RV IX.66.12
The ocean-going angels have flowed to the wise Soma. RV IX.78.3
The Soma libations have extended like the oceans. RV IX.80.1
Soma (the Moon) stirs the ocean with the winds. RV IX.84.4
The king of the river plunges into the sea, lodged in the rivers, he holds to
the wave of the waters. RV IX.86.8
Soma flows as the first of the rivers. RV IX.86.12
You are the all knowing ocean, oh seer, yours are the five directions in the
law, you transcend Heaven and Earth, yours are the constellations, flowing
Soma, who are the Sun. RV IX.86.29
Thus like rivers down to the sea, the Soma drops have poured into the
chalices. RV IX.88.6
The king of the rivers has put on the vesture. He has mounted the most
righteous
ship of truth. RV IX.89.2
The ocean roars in the original laws, generating creation as the king of the
world. RV IX.97.40
Flowing Soma, the Divine King, the vast truth, crosses the ocean by the wave.
RV
IX.107.15
Soma, as the ecstatic, you were the first to extend the ocean for the Gods.
RV IX.107.23
Flow on Soma as the great ocean, the Father of the Gods through all the laws.
RV
IX.109.2
Varuna
Varuna is specifically a God of the sea. He is often connected to Soma as
a water God but also to Mitra and to Indra.
The Maruts move through Heaven, Agni through the Earth, the Wind moves
through the atmosphere. Through the Waters and the oceans, Varuna moves. RV
I.161.14
That is the great magic power of this divine greatest seer, Varuna, that no
one can challenge, when the diverse flowing streams cannot fill the one ocean
with their water. RV V.85.6
Varuna dug a path for the Sun and led forth the ocean-going floods of the
rivers. RV VII.87.1
Varuna is a secret ocean. RV VIII.41.8
Ships
Vedic references to ships are also numerous like those of the sea. They
are not only ships to cross the rivers but to cross the sea.
Varuna knows the station of the birds that fly through the atmosphere. He
knows the ocean-going ships. RV I.25.7
As a ship across the river (or sea), Agni, take us across to safety. RV I.97.8
Agni will deliver us across all difficulties, as a ship across the river (or
sea). RV I.99.1
When he was lost in the supportless, foundationless, ungraspable ocean, you
put forth your strength, oh Ashwins. You bore Bhujyu home, mounted on a ship
with a hundred oars. RV I.116.5
Ashwins, you bore Bhujyu from the flooding ocean with straight moving
bird-horses. RV I.117.14
Ashwins, you delivered Taugrya RV Bhujyu) across the ocean. RV I.118.6
Agni, give us a ship for our vehicle and house, with constant oars and
quarters, which can take across our heroes and benefactors and our people to
safety. RV I.140.12
Agni, destroyer of difficulties, deliver us across all danger as a ship
across the river (or sea). RV V.5.9
The Sun mounted the luminous ocean, having yoked his straight-backed horses.
The wise have led him like a ship through the water. RV V.45.10
When, oh Ashwins, you cross the ocean, men bring you fruits and delights. RV
V.73.8
Pushan, your ships that are within the sea, golden in the atmosphere which
travel, by them you go on the embassy of the Sun, made by love, desiring
glory. RV VI.58.3
You carried Bhujyu, the son of Tugra, from the watery ocean by birds, through
the Air. RV VI.62.6
Ashwins, Bhujyu cast in the ocean, you bore across the floods with your
unfailing horses. RV VII.69.7
When Varuna and I ascend into the ship, when we go forth to the middle of the
sea, then we move with the waves of the waters and swing back and forth as if
on a swing for joy. Varuna placed Vasishta in a ship. Skillful, he made him
into a seer by his greatness. A sage, he made him a singer in the brightness
of the days, as far as the heavens extended, as far as the dawns. RV
VII.88.3-4
When the son of Tugra served you, abandoned in the sea, then with wings your
vehicle flied. RV VIII.5.22
Ashwins, whether you are in a distant habitation, or beyond in the luminous
realm of Heaven or in a house built upon the sea come thence to us. RV
VIII.10.1
Oh Divine Varuna, guide this hymn of your worshipper with wisdom and skill,
by it may we cross over all difficulties; may we mount it as a saving ship.
RV VIII.42.3
Deliver us across all difficulties, oh Universal Gods, as ships across the
waters. RV VIII.83.3
Soma, deliver us as a ship across the river (or sea). RV IX.70.10
The ships of truth have delivered the righteous. Varuna takes us across the
great ocean. RV IX.73.1,3
Those who do not have the power to ascend the sacrificial ship, trembling
fall into calamity. RV X.44.6
May we ascend the Divine ship with good oars, free of sin, which does not
sink, to happiness. RV X.63.10
Specific Rivers Flowing to the Sea
Specific rivers are mentioned flowing to the sea, including the Sarasvati
and Sindhu (Indus).
Sarasvati, pure in her course from the mountains to the sea. RV VII.95.2
From the lap of the mountains, happy, smiling, like two running mares, like
two
bright Mother cows licking their calf, Vipas and Shutudri run with fluid.
Directed by Indra, seeking power, as chariots they travel to the sea. RV
III.33.1-2
Maruts, what medicine of yours is in the Indus and in the Asikni rivers, what
is in the oceans or what is in the mountains. RV VIII.20.25

#161: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: SandeepA, Location: Canada Posted: 17 Nov 2000 — Hi,
This could be a little aside from the current discussion. I am looking for the origin of the word 'Dravida' better known as Dravidian. Does it have its origins in ancient Indian languages like Sanskrit, Brahmi, Pali etc or is it a term coined much later during colonial times?
Sandy

#162: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 17 Nov 2000 — Sandeep, the etymology of Dravida (Dramida, Damilla, Tamil, Tamizh) is very interesting. There was a fairly exhaustive discussion on this in the Indictraditions site. It is too long to reproduce below and you need to subscribe to join in this;
http://www.egroups.com/message/indictraditions/1771
This is a fascinating subject to pursue independently, and those who are interested should pursue this in a separate thread.
K

#163: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 18 Nov 2000 — Is this VG Rao same as the one posted in the TOI article?
http://www.sulekha.com/cgi-bin/column.cgi?resource=wa_ait
[This message has been edited by VRaghav (edited 17-11-2000).]

#164: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 18 Nov 2000 — Raghav, it appears to be the same person. Generally I have no problems with the article. I have a quibble with calling the Autochthonous Vedics (AV) revisionist. Almost all the elders in my extended family have expessed incredulity and skepticism with the AIT. In my view, the appellation 'revisionist' is more appropriate to the AIT. Merely because it has been rammed down our throats by its protagonists at a time when India was not independent, and had no control of its destiny, of course does not increase its validity.
Again Mr.Rao falls into the trap of imputing motives to the AV, in this case that they are intent on proving 'a glorious past' for India. Let me say personally, I am merely imbued with a desire to 'know' the truth, to the extent possible. If it turns out that there were invaders/immigrants from Lithuania in 1500 BC, I am not going to lose much sleep over it. It is somewhat judgemental to impute similar motives to the AV theorists. One is on more solid ground attacking their methodology and results.
Kaushal
[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 17-11-2000).]

#165: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 18 Nov 2000 — Books on Vedic Literature:
http://www.india-future.com/heritage/vedic.html

#166: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 18 Nov 2000 — Kaushal,
considering that this VG Rao became a 'convert' by a mere reading of the e-materials over a period of about 30 days (as he confesses) is in itself a big deal! Also, his commentary on the vedic Sarasvati in TOI is very much on the positive side. At the end of the day, all I want to know is whether the so called Aryans were indigenous to India or not. It is gratifying to know that more and more evidences are piling up in favour of the indigenous school.
Sateesh,
thank you. I will try to seek information on Godavari in the verses of the Rg. My opinion is that even if she is mentioned, it was in the heart of the Sapta Saindhava, more precisely on the banks of the Sarasvati, inspired by her tirthas that the Rg was composed. BTW, translation of the Telugu verse please?

#167: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 18 Nov 2000 — Lost river Saraswati may recharge aquifers http://news.sawaal.com/04-Jul-2000/Reviews/50.htm

>>>Jaipur: The river Saraswati, enshrined in mythology as one of the great rivers of India, may hold the key to recharging ground water reserves in the Thar desert of Rajasthan, feel experts.

Desertification of Thar region in western Rajasthan began 3000 to 5000 years ago when the mighty river dried up and was considered ''lost'' for centuries. However, during the past three decades, research and integrated field activities to identify the paleo-course of the river had yielded positive results, P C Chaturvedi and P C Chandra of the Central Ground Water Board, Lucknow, stated in a joint paper presented at a national seminar on ground water management strategies here last week.

The paper titled ''Artificial recharge of unsaturated zone of palaeo river courses in Thar desert'' said the surface geophysical surveys conducted in Tanot-Ranau-Sadewala region of Jaisalmer district revealed significant supporting evidence of the presence of the river. They had found a ''thick fresh water acquifier'' beneath the inter dunal depressions and the presence of a thick permeable unsaturated zone of fine sand under the dry sand dunes.

''The 30 to 45 metre thick highly permeable unsaturated zone of fine sands in the palaeo course has great capacity to accept, hold and recharge ground water'', the experts said. Interpretation of landsat-imagery of the western part of Rajasthan had revealed buried course of the river running from north east to south west. <<<

#168: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 18 Nov 2000 — Indology and Racism
http://www.sulekha.com/articles/skak_indology.html
Distinguished British anthropologist Edmund Leeach is quoted as saying,
>Why do serious scholars persist in believing in the Aryan invasions?... Why is this sort of thing attractive? Who finds it attractive? Why has the development of early Sanskrit come to be so dogmatically associated with an Aryan invasion?...
Where the Indo-European philologists are concerned, the invasion argument is tied in with their assumption that if a particular language is identified as having been used in a particular locality at a particular time, no attention need be paid to what was there before; the slate is wiped clean. Obviously, the easiest way to imagine this happening in real life is to have a military conquest that obliterates the previously existing population!
The details of the theory fit in with this racist framework... Because of their commitment to a unilineal segmentary history of language development that needed to be mapped onto the ground, the philologists took it for granted that proto-Indo-Iranian was a language that had originated outside either India or Iran. Hence it followed that the text of the Rig Veda was in a language that was actually spoken by those who introduced this earliest form of Sanskrit into India. From this we derived the myth of the Aryan invasions. QED.
Jim Shaffer and Diane Lichtenstein, perhaps the foremost modern scholars of Indian prehistory, write in a recent essay:

>The South Asian archaeological record reviewed here does not support ... any version of the migration/invasion hypothesis. Rather, the physical distribution of sites and artifacts, stratigraphic data, radiometric dates, and geological data can account for the Vedic oral tradition describing an internal cultural discontinuity of indigenous population movement.
K

#169: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 19 Nov 2000 — Oh, boy! I am floored. Thanks for your kind, encouraging and confidence engendering words for me, Sateesh. I am still a student and have a long distance to traverse before I can get my PhD in the field I am pursuing my research. I am also a student when it comes to AIT and the Rg. In fact I am baffled everytime I go through the information heaped by Kaushal or some other sources outside of BR. I feel happy to have stumbled upon the Bhargava book in my school library and BR ofcourse through which I am able to answer many 'axioms' that I have come across as a child, like Sarasvati still flows under-ground; legends from the Mahabharata and the disappearance of Dwaraka city under the sea etc. Now I know I don't have to 'bluff' my niece and nephew with such myths anymore. And it's all been possible only because I am in good company i.e. Satsangati of BRites. I am reminded of another of Bhartrhari's padya glorifying Satsangati:
stzTgk r"gtu nhr; rm@Tar; Jtra mÀgbT >
btltuàlr;k r=Nr; vtvbT yvtfUhtur; >>
au;& Œmt=gr; r=Gw ;ltur; fUeL;bT >
mÀmETdr;& fU:g rfUbT l fUhtur; vwkmtbT >>

It rids away (harati) the weeds (jADyam) from the mind (dhiyo); irrigates (sinchati) the speech (vAchi) with truth (satyam)|
Enhances the status (mAna unnatim); keeps away (apAkaroti) from bad deeds (pApam)| |
Gladdens (prasAdayati) the heart (chetaha); spreads (tanoti) fame (keertim) all around (dikshu)|
Pray tell (kathaya) what (kim) does good company (satsangati) not (na) do (karoti) to human beings (pumsAm)| |

#170: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: VRaghav, Posted: 21 Nov 2000 — Dear Raghav,
Thanks for sending me the link. It is indeed very useful.
I haven't looked at the question of Godavari. I will and let you know as soon as I get a chance. But we must remember that a non-mention is not proof that the Vedic people were not present in the Godavari area.
-Subhash Kak
> I have been participating in the discussion in Bharat-Rakshak.com, concerning
the AIT. I have been trying to post the verses from the Rg veda samhita there
(from Manohar Lal Bhargava's book "The Geogrpahy of Rgvedic India", 1964) which
are clear pointers to the geogrpahy of North India during the Rgvedic period.
You can see the discussion going on in the following URL:
>
> http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000003.html
>
> My question is whether the river Godavari has been mentioned in the Rg at all
or not. Some opine she has been mentioned and others vice-versa. Could you shed
some light into this please?
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Raghav.

#171: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 22 Nov 2000 — http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/2104/week_indus.html
>>The archeologists call it the 'Dholavira excavation'. Archeologists and historians have hailed Dholavira as a Mohenjodaro on this side of the Indo-Pak border, and use it to show the expanse of the Indus Valley civilisation believed to have been destroyed by invading Aryans from Central Asia. But Ravindra Singh Bhist of the Archaeological Survey of India, who led the excavation, saw much more than just another big Harappan city. "It is a virtual reality of what the Rig Veda, the world's oldest literary record, describes," says Bhist, who is also a Sanskrit scholar.
Kaushal

#172: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 27 Nov 2000 — http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/anthropology/indus.html
The Indus tradition and the Indo-Aryans.
By Subhash C. Kak, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Vol. 32, Mankind Quarterly, 04-01-1992, pp 195.

#172: Re: Aryan invasion theory, book reviews, bibliography, discu Author: Kaushal, Posted: 30-11-2000 21:32 Those who are located in Delhi, may be interested in this sound and light show at the Maurya Sheraton,Kaushal (crossposted from Indictraditions site) From: BhuDev Sharma
Date: Thu Nov 30, 2000 5:08pm
Subject: Re: AIT Show in Maurya Sheraton in India

Dear friends:
In Hindustan Times, November 28 issue, on page 5
appread a picture with following captions:
"A Sound and light show covering Indian History from the arrival of the Aryans to the end of the British rule, in progress at the ITC Maurya
Sheraton Hotel on Sunday. Photo Arvind Yadav"
Such is show is obviously directed towards foreign visitors and the elite.
This group may like to know 'presentation of Aryan arrival'?
BhuDev Sharma

VRaghav posted 01-12-2000 18:24
Kak citing the book in his article on the "mugu" site is very encouraging. In the last chapter which Bhargava has called "The Great Change", he goes on to explain the various factors that (may have) radically altered the geography in and around the Sapta Saindhava. He also cites references from Mahabharata (especially Vana Parva), TaittirIya Samhita of Yajurveda etc which talk about the cataclysmic and seismic disturbances that may have occurred, thereby changing the courses of many rivers, upheaving seabeds and depressing the (then huge and formidable) PAriyAtras i.e the Vindhyas.

VRaghav posted 03-12-2000 02:36
I was reading Rajaram's review of Talageri's book The Aryan Invasion Theory, a Reappraisal last night. I was struck by the following observations of Rajaram: As Talageri observes:
... the joint testimony of the Rig Veda and the Puranas provides incontrovertible evidence that there were these dynasties ... during, and even before, the composition of the majority of the hymns of the Rig Veda: and that the movement of these dynasties took place from east to west and not vice versa. (p. 297; emphasis added)
In the light of the above and with what Bhargava says "I shall discuss them (the rivers) from sout-east to north-west as far as possible keeping in-line with the practice of the rSHis", one of the earlier posts can be examined:
Going back to the post (12-11-2000, 15.25 hrs) where I have posted the verse X-75-5, which describes the seven main rivers of the Sapta Saindhava, one can find that the verse starts with not an important river of the Rg i.e. Ganga (then Yamuna, Sarasvati, Shutudri i.e Satluj, MarudvrdhA i.e Chenab, ArjIkIya i.e HAro) and ends with the Indus in the direction going from east to west. It can be better understood with this picture -- http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/vedicsaras1.jpg

It is most interesting to note the rSHis giving an overview of the rivers first and then going on to praise the rivers most dear to them in separate hymns. This organized fashion of arranging the rivers in the Rg puts Sarasvati firmly between the Ganga valley in the east and the Indus valley in the west. The cherry on top of this icing is the LandSat image which proves the existence of the Paleo channel of the river. So much for the "fundamentalist argument", and some insignificant Harqvati of Afghanistan which I came across in the thread started by Spinster. Now, the next best thing that I ought to do is to buy Talageri's book.

Kaushal posted 03-12-2000 03:50
Raghav, I should say 'Excellent my dear Watson (in fact more appropriate to refer to you as Holmes).
Pl. buy both of Talageri's books(the earlier one you referred to as well as the later one on the RG. In this later book he clinically takes apart Witzel. Talageri is undoubtedly a very clear headed thinker.
Kaushal

Kaushal posted 04-12-2000 09:38
http://www.voi.org/michel_danino/frontline.html
A reply to Frontline’s cover story (October 13 issue)
by Profs. Michael Witzel, Steve Farmer & Romila Thapar
[Note : Michel Danino, a French researcher settled in India for more than twenty years, has translated and edited many books related to Sri Aurobindo and Mother and given lectures on Indian culture and civilization, some of which have been published in book form. He has also made a study of the Aryan invasion theory in the Indian context, published under the title The Invasion That Never Was (co-authored with Sujata Nahar, 2nd edition, 2000)a link to this has been posted in this thread. The above reply to Frontline was not published in the two issues that followed the October 13 number.

VRaghav posted 04-12-2000 20:54
Kaushal, thanks. While I (read Dr. Kak) am (is) in the quest for Godavari in the Rg, I think I am ready to quote the verses concerning Sarasvati from the Rg.
1. One verse describes Sarasvati as swelled by many rivers:
VI-52-6 -- mhôJ;e rmà"wrC& rvàJbtlt > denoting that it had several tributaries.
2. Another verse (VI-61-12) speaks of it as having three origins or sources (rºtM"ô:t >) and bearing or receiving the waters of seven rivers (mË;"t;w& >)
3. Still another verse describes it as the seventh and the mother of rivers:
VII-36-6 -- mhôJ;e mË;:e rmà"wbt;t >
The description probably means that the Sarasvati was the main out of the seven rivers; the other six were like her children coming to her. At this point, it should be quite clear that we are talking about Sarasvati and her tributaries and affluents and NOT the Sapta Sindhus. IOW, and to be more precise, we are talking about 'Sapta SArasvata' i.e. the seven Sarasvatis or the seven tributaries of the main Sarasvati. The tributaries have also been called 'seven sisters' -- mË; ôJmt in VI-61-10.
4. Yet another verse speaks of Sarasvati and seven rivers:
VIII-54-4 -- mhôJÀgJà;w mË; rmà"J& >
The Sarasvati, according to Bhargava, "would thus appear to be formed higher up by three main affluents; then by seven streams (i.e. six others, probably including the above three and main Sarasvati as the seventh) and to have seven other sister rivers, running more or less parallel to it for a comparatively longer course, and then, either joining it or falling into the sea directly." Thus he says "there were in total 14 streams."
From here, he has gone much further to explain the rivers in the Sarasvati basin (he claims to have studied about 40 streams in the basin of that river). He also has put in great effort to especially identify the seven sisters of Sarasvati. To what extent it is correct, I really can not say. However, the seven rivers in the basin of the Sarasvati (i.e the 3 affluents in its upper course and others including the main Sarasvati as the seventh) can be seen in this picture (IMO) -- http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/vedicsaras1.jpg
Some scholars like Zimmer, Griffith have doubted the identity of the Sarasvati. They have tried to interpret her and the Indus as one and the same river.
5. But Bhargava quotes verses where both the Sarasvati and the Sindhu have been mentioned side by side with the Sarayu intervening between them. They have been described as large rivers with huge waves:
X-64-9 -- QLbrCbontu bnehJmt > Also others like X-75-5 and X-75-6 which I have quoted in my earlier posts mention the Sindhu and the Sarasvati side by side.
6. Sarasvati has been described as a mighty river running direct from hills to the sea:
VII-95-2 -- Nwragor; rdrhÇg yt mbwŠt;T >
7. One verse calls it a mighty stream:
I-3-11 -- bntu yKo& >
8. In another verse it is said to have swept away a ridge of hills with its mighty waves just as one digs out stems of the Lotus plant:
VI-61-2 -- Rgk mwíburCcomFtRJth¥sÀmtlw rdheKtk ;rJMurCÁLbrC& >
9. One more verse speaks of its unlimited and unbroken floods moving swiftly with a rapid rush and thundering roar:
Vi-61-8 -- gôgt ylà;tu yñh¥;ôÀJuMëarhíKwhKoJ& > ybëahr; htuh¥J;T >>
10. Yet another verse speaks of it as filling the earth and the wide regions of the heavens with its roar:
VI-61-11 -- ytvŒwMe vtL:Jtàgwh¥hstu yà;rhGbT mhôJ;e rl=ôvt;w >>
11. Still another one calls it the mightiest of the mighty streams and the most rapid among rapid streams:
VI-61-13 -- brnölt brnltmw and yvmtbvô;bt > respectively.
12. According to one verse, it surpassed all other rivers in greatness:
VII-95-1 -- rJëJt yvtu brnlt rmà"whàgt& >
13. While in another it is described as the broadest river:
VII-96-1 -- J]n=w dtrgMu >
From the above it is clear that Sarasvati has been devoted one full hymn (i.e. VI-61) even though while the Sindhu was known to be the largest river of the country (as in X-75-5 and X-75-6).
14. It is diefied and in one verse has been described as the inspirer of good songs and inciter of good thoughts:
I-3-11 -- atu=rgºte mql];tltk au;à;e mwb;eltbT >>
15. In the verse just following it, she is said to generate and illuminate with her light and intelligence:
I-3-12 -- Œ au;gr; fUu;wlt r"gtu rJëJt >
Bhargava says "If these verses have any meaning, it is that a good many hymns of the Rg were composed on her banks."
16. She is the best of mothers, the best of rivers and the best of devis:
II-41-16 -- yröc;bu l=e;bu =urJ;bu >
17. In still another verse it is addressed as the dearest of dear streams:
VI-61-10 -- rŒgt rŒgtmw >
18. She is prayed not to spurn the rSHis and not to let them go away from her fields to places not lovely (like them):
VI-61-14 -- btvôVUhe& vgmt bt l yt"fUT > swMôJ l& mÏgt Juëgt a bt ÀJÀGuºttãghKtrl >>
Bhargava again: "Sentiments like these would be meaningless unless the Sarasvati valley was the original home of the Rgvedic Aryas."
19. She is the sure defence like a fort of iron:
VII-95-1 -- ytgmevw& >
20. She is said to have given milk and butter to NahuSHa:
VII-95-2 -- D];k vgtu =w=wnu ltýMtg >
21. The PUrus are said to live on the banks of the Sarasvati:
VII-96-2 -- yr"rGgrà; vqhJ& >
Bhargava avers "I hope it is quite clear that by now that the Sarasvati was the most important and one of the largest rivers of the Sapta Saindhava and that it was in the valley of this river and its seven sisters that the Rgvedic culture and religion originated and developed and then spread to other parts of the country including the valley of the Indus itself" (i.e. towards the west as Talageri asserts).

[This message has been edited by VRaghav (edited 04-12-2000).]

Folks,
Here is another rather well-balanced opinion piece on using archeological evidence as opposed to literary evidence on the veda/harappa question.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/051200/detOPI01.asp

Kaushal posted 14-12-2000 16:31
The views of James Schaffer, an archaeologist from Case Western Reserve U;
http://www.dharmacentral.com/aryan.htm
"That the archaeological record and ancient oral and literate traditions of South Asia (ie. the Vedic tradition) are now converging has significant implications for regional cultural history. A few scholars have proposed that there is nothing in the 'literature' firmly placing the Indo-Aryans, the generally perceived founders of the modern South Asian cultural tradition(s), outside of South Asia, and now the archaeological record is confirming this. Within the context of cultural continuity described here, an archaeologically significant indigenous discontinuity occurs due to ecological factors (ie. the drying up of the Sarasvati river). This cultural discontinuity was a regional population shift from the Indus Valley, in the west, to locations east and southeast, a phenomenon also recorded in ancient oral (ie. Vedic) traditions. As data accumulates to support cultural continuity in South Asian prehistoric and historic periods, a considerable restructuring of existing interpretive paradigms must take place. We reject most strongly the simplistic historical interpretations, which date back to the eighteenth century, that continue to be imposed on South Asian culture history. These still prevailing interpretations are significantly diminished by European ethnocentrism, colonialism, racism, and antisemitism. Surely, as South Asian studies approaches the twenty-first century, it is time to describe emerging data objectively rather than perpetuate interpretations without regard to the data archaeologists have worked so hard to reveal."

wasu posted 15-12-2000 01:11
A new book
The Decline and Fall of the Indus Civilization
http://www.indiaclub.com/shop/SearchResults.asp?ProdStock=4118

wasu posted 17-12-2000 03:05
An old link. Wonder how many indus valley related items would have been lost ?
Ancient Indian (Asian) artifacts looted by Afghan militants
http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/anthropology/anthro-l/archive/september-1995/0475.html

Kaushal posted 17-12-2000 04:31
wasu, this is an important link. I had come across a similar newsitem on the Kabul Museum, which at that time was still being maintained by a faithful custodian.It was a poignant article where the custodian or curator (probably the same one in this article) was bemoaning the fact that nobody in Afghanistan seemed to care about these artifacts. In fact it has always been my contention that Afghanistan has probably more artifacts dating back to the IV and the Buddhist era, because it may not have sustained the continuous looting over 600 years that India did - at least until the Taliban came into the picture. In the Taliban we are seeing how a civilization gets wiped out and a discontinuity in human progress is created - a setback from which Afghanistan will take decades to recover. This is exactly what happened in Indian history, which is why the great majority of the Indian populace remains disconnected from the past.
Soldiers stole all the most precious objects, Popol said.Less-important artifacts were left smashed on the floor, while
those too heavy to carry out such as life-sized statues of Kushan warriors from 200 BC and the largest Buddhas were badly damaged. According to Sayed Delju Hussaini, Afghan minister of information and culture, 90% of the museum's collection has been
looted. "It was one of the richest museums in the entire region, covering 50,000 years of history in Afghanistan and Central
Asia," Hussaini laments
It is time to weep as the remnants of a great civilization get wiped of the face of the planet by ignorant savages. Just as the Parsee tourists wept when they read the inscriptions of Cyrus at Pasargadae and bemoaned the fact that the once great followers of Zarathustra are doomed to extinction.
Kaushal

Kaushal posted 18-12-2000 22:21
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/12/19/stories/13191351.htm
Looking beyond the Aryan invasion

THERE IS now an active debate concerning Vedic Aryans and their relationship to the Harappan Civilisation. The debate is focused mainly on the origin of the Aryans - whether they were indigenous to India or if they were invaders from outside who entered India from the northwest in the second millennium before the Common Era. Beginning about the middle of the Nineteenth century, or roughly from the time the British established control over all of India, it has been the official position that the Vedas and the ancestor of the Sanskrit language were brought by invaders from Central Asia or Eurasia or even Europe. This is the famous Aryan Invasion Theory that is now at the centre of a historical debate. More than anything, the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) shows that each era views history in the light of its own beliefs and experience. As a product of the European colonial period, it is only natural that the AIT should embody certain Eurocentric biases....

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 22-12-2000).]

Narendhar posted 19-12-2000 15:31
Hi!
I have been following this thread for quite a while.
I am curious about one thing though. The gentleman named Kaushal who has initiated this thread and has kept it going has completely ignored the great patriot and scholar, Bal Gangadhar Tilak's work in this area. His work in the 1920's called "The Artic Home of the Vedas" is highly respected and considered seminal. I find it odd that none of the "historians" like Rajaram, Frawley, etc have commented on Tilak's work which effectively debunks their claims. Is taking on a great leader such as Tilak and commenting on his work "dangerous territory" for these guys?
Macaulay's Sanskrit knwoledge may have been awful or non-existent but Tilak was well-versed in the language and was considered an expert in his day. You cannot call him a "marxist historian" as the opponents to Rajaram et al. are frequently referred to here. Any comments on why his work has not been analyzed in this regard?
I have talked to some of my Hindutva-leaning friends and they have been quite uncomfortable with Tilak's thesis, especially with the parivar now courting Tilak as their own - rival of Gandhi and so on. One of them actually offered the explanation supposedly given by RSS idealogue Guruji Gowlakar when he was questioned about Tilak's thesis (as he was voicing an opinion that is being "proven" by Rajaram et al). Apparently, Guruji said something to the effect of,"Tilak is right. But the present day North Pole was part of Northern Bihar, it split from India and moved to where it is today". Not wishing to offend a true Hindu patriot perhaps.
I am looking for some points of view that will analyze the thoughts of Tilak with respect to what is being "messaged" here. And another question too, for speculation:
In voicing his thesis why didn't Tilak feel uncomfortable (unlike Rajaram et al.) that the so-called "Aryan Civilization" may not have been indigenous in origin (Tilak was a devoted Hindu and wanted the very best for his country, religion and culture). The "indigenous origin" theory is very important for the Hindutva types because they believe that anyone who follows a faith alien to India cannot be a "Bharatiya". Tilak does not appear to harbor such notions.
Any comments?
[This message has been edited by Narendhar (edited 19-12-2000).]

acharya posted 19-12-2000 16:18
Very good points. First of all the discussion in this thread looks at all view points. Based on scientific and archeological evidence most of the new view points have been formed in the last 5-6 years. They have been also validated by lot of scholars inside India and outside with different leanings.
But there are still questions which are being researched.
Tilaks book has been discussed by Rajaram and all agree that he had succumbed to the colonial theory of AIT. In his time there was no means to really check the motives or evidence to corraborate AIT. In his book he also says that Aryans may have come form Russia.
The only significance of his book is the orion related to astronomy.

advitya posted 19-12-2000 16:35

quote:
Originally posted by Narendhar:
Hi!
I have been following this thread for quite a while. It seems to present a complicated issue such as the origins of the Aryas from a Hindutva viewpoint?

Sir
Kindly keep your political biases out of this thread. This thread attempts to look at all points of view. So please make substantive comments only.
thanks

Narendhar posted 19-12-2000 17:20
Hi Advitya,
In deference to your request I have deleted the opening lines of my post.
Now focussing on substantive matters, I have another question for Mr. Kaushal, others and yourself as well. There are numerous references in this thread about Tilak and Ambedhkar having negated the AIT. I am not able to find any such references in the net or otherwise. Could anyone point me to some? Also, based on my knowledge Tilak discusses migration than invasion. This thread does not consider migration at all.
Acharya:
Thanks for the reply. In your reply, you write that Tilak "succumbed" to the AIT, based on Rajaram et al's analysis of Tilak's thesis?
Any reason why an eminent vedic scholar, even recognized as so by the likes of Swami Vivekananda (who spent a few weeks in Poona with Tilak) would have "succumbed", given his knowledge of the Vedas and proficiency in Sanskrit? I find it incredible that an aerospace engineer turned vedic-expert can make such a claim. If there is any basis, can anyone tell me why?
I would very much like to get your thoughts. I am a new member and don't have the opportunity to participate that much. If I don't reply immediately to your posts, kindly bear with me. I will definitely reply when I find time.
Thanks.

Kaushal posted 19-12-2000 17:38
Narendhar, if you wish to make or post items relating to the alleged Hindutva opposition to AIT, pl. use the following thread. I will be glad to respond to your queries there.
Kaushal
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000928.html

Amit posted 22-12-2000 04:41
Kaushal,
I found a collection of writings of Koenraad Elst onthe following site
http://www.bewoner.dma.be/Krisbrug/articles.html
hope it helps.

Kaushal posted 28-12-2000 10:26
The evolution and development of the spoked wheel (referred to earlier in this thread)is a significant and major event in ancient civilizations, as it permitted lighter wheels and more precise circular construction of the wheel rim. There are references (according to Talageri) to the spoked wheel in the Rg. If so, this is the earliest reference to the spoked wheel in the history of mankind. The following replies by Talageri, in correspondence with Rajaram and Elst, speak of these references,
http://www.egroups.com/message/IndianCivilization/602 (see also other post numbers in the Indian civilization site 603,622,623,624,626,627)
Kaushal

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 28-12-2000).]

Kaushal posted 11-01-2001 03:16
Dr.Kalyanaraman's (on-line)book on the Sarasvati River
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/ieindex.htm
THE RIVER SARASVATI:
LEGEND, MYTH AND REALITY
(December 1999)
Dr. S. Kalyanaraman*
[Commemoration volume released at the First Vishwa Saraswat Sammelan held in Mangalore, Karnataka, India, from 16 to 19 December 1999; published by All India Saraswat Cultural Organization, Ashwamedh, 10 Botawala Bldg., Sitladevi Temple Road, Mahim, Mumbai 400016; Price: Rs. 100].
CONTENTS
Prologue
1. Revival of the Sarasvati River
2. Natural History of Sarasvati River
3. Historic Legacy of Sarasvati Civilization
4. Ancient History of Sarasvats and Dravidian Culture
5. Chronology of Vedic Age and Sarasvati Sindhu Civilization
6. Language of the Indus People
7. From Sarasvati to Haraqvaiti
8. Evolution of Civilization and Vedic Culture
9. Migration of Ailas
10. Plaksha
Epilogue
Appendixes
Bibliography
About the Author
Also the online version of Koenraad Elst's 'Update on the Aryan Migration Theory' is now available too.
http://www.voi.org/books/ait/

Kaushal

Kaushal posted 23-01-2001 03:58
Another attempt at deciphering the Indus script;
http://www.indusscript.net/
Kaushal

Kaushal posted 04-02-2001 17:29
While the arguments put forth here are not new, they are quite valid.
Kaushal
http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad/jul1998/msg00044.html

SandeepA posted 05-02-2001 23:39
Killer quake breathes life into 'mythical' Saraswati river
http://www.thenewspapertoday.com/india/inside.phtml?NEWS_ID=3106
Killer quake breathes life into 'mythical' Saraswati river
RAVI S. JHA
Ahmedabad, February 05, 14:34

The quake's epicentre was in Kutch.

he Saraswati river -- the missing third link in Allahabad's Sangam -- is making a sudden, pleasant appearance in quake-injured Gujarat. Scientists say shifting of tectonic plates in the Allah Bund fault area has led to a geographical osmosis in the Rann of Kutch area, pushing the hitherto mythical Saraswati over-ground in surprise spurts.
Hundreds of villages in the Rann, where there was no water till Friday last week, now have streams flowing all over. Geological experts say, "In all likelihood Saraswati, the distributary of Indus which had vanished mysteriously, has changed its course towards Kutch." They say Saraswati is the most likely source of these streams as its falling point was the ancient city of Dholavira.
"There is evidence that Saraswati was a distributary of Indus. And we also know that Saraswati had a connecting point from Indus that still flows from top of Rajasthan to Pakistan," a Central Ground Water Board scientist said.
On Friday last week, residents of Dhrang Godai village - where the epicentre of the killer quake was located - saw water streams flowing from the ground and informed officials. By the time the official survey team arrived, the streams had reached as far as Mundra taluka, Rammania, Nanitundi and Bhatigwal.
The dry wells in and around Bhatigwal village were suddenly filling with water. In Nakhtrana, Junagram, Hajipur villages in Banni wastelands too the dry wells were full of water. Though initially a blue volcanic mud oozed out, it soon became clear, potable water.
"This a definite indication that the ground water regimen has changed. This water could be from those river sources that had vanished thousands of years ago," says Prof R.S. Chaturvedi, a senior geo-scientist.
Though in places like Maliya and Surajbari the water streams dried up soon after they appeared, in many villages they continue to flow into large pools. "It is not that these regions had no water. It's just that, after the earthquake, the ground water table has begun rising tremendously," a government official said.
Now the question these villagers are asking is will these springs stay. Prof. Chaturvedi says the answer can come only after a thorough research. "It depends on the amount of water available in the parent river," he said.
The last major quake, which hit Kutch in 1819 and measured 8 on the Richter Scale, had created a mound of earth near Sindri, which the local people call Allah Bund.

Narayan_L posted 06-02-2001 04:05
Hi Kaushal:
I happened to read the article by Mr. Velayudham-“This is who we are” through the link in your last post. You opine that his arguments are “quite valid”. The following passage in the article caught my attention. (Got back from India yesterday. Curiosity and jet-lag have contributed to this long post

)
Here it is:
“Some of this migration took place southward too, and the Dravidian languages and customs were born. Contrary to what separatist groups in South India would have you believe, the South Indians have a very strong resemblance to Vedic culture. In fact, South India is one of the best places today to observe and learn about Sanskrit, and other Vedic traditions! The remarkable difference between the Dravidian and the Sanskrit family of languages is not due to any racial divide, but rather it is evidence of the remarkable creativity the people of this subcontinent have been blessed with."
Let us juxtapose the above with one of your early posts (06/20/2000, I believe):
"The new school (Kak, Frawley, Rajaram, Jha) believe also there is no difference between Dravidian and Vedic languages and that they both spring from the same root language."
You surely remember the following George Hart (Holds the Tamil Chair at UC Berkeley) essay on Tamil as a classical language. You posted it Oct-Nov last year during a discussion on Sanskrit. Following the Hart essay are a few questions to which I hope you and other experts on the forum can help me find answers.
(I found a copy of the following article through this link as well:
http://www.sysindia.com/forums/General_Discussion/posts/9086.html
Status of Tamil as a Classical Language
Prof.George Hart
Professor Maraimalai has asked me to write regarding the position of Tamil
as a classical language, and I am delighted to respond to his request.
I have been a Professor of Tamil at the University of California, Berkeley,
since 1975 and am currently holder of the Tamil Chair at that institution.
My degree, which I received in 1970, is in Sanskrit, from Harvard, and my
first employment was as a Sanskrit professor at the University of Wisconsin,
Madison, in 1969. Besides Tamil and Sanskrit, I know the classical languages
of Latin and Greek and have read extensively in their literatures in the
original.
I am also well-acquainted with comparative linguistics and the literatures
of modern Europe (I know Russian, German, and French and have read
extensively in those languages) as well as the literatures of modern India, which,
with the exception of Tamil and some Malayalam, I have read in translation.
I have spent much time discussing Telugu literature and its tradition with
V. Narayanarao, one of the greatest living Telugu scholars, and so I know
that tradition especially well. As a long-standing member of a South Asian
Studies department, I have also been exposed to the richness of both Hindi
literature, and I have read in detail about Mahadevi Varma, Tulsi, and Kabir.
I have spent many years -- most of my life (since 1963) -- studying Sanskrit.
I have read in the original all of Kalidasa, Magha, and parts of Bharavi and
Sri Harsa. I have also read in the original the fifth book of the Rig Veda
as well as many other sections, many of the Upanisads, most of the
Mahabharata, the Kathasaritsagara, Adi Sankaras works, and many other works in Sanskrit.
I say this not because I wish to show my erudition, but rather to establish
my fitness for judging whether a literature is classical. Let me state
unequivocally that, by any criteria one may choose, Tamil is one of the
great classical literatures and traditions of the world.
The reasons for this are many; let me consider them one by one.
First, Tamil is of considerable antiquity. It predates the literatures of
other modern Indian languages by more than a thousand years. Its oldest work,
the Tolkappiyam, contains parts that, judging from the earliest Tamil
inscriptions, date back to about 200 BCE. The greatest works of ancient
Tamil, the Sangam anthologies and the Pattuppattu, date to the first
two centuries of the current era. They are the first great secular body
of poetry written in India, predating Kalidasa's works by two hundred years.
Second, Tamil constitutes the only literary tradition indigenous to India
that is not derived from Sanskrit. Indeed, its literature arose before
the influence of Sanskrit in the South became strong and so is qualitatively
different from anything we have in Sanskrit or other Indian languages.
It has its own poetic theory, its own grammatical tradition, its own
aesthetics, and, above all, a large body of literature that is quite unique.
It shows a sort of Indian sensibility that is quite different from anything
in Sanskrit or other Indian languages, and it contains its own extremely
rich and vast intellectual tradition.
Third, the quality of classical Tamil literature is such that it is fit
to stand beside the great literatures of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Chinese,
Persian and Arabic. The subtlety and profundity of its works, their
varied scope (Tamil is the only premodern Indian literature to treat
the subaltern extensively), and their universality qualify Tamil to
stand as one of the great classical traditions and literatures of the
world. Everyone knows the Tirukkural, one of the world's greatest
works on ethics; but this is merely one of a myriad of major and
extremely varied works that comprise the Tamil classical tradition.
There is not a facet of human existence that is not explored and
illuminated by this great literature.
Finally, Tamil is one of the primary independent sources of modern Indian
culture and tradition. I have written extensively on the influence of a
Southern tradition on the Sanskrit poetic tradition. But equally important,
the great sacred works of Tamil Hinduism, beginning with the Sangam
Anthologies, have undergirded the development of modern Hinduism. Their
ideas were taken into the Bhagavata Purana and other texts (in Telugu and
Kannada as well as Sanskrit), whence they spread all over India. Tamil
has its own works that are considered to be as sacred as the Vedas and
that are recited alongside Vedic mantras in the great Vaisnava temples
of South India (such as Tirupati). And just as Sanskrit is the source
of the modern Indo-Aryan languages, classical Tamil is the source
language of modern Tamil and Malayalam. As Sanskrit is the most conservative
and least changed of the Indo-Aryan languages, Tamil is the most conservative
of the Dravidian languages, the touchstone that linguists must consult
to understand the nature and development of Dravidian.
In trying to discern why Tamil has not been recognised as a modern
language, I can see only a political reason: there is a fear that if
Tamil is selected as a classical language, other Indian languages may
claim similar status. This is an unnecessary worry. I am well
aware of the richness of the modern Indian languages -- I know that
they are among the most fecund and productive languages on
earth, each having begotten a modern (and often medieval) literature
that can stand with any of the major literatures of the world. Yet
none of them is a classical language. Like English and the other
modern languages of Europe (with the exception of Greek), they
rose on pre-existing traditions rather late and developed in the
second millennium. The fact that Greek is universally recognised as a
classical language in Europe does not lead the French or the English
to claim classical status for their languages.
To qualify as a classical tradition, a language must fit several
criteria: it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition
that arose mostly on its own not as an offshoot of another tradition,
and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature.
Unlike the other modern languages of India, Tamil meets each of these
requirements. It is extremely old (as old as Latin and older
than Arabic); it arose as an entirely independent tradition, with
almost no influence from Sanskrit or other languages; and its ancient
literature is indescribably vast and rich.
It seems strange to me that I should have to write an essay such as
this claiming that Tamil is a classical literature -- it is akin to
claiming that India is a great country or Hinduism is one of the
world's great religions. The status of Tamil as one of the great
classical languages of the world is something that is patently
obvious to anyone who knows the subject. To deny that Tamil is a
classical language is to deny a vital and central part of the
greatness and richness of Indian culture

Questions:
1. Mr. Velayudham seems to imply that a southward migration of the Vedic people and their “remarkable creativity” created the so-called Dravidian language like Tamil which doesn’t sound, read or look anything like Sanskrit. What was the necessity to create a language so radically different from the mother language?
2. Prof. Hart (and several eminent linguists) has opined that Tamil evolved independent of Sanskrit. For the sake of argument, let us assume that as true. This would indicate a rich literary tradition that possibly evolved and existed independent of the so-called Sanskrit based Vedic culture. If a “native Tamil” or so-called “Dravidian based culture” existed in the south along with a “Vedic culture” in the North, does that not weaken the hypothesis of the “Talageri-Rajaram-Frawley” types, that the Sanskrit based culture is the root of all Indian culture?
3. Based on the revelations of the “vedic” school of thought, is it safe to conclude that there are no “Dravidian languages” or “Dravidian culture”?
4. I feel that there is a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the independent origins of Tamil and its rich literary traditions. The existence of an independent rich Tamil based culture in India at the time of the “Vedic age” would no doubt present challenges to their theory that everything evolved from the Vedic-Sanskrit based civilization. Would the existence of another advanced indigenous culture challenge their thesis?
5. More importantly, Mr. Velayudham says,” The remarkable difference between the Dravidian and the Sanskrit family of languages is not due to any racial divide.” Why is this “racial divide” question so important? So what if there were different “races” which spoke different languages? Since the “new evidence” seems to suggest that the “Aryan civilization” was indigenous, what is wrong with the possibility that there may have been another indigenous culture speaking a different language? Why is the commonality of race so important here?
I hope we can find better answers than “Agastya, the Arya sage created Tamil and brought it to the South.” We in Tamil Nadu are also wary about theories that suggest “invented anywhere but Tamil Nadu”

.
This thread has dealt with the question of “negation” in great detail. To deny the indigenous and independent origins of Tamil and Tamil culture merely to propound and solidify a certain hypothesis is also negation at its finest.
[This message has been edited by Narayan_L (edited 08-02-2001).]

Narayan_L posted 06-02-2001 12:33
Here is more on the attempts at obfuscation…

Mu Varadarasanaar, "Tamil Language - A brief review of its history and features"
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5180/tamil7.html

Unnecessary Polemics (Excerpt from the above article, and there is more)
"The existence of such combination of antiquity and individuality in Tamil literature, was forgotten by later day Sanskrit scholars. As such they not merely denied the greatness due to the Tamil language but began to look upon it on the assumption that it borrowed immensely from Sanskrit from its very inception. Therefore, Sanskritists indulged in unwanted polemics by arguing that Tamil had no intrinsic merit of its own because it borrowed heavily from Sanskrit. To establish this assumption, Caminata Desikar, a Sanskrit scholar and author of a grammatical work entitled ilakkaNakkottu compared the alphabets of Sanskrit and Tamil and found that all, expect five alphabets, the two short vowels e (±) and o (´) and three consonants Ra, na and za (È, É, Æ ) are common to both the languages. Therefore he argued that all the characters common to the two languages essentially belonged to Sanskrit and the five rare symbols which are absent in Sanskrit belonged specifically to Tamil. Based on his findings he wrote an unusual verse in which he posed insolently a question whether Tamil with only five letters of its own could ever be called a language.
Intelligent persons will be ashamed
To call it a language
That possesses only five letters.*
--
* Arumuka Navalar (ed.), llakkanakkottu (Madras). p. 9, lines 27-28.
--
This scurrilous verse only indicates the irrational attitude of the Sanskrit scholars of the seventeenth century. "

Prof. A. Vellupillai, "Religious Traditions of the Tamils"
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5180/tamil.html
An excerpt from the above recommended for introspection…
"The appeals to fundamentals of Brahminical Hinduism, as it is understood in North India, do not seem to have its echo among Tamils, because of the character of Hinduism in tamizNAdu. A few months ago, Prof. Saraswathy Vijayavenugopal, a folklorist from Madurai University in South India, in a lecture in Uppsala, made the observation that there seem to be many folk religions among the Hindu Tamils. Synchronization - continuing synchronism of different religions - seems to be a living process within what is called Hinduism among Tamils. The influence of political Hinduism, exemplified by Bharatiya Janata Party and Vishva Hindu Parishad, which champion Brahminical values, is negligible among Tamils."
Key question:
The establishment of "Vedic-Sanskritic" roots (even in cases where there doesn't seem to be any basis) for Indian culture and civilization as a whole appears to be the goal of the "political Hinduism" movement. Perhaps more evidence that the study of the origins of Indian civilization will be tainted (and continue to be) by pre-conceived, ulterior motives from the right and left?
[This message has been edited by Narayan_L (edited 06-02-2001).]

Narayan_L posted 08-02-2001 18:42
Asko Parpola,"Of Rajaram's 'Horses', 'decipherment', and civilisational issues ", Frontline Volume 17 - Issue 23, Nov. 11 - 24, 2000
http://www.frontlineonline.com/fl1723/17231240.htm
"In my book, I have presented numerous facts suggesting that the Harappans mainly spoke a Dravidian language. The Harappans are estimated to have totalled at least one million people, while the primarily pastoralist Aryan-speaking immigrants could have numbered only a small fraction of this. Eventually, however, the language of the minority prevailed over the majority. There are numerous parallels to such a development. Almost the whole continent of South America now speaks Spanish or Portuguese, while t he Native American ('Indian') languages spoken there before the arrival of the European conquerors are about to vanish. This linguistic change has taken place in 500 years, and was initiated by just 300 well-armed adventurers. In 400 years, the British managed to establish their language and culture very widely in South Asia. To conflate the identity of the Vedic and Harappan cultures and to deny the external origin of Sanskrit and other Indo-Aryan languages is as absurd as to claim, as Dayananda Sarasvati did, that the railway trains and aeroplanes that were introduced in South Asia by the British in the 19th and 20th centuries had already been invented by the Vedic Aryans.
It is sad that in South Asia, as elsewhere in the world, linguistic and religious controversies are the cause of so much injustice and suffering. We should remember that from the very beginning, Aryan and non-Aryan languages and associated cultures, religions and peoples have intermingled and have become inextricably mixed. Every element of the population has contributed to the creation of Indian civilisation, and every one of them deserves credit for it."

acharya posted 11-02-2001 23:11
H-ASIA
February 10, 2001
***********************************
From: "Yvette C. Rosser" <
This interesting discussion about Nanking revisionism and Japan's
semi-official negationism of wartime atrocities reminds me of the
on-going parallel debate about historiography in India. The Indian
controversy about the writing/rewriting of history has similar
political, emotional, and civilizational overtones.
The response to the Tanaka Masaaki book was almost unanimous--most
scholars are theoretically and personally against Japanese negationism
of the Nanking massacre on the moral grounds that genocide ("Least we
forget!") should not be denied, not to mention that the rigors of
historical research can be used to prove the negationists wrong.
In contrast, in the context of the historiography controversy in the
Indian Subcontinent, the majority of Western/Westernized scholars
usually support the so-called negationists. In India, negationism
refers to the accusation that "Leftist" historians have misrepresented
the medieval period. Non-Marxist or "Indian nationalist" historians,
often called "Saffronites" (based on the ochre color of a Hindu holy
man's robes) claim that the atrocities of the early years of the
Hindu-Muslim interface have been "whitewashed" or negated in official
Indian historical narratives. The imperative to obfuscate and deny any
references to "Hindu genocide" in the premodern period is, according to
non-Marxists intellectuals, based on ideological imperatives to adhere
to a didactic dialectic materialism.
The intention of Leftist/Progressive historians is to downplay the
violence of the centuries of Islamic invasions in an effort to diminish
communal tensions in modern India. This is a form of negationism, based
on a desire to control the past to promote politically correct
perspectives. It has been used to deny scholars space to even ask
questions such as "Is there a way to determine how many Hindu women
were taken to harems as war booty between the years 1000 and 1400? Or,
does the archeological record tell us how many temples were desecrated
as the armies of this or that Islamic ruler advanced across the
Subcontinent? Or, almost any controversial question focusing on the
Hindus in the medieval period--it is after all, still labeled in most
history books the "Muslim Period". Just asking these sorts of questions
often evokes the ire of many intellectuals who in another context would
consider historical investigations into possible genocide a valid and
worthy topic: "Least we forget!"
A recent petition circulated on H-ASIA nominated Professor Saburo
Ienaga for the Nobel Peace Prize. The email included the famous George
Santayana quote, "Whoever forgets the past is doomed to relive it". One
of Santayana's less famous quotes warns that "History is always written
wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten."
Who determines when the rewriting of history is ideologically tainted,
obscurantist, regressive and dangerous? Who determines when it is
archivable historical fact, scientific, and progressive? Who decides
when it is which? What part does politics play in this selection?
History books have long been the abode of nationalist discourse. In the
last few years social studies textbooks, as a site of contested
nationalisms, have attracted attention from both the academic and
journalistic communities. Articles have appeared in the press
concerning changes in social studies textbooks in India, Italy, the
Balkans, Russia, Japan, Israel, and Palestine. This attention in the
popular media and in academic critiques of the uses and abuses of
history have brought the politics of historiography into focus where
school textbooks are considered a malleable instrument of patriotic
discourse, for better or worse. Scholars of different ideological
persuasions are fighting a do-or-die battle to gain or retain the power
to determine the flow of historical narrations. Prophetically, George
Orwell (PBUH) got it right back in 1949. Political dictates demand: the
past must controlled.
In India, the very bitter and on-going debate between the Leftist
intellectuals and their intellectual "others", an amorphous group
composed of a broad range of non-Marxist social scientists, is often
hashed out in the Indian press. The vocal core of the Leftist
intellectuals are represented by a distinct group of eminent scholars
working at several prestigious institutions such as Alighar Muslim
University, JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi) and also Delhi
University and other educational centers. Members of this group of
elite Leftist intellectuals have traditionally, since the sixties,
peopled key institutions, councils, and committees devoted to the
writing and study of Indian history such as National Council for
Education Research and Training (NCERT) that publishes the government
sponsored textbooks.
Often the scholars who have come under criticism from the Leftist camp
have very little in common with each other except that they were, at
some point in their career, labeled politically incorrect, and
therefore "saffron" for being in disagreement with "JNU style"
socio-historical methodology. The watershed event spawning the chasm of
ideological positioning was the destruction of the Babri Masjid in
December 1992. Ironically, several scholars, such as Ashis Nandy and
T.N. Madan, who are many shades away from saffron, have somehow been
reclassified somewhere on the borders of that ochre category because
their ideas are slightly out of sync with certain politically correct
expectations. This name-calling was verified by scholars I spoke with
in Delhi from both sides of the argument . . . seems to many, "if
you're not Red, you mush be Saffron".
In India, this well-known and internationally respected cadre of
Left-leaning social scientists have positioned themselves as the
ideological opposite of the Hindu-centric or "Indian Nationalist/Hindu
Nationalist" historians. Some of these "Saffron" scholars, to the
horror of the "real" subalternists, might call themselves "Hindu
subaltern historians", have recently found an unprecedented level of
support in official institutions that had previously been dominated by
historians with a Marxist slant to their work.
For several decades, political appointees nominated to head
institutions such as the ICHR (Indian Council for Historical Research)
and the ICSSR (Indian Council for Social Science Research) tended to be
from the Left-leaning schools, Nehruvian socialists, Marxists
-appointees of the Congress Party. After the BJP (Bharatiya Janata
Party) came to power at the center in 1998, many of the scholars who
had been favored by the Congress-led governments were not reappointed
when their terms expired. The chairmanships of institutions that had
for years been traditional intellectual and scholarly strongholds of
Marxist/Leftist paradigms were suddenly supplanted by the appointment
of non-Leftists scholars.
These political appointments, though all such appointments have always
been political, have caused great consternation on the part of those
who feel they are no longer able to control the direction of official
historiography in India. In response they are writing pamphlets, and
holding news conferences to warn their colleagues and countrymen about
the dangers of "obscurantist saffron historiography" -which of course
is their perfectly legal right and makes my research into contested
historiography all the more juicy. It seems as well, or so I was
informed by non-Marxist scholars, that the Leftist historians have
increased their travels to the West to give lectures at universities in
order to spread the word about the saffronization of education and the
danger posed by "Hindu-Nazis" to India's secular institutions (viz.
Prof. K.N. Panikkar's recent multi-state American tour).
According to these Leftist intellectuals, who since the fall of the
USSR now call themselves Progressives, there is a conspiracy by a
rapidly expanding group of communal historians and archeologists who
are distorting the historical record to promote a chauvinistic form of
ethno-nationalism that is the antithesis of India's secular, socialist,
constitutional democracy. This growing tendency in the polity is, they
claim, "Fascistic". For reasons tied up in their own theoretical
constructs about the purpose of history and the obligation of the
historian to help guide society towards a particular model, many
Leftist/Progressive historians in India are adverse to writing anything
that pays too much positive attention to the civilizational
contributions and philosophical and scientific sophistication of the
ancient Hindu past. They are particularly annoyed about "saffron
archeology" especially when excavations dig up examples of enduring and
culturally specific symbols of Hinduism unearthed at far-flung sites
across the Subcontinent-lending credence to the ancientness/cultural
continuity orientation of the nationalist historians-an orientation
that Leftist scholars have worked to prove was a "colonial
construction".
Most controversial and interesting is the hesitation on the part of
many otherwise objective scholars, whether Indian Marxist or Western,
to vividly portray the violence of the medieval period--the impact of
invasions on the indigenous Hindu population during the early years of
the Islamic interface in the Subcontinent. (The "Lore of Gore" is
certainly not a taboo historical field in other geographical areas!)
This "Hindu negationism", as it is called, is one of the core sore
points among historians of the Sangh Parivar(Saffron) persuasion. They
claim that not only do NCERT textbooks, the official textbooks in most
schools in India for over thirty years, "whitewash the Muslim
atrocities" of the medieval period, but that most history departments
at flagship institutions are overwhelmingly staffed by Marxists or
Left-leaning scholars who indoctrinate their students and disallow
dissertations that deviate from a certain paradigm. Of course the
Progressives categorically rebuff this accusation saying that the only
other paradigm is obscurantism arising from Fascism. Studying
Hindu-Muslim conflicts, reading against the text for the Hindu response
to the medieval period, asking questions about genocide, this is "old
fashioned history." I was told by one medieval historian at JNU, "Who
wants to do it? It's regressive. It is far more sophisticated to look
at themes such as Time." Economics, political organization, the
arts--certain areas of research into the medieval period are not
taboo.
My question is why this difference? Prevalent scholarly attitudes are
against negationist historians seeking to deny genocide and atrocities
in Nanking whereas it is not academically popular to even raise the
question of "Hindu genocide" or "negationism in medieval Indian
history". Are atrocities relative? Nanking negationism is politically
incorrect, genocide can not be ignored, whereas in India the
"negationists" are the ones who are politically correct-where even the
mention of a possible "Hindu genocide" is considered an expression of
fascism.
Vincent K Pollard wrote regarding Nanking material, "it's difficult to
rule out using repugnant materials a priori".
Yet, in India, the opposite prevails. The fear, as Mohammad Habib of
Alighar University expressed many years ago, is that the poor
uneducated Muslim masses, whose ancestors were part and parcel of
Hindustan for thousands of years, will be blamed for the tyranny of
invading Turks and Afghans, or the excesses of certain Muslim rulers.
Financial clout is undoubtedly one of the reasons for this duplicity.
Japanese are wealthy, certainly wealthier than most Chinese. On the
other hand, economically speaking, Muslims in India are demographically
just as poor as Hindus in India. I fact, due to certain factors in some
areas of the country they are really quite poor, subsistence level
survival. How can you hold this poor Muslim man responsible for
atrocities of the past, asked Dr. Habib.
On the other hand, and in conclusion, the "Hindu-centric"
intellectuals, erstwhile Saffronites, would say that there is value in
investigating controversial topics of the medieval period because,
"Whoever forgets the past is doomed to relive it".

Yvette C. Rosser
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
The University of Texas at Austin

Sagar posted 11-02-2001 23:29
Narayan-L,
The Goddess cult in Bengal is said to go back several thousand years and is supposed to pre-date the Vedic civilization. It was obviously assimilated into the Vedic pantheon. Such instances of syncretic development of Indic religions are in evidence in many instances. What makes you feel that Tamils alone carry the mantle of a supposed Dravidian civilization which predated Aryan invasion?? It appears to me that the Santhals and Mundas i.e the Adivasis alone can lay claim to being the original one. Tamil chauvinism is no different from the Hindi chauvinism that some display. That can also lead to mistakes like claiming another civilization thousands of miles away from Tamil Nadu. I haven't read Asko Parpola although I am aware of his theory that the Indus script is proto-Dravidian. So I will not comment on that. I will only add that a few months back we discussed some genetic evidence. Preliminary genetic evidence seemed to suggest that the founding mother of Indians belongs to the Austric race (adivasis) and it has been layered by two waves of Caucasian migrations with the North Indian caste groups retaining the latter one along with the former one while South Indian caste groups retaining only the former one. What is the possibility that both the Vedic and Tamil civilizations are independent events which occurred after this racial mixing took place? The Vedic civilization then raced out incorporating other native cultures and subcultures, religions and cults. This resulted in a Vedic coating on pre-Vedic rituals. The Tamils being at the southern most tip were the last to be influenced by Vedic civilization and hence retained much of their original religion and culture but were still influenced by Sanskrit and Vedic Hinduism.
As for what some Tamil Brahmins claimed I would rather presume that it has something to do with internal TN politics rather than any serious scientific study.
As for Parpola's logic I still do not understand two things:
1) By what mechanism a small pastoral minority dominates and alters the culture of a majority that is more civilized without physically dominating them i.e. if Parpola's theory is correct he has to either prove that a) there indeed was an Aryan invasion or b) there was elite domination by the Aryans. If it is the latter then he has to suggest the mechanism by which this elite dominance occurred.
2) The comparison with the Spanish conquest of South America is at best fragile. The Spanish invaded and ruthlessly suppressed the natives, and altered their religion and culture at sword point. Besides that Spanish was a well-established language with a well known script. In comparison pre-Rig Vedic Sanskrit may not have been as well-established a language. Also I would like to know the mechanism by which horse riding barbarians create well defined languages. Perhaps Mr. Parpola would like to explain that.

This does not mean that I support Rajaram's theory that the Aryans were indegenous but so far as I can see Asko Parpola's decipherment of the Indus script as proto-Dravidian is not a decided case. Unless I see evidence that this has been in general accepted by the international community of historians as settled it will be just another claim. I can ofcourse see why this issue if so much importance to The Hindu. For many years I could not understand the ideological moorings of the The Hindu. Now I have a better understanding.
Parpola's logic of introducing Dayanand's observations was a cheap one. If you read many of the Hindu texts it is not illogical to come up with evidences of aeroplanes and nuclear bombs. I think you may not have read any. I suggest that you read some and you will find many weird things. These were in all likelyhood fantasies which may have been taken more seriously by the devout e.g. Dayanand Saraswati. I and you will dismiss them as fictitious and fertile imagination.
I am also suprised that those who dismiss people as "w/o Ph.D.s" do not mind quoting a rank outsider like Tilak. This leads me to believe that politics is more important than truth and the likes of Witzel, Parpola are as guilty of it as Rajaram or Kak.
I think the main problem that Rajaram now faces is to show a mechanism by which the Indo-European languages may have migrated out of India. Without this his thesis will have a big hole.

punnam posted 12-02-2001 12:11
>>I think the main problem that Rajaram now faces is to show a mechanism by which the Indo-European languages may have migrated out of India. Without this his thesis will have a big hole.
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/kach/quakekutch.htm

Shrikanth Talegeri showed how there was an east to west migration in his second book on the subject, Historical Analysis of RigVeda. As far as I know Rajaram bases his conclusions on Seidenberg's thesis that Pyramids of Egypt and Vedic fire altars are based on Sulba Sutras and some of the sites of SSC civilisation predate the Pyramids. Balarama goes on a pilgrimage along the banks of river Sarasvati before the MahaBharath war starts and returns at the end. Archealogists say Sarasvati dried up completely by 3700 BP. Vedas predate MahaBharath according to both linguistics and astronomical markers. All this cannot agree with AIT which is supposed to have happened around 3000BP. The AIT proponents do not have any answers to this scenerio, so they are diverting attention by bringing in political motives. Frontline comes in handy for all this. It appears that there is a slight disagreement between The Hindu and Frontline in ideology. I heared that Dr. Rajaram is organising a conference next month on the South Indian contribution to Vedic civilisation.
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/12/19/stories/13191351.htm
Looking beyond the Aryan invasion - N. S. Rajaram
I am reposting this link just in case anybody has missed it. It was originally posted by Kaushal on 18-12-2000 22:21 just before the thread detoured on to politics.
Some exerpts:
New data, new problems
As more technical data became available, scholars began to notice serious
contradictions between data and the theory. For example, genetic studies showed that
the presence of any genetic input from Eurasia or Europe in the Indian population was
negligible to non-existent. Further, this insignificant imprint was the same in North and
South India, which flies in the face of the Aryan- Dravidian division. A scientifically more
acceptable explanation is that the physical differences among Indians are due to
adaptation to the environment due to natural selection. This takes tens of thousands of
years and not centuries or millennia. All this suggests that the Indian population is very
ancient and not the result of any recent migrations or invasions.
There is now a new dimension to this scenario. Throughout history, going back untold
millennia, India's ties with East Asia and Southeast Asia have been much closer than
those with Central Asia or Europe. This was interrupted by three centuries of European
colonialism in the region, leading to a Eurocentric version of history being imposed on it.
(The Aryan Invasion Theory was a key part of this.) In recent years, scholars have
begun to re-examine many assumptions of the colonial period, looking in particular at the
physical and biological imprint in the region. This has to begin with the recognition that
Indian climate as well as flora and fauna are closely related to those of Southeast Asia.
In particular, Indian cattle (Bos Indicus) are domesticated versions related to the wild
cattle of Southeast Asia known as the Banteng (Bos Banteng or Bos Javanicus).
Similarly, the Indian horse is a special breed, close to an ancient equid known as Equus
Sivalensis (the `Siwalik Horse'). This or its close relative appears to be the horse
described in the Rigveda - and not the Central Asian or the Eurasian variety, which is
anatomically different. (The Rigveda describes the horse as having thirty-four ribs like
the Sivalensis, while Central Asian breeds have thirty-six.) Thus the widely held belief
that horses were unknown in India until they were brought from Central Asia has no
scientific support.
It is a similar story when we examine the human imprint on the region, especially the
genetic evidence. As several experts like Manansala and Kennedy recently pointed out,
the skeletal record shows that in most ways the Indian population is quite unique.
Genetic studies lead to a similar conclusion - that the Indian population is very ancient to
which the contribution of Eurasian strains is negligible to non-existent. It is a different
story when we compare Indian and Southeast Asian populations.
Paul Kekai Manansala points out: ``The overall genetic picture indicates a very old
biological relationship, probably extending in part at least to the original migration out of
Africa.'' The current understanding is that Africa was the original home of the entire
human population now distributed all over the world. The overall genetic picture of
Indians is that they are closely related to the Southeast Asians, going back tens of
thousands of years. In contrast, their links to Eurasia or Europe find no scientific
support. As a result, one thing can safely be asserted: Indians are ancient inhabitants of
India and Southeast Asia (or Greater India) and not recent immigrants.
Maritime background
From all this it is safe to conclude that in order to understand the origins of the Vedic
Civilisation and its history, it is necessary first to drop the west-northwest bias that has
dominated discourse for nearly two centuries. One of the keys to this is recognising the
maritime background of Vedic Civilisation. In this context it is worth recording that the
Rigveda is preeminently an Indian document. While there are occasional references to
the lands beyond the Indus, these are greatly exceeded by references to oceans and
maritime activity. Prayers to the safety of ships and navigators occur in many parts of the
Rigveda. This again shows a southern rather than a northwestern orientation.
---
In summary, bringing this southern reorientation of ancient India appears to resolve many
of the puzzles and paradoxes that plague current theories that try to explain the Vedic
and Harappan Civilisations in terms of invasions and/or migrations. This is not to suggest
that a southern origin for the growth of the Vedic Civilisation should replace the current
version. All that is being suggested is that it is an important but sadly neglected area that
merits serious study. Of one thing we can be certain: trying to explain the origin and
growth of the Vedic Civilisation in terms of migrations/invasions a few thousand years
ago runs into formidable scientific and literary obstacles. We should learn from this
experience and first build a scientific foundation that makes use of all data available
today. Only then can we hope to recover the history of that hoary age based on the
records they left behind. As Albert Einstein said: ``A theory must not contradict
empirical facts.''
[This message has been edited by punnam (edited 12-02-2001).]

Sagar posted 13-02-2001 23:03
All this cannot agree with AIT which is supposed to have
happened around 3000BP.
*********
Punnam,
Actually IIRC the invasion is supposed to have happened much later around 1500-1700 BC. It is possible that the so-called 'Aryans' migrated into the subcontinent after the Harappan civilization had disintegrated following natural causes - perhaps a great earthquake that changed the course of major rivers. Only in this scenario is it possible for a small minority to take over a larger majority and impose its language, religion and culture without physically subjugating the majority. It is possible that the disruption was so large that the Harappans lost their indegenous script and the latter day settlers had to reinvent scripts like the Brahmi. This scenario will not fit in if we consider that the Vedas mention the Saraswati as the main river. Herein one may consider the claim by pro-AMT people that the Aryans actually brought memories of these rivers from their original homeland and then named the rivers that they came across accordingly when they reached India.
The alternate scenario could be that the Harappans were themselves a mixed people - a mixture of Caucasian tribes and Austric tribes that came into contact with each other and settled the fertile plains of the Saraswati-Indus. These mixed people became urban settlers who developed over many centuries the Harappan civilization. Natural disruption caused this civilization to whither away. It took centuries for civilization to reappear and hence the gap between the decline of Harappa and the appearance of the Vedic civilization. This may be the reason also why there is a gap between the Harappan script and the latter day scripts like Brahmi/Kharosti. When it reached a peak the Vedic seers started calling themselves and the elite of the society 'Aryans' i.e. noblemen - men of high virtue just like the Roman elites used to call themselves. This scenario would argue for an indegenous development of civilization with 'Aryan' being merely a cultural term.
[This message has been edited by Sagar (edited 13-02-2001).]

VRaghav posted 14-02-2001 00:21
Sagar,
Punnam is correct when he says that AIT is supposed to have taken place 3000 BP -- BP = before present. Which in this case would be around 1000 BC or earlier.
You also say:

quote:
Herein one may consider the claim by pro-AMT people that the Aryans actually brought memories of these rivers from their original homeland and then named the rivers that they came across accordingly when they reached India.

Does this mean that the oldest part of the oldest manuscript of India i.e the RgVeda was composed (much) earlier than the arbitrary 1500 BC, which is parroted by the Communist historians of JNU and assorted universitities? Well to me, it sure seems to engender such a meaning only. The next logical question would be 'how old is the Rg anyway'? Well there are disparate 'estimates' if I may, of the same. But a most reasonable estimate may be through the astronomical references contained within the various hymns. And that estimate is 4500 BC as we all know. One can not just rubbish such an estimate and claim it a refutation like the Communist historians and their ilk. Let them or someone else come up with a concrete refutation and then we will see.

bala posted 14-02-2001 15:23
When we consider the span of the Indus civilization (thousands of years) numerous and exciting possibilities abound. Continous civilization is not insular to effects of outside contacts. A lot of interchange of people, custom and mores can happen. Several advances that occurred could have been triggered by adaptation of foreign ideas. DNA study of India's current population is very revealing. Most of the people of India adhere to the same genetic composition, whether they belong to the priestly clan or the chamars of UP. The Indus valley people and civilization need further study and archeological evidence. Language theories are many, but any probable theory must be backed by facts. So far these are conjectures. Tying the harappan script to dravidian languages is still not convincing to me. Modern day practitioners of language dont necessarily correlate to other theories about race, migration and origin.
So far the evidence about migration of Aryans as a race is skating on very thin ice. The antiquity of the Vedas, the drying up of Saraswati river and DNA evidence point the other way. A possible explanation of people origin could be due to the nature of continous Indus civilization and its ability to absorb people from elsewhere over a span of time. Language creation needs a stable environment conducive to thought/thinking. Innovation is often built upon previous work and something radical could be the outcome of such thought/experimentation. It is highly possible that Languages such as Tamil and Sanskrit were developed by highly skilled linguists and allowed to grow quite separately. After all reasonable people can disagree.

Muppalla posted 16-02-2001 16:27

Deccan Chronicle dated Feb,16,2001
12,000-year-old civilisation comes to life at HCU grave
Hyderabad, Feb. 16: The excavation of a megaligithic burial at the Hyderabad University campus have led to the discovery of signs of a civilisation that existed around the city 12,000 years ago.
Assistant director at the State Department of Archaeology and Museums Subramanium told Deccan Chronicle on Friday that the findings of microliths and stone grooves at the campus indicate that a fairly well-developed civilisation existed near Hyderabad around 10,000 BC.
“What we had found so far were graves with earthen pots and some pieces of iron. But the excavation we wound up last week we found microliths or small implements made of semi-precious stones and the stones with grooves that are a result of rubbing of a stone implement,” he said.
If what Subramanium said could be verified with further excavations, it will be established that Hyderabad was home to people from old and new stone ages too. Earlier studies, especially of the megalithic burials, have confirmed existence of an iron age civilisation in the area.
The excavation of a nearly 3,000-year-old megalithic burial was carried out at the campus from January 24 to February 9.
The findings at the grave revealed that the person buried there was either a tribal chief or a religious leader. This could be logically verified by the items that were found with the few remains of the skeleton. A trident, a sword and a pair of arrow heads, all made of iron. Then there were earthen pots were filled with food items and kept with the body. “The neolithic-chalkolithic pottery found suggest a transitory period in history of civilisations,” he said.

bala posted 20-02-2001 19:20

This is an article in Hindustan Times:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/210201/detOPI01.asp

Beginning of the end
Nayanjot Lahiri
From the time that Mohenjodaro and Harappa first captured popular imagination, the reasons for the end of its city culture have provoked large historical speculation and contestation. Did the cities collapse suddenly and simultaneously? Was the collapse related to Aryan invasions, or are those invasions to be assigned to the realm of mythology? To what extent did rivers, earthquakes and climate contribute to the demise of this civilisation?
The importance of earthquakes was considered, perhaps for the first time, in 1956 by palaeontologist M.R. Sahni. According to him, the waters that devastated Harappan sites, at least in Sind, were not part of the normal regimen of overflooding and siltation. Instead, the flood that destroyed the civilisation was unprecedented and a product of earthquakes. A collision of earth plates resulted in the uplifting of land. Consequently, the Indus was damned, leading to the submergence of large areas.
The tectonic episode of 1819, when violent earth movements resulted in the creation of a dam (Allah Bund) across the eastern channel of the Indus in Kutch, provided an ethnographic analogy to what was being posited. Concurrently with this elevation, the area to the south subsided. As a result, far-reaching changes occurred in the eastern, almost deserted channel of the Indus which bounds the province of Kutch. Additionally, an area of 2,000 square miles was submerged, forming "an inland sea".
Sahni's evidence for suggesting such a phenomenon in the second millennium BC came from the hillocks of Budh Takkar and those opposite Jhirak in south Sind. Here he found unconsolidated thick alluvium containing fresh-water shells. This suggested to him an exceptional rise in water level and a period of long submergence. He also discovered two settlements in Sind which he believed were of Harappan vintage. These were covered with thick alluvium, deposited by floods, which must have destroyed the settlements.
The importance of plate tectonics in the physical geography and cultural history of north-west India is today well recognised. What is significant in the case of the Harappan civilisation is that it was Sahni who first postulated that the instability of the Indus river system, which led to the submergence of Harappan sites in the Indus plains, may have been a consequence of such earth movement. Subsequently, other scholars have highlighted the catastrophic river diversions that have been produced by such land uplift.
After Sahni, hydrologist R.L. Raikes extended this line of investigation. The ramifications of Raikes' investigation - the several phases of rebuilding at Mohenjodaro and Chanhu-daro, the peculiar character of the silt there (deposited in still-water conditions), the possibility of Sehwan, south of Mohenjodaro, providing suitable ecological formations where a permeable dam could come up and the lake that would have been created because of it - have been extensively discussed and were taken up in 1967 by H.T. Lambrick in the Geographical Journal.
A reading of Lambrick will no doubt also reveal that the culpability of excess river water, whether caused by regular floods or tectonic upheaval, has not been universally accepted and here the debate has centred on the set of assumptions that Raikes and Sahni were working with.
Almost every bit of unconsolidated silt, fresh-water shells, the dam as also the lake behind it, the slope of the flood plain was discounted by Lambrick. While it is felt that literary information - of which the Aryan question is a good example - can be variously interpreted, a fall-out of this contentious debate has been the realisation that archaeological and geophysical data are just as capable of being explained in different ways.
The debate on environmental variation and its impact upon the end of the Indus civilisation has involved much more than the floodwaters of capricious rivers. That urban collapse may have been a consequence not of excessive but insufficient river water in areas to the east of Sind, a drying up caused by earthquakes, has also been an issue.
The river in question is the Ghaggar-Hakra, which, if early Sanskrit writings have any accuracy, is the Saraswati. Although the Ghaggar today becomes non-perennial at a short distance from the Sivalik hills, its dry course in Bikaner and Bahawalpur is striking. For over 100 miles the flat bed is two miles wide, while in places this expands to over four miles.
In that stretch of the river which flows through Pakistani Cholistan - roughly between Rahim Yar Khan on the west and Yazman in the east - the largest known pocket of mature Harappan sites (174 in number) flourished. The presence of so many protohistoric settlements suggests an important perennial flow.
That a permanent river of some magnitude flowed through Bikaner and Bahawalpur and then towards the Rann of Kutch (with the eastern Nara in Sind probably being in continuation), was of course suggested as early as in 1893 by C.F. Oldham on the basis of scattered mounds throughout this tract and the testimony of the Rgveda.
However, the solid evidence which, most importantly, is dateable, has come from Rafique Mughal's work. Mughal has also documented the reduction in the number of sites - only 50 - that post-date the mature Harappan phase which he proposed occurred due to a major hydrographic change around 2100 BC. So, the fact that the Ghaggar-Hakra was drying up is something that most scholars would agree with, as also the premise that this happened due to river diversion.
There is no such unanimity about the identity of the river which meets the Ghaggar through a diversion. R.L. Raikes strongly argued in favour of an oscillating Yamuna, alternately diverted to the Indus and the Ganges systems because of the influence of deflection due to the earth?s rotation. This hypothesis was put forward with special reference to the question of the sudden abandonment of Kalibangan, a provincial Harappan centre that was situated on the left bank of the Ghaggar. Here, no post-urban phase has been encountered and, as its excavator put it, Kalibangan experienced its death as an adult and did not witness incapacitated old age.
Raikes explained this by positing the annexation of the Yamuna drainage by the Ganga. The grey granite-derived material from the bore-holes that were sunk into the former flood plain of the Ghaggar was believed by him to be similar to what occurs in the present Yamuna bed, while the watershed between the two river systems, and where this oscillation of the Yamuna could happen, were identified as being near Indri.
That the earth's deflection (called "force") should have influenced rivers all over the area, not just the peripatetic Yamuna was, also pointed out. This involved the capture of the Sutlej which flows to the west of the Ghaggar.
Unlike earlier theories, this interpretation was based on a study of Landsat imagery, in which images generated by satellites are converted into photographic ones. Through this technique, old water channels were identified - the vegetation pattern on their beds was different from that of the surrounding areas. This suggested that the Sutlej was the main tributary of the Ghaggar.
The westward movement of the Sutlej away from the Ghaggar was seen as being related to a tectonic upheaval and, as a consequence of this, the latter channel dried up. As they put it: Tectonic factors assumed such overwhelming importance only because the major channels like those of the Saraswati were structurally controlled by enechelon faults. It was because of this reason that even relatively minor tectonic movements caused considerable changes in the configuration of palaeo-channels.?
(Extracted from (edited) The Decline and Fall of the Indus Civilization. Published by Permanent Black. The author teaches archaeology at Delhi University)

VRaghav posted 26-02-2001 10:40

The Rigveda - A Historical Analaysis (Online)
http://www.voi.org/books/rig/

wasu posted 06-03-2001 20:05

Missing link ? The Ahars
http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20010312/archaelogy.shtml
[This message has been edited by wasu (edited 06-03-2001).]

Mohandas posted 12-03-2001 12:01

Raghav http://www.voi.org/ is poisoned web site.I have never seen any western semitic web sites doing such fanatism against a particular religion.It makes a great religion in shame on its tolerant image.

bala posted 13-03-2001 15:47

A well-planned city of copper age found

Jaipur, Mar 13 (UNI)
A 5000-year-old well-planned city of the "Copper Age" has been found at Ozhiana village in Bhilwara district of Rajasthan, throwing new light on the ancient history of this state, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) said today.
The city, situated 30 km away from Byawar on the Byawar-Bhilwara road was excavated in three stages by an ASI team led by its Jaipur Circle Superintendent B R Meena. It was possibly surrounded by a magnificent six foot wide fortification wall built of stone and comprised lanes of similar width and houses made of stone and raw bricks. The doors of all the houses opened towards the lanes.
An important information about that time came from the kitchen unearthed, that indicated there were separate provisions for cooking vegetarian and non-vegetarian food. Besides, a large number of valuable stones, white painted pottery and earthen painted figures of small oxen and cows were also found. These excavated archaeological evidence point to the developed and systematic planning of the copper age civilisation.
The findings at the Ozhiana village assume importance not only for the study of "Ahad civilisation" but also to delve into the unknown aspects of the Copper Age, the ASI added.

Kaushal posted 18-03-2001 09:52

Yvette Rosser's reposte to Michael Witzel's diatribe on lack of scholarship in India and by Indians, Kaushal
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indictraditions/message/4469
>>Witzel writes, not hiding his sarcasm, "In sum, amusing reading, like
so many of the decipherment books. (More of them, and other Aryan
fantasies, will be reviewed here, in due course). The only real
surprise remaining then is this: M. Mishra (author of several Indo-
Aryan grammars) was for many years the "Assistant and Deputy Director
(academic) of the Rasthriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Delhi (1973-93)." One
would like to know what other cutting edge, innovative, thought
provoking, seminal and trend setting research is carried out by
academic (ex)members of this Government financed institution?" Here, it
is Prof. Witzel who uses "Little Words with Profound Meaning".

Kaushal posted 27-03-2001 03:23

http://www.infinityfoundation.com/ECITmisportrayalframeset.htm
On the Misportrayal of India:
Toward a New Look at Indian History
by David B. Gray, PhD
"It is not my point here to argue that there was or was not an Aryan invasion. Given the ambiguity of evidence, it is a topic on which I must remain agnostic, although I should add that the burden of proof lies with those who insist on its veracity. Here I would only like to point out the peculiar fact that on such a tenuous hypothesis rests an entire edifice of Indian historiography. The assumption of Aryan conquest of Northern India was elaborated into timelines of Indian history as well as theories of social geography and demography that are extended well into the historical era, as if this one event of the distant past is the key to understanding all of Indian history. As Inden points out,
"Presupposing their Aryocentric geography and oriental demography, scholars have represented these states on their maps and read the political history they fabricated from them. That history consisted of the narrative of a society that was made to be inherently dependent on the intervention of a Western political economy for its unity and prosperity. (1990:187)

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 27-03-2001).]

Kaushal posted 17-04-2001 10:39

There have been recent discussions on Witzel's review and Talageri's response; see for instance;
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivilization/message/4860
David Frawley's observations on his recent visit to India
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivilization/message/5089
Kaushal
[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 18-04-2001).]

Kaushal posted 27-04-2001 02:13

Another reference has been made to Dr.Nicholas Kazanas, a sankritist, and a British subject of Greek origin in page 4 of this thread (dated 25-10-2000) on the same topic. Dr.Kazanas rejects the AIT.
Kaushal
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivilization/files/Sarasvati_Kazanas.pdf
'The Rg Veda Date - a Post script'

Calvin posted 29-04-2001 16:01

Dating the Mahabharata and Ramayana
Sudarshan
New Member posted 10-03-2001 22:28
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Admin (Rakesh Koshy) Note: The following thread has been granted permission to post on the HICAF. This is a thread to determine how old the Ramayana and Mahabharatha are.
Certainly, a very interesting discussion and one which I will be watching very closely to see that it does not go off track. Enjoy!
Warning: Anyone who uses this opportunity to slander this or any other religion, will lose his/her posting privilages. If you wish to challenge this decision, you are more than welcome to email me at webmaster@bharat-rakshak.com
DO NOT reply to this thread. Your post will be promptly deleted.
-----------------------------------------
Hello all, new here. I just had a question regarding the exact date the Mahabharata and Ramayana were written. I don't mean this to be a religious discussion, and one of the admins said it was ok to post this, so please don't get my first thread here locked by turning it into a religious discussion or by doing other unmentionable things...
Basically, my points are these:
(1) The Vedas are now accepted (by some at least) to be a lot older than the original (arbitrary) date of 1500 BC which Max Mueller fixed, because (among other things) they mention the river Saraswati so many times, and hardly mention the Ganga or the Yamuna, and the Saraswati river was in full flow only before 3200 B.C., after which it started drying up, and dried up completely before 1500 BC (archaeological, satellite evidence).
(2) However, the Ramayana and Mahabharata seem to mention the Ganga/Yamuna rivers a lot, and (as far as I know) there isn't a single reference to the river Saraswati in either epic. The Ramayana talks about how Bhageeratha brought the Ganga down from the heavens, and the Mahabharata talks a lot about the antics of the child Krishna on the banks of the Yamuna, and also mentions the Ganga a lot (Bhishma's mother).
(3) The Mahabharata war is dated around 3201 B.C. by some scholars, and at least one scholar(?) dates it even earlier: http://www.swordoftruth.com/swordoftruth/archives/miscarticles/tsdotmw.html
(4) If the Mahabharata was indeed composed in this period (around 3201 B.C. or even earlier), would it not mention the river Saraswati?
(5) It is possible that the Indus/Saraswati Civilization and the kingdoms mentioned in the Mahabharata were distinct entities around the same period, but this is not borne out by the fact that many of the kingdoms mentioned in the Mahabharata were supposed to be around the same geographical location as the Indus Valley Civilization (e.g., Gandhar, ruled by Shakuni, was around the region of Afghanistan, and if I remember right, Chedi, ruled by Shishupal, was around the Indus region).
(6) The geopolitical situation mentioned in the Mahabharata seems (to me at least) to resemble the period just before the rise of the Mauryan empire, with a lot of tiny and not-so-tiny kingdoms all over India, and a large central kingdom (Magadha, ruled by Jarasandh in the Mahabharata).
(7) However, if the Mahabharata were indeed composed sometime before the start of the Mauryan empire (as Western 'Indologists' say), would the name of the author (not just saying it was Veda Vyasa, who was supposed to be intimately involved with the story right from the start according to the epic itself) not have been preserved for us, since this period was a relatively well recorded period of Indian history?
(8) Where does all this leave the Ramayana, which is supposed to have happened even earlier?
So who is right? The Western 'Indologists' who take delight in assuring us that both epics are purely fictional accounts written barely 2000 years ago, or our own scholars who say they really happened, one around 3200 B.C., and the other ages earlier than that?
I realise that the epics are probably a lot older than the earliest written versions, because of our tradition of passing on knowledge by oral means. However, the above points are still valid in that case.
I didn't want to make this a part of the other Aryan Invasion thread by Kaushal, since that one is already so big. And in case anybody is wondering how any of this matters at all, I think it is of the same relevance as finding out the truth about the Aryan Invasion Theory itself. We have had our history modified by outsiders to suit their own needs, and I think it is of importance to really find out the truth about our own history and culture. If any of the members here could shed some light on this issue, I would appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
[This message has been edited by Rakesh Koshy (edited 13-03-2001).]
[This message has been edited by Rakesh Koshy (edited 13-03-2001).]
IP: Logged

Kaushal
Member posted 10-03-2001 23:11
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This is not a simple question to answer as different authors have come up with different answers dependent on methodology.
See the post dated 22/6/2000,2:10, in the AIT thread, for the reference to the astronomical evidence. http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000003-2.html
A good place to start with the chronology of the dynasties is The History and Culture of the Indian People (HCIP), ed. by RC Majumdar, and the particular chapter by AD Pusalkar,ch. XIV, vOL.1, the Vedic Age. Rajaram takes a different viewpoint. I will try to summarize the different viewpoints, when i get a chance.
Kaushal

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 10-03-2001).]
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Prof Raghu
Member posted 11-03-2001 00:47
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The Adyar Library (within the Theosophical Society HQ in Chennai) has a fascinating collection of Indology books.
One of the books had a chapter on the various dynasties from Pariksit (I deliberately spell it wrong, because the automatic forum software does not like the real spelling!) to Chandragupta Maurya. Based on that, that book also comes up with an estimate about when the Mahabharat war must have happened.
My memory is not perfect, but I believe there were nine (or ten) different dynasties mentioned therein.
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punnam
Member posted 11-03-2001 12:53
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Hi! Sudharshan,
<<(2) However, the Ramayana and Mahabharata seem to mention the Ganga/Yamuna rivers a lot, and (as far as I know) there isn't a single reference to the river Saraswati in either epic.>>
I am not sure about this. This is a reference from Dr. Kalyanaraman on his list. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivilization/message/471
I had suggested to GOI that UNESCO should consider declaring the
Sarasvati River Basin as a world heritage site -- from Har-ki-dun to
Somnath. What this entails in terms of 'budgets' [or lack of support
from the bureaucray called UNESCO] is another problem.
I hope to live to see the day when Balarama's pilgrimage from Dwaraka
to Mathura described in the Maha_bha_rata along the River Sarasvati_,
can be undertaken by the children of today, along the re-born
Sarasvati_.
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Ravi Patil
Member posted 11-03-2001 13:08
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On a totally different tack, is there any data published on radiocarbon dating on the artifacts, such as old manuscripts?
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punnam
Member posted 11-03-2001 13:20
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivilization/message/2477
> If some Indologists think 'milakam' refers to IVC, and it is none
> other than Meluhha, Milakkha, Mleccha , then they are driving
> themselves into a corner.
With a wink at fanciful etymologies, let me point to two sets of
lexemes of the linguistic area ca. 3500 BCE.
Pali. milakkha, copper.
Tamil. mileccam, milecca_ciyam, copper.
If maru-sthali_ (Skt.) is marutam (Tamil; maruta-nila ve_ntan-:
Indra), is it possible that meluhha region was close to the khetri
copper mines? If so, can this also be a Harappan-Vedic (S'atapatha
Bra_hman.a) parallel?
mleccha
m. a foreigner , barbarian , non-Aryan , man of an outcast race , any
person who does not speak Sanskr2it and does not conform to the usual
Hindu1 institutions S3Br. &c. &c. (%{I} f.) ; a person who lives by
agriculture or by making weapons L. ; a wicked or bad man , sinner L.
; ignorance of Sanskr2it , barbarism Nya1yam. Sch. ; n. copper L. ;
vermilion L. (Cologne Digital Skt. lex.) [I feel comfortable with the
semant. of a person who lives by making weapons! This is what I
believe the entire corpus of inscribed objects is all about. The key
is, therefore, to reconstruct the many lexemes of the Milakkha dialect
that Vidura and Yudhis.t.hira knew]. This, together with Balarama's
pilgrimage along the River Sarasvati_, is yet another instance of the
Great Epic, the Maha_bha_rata being the sheet-anchor of the ancient
history of Bha_rata.
Read more about mleccha, including the conversation between
Yudhis.t.hira and Vidura about a dialect of the linguistic area
(nothing to do with aryan or non-aryan tongues) at:
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/html/vedictech.htm#Kyzyl Kum
More on Meluhha, Dilmun and Magan in ref. to trade at: http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/lapis/lapis_lazuli.htm
Do you want to see how a Meluhha-speaker (interpreter) looked like? He
was a bearded guy, like the one from whom the R.gvedic people
bargained and bought the Soma. Two impressions:
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/contacts/meluhhaseal_small.jpg http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/contacts/akkadianseal_small.jpg
Here are two seal impressions showing a Meluhhan-interpreter:
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/contacts/contacts1.htm
See also JESHO XX: 129-165 for an analysis of texts indicating the
presence of a Meluhha village in Mesopotamia: Parpola, S., Parpola,
A., and Brunswig, RH, 1977, The Meluhha village: evidence of
acculturation of Harappan traders in late third millennium
Mesopotamia?

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punnam
Member posted 11-03-2001 14:45
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.voi.org/reviews/rev-trha.html
BOOK REVIEW
The Rigveda
A Historical Analysis
Shrikant Talgeri
New Delhi, Aditya Prakashan, 1992
520 + xxiv pgs., Rs. 750 (HB)
Reviewed by N.S.Rajaram
----------------------------------------
"Thus, by a conservative estimate, the total period of composition of the Rigveda must have covered a period of at least two millenniums."
This, as the author observes, is a conservative estimate. The question then is of absolute chronology: can we place limits in terms of actual dates? This is a question that Talageri does not address himself to, but we are now in a position to make an estimate, especially following Jha’s decipherment of the Indus script. The decipherment and the readings emphatically demonstrate that the Harappan Civilization (c. 3100 – 1900 BC) is post-Rigvedic, and overlaps substantially with the Sutra period. The last historical figures mentioned in the Rigveda are the brothers Shantanu and Devapi, who came three generations before the Mahabharata War, which may now be placed in the Early Harappan period (c. 3100 BC). (Forget the 1400 BC for the War, it has no scientific or literary support. Much of North India was still reeling under the impact of a massive drought, and could not have supported the society and the numerous kingdoms described in the