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FAQ on AIT
The debate
over the Origin of the Vedics
Editorial
Comment (March 17,2006)
If one asks an average
Indic whether he has any comments on the debate regarding the origin of the
Vedics, his first reaction might be that he was not aware there was a debate
and as far as he could recall the Vedics had since the beginning of recorded
history, populated an area roughly
contiguous with present day Haryana and Uttaranchal. In other words (it is
my suspicion that ) this topic is not exactly one that occupies center
stage in the streets and living rooms of Mumbai and Kolkatta .However,
this remains a subject with far reaching implications for the future of
India. One example being the dialog that is taking place in India over the
perceived inequalities among various classes of Indic society today,
their causes and how they should be handled. One other point should
be made regarding the consequences of such a hypothesis . The colonial
overlord thereby made the implication very clearly that they were just the
latest in a long line of conquerors and had as much right to be present as
the descendants of the Vedics ,who would after all be now be regarded as
conqueror much as the Normans conquered England
Ever since Friedrich Max
Mueller first postulated this hypothesis, it has been a major preoccupation of
a fairly large section of linguists, historians, philologists, religious
clergy and other academic scholars in Europe and now even in America..
The reasons for this are not difficult to fathom. It was Sir William Jones
who first noticed that there appeared to be a common origin of some commonly
used words like father (Pater, Latin, pitr, Sanskrit), mother and brother
. Soon it became apparent that even well known names of Gods in Greek and
Roman Mythology such as Zeus (Dyaus ,Sanskrit) and Jupiter (Dyaus Pitr,
Sanskrit) had their origin in Sanskrit. This was a major revelation
especially to the linguistic and historian community in Europe at that time,
because it was a paradigm change in the manner in which they viewed the
Indian subcontinent and the origins of their own language. How did this
commonality in literally hundreds of words come about ? The simplest
explanation at that time (and even today) was that there was a significant
migration of people accompanied by invasions that was the primary engine for
the spread of language. Even though Sanskrit was palpably the more ancient
language in this group of languages, they immediately dismissed the notion
that there was any kind of migration from the Indian subcontinent. Thus was
born the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT). The main flaw in the theory and
there are many more described for example in the many links and books in
this section (for instance my summary in The
South Asia File) , the main
flaw is that there is absolutely no record of such an invasion or even
a migration in any of the vast literature of the Vedics.
This theory and its far
reaching implications has escaped the notice of the Indic population
in general, preoccupied as they were with the more mundane necessities
of making a living and the more immediate task of nation building.
The invasion theory of Indian History was first
postulated by Hegel (1831) that India lacked historical agency and that
India was a cultural cul de sac from which nothing worthwhile ever emanated.
The Aryan Invasion Theory (which has now morphed into Aryan Immigration or
Influx Theory), based largely on linguistic conjectures and postulates is a
narrative that was force fitted to Hegel’s postulate. In one brilliant
master stroke, the Brits killed several birds with one stone.
What were the Basic Postulates of AIT – that a race of nomadic Aryans came
thundering across the passes of the Hindu Kush mountain range on horse drawn
chariots and overcame the sedentary urban civilization of the Indus river
valleys who happened to belong to the Dravidian race and then shortly
thereafter in short order decided to compose the entire gamut of Vedic
Literature from the Vedas, puranas, the smritis, the Brahmanas the
Upanishads and the Itihaas of India. If this is was what really happened,
the transformation from Central Asian Nomads to the intellectual
speculations inherent in the Vedic literature must surely rank as one of the
most rapid transformations in human history
See for instance http://www.boloji.com/architecture/00002.htm
|
What did the postulation of AIT accomplish
Postulated a discontinuity
between the Vedics and the Saraswathi Sindhu Civilization, and
assigned a much more recent date to the Vedics and hopelessly
confused the issue of the precedence of the Vedics.
Postulated the presence of
two new races, Aryan and Dravidian, a racial nomenclature that
was custom fitted to the Indian peninsula to suit the need of
the colonial overlord for emphasizing the diversity of ethnic
and linguistic communities in the subcontinent. When it
became unfashionable to be Aryan, especially when the Germans,
courtesy of Nietzsche and others elevated the category to the
status of a master race, the nomenclature was changed to Indo -
European and this has since morphed into various other names.
Despite the lack of a proper definition both terms continue to
be used ad nauseum when referring to certain ethnic groups in
the Indian subcontinent and also as the defining word in the
‘AIT’ acronym. I may be forgiven for avoiding use of the word as
much as possible, as I remain ignorant of the defining
characteristics of the Aryan people.
Ergo, the Vedics became aliens to the subcontinent and became
associated with the mythical Aryans, a noun which is never used
in the Vedas, with all its 20th century fascist connotations.
The communists in India have now latched on to this notion of
the mythical Aryans and have decided that henceforth they will
refer to any Hindu who does not conform to their jaundiced view
of Indian history, as not only Aryan but also a fascist. Such a
notion was (and is) of course lapped up very willingly by the
western press, as the irony of a fascist Brahmana priest
performing a puja clad only in a loin cloth was too delicious to
pass up and thus was born the nirvana, the piece de resistance
of the cliché kingdom, the ad hominem of choice, the Hindutva
fascist. So lavishly is
this appellation now applied to the millions of inhabitants of
the Indian subcontinent, creating thereby the spectacle of the
first instance of an impoverished fascist in the known galaxy
and so widespread is this outlandish and absurd notion of the
fascist Hindutva, that it has spawned at least one PhD thesis,
more than a half a dozen books, excoriating the straw man of a
Hindu nationalist’ and is a major contributor to the bandwidth
of the internet discussions on the sociology of India
To top it off, the caste system was now associated with these
marauding but anthropologically non-existent Aryan people.
The conclusion was inescapable –the British were simply a latter
version of the Aryans to have conquered India and had as much
legitimacy to remain and rule India as did the original Vedics.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, the defeated and displaced
Dravidians allegedly retreated to the south and formed the bulk
of the downtrodden castes (the castes were now delineated and
created very conveniently and fortuitously by the colonial
overlord who was never at a loss to miss such a golden
opportunity as this) of modern India – gave rise to the plethora
of Dravidian parties in the state of Tamilnadu. So much so that
today no party can get elected in the southern state of Tamil
Nadu without the appellation of Dravidian tacked on to its name.
To this day many Indians
remain oblivious to the glaring fact that there is not a shred
of evidence for this set of egregious hypotheses masquerading as
a theory and the reasons for this sad state of affairs with the
resulting disastrous effects on the body politic of the Indian
Republic are too obvious to recount here. We trust we will have
the opportunity to elaborate on these consequences in a later
section, should there be need to do so.
|
So what was once purely a preoccupation of the Europeans over their roots
has now been transformed into a debate on the origin of the Vedics
with large scale implications on the history of India. It is important
to note that the writing or more precisely the rewriting or revising
of Indian History was largely in the hand of the English since they were the
colonial overlords and they retained control of the language of command and
control, namely English ,by making it the official language of India.
The engineering of this paradigm shift, was a major coup for the British
administrators of colonial India and is described in greater detail in our
essay The South Asia File.
That it was a ploy to justify the colonial rule by the British 'descendants'
of the Aryans of an earlier era was as much as admitted by the British Prime
Minister himself ..We will let Navaratna Rajaram
describe the situation in his own pithy style, as only
he can do;
"The British, however, put it to more
creative use for imperial purposes, especially as a tool in making their
rule acceptable to Indians. A recent BBC report admitted (October 6, 2005).
'It [the Aryan invasion theory] gave a historical
precedent to justify the role and status of the British Raj, who could argue
that they were transforming India for the better in the same way that the
Aryans had done thousands of years earlier.'
That is to say, the British presented themselves as a
‘new and improved brand of Aryans’ who were only completing the work left
undone by their ancestors in the hoary past. This is how the British Prime
Minister Stanley Baldwin put it in the House of Commons.
|
Now, after ages, …the two branches of the great Aryan ancestry
have again been brought together by Providence… By establishing
British rule in India, God said to the British, “I have brought
you and the Indians together after a long separation, …it is
your duty to raise them to their own level as quickly as
possible …brothers as you are…” |
This leaves little
to the imagination."
The
BBC show also lists the adverse effects of the AIT as follows
Dangers of the theory
Opponents of the Aryan invasion theory claim that it denies the Indian
origin of India's predominant culture, and gives the credit for Indian
culture to invaders from elsewhere.
They say that it even teaches that some of the most revered books of Hindu
scripture are not actually Indian, and it devalues India's culture by
portraying it as less ancient than it actually is.
The theory was not just wrong, some say, but included unacceptably racist
ideas:
-
it suggested that
Indian culture was not a culture in its own right, but a synthesis of
elements from other cultures
-
it implied that
Hinduism was not an authentically Indian religion but the result of
cultural imperialism
-
it suggested that
Indian culture was static, and only changed under outside influences
-
it suggested that the
dark-skinned Dravidian people of the South of India had got their faith
from light-skinned Aryan invaders
-
it implied that
indigenous people were incapable of creatively developing their faith
-
it suggested that
indigenous peoples could only acquire new religious and cultural ideas
from other races, by invasion or other processes
-
it accepted that race
was a biologically based concept (rather than, at least in part, a
social construct) that provided a sensible way of ranking people in a
hierarchy, which provided a partial basis for the caste system
-
it provided a basis
for racism in the Imperial context by suggesting that the peoples of
Northern India were descended from invaders from Europe and so racially
closer to the British Raj
-
it gave a historical
precedent to justify the role and status of the British Raj, who could
argue that they were transforming India for the better in the same way
that the Aryans had done thousands of years earlier
-
it downgraded the
intellectual status of India and its people by giving a falsely late
date to elements of Indian science and culture
So
successful was this endeavor of postulating the AIT, that today most of the prescribed English
language textbooks in India mention the AIT as fact and not as an unproven
hypothesis. What is even sadder is that a significant proportion of the
population in India have internalized this version of history and are
vociferous in debating in favor of it. The debate has been documented
by Edwin Bryant (2005),within the context
of the framework established by the European Indologists, while pronouncing
himself an agnostic on the issue. We will touch upon several
aspects of the debate in this section
Quotes
Dilip Chakrabarti " This book explores some underlying
theoretical premises of the Western study of Ancient India. These premises
developed in response to the colonial need to manipulate the Indian's
perception of their past. The need was felt most strongly from the middle of
the nineteenth century onwards, and an elaborate racist framework, in which
the interrelationship between race, language, and culture, was a key
element, slowly emerged as an explanation of the ancient Indian historical
universe. The measure of its success is obvious from the fact that the
Indian nationalist historians left this framework unchallenged."
Contents
References
What follows is a the
expression of slightly different points of view on this highly charged topic
First a column by Rajiv
Malhotra
in Hinduism today Spring 2006 edition
While there has been much heat generated on
this topic, a successful
campaign must realize that it is long term and is up against very
heavily intellectually armed opponents. Hence there must be a long
term study and discussion by serious scholars on our side, just as
there has been within the other side for several decades. This is like cricket practice to make the home team stronger. In this spirit I
recommend the following 3 books to those wanting to understand the
racist/Eurocentric origins of the Aryan theories in the west. Each of
these books is from a credible author and academic publishing house,
and not from anyone linked with politics of Hinduism or Indian
nationalism - this is important. Yet these books give hard facts to
support our case and each is the result of a decade of sweat and toil
on the author's part.
1) Maurice Olender, "The Language of Paradise: Race, Religion, and
Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century." Harvard University Press. 1992.
2) Thomas R. Trautmann, "Aryans and British India." University of
California Press. 1997.
3) Edwin Bryant, "The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : The
Indo-Aryan Migration Debate." Oxford University Press. 2004.
It could also be a good strategy to gift this set to future state
education boards, as attachments to our position paper, and to quote
from these in a proper manner. This would raise the barrier to
counterattacks, as it would not be a simple matter to assert
guilt-by-association against alleged "Hindu Nationalists." One should
argue that this debate has serious contenders on BOTH sides, and hence
it is best left out of the classrooms of 11-year old Americans and
their naive teachers.
Personally I think it is wiser to refute the Aryan migration (yes, migration is just as harmful as invasion) theory WITHOUT trying to
replace it with an alternative out-of-India theory. That way you don't
arm the opponents with an opportunity to attack. What matters is
REMOVING the prevailing Aryan theory, and in fact explaining it as the
result of 19th century European racism and nationalism that culminated
in Nazism. For a theory to be refuted it is not required that one must
supply an alternative theory - v important point, so lets avoid
over-ambition. It is okay to let it at this stage be moved to neutral
territory, as something of a mystery in which further archeological
research is required because current knowledge is simply inadequate.
This is a sound agnostic position for an educator to take.
In short, my position is as follows:
1) Aryan theory (invasion or migration) was invented by 19th century racist
European intellectuals for political reasons.
2) It was never argued in proper intellectual fashion and was simply
assumed, with generation after generation adding more layers of white
supremacist suppositions.
3) Archeological data discovered in the 20th century data started to
contradict this.
4) Many sound scholars such as the authors of the above listed books
have come out to refute this old theory.
5) Many Indians came out to build alternative theories which are
India/Hindu centric, and these have been attacked as counter
chauvinism.
6) The hard data does not support either kind of chauvinism - the Aryan theory must not be taught as some kind of fact, while at the
same time no out-of-India alternative should replace it. The gaps
between textual evidence and archaeological evidence has simply not
been bridged at this stage. This is a very sound and defensible
position.
and my reply
Rajiv,
since you have been kind enough to include me in your mailing list on such
an important issue, it behooves me to give you the courtesy of a reply,
especially when on those rare occasions i find myself in disagreement with
you.
It is
not the diagnosis (which even the most rabid supporter of the Aryan
Migration does not have the courage ,much less the data to dispute) that i
take issue with but the remedy or strategic response and the reasoning
behind it. In addition to your diagnosis i might point out that the sole leg
to stand on for the Aryan tourist theories is the POSTULATION (not a fact
but a hypothesis based upon layers of linguistic postulates -which are in
turn represented as fact-on the nature and velocity with which languages
diffuse and change) that there once existed a PIE with a Urheimat ,for want
of a better phrase LIES ANYWHERE BUT IN INDIA. BTW, as an aside ,as far as the classroom
textbooks are concerned we were even lucky to have gotten acknowledgement
that there is a controversy.
But
apart from the lack of merit in the Aryan Tourist theory I have the
following points to make for you to ponder (probably not for the first or
even the last time surely).
-
The
first point to make is that there is no middle ground here. For once it
is not a reductionist argument to say that this is primarily a binary
proposition. Either the Vedics migrated out of India or the Proto
Europeans migrated in all the way to the heart of the Vedic civilization
namely the upper reaches of the Saraswati Yamuna Gangetic Doab, which
they would have had to do before it dried up (recall that during
Balaramas pilgrimage that the Saraswati was no longer a mighty flowing
river, but only gets scant mention in the Great Bharata epic. This
places it before the beginning of the Kaliyuga 3100 bce. There is simply
no other way to explain the cognate nature of the large group of
languages
Furthermore, if one postulates that the entire corpus of the Vedas awaited
the arrival of the blessed Lithuanians (who qualify under the general rubric
of anywhere but India theory), then their migration should date back even
further to the 5th or 6th millennia bce. But these are relatively minor
specks of 'dal mein kuch kala hai' for our erudite adversaries to bother
about. I personally have little interest in postulating a OIT, as all I
desire is that the narrative of our heritage and Civilizational ethos be
wrested back from an assorted gaggle of individuals all with a vested
interest in retaining this theory. See my essay on
The South Asia File where i flesh out the narrative and the motives of
the Brits (it need not take the intelligence of a CVRaman to figure this
out). But my point is that given the stakes were and are so high, and that
it is primarily a binary issue , there remains no face saving fallback
position for our esteemed opposition and hence the obstreperous
stonewalling. Conclusion, they will never back down from this purely binary
proposition, because the alternative is ignominy and ridicule. Confucius
may have brought attention to the all too common failing of face saving, but
it is the denizens of the west that have perfected it to a fine art,
especially when the antagonists are the impoverished and teeming millions
of a former colony
-
This leads me to the second point. To imply that any attack on the
postulates of the tourist theory classifies me ipso facto as rabid right
wing chauvinist, presumably one of the much reviled genus called
Hindutvavadi is definitely a reductionist argument and to hold that up
as an eventuality even for the sake of argument, is exactly what our
opposition would have us do . This is the oldest trick in the book
practiced to perfection first by the Romans who first used the locals to
enforce their rule, and then by a succession of imperial powers till
Britain did the same in India with at most 100,000 of their country men.
Basically the proposition is very simple either you are for us, in which
case you are reasonable and we will throw in a dog bone that you are
almost one of us , by virtue of being a indo European, or you are
against us in which case we will brand you an extremist and (trumpets
please) the ultimate insult a Hindutvavadi a term which our esteemed
professor has picked up from his Marxist allies in India. Never mind
that a Hindutvavadi was Prime Minister of the worlds largest democracy
for five years, elected to the highest executive position in the land.
Were it not a malicious charge made by people incapable of getting
elected to dog catcher , I would find it droll that I would be
classified as such. Not that I find it pejorative because then, I am in
the same company as KD Sethna, my distinguished contemporary and
fellow alumni
from St.Xaviers College, Mumbai who wrote those 2 landmark books (listed
as a footnote) which set the ball rolling towards unraveling the great
hoax of the Migration Invasion Acculturation Tourist Theory. We must recognize
that the Quest for the origin of the so called Aryan is primarily a
preoccupation of the West in search of their own roots and their
inability to come to terms with the glaring fact that Sanskrit had a
developed grammar and described an evolved Civilizational ethos far
ahead of anything comparable in the West and has little to do with the
heritage of India
There
are other points to be made, but I wanted to highlight today the futility of
a strategy ,premised on a ‘log kya kehenge’ syndrome, because this is
precisely what our opposition want us to do. It is my humble opinion that
every once in a while one must take a stand. This is one of those instances.
Once again, I couldn’t care less about alternatives to the ATT, other than
as an academic curiosity. However, there is too much at stake here, Too much
mischief has sprung from this one postulate (the miscasting and
misnaming of the caste
system, the north south divide, the misdating of the chronology starting
from Sir William Jones and reinforced by Max Mueller}. In fact this challenge
provides us a once in a rare occasion to shake the shibboleths and
assumptions of the west and initiate a paradigm change in the way the west
would view us and equally importantly have us look at our selves.
With
kind regards,
Kaushal
Books
by KD
Sethna
Sethna, K.D.,(1992) The Problem of Aryan Origins, Aditya Prakashan, New
Delhi
http://www.boloji.com/history/033.htm (the second book is reviewed
here)
Response from RM
I appreciate
various inputs from OIT proponents
that I have received after my recent
article in Hinduism Today on the
Aryan issue. However, any debate
must be in its context, so let me
first of all state that there are
two debates, briefly as follows:
Debate A: Winning the US school
textbook battles involving various
states and publishers.
Debate B: The academic scholars'
debate among themselves about
ancient history.
My posting in a private email group
on Debate A were excerpted by
Hinduism Today with my permission,
so the context of my statement in
the article should be clear.
Unfortunately, our side has been far
less organized than the opponents,
despite having had a lead of several
months when the proceedings started.
Many on our side lost track of the
pragmatics and wandered off in
theorizing and getting mixed up with
Debate B.
In the long run, B influences A, and
I have been one of the earliest
voices calling upon Hindus to take
the academic biases seriously. But
in the immediate context of winning
A, it has a life of its own and one
must understand the processes at
work to be effective.
So let me address debate A strategy:
When the proofs available are
anything less than absolutely
conclusive, the side with the burden
of proof has a handicap. For
instance, the prosecutor has the
burden to prove guilt, while the
defendant does not have to prove his
innocence and has to merely show
flaws in the prosecutor's case. (OJ
Simpson's lawyer did not try to
prove who committed the murder.
Rather he merely showed that the
prosecutor's case against OJ was
defective because "the glove did not
fit." Period.)
Lesson: It is easier to shoot holes
in the other party's arguments than
to establish one's own counter
thesis. Therefore, shifting the
burden of proof is a very sound
strategy. Don't be a hero and try to
prove more than is necessary to win,
because in the attempt to become a
hero one arms the opponent with
opportunities to deflect attention
away from the opponent's weak spots.
Here are three alternative
strategies one may adopt in debate A
in California or another state:
1) Require proponents of AIT/AMT to
prove THEIR position: They will fail
for sure as it was never proven and
merely adopted by default and based
on the credibility of its proponents
for 150 years.
2) Prove flaws in AIT/AMT: This
gives us the burden of proof and
this should be a backup choice after
(1).
3) Make a counter thesis of our own,
i.e. OIT, and prove it: This puts
the burden of proof on us for OUR
hypothesis. Unfortunately, too many
persons arguing in California's
debate A adopted this strategy and
it was ineffective.
Now as far as debate B goes, that's
another matter and should not to be
mixed up here and now with A.
In debate B, AIT/AMT vs. OIT are NOT
the only two (binary) choices. We
also have the choice, "insufficient
data available to decide." A judge
may decide "guilty" or "innocent" or
"insufficient evidence." Given the
hard reality that the AIT/AMT side
controls the forums of prestige and
power in the academy, and blocks all
participation by their opponents,
moving the debate to the middle
ground and thereby bringing both
sides as equal participants would be
a step in the right direction. This
is impossible if we go with OIT
demands up front.
Furthermore, linguistic and cultural
influences can and do flow
simultaneously in many directions.
Today's internet results in
co-development by teams spread
around the world. In ancient times
the process was far slower but
analogous. Ancient trade of goods is
well acknowledged and likewise there
was "trade" of ideas, memes, etc. as
well.
A common mistake is to assume that
flow of genes from place X to Y
correlates with the flow of ideas
from X to Y. Buddhists did not have
a massive gene flow from India to
East Asia and yet ideas flowed from
India to East Asia. Another example
is that today third worlders go to
US colleges and bring back US
culture; so net gene flow is from
third world to USA and a small
number return with the reverse flow
of culture. In other words,
there may be a million humans (and
hence net gene flow) from X to Y,
but a small number of intellectuals
(say 500) from Y to X bringing ideas
back. Indian mathematics went to
Europe via Middle East,
without Indian gene flow to Europe.
Aveda (owned by Estee Lauder) is the
top selling brand of Ayurveda in USA
not because Indian genes brought it
to USA but because one American
couple who lived in
India brought it back to USA.
Another mistake is to assume that
gene flow is always from invader to
invaded. Indians were taken as
slaves in massive numbers to the
slave markets of Middle East and
Central Asia, and they took Indian
music (e.g. via "gypsies") and other
culture with them. It would be false
to say that the existence of Indian
influence in the Middle East
correlates with an Indian invasion
of the Middle East.
Incidentally, in debate B, I would
like to recommend a very important
book by Prof D.K. Chakrabarti of
Oxford University, 'Colonial
Indology – Sociopolitics of the
Ancient Indian Past.' ( Delhi 1997:
Munshiram Manoharlal).
regards,
rajiv
Response of Dr.
Rajaram to Rajiv Malhotra
Dear Sri
Arumugaswamy:
I read with interest
Rajiv Malhotra's op-ed piece
"Assessing the Aryan Myth" in the
Spring issue of HINDUISM TODAY.
While I laud his intentions, I found
his article to be uninformed and
misleading. It gives the impression
that there is still a serious debate
about the Aryan invasion over
fundamentals, when both history and
science have demolished it. What we
have is no longer an academic debate
but a battle of polemics and
propaganda that has lately
degenerated into political lobbying
as witnessed in the California
school controversy.
The basic problem is Malhotra's (and
other's) reliance on secondary and
tertiary sources like Trautmann and
Edwin Bryant, when ample primary
data is available. Also, I fail to
see the 'refutation' of the Aryan
invasion in
these books, especially in Edwin
Bryant's. It is a timid work which
tries hard to be on the right side
of academic power equation. (I know
this for a fact since Bryant came to
see me before he wrote the book.)
I find that Malhotra (and others)
treat these academics with excessive
deference, thus emboldening
propagandists like Michael Witzel to
throw us on the defensive by taking
an aggressive posture. They rightly
assume that their opponents will
never go beyond passive protest,
which will get lost in the din.
There are no short cuts. We must
take the bull by the horn and argue
from facts and fundamentals. There
is no reason for timidity when the
facts are on our side. (See
attachment.)
Appeasement, which is what I see in
Malhotra's article will for ever
condemn us to be engaged in a
non-existent "debate" on their terms
that will go on forever.
Finally, totally disagree with his
stance:
"We don't know." We do know a great
deal as the attached article shows.
The truth needs only to be
propagated, not diverted by
conceding the ground to our
adversaries.
Sincere regards,
N.S.
Rajaram
And
his letter to the President of
Harvard university
March 18, 2006
Mr. Steven Hyman, Provost
Harvard University
I am writing this in connection with an article in the Pakistani newspaper DAWN by Michael Witzel, Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard, advertising his supposed triumph over the Hindus (Hindus) in California schools. (See attachment.)
Leaving aside the fact that it is tasteless, but protected by academic freedom, and the fact that it might involve him and the California Scholl Board in a protracted legal battles, I am struck by the fact that Witzel advertises himself as Professor of South Asian Studies, and not Professor of Sanskrit.
The reason for suppressing this fact is not hard to seek. His advertising his position as Sanskrit Professor might turn off potential Pakistani sponsors in his efforts to sell himself as an anti-Hindu lobbyist.
I use the word "advertise" because Witzel has formed a consulting group that calls itself The Academic Indology Advisory Council , and IAPC (Indian American Public Education Council), with the dedicated website http://www.indiantruth.org/ , offering its services to potential customers.
Naturally, it would be bad policy to advertise himself to potential Pakistani customers as Sanskrit Professor.
It is not my place to decide whether the Wales Professor Michael Witzel is guilty of conflict of interest in simultaneously posing as an independent expert on Hinduism to California school authorities, while suppressing the relevant facts in selling his services to potential customers in Pakistan. That is something for the California courts to decide, where there are several lawsuits pending.
All this proves, if any further proof was needed, that Michael Witzel is less a scholar than a political lobbyist, and now a budding entrepreneur looking for customers for his anti-Hindu lobbying skills.
India Acquired Language, Not
Genes, From West, Study Says Posted April 3, 2006
Most modern Indians descended from South Asians, not
invading Central Asian steppe dwellers, a new genetic study
reports.
The Indian subcontinent may have
acquired agricultural techniques and languages—but it
absorbed few genes—from the west, said Vijendra Kashyap,
director of India's National Institute of Biologicals in
Noida.
The finding disputes a long-held
theory that a large invasion of central Asians, traveling
through a northwest Indian corridor, shaped the language,
culture, and gene pool of many modern Indians within the
past 10,000 years.
That theory is
bolstered by the presence of Indo-European languages in
India, the archaeological record, and historic sources such
as the Rig Veda, an early Indian religious text.
((This
is a plain non sequitor, the AIT is not bolstered by either
the archaeological record or the Rg veda. There is
absolutely no mention of a migration froma distant
land anywhere i the Rg)
Some previous genetic studies have
also supported the concept.
But Kashyap's findings, published in
the current issue of the Proceedings of the National
Academies of Science, stand at odds with those results.
True Ancestors
Testing a sample of men from 32 tribal
and 45 caste groups throughout India, Kashyap's team
examined 936 Y chromosomes. (The chromosome determines
gender; males carry it, but women do not.)
The data reveal that the large
majority of modern Indians descended from South Asian
ancestors who lived on the Indian subcontinent before an
influx of agricultural techniques from the north and west
arrived some 10,000 years ago.
Most geneticists believe that humans
first reached India via a coastal migration route perhaps
50,000 years ago.
Soon after leaving Africa, these early
humans are believed to have followed the coast through
southern India and eventually continued on to populate
distant Australia.
Peter Underhill, a
research scientist at the Stanford University School of
Medicine's department of genetics, says he harbors no doubts
that Indo-European speakers did move into India. But he
agrees with Kashyap that their genetic contribution appears
small.
It doesn't look like there was a massive flow of genes that
came in a few thousand years ago," he said. "Clearly people
came in to India and brought their culture, language, and
some genes."
"But I think that the genetic impact of those people was
minor," he added. "You'd don't really see an equivalent
genetic replacement the way that you do with the language
replacement."
Language, Genes Tell Different Tales
Kashyap and his colleagues say their findings may explain
the prevalence of Indo-European languages, such as Hindi and
Bengali, in northern India and their relative absence in the
south.
"The fact the Indo-European speakers are predominantly found
in northern parts of the subcontinent may be because they
were in direct contact with the Indo-European migrants,
where they could have a stronger influence on the native
populations to adopt their language and other cultural
entities," Kashyap said.
He argues that even
wholesale language changes can and do occur without genetic
mixing of populations.
"It is generally assumed that language is more strongly
correlated to genetics, as compared to social status or
geography, because humans mostly do not tend to cross
language boundaries while choosing marriage partners,"
Kashyap said.
"Although few of the earlier studies have shown that
language is a good predictor of genetic affinity and that Y
chromosome is more strongly correlated with linguistic
boundaries, it is not always so," he added.
"Language can be acquired [and] has been in cases of 'elite
dominance,' where adoption of a language can be forced but
strong genetic differences remain [because of] the lack of
admixture between the dominant and the weak populations."
If steppe-dwelling
Central Asians did lend language and technology, but not
many genes, to northern India, the region may have changed
far less over the centuries than previously believed.
"I think if you could get into a time machine and visit
northern India 10,000 years ago, you'd see people … similar
to the people there today," Underhill said. "They wouldn't
be similar to people from Bangalore [in the south]."
Commentary
This is the kind of
sloppy reporting that prints adhoc assumptions and then
presents them as facts , that makes it difficult to
accept such statements with equanimity. When mr. Underhill
says that 'Clearly
people came in to India and brought their culture, language,
and some genes.",I am simply floored. Why is it so clear .
Where is the evidence of such clarity. Just because there
are similarities in language , it does not necessarily
follow that there was a migration large or small scale into
India. For example the Normans came into England about a
thousand years ago but French has not survived as a language
in England. In fact it was the other way around. The Normans
(corruption for Norse men or Vikings ) first adopted French
when they settled in Northern France and lost their
Viking language and then they later adopted English when
they came and conquered England and lost their French. It is
always the conqueror who gets absorbed into the mainstream
of the land he conquers. Witness the case of the Mongols in
China or the case of the Moghals in India. In both cases the
conqueror is subjugated by the culture of the land he
conquers. The Mongols became Chinese speaking and the
Moghals ended up speaking Hindustani or Urdu. Bahadur Shah
the last of the Moghals wrote his poetry in Hindustani
but he would have been hard pressed to speak a
sentence of Chagatai ( a dialect of Turkish) that his
ancestor Babar spoke. This is also the case with prior
conquerors like the Kushans, who were completely Indianized
and many speculate transformed themselves into what was
later to be termed the Rajputs.
The only exception
perhaps to this is the prevalence of English in India , a
language that was obviously brought in by the English
invader. But the reasons for such an exception are not far
to seek. It took an extraordinary degree of coercion on the
part of the colonial overlord to make English stick in India
and even so , he could rarely converse with his domestic
staff in English, even after 150 years of absolute
autocratic rule and the imposition of English as the
official lingua franca of the Indian subcontinent . Even
today the percentage of English speakers in India remains
well below 10%. In order to replicate the feat of the
British in India , the ancient migrants would have had to be
highly persistent and tenacious to impose their will
on the million's of people already residing there.
All this merely indicates
that one has to be very cautious in extrapolating 19th and
20th century mores into those of an earlier era.
The simple fact of the
matter is that there is no mention of a migration in any of
the Itihasas of India. Surely if there was any significant
migration of a people who looked so different from the
native population would be chronicled extensively But the
reality is quite compelling there is not a single mention of
a migration in any of the Vedas or Puranas or Itihasas.
In fact the land and topography they describe an area
that is
remarkably similar in topography to that of present
day Punjab, Haryana, Uttaranchal and Kashmir and refer to
the subsequently dried up Saraswathi (present day
Ghagar,Hakra) in glowing terms at least 50 times as a
river flowing from the mountains to the sea.
The correct answer
-Whatever migrations occurred during the period of recorded
history (going back 8000 years} were inconsequential and had
negligible numbers to warrant the conclusion that there was
a large scale tectonic event enough to cause a change in the
language. There was neither a major change in the genetic
composition of the large mass of people in India (which was
a always a heavily populated country during the period of
recorded history that we are concerned with, nor was their a
significant influx of migrants to cause such a large tectonic
change as adoption of a completely different language.
There is one other point
to be made. When a group of people migrate from one
continent to another as in the case of the early immigrants
from England to America, the archaic form of the language is
left behind and the language that takes root in the new land
is one that is derived and a more recent version (in this
example American English). In the case of Sanskrit it is
without a doubt the most archaic among the languages of the
Indo-European languages including Old Persian. If that is
the case then why is there no evidence of an even more
archaic language than Sanskrit with an oral tradition
similar to that of Sanskrit anywhere else in the world. why
is there no other no other region in the world with a well
developed grammar such as that of Panini's Ashtadhyayi
anywhere else in the world except in Vedic India. Why is
there no evidence of anybody who could chant Sanskrit slokas
(verses) with the same facility that they were able to
muster in Vedic India. The conclusion is that the migration
theory(ies) into India simply do not make sense and do not
stand up to scrutiny
If there was no migration
into India, how did the commonality in phrases come about in
such a large group of languages spread over a significant
portion of the Eurasian land mass ? I have
my own deductions, but that will have to wait for another
day.
|
Excerpts from the thread. The complete thread is
available at http://vepa.us/dir8/
|
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).] |
|
| 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). |
|
| 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 < mJtomtbd{Ck
ltbthu
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).
IP:
Logged |
|
This topic is 7 pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
All times are ET (US) |
Posted
byPoster VRaghav
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).]
Indology and Racism
http://www.sulekha.com/articles/skak_indology.html
Distinguished British anthropologist
Edmund Leach 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
|
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)| |
|
|
|
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 | | | | | | |
