Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[A_Gupta]

http://www.celtologica.co.uk/PDF/Celto- ... asovic.pdf

The Proto-Indo-European word for "moon" on the other hand {re: sun} is difficult to reconstruct unambiguously. This probably reflects the relative insignificance of the Moon in the religious belief of the Indo-Europeans, in sharp contrast to its importance in the mythologies of the ancient Near East, for example.

[tyroneshoes]

Here is a non-scientific but repeatable experiment:

Go to following link of Rig Veda: The Rig Veda: Complete by Forgotten Books

Search for the following words:

a. Horse: 96 matches
a(1). Stallion: 8 matches
a(2). Steed: 100 matches
a(3). Ass: 7 matches
b. Cow : 100 matches
b(1). Bull: 100 matches
b(2). Calf: 27 matches

SDRE COW == TFTA HORSE onlee!

c. Elephant: 4 matches
d. Bee: 3 matches
e. Lion: 13 matches
f. Tiger: 0 matches (perhaps mistranslation to Lion, need to follow up)
g. Peacock: 1 match
h. Eagle: 9 matches
i. Vulture: 2 matches
j. Ant: 2 matches (need to follow up if this translation is correct)

[tyroneshoes]

Lets try celestial objects:

a. Sun: 100 matches
b. Moon: 28 matches
c. Star: 100 matches

Precious Metals:

a. Gold: 100 matches
b. Silver: 0 matches
c. Copper: 0 matches
d. Bronze: 0 matches
e. Iron: 100 matches

Gods of merit:

a. Indra: 100 matches
b. Agni: 100 matches
c. Mitra: 100 matches
d. Varuna: 3 matches
e. Savitar: 91 matches
f. Visnu: 68 matches
g. Rudra: 55 matches
h. Dayus: 32 matches
i. Maruts: 42 matches

[brihaspati]

quote="ManishH" : The fact that this river is so important in RV should make us think esp. about the impossibility of Talageri's OIT hypothesis which makes almost all the rest of IE group leave India during RgVeda, but carries no rememberance of this river; not even as a Goddess. [unquote]

Just reverse this argument. By the same logic, AIT is trash. Since the steppeland or steppeland hinterland "mighty" rivers, and their names linked solidly to PIE by the PIE lobby, carries no remembrance by the steppeland origin PIE speakers coming to India. Not even as a goddess.

Nope B-ji. There is a difference. In AIT, the dispersal of IE groups happened even before RgVeda was composed. In this theory, there is no need for Indian theological concepts to be present in other branches. Theology and cultural beliefs keep developing.

However, if you read Sh. Talageri's book, he is proposing that RgVeda documents emigrating tribes from Gangetic valley, to Indus, Kashmir etc and out of India. If his theory, the dispersals are happening while the RV is being composed; and different mandalas of RV correspond to different stages of the dispersal. That's why I said, it's very unlikely for an emigrating group not to carry that memory.

Nope, ManishH ji. You are consistently trying to bring Talageri into a claimed logical argument - where his proposals in a related but different direction [stages] is not really relevant.

Your logic was - that, the absence of Indian goddesses or "river names" in the steppes [or the so-called PIE uhrheimat] later on, proves that OIT did not take place. I wanted you to simply reverse that logic and apply to your favoured AIT theory. By the same logic, the absence of steppe river names/goddesses in India should prove that AIT did not take place.

You are always denying the logic that you apply to bolster a tottering AIT theory [onlee shored up by blind faith] to be applied against AIT theory in exact parallels.

Theological and cultural beliefs keep "developing" - this is a very irresponsible statement in the background of such strong linguistic claims on language continuity, and such iconic elements of culture such as the "horse" and the "chariot" and "horse paraphernalia", and use of grass in rituals. It seems in the linguist vision of anthropology - those cultural elements concerning use of grass, horse, and chariot alone remains static in cultural development. Even in theological and cultural beliefs "developing", there are traces of continuity or "diffusion". I feel the growing isolation of linguists from anthropology is showing in your arguments. You make it an article of faith that there must have been continuities in two forms of language with phonetic and apparent usage similarities [which is the prime necessary argument to construct PIE], whose traces therefore remain in both forms, you still accept it for horse/chariots/grass - but you refuse to accept this for other elements of social life so pivotal as theology or theogony.

We should discuss the key horse-gods or horse goddesses in steppe cultures. or Steppe gods and goddesses with explicit horseness or horsification of attributes. Since they are so pivotal in PIE culture, such a deification of horse is to be expected, as is seen in many other ancient cultures - in fact in almost all well studied ancient cultures

On the topic of rivers, the IE root 'danu' is often used for rivers - right from Danube, Don, Dniepr (danu-para: the river away), Donetz (danu-nazdya: the river closeby). In RgVeda, the mother of demons is called दनु who is in form of waters and from which दानव are born. Looks quite probable that might be some contact between the IE group that associated 'danu' with rivers and another group that treated them as enemies.

But this other group who treats "them" as enemies - do not ascribe any river name to "dnu". They have no reason to have enmity with rivers. Further if it was the steppelanders who brought PIE to India, they still should have connected the most common root "often used" for rivers, also in India. "Danavas" need not be real creatures or tribes - since you vociferously argue for imaginary constructs connected to "spiritual" aspects.

Or is it the proto-Sanskritists garbled socio-collective memory of having been told of large humanoids around the Balkans/Black sea by paleolithic traders? It is accepted now that Neanderthal-modern human hybridization cannot be ruled out - and an estimated east-west cline exists.

An invading culture with thousands of mounted warriors and war-chariots forgets its own goddesses [who are typically connected strongly with

The armada of charioteers and mounted riders is a myth. Theology is not a static characteristic of a culture, and esp. not 'natural' religions that derive from a 1-book and 1-god concept. Such development in 'natural' religions can be seen even post Vedic. Eg. does modern Hindu religious practice give the same importance to 'mitra', 'apām napāt', 'pūṣan' etc. Notice how the mightly RgVedic indra who released the rivers from the mountains and rides two brown horses is transformed to pauranic indra who rides an elephant and runs to other deities for help when in trouble.

Most natural religions evolve and forget Gods which are no longer relevant to them.

But Indra has not been forgotten and erased completely in the "Hindu". Even in transmutations, you can still trace a manifestation continuity. Sometimes it is a merger, sometimes it is an added layering of attributes - but you can always find a trace, in the Indic case. You seem to equate "giving less importance" with "complete erasure" and forgetting - that which happens in the so-called AIT.

By the way - any attempt at citing items like "Mithras" should be done with caution. These later parallels have been sought to be established on rather flimsy grounds strongly criticized by anthropologists of religion. Moreover note the timings of first finding references to such "PIE" deities - they are in middle or late antiquity - in places where we already have evidence of latter day transnational flows [for example in eastern and SE Roman empire].

corresponding male partners - and the AIT/Steppe/Kurganites are supposed to be also patriarchal

Again, Kurgan culture is just one material culture in steppes. Steppes have multiple material cultures - some of which are very matriarchal too - we know that because prestige objects and objects which priests/shamans use were placed in graves of women too.

So, the matriarchal Kurganites [that ref of yours has been challenged as to interpretation of priesthood for women] did not come to India then. The argument remains valid for those who came then - who are by default then patriarchal.

If you change tack now and claim that may be the matriarchal steppenwolfs came to India. Then they should have brought their mother-goddess here and not quickly discard her on arrival. In that case we should have traces of PIE approved proto word for Saraswati in steppes.

Another possibility is that Matriarchal steppenwolfs migrated from steppes uprooting lock-stock and barrel, and those that remained were wiped off by patriarchal steppenwolfs after the India-colonizers left - but these patriarchal steppenwolfs never made it to India. But RV is not matriarchal - so at some stage the patriarchal steppenwolfs devised a long-distance or remote-propaganda machine that converted the India-colonizing matriarchal steppenwolfs into patriarchal ones - who however do not change the name of the mother goddess river.

If there was no previous name attached to this river when the steppelanders arrived in India, they must have called it by some name?

Not a claim I make. You should ask the person who claims that.

Look, you have to refer to it by some name. Either they use what the pre-existing populations already call it by - or they have to give a new tag.

Migrants typically rename rivers/places if they can [if a pre-existing culture does not make it infeasible]- in a way that reminds them of their point of origin.

They may remember them but faintly. The example of RgVedic demon mother 'दनु' is case in point.

Danu as river name is not given to Indian rivers. Period. No use claiming this connection. In fact outside of the Balkans, in the so-called track of PIE expansion - no trace of "dnu" in river names.

Ultimately, it seems the only memory that counted to the PIE speakers was horse, horse, and horse. What is tied to the horse or attached to the horse.

In this post, I've given the list of Gods in RgVeda which ride the horse. Pretty significant if you ask me.

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 0#p1282030

It includes Agni - central to RgVedic ritual, Indra - largest number of hymns devoted to him. Surya - creator of life on earth. The horse is not just a creature of commercial or warring use. It's integral of the theology of RgVeda.

Problem - is you chose not to understand the context of my pointer. The horse is central in RV theology because the largest number of "gods" ride them? But the supreme god is still not a horse - onlee a rider of the horse. If the RV world's pivot was the horse - you would expect a hose god - won't you?

Question is - if anything connected to the horse is so important - then surely the same thing must have happened in the steppes? Most steppen gods must have ridden horses? traces? archeological proof? There has been a lot of archeological work on steppes and CA pantheon. It will be surprising to see the cumulative results so far on who rode what.

There is nothing to indicate exogamy as a general practice either.

I agree - there is neither endo-, nor exo- gamy mentioned in RgVeda. So can't make any claims here.

Endogamy would be a crucial assumption to justify the combined aspects and implications of the PIE claims.

The "incremental" term comes from your linguistic claims - that sound changes are limited in their scope. It cannot go from the back of the mouth to the front at one quick kick.

But that is the nature of phonetics. And not a special case for IE language family. You can read the wiki on palatalization for that.

It is not the nature of phonetics - but a modern observation based on already stabilized or converged pools of phonation. This need not hold in back-calculations or proposed reversibility. You can look up the current debates related to this on phonetics.

However the real problem that I have with you on this is that while you are willing to limit the rate of "change", you apparently do not register the problems with reconstructions that propose such drastic movements within the same word or within one or two syllables [well very reconstruction of syllabalization is problematic].

Do you see the problems in reconciling your conclusion that there was [or could not be?] any PIE equivalent for Saraswati?
[...]
This has nothing to do with S. Talageri's chronology. So, just to confirm, you see no problems with all the above with AIT claims?

I don't see any issues because a) the dispersal happened before RgVeda; b) I do not consider theology as static in natural religions.

Wonderful. I am afraid you are not helping enhance the reputation for rationality in linguists.

The dispersal happened before RgVeda. Theology is dynamic and not static. Importance of elements is shown by how frequently they are referred to in subsequent literature.

The horse is so important that it remains static in theological importance. While river names, gods and goddess identities mutate - change - disappear completely. Thus river names, gods and goddess identities are far far less important than horses in PIE theology - but yet, yet, we don't have a supreme horse god or goddess in PIE theology.

No, the burden of proof lies with those who claim that the word "aswa" in RV stood for modern horse. It is after all an ancient text, with possible different uses of words from what their supposed derivatives are used as in modern times.

Ok, let's not place burden of proof on each other. Maybe you can lay some possibilities on the table without committing to any of them. At least we can see which fits better.

No, I do need to see the identification of RgVedic conclusive proof of "aswa" meaning modern horse. Because if you are saying that you cannot conclusively prove this - the whole debate about horse underlying PIE theory is unfounded.

[I fail to see why you have to be so blindly defensive about the Myc. inscription. The dilemma is not the proof.

I think it is. Eg. if someone misspells quality as 'kwality' in certain ambiguous words; and spells other non-ambiguous words as 'kw' too, we can be reasonably sure the sound is a velar + labial or velar + glide + labial.

No, it merely shows that the writer does not have a symbol map to distinguish k from w pronunciation when done in quick succession.

The dilemma in my post refers to the possibility in the inscriber or the scribe using/developing the script in how to represent what seemed to him like a sound pair separated or pronounced in quick succession in different contexts.

Very unlikely. If you have some references from specialists, please do share.

It is an alternative hypothesis. "Specialists"? You mean those who parrot the labiovelar hypothesis?

A quick paired pronunciation could be interpreted by someone not aware of the origins of the pair and its usage logic, to try and represent them by a single symbol.

Not single symbols, but distinct symbols are being used to represent what appears as a single ć sound in Sanskrit. That I think is very unlikely.

But if we see what is predicted as a labiovelar sound by theory of sound change, this syllabogram matches the prediction all the time. Uncanny.

It could be the result of an imperfect assimilation or approximation attempted to mimic one specific sound - depending on two distinct population groups who have their preexisting predilection in two different directions. Each group pronounces the same sound slightly differently. A scribe who is trying to record this will be in trouble.

Claiming the "theory" of sound change as proof, is a cyclical argument - since the "sound change theory" is not one single rule, and is a collection of various so-called "laws", which were developed on assumptions on a particular direction and mode of change - and that inherently included the labial versus velar cases while building their assumptions on changes.

[svinayak]

So, I'll ask again:

मनीष, क्यों 'ಬಿಸಿಲು ಕುದುರೆ' पे चढ़ा रहे हैं?

He He He

The Horse has become super garam now.
There will be one last time.

[tyroneshoes]

Continuing on birds....

a. Birds: 49 matches (red bird many times)
b. Falcon: 30 matches
c. Hawk: 14 matches
d. Swan: 4 matches
e. Duck: 0 matches

Now sacred grass (Dūrvā Grass - Cynodon dactylon) matches 100 times....
Doesn't this grass best grow between 30° south and 30° north latitude?

[hanumadu]

Now sacred grass (Dūrvā Grass - Cynodon dactylon) matches 100 times....
Doesn't this grass best grow between 30° south and 30° north latitude?

Images for Steppe Grass

If you look images for steppe grass, they show longer grass than the Durva Grass but not something that creeps along the ground. How come the Indo Aryans praise something that is not available in their home lands but do not praise something that is ABUNDANTLY available. Did their memories fail them in this case?

[svinayak]

Now sacred grass (Dūrvā Grass - Cynodon dactylon) matches 100 times....
Doesn't this grass best grow between 30° south and 30° north latitude?

Images for Steppe Grass

If you look images for steppe grass, they show longer grass than the Durva Grass but not something that creeps along the ground. How come the Indo Aryans praise something that is not available in their home lands but do not praise something that is ABUNDANTLY available. Did their memories fail them in this case?

Where is the abundance of horses?

[hanumadu]

RgVeda can never be transported anywhere except the greater Indus region. No one has ever claimed the authorship of RgVeda happened anywhere outside the Indian subcontinent.

This is a comedown. I thought thats what the AIT/AMT supporters claim. So what exactly is from outside India about RigVeda? Just the people that wrote it and their memories are from outside India? You say even Sanskrit is from India. What memories in RigVeda are from outside India? The rivers, horses or is it the whole of RigVeda?

[hanumadu]

Either I used unclear language or you have misunderstood the context. What I meant to say is that there is no remains of domesticated horse found in India at the time where OIT claims it (~5000 BC by conservative estimates). The earliest proof of domesticated horse in India is Surkotada at 2100 - 1700 BC.

Whereas, the Botai find is perfectly consistent with AIT claims. So is the chariot find at Sintashta.

Like already said before, lack of proof for OIT is not proof for AIT/AMT.
If you ignore evidence that is inconvenient to you, you can put forward any theory and stick to it till kingdom come.
And I think you should use the correctly terminology. You have discredited AIT yourselves. So stop mentioning it and stick to AMT please.

Even proponents of AIT/AMT have agreed to the presence of horses in Harappa.
The Horse Evidence

That the presence of horses in Harappa may well be out of proportion to the meagre archeological testimony of horse bones, has unwittingly been confirmed by Marxist historian Romila Thapar. All while affirming that “the horse is an insignificant animal in the Indus cities”, apparently referring to the paucity (but not absence) of horse bones in Harappan ruins, she neutralizes this oft-used argument for the non-Aryan character of Harappa by also telling us: “Excavated animal bones from Hastinapur in the first millennium BC when the use of horses was more frequent, indicate that horse bones make up only a very small percentage of the bones.”28 In today’s India, cows are vastly more numerous than horses, as future archaeologists are bound to discover in their turn, yet on ceremonial occasions like army parades you get to see whole regiments of horses with riders but not a single cow. This, as archaeology has confirmed, was also the situation in Hastinapur: horses were rare in absolute figures, though very prominent on ritual occasions of the kind recorded in the vedas.

A lot of households in India today have cows but rarely any body has an horse. That does not prevent associating horse with speed and strength instead of a cow or bull. Nor does it prevent bollywood heroines dreaming about their prince on a horse back instead of prince on a bull. As already pointed out, if horse bones are rare in ancient India, so are human bones or that of other animals.

[A_Gupta]

http://vishalagarwal.voiceofdharma.com/JIES2003-MW.html
worth a read.

[shiv]

Not just old memories, horses were being given as gifts and part of ritual sacrifice in RgVeda too.
<snip>
They are live memories, since the horses or their progeny surely lived amongst the composers.

Yes sir. The easiest and most obvious conclusion about horses and the Rig Veda is that the people had access to horses.

Bones are found and preserved even before bronze age (which RgVeda represents). But somehow, it's only the horse that is amiss.

It seems that the presence of horse remains is not necessary to infer that a people had horses, as you have pointed out earlier. The archaeological evidence (or lack of archaeological evidence) is being ignored here in favour of information that appears in the Rig Veda.

[Rony]

Sri Aurobindo attempted translations of the Vedas. His book Secret of the Veda is available, and the Sri Aurobindo Kapali Shastry Instutute has come out with translation attempts based on Aurobindo's ideation of the meanings of Vedic words. They also acknowledged a debt to Acharya Madhva's Rg-Bhashya.

SAKSI translations of the Vedas - go to the section "Text, Translation and Notes."

In Hindi the Arya Samaj have put out the partial translations and commentaries of their founder Swami Dayananda, extended by disciples. Here is a website with the Hindi translations and commentaries.

Arya Samaj translations of Vedas - look on the rightmost pane of the page.

Looks like some Arya Samaj offshoots are also working on an English translation project.

Just my 2c.

Thanks a lot for your effort, Carl garu

[member_22872]

I haven't come across mention of drawing or writing in RgVeda, so it's hard to find pictures of these Gods in Bronze Age archaeology of India. But horses leave traces in archaeological record.

Significant of horse is that an indian theological system like RgVeda uses an animal which is not native to India for the mount of it's revered Gods. No evidence in itself, but an uncanny data point, esp. when combined with the fact that some of the Gods, like Indra later in the era of purāṇa's change their mounts from a pair of horse to the elephant, which is native to India. This is an adapting culture.

Manish ji, what you wrote is very strange. In the first sentence of yours, you take the refuge of lack of description of a theological system in Rg Veda to counter Shiv ji. Later you take refuge of the same theological system description in Rg Veda to claim that Indra changed mounts. Seems like you deny and accept arguments what are convenient to you but seem to not accept any logical claims of others, the best example is PIE, you base your whole theory of soemthing that doesnt exist, yet you doubt all the logical arguments people make.

For that matter, Varuna, the god of Rg Veda has makara as his mount, from wiki:

It is generally depicted as half terrestrial animal (in the frontal part in animal forms of elephant or crocodile or stag, or deer) and in hind part as aquatic animal, in the tail part, as a fish tail or also as seal. Sometimes, even a peacock tail is depicted.

.

So aryans depict one god to have horse as mount another with animal forms found only in India? animals not yet known to Aryans before they even came to India? Crocodile in Steppes? please give me a break.

[shiv]

But the absence of archaeological evidence is not absolute proof of the absence of the horse.

This is not the way archaeologists work. Unless they can show a faunal remains as horse, they won't claim "oh there is still the chance that horse existed here" and then express optimistic hopes of finding the remains one day.

Ditto with horse domestication. So if we look at Central Asia, horse bones have been found in human settlements 800-1000 years before Botai; but archaeologists do not know if they were merely hunted horses. Therefore, the first claim is made for Botai - because that is where unequivocal occlusion on molars is found.

Archaeologists don't clutch on straws.

Either I used unclear language or you have misunderstood the context. What I meant to say is that there is no remains of domesticated horse found in India at the time where OIT claims it (~5000 BC by conservative estimates). The earliest proof of domesticated horse in India is Surkotada at 2100 - 1700 BC.

Whereas, the Botai find is perfectly consistent with AIT claims. So is the chariot find at Sintashta.

If I may clarify your position, you are disputing an "Out of India" theory that goes back to 5000 BC. You are, as far as I can tell, not necessarily disputing all out of India theories that may have occurred at later dates as shown by the following statement of yours

But in case the area of Indo-Iranian unity is in the Indian subcontinent, then quite a bit of language change happened in India between PIE and separation of Iranians.

Unless I am mistaken, what you have stated above is that there is a possibility that the differentiation of Iranian languages from an earlier hypothetical languages may have occurred in India. In other words the possibility exists that Iranian languages like Avestan may be out of India. I would like to leave this as a hypothetical possibility for now but two points stem from this:

1. This possibility, that some language may have evolved in India and moved out of India is being considered (perhaps reluctantly) for known languages such a the Iranian branch of Indo Iranian. Similarly it is possible that unknown, dead languages may have moved out of India and died out. No one is interested in those dead languages because no evidence exists. Non existent languages like PIE and PII are conjured up only for the convenience of people who want to further their scholarly work along lines of least resistance given current theories of the movement of language. "Micro-movements' in which a proto language may have evolved in India and moved out evoke little interest, and sometimes scorn.

2. If a "proto-Indo Iranian" language (or a proto Sanskrit) existed it needs to have evolved into Sanskrit before the Rig Veda was composed. That is "Proto Sanskrit" or PII existed prior to Rig Veda which is dated to 3500 BCE. That means that a proto language, yet to become Sanskrit had entered the "Indo-Iranian" land area before 3500 BCE.

Now the Botai remains are dated to 3500 BCE. Since archaeologists do not clutch at straws, there is NO evidence of horse domestication prior to 3500 BCE and that domestication occurred in Central Asia. But, concurrently, in 3500 BCE the Rig Veda was being composed in faraway India. That means that proto-Indo Iranians had entered the area BEFORE horse domestication occurred (since one cannot live in hope about future findings) and long before Sanskrit itself was a separate language.

Despite this paradox, where horse domestication is pinned to 3500 BCE in Botai, and Proto Indo-Europeans predate horse domestication, it is accepted that the people who composed the Rig Veda had domesticated horses. This can only mean that there is a likelihood that horses were indeed domesticated earlier than 3500 BCE although firm evidence (absence of straw clutching) is pinned at Botai 3500 BCE.

Archaeological findings always impose an "earliest known date". They do not preclude an earlier date. They merely rule out a later date. If that earlier date is found by archaeologists, they accept it. If that earlier date is fixed by someone else, like linguists or geneticists it is still science but not archaeology. It is not described as "clutching at straws". Not sure why you needed to use that expression to try and tear down a hypothesis that you disagree with. This is exactly the sort of language that make linguistics and history evoke mirth and derision from people who work in other sciences. People are accustomed to controversy, disagreement and ambiguity of findings. The language of disagreement in most sciences is different unless you say that linguistics, like history and ethnology are not exact sciences and are therefore exempt from the decorum that the former demand. That certainly seems to be true for worthies such as Witzel who needs to resort to ad hominem to make a point or disagree. This is exactly the sort of thing that relegates the work done in some of these specialities to a sniggered at and ignored corner of "knowledge". The culture does not seem to tolerate debate that goes against existing theories.

[shiv]

but you do not know which language. But "current archaeological evidence" suggests to you that a Proto Indo European language came to India before Sanskrit was created. The same current archaeological evidence also tells you that the language, about which you admit no knowledge,

The knowledge exists of :
- phonetic features
- the sequence in which phonetic features transformed

What doesn't exist is the exact snapshot when the first speakers of the language enter the subcontinent.

Would you be able to say more about the phonetic features and the way in which phonetic features transformed in the language of the Andronovo culture area of the steppes where the Botai horse/chariot remains were found?

[ManishH]

Actually no one called the language 'Sanskrit' until pāṇini. Maybe proto-Sanskrit is a better word.

Surely electrons weren't 'proto-electrons' before someone first named them?

Weird analogy. Languages are created by humans. Electrons are natural.

[ManishH]

For that matter, Varuna, the god of Rg Veda has makara as his mount, from wiki:

venug garu: can you please quote the exact reference in RgVeda which describes varuṇa on makara. I want to ascertain whether this imagery is in RgVeda or a later development.

It is generally depicted as half terrestrial animal (in the frontal part in animal forms of elephant or crocodile or stag, or deer) and in hind part as aquatic animal, in the tail part, as a fish tail or also as seal. Sometimes, even a peacock tail is depicted.

.
[/quote]

AFAIK, RgVeda only depicts Varuna 'in he waters' varuṇaḥ | yonim | apyam | ani-śitam

[shiv]

Is there any evidence at all that Sanskrit is NOT the language of the central Asian steppes where the revered horse was domesticated.

Rig Veda dates from 3500 BCE. Domesticated horse burials are found in Central Asia, 1000 km away from 3500 BCE.

Few horse bones have been found in India leading to the conclusion that the horse is not indigenous to India but a later import. But Sanskrit (of the Rig Veda) is full of adulatory and worshipful references to the horse. What makes Sanskrit indigenous to India but the horse an import. Maybe Sanskrit was imported with the horse.

[ManishH]

If I may clarify your position, you are disputing an "Out of India" theory that goes back to 5000 BC. You are, as far as I can tell, not necessarily disputing all out of India theories that may have occurred at later dates as shown by the following statement of yours

Yes, it's a miniscule possibility that an IE dispersal resulted in Indo-Iranian speakers coming to India first and then the Iranian branch splitting off around 2000 BC. But evidence for this is even scarcer than Oxus hypothesis of Lubotsky ...

One of the chief issues being lack of retroflexes in Avestan. Not to speak of the geography, which shows us that it will be a very indirect route indeed. But it's possible.

Similarly it is possible that unknown, dead languages may have moved out of India and died out. No one is interested in those dead languages because no evidence exists.

The same cannot be extended for PIE, because of the horse domestication issue.

"Micro-movements' in which a proto language may have evolved in India and moved out evoke little interest, and sometimes scorn.

Micro-movements receive all the interest, but no controversy - eg. spoken language of Mauritius, Romani, influence of Sanskrit/Tamil on SE Asian lexicon, Tibetan, and Sanskrit loan words in Mandarin are all quite well studied.

2. If a "proto-Indo Iranian" language (or a proto Sanskrit) existed it needs to have evolved into Sanskrit before the Rig Veda was composed. That is "Proto Sanskrit" or PII existed prior to Rig Veda which is dated to 3500 BCE.

RgVeda cannot be in 3500 BCE. Not even by OIT chronology which says mahabharata war itself ended in 3000 BCE and RgVeda took 2000 years to compose. Rest of your logic was built on this assumption.

Archaeological findings always impose an "earliest known date". They do not preclude an earlier date.

And that's a good thing. Otherwise anyone can claim anything. eg. the hypothetical Greek nationalists are free to assume that the Trojan horse was a Holocene occurrence since no archaeological evidence "precludes" horse domestication in Anatolia in 12000 BCE.

This is exactly the sort of thing that relegates the work done in some of these specialities to a sniggered at and ignored corner of "knowledge". The culture does not seem to tolerate debate that goes against existing theories.

You are right - scholars must explain their conclusions so people outside their technical areas can understand and dispute them. Because without making themselves understood, a) it sounds hocus-pocus b) field is left open to pop-science.

[ManishH]

RgVeda can never be transported anywhere except the greater Indus region. No one has ever claimed the authorship of RgVeda happened anywhere outside the Indian subcontinent.

This is a comedown. I thought thats what the AIT/AMT supporters claim.

You have a pre-conceived notion that AIT says RgVeda was composed outside India. Whereas reality is that no one has claimed so. When the real position is spoken out, it sounds like a 'comedown'.

[ManishH]

Search for the following words:

a. Horse: 96 matches
a(1). Stallion: 8 matches
a(2). Steed: 100 matches
a(3). Ass: 7 matches
b. Cow : 100 matches
b(1). Bull: 100 matches
b(2). Calf: 27 matches

SDRE COW == TFTA HORSE onlee!

You forgot 'charger' and 'courser'

[hanumadu]

This is a comedown. I thought thats what the AIT/AMT supporters claim.

You have a pre-conceived notion that AIT says RgVeda was composed outside India. Whereas reality is that no one has claimed so. When the real position is spoken out, it sounds like a 'comedown'.

OK. Where was it composed then according to AIT/AMT? In India?
We spent a whole lot of time discussing how itinerant people travelling from central asia couldn't have written the vedas. You didn't mention that they were written in India then.

RgVeda cannot be in 3500 BCE. Not even by OIT chronology which says mahabharata war itself ended in 3000 BCE and RgVeda took 2000 years to compose. Rest of your logic was built on this assumption.

What should be the age of RigVeda be then? I think you are being deliberately vague here. If RigVeda cannot be in 3500BC why don't you take the trouble of mentioning a date.

[tyroneshoes]

^^^
मनीष, क्यों 'ಬಿಸಿಲು ಕುದುರೆ' पे चढ़ा रहे हैं? (one more time!)

ఆంగ్లం మాట్లాడలేని? లేదా హిందీ మాట్లాడటం? లేదా కన్నడ మాట్లాడటం? లేదా తమిళ్ మాట్లాడటం?

All this from Griffiths bad translation onlee, not even the Pandit's crazy naraka and swarga translation, Sayana is perhaps fidgeting up above:

Charger: 16 matches
Courser: 74 matches

Kine: 100 matches (Kine is archaic plural for cow, so count multiple times? )
Udder: 31 matches


SDRE COW >> TFTA HORSE onlee!

[ManishH]

Nope, ManishH ji. You are consistently trying to bring Talageri into a claimed logical argument - where his proposals in a related but different direction [stages] is not really relevant.

I think it is very relevant That book is the only one where I've found some sort of comprehensive attempt at layout of a chronological order of OIT. Without a comprehensive account, one cannot show the contradictions in OIT.

By the same logic, the absence of steppe river names/goddesses in India should prove that AIT did not take place.

Where's the 'absence' ? Sarasvati does not go back to united IE times. But I also quoted the example of 'dyaus pitar' and 'jupiter' that go far back to IE dispersals.

You make it an article of faith that there must have been continuities in two forms of language ... - but you refuse to accept this for other elements of social life so pivotal as theology or theogony.

The bio-mechanics of human mouth determine phonetic regularity. Whereas the human mind which choses the forms of theology, is not so mechanical.

And I don't 'refuse to accept'. I'll quote some other older portions of theology - like jupiter, varuna and uranus, danu.

On the topic of rivers, the IE root 'danu' is often used for rivers - right from Danube, Don, Dniepr (danu-para: the river away), Donetz (danu-nazdya: the river closeby). In RgVeda, the mother of demons is called दनु who is in form of waters and from which दानव are born. Looks quite probable that might be some contact between the IE group that associated 'danu' with rivers and another group that treated them as enemies.

But this other group who treats "them" as enemies - do not ascribe any river name to "dnu".

Of course, no one names one's rivers after enemies. do they In RgVeda, दनु is the mother of वृत्र and associated with waters ...

http://protosanskrit.wordpress.com/2011 ... an-schism/

In Avestan the word 'dānu' means river.

Further if it was the steppelanders who brought PIE to India, they still should have connected the most common root "often used" for rivers, also in India.

Again you are assuming an unusual cohesion in steppes whereas none exists. The archaeology of Bronze age eurasia shows as much internecine warfare as any other place.

But Indra has not been forgotten and erased completely in the "Hindu".

Not forgotten - but transmuted into a helpless Nero-like personality. Thanks to a tradition of oral preservation and later on writing of manuscripts, nothing can be forgotten now.

If you change tack now and claim that may be the matriarchal steppenwolfs came to India.

What is a "steppenwolf"

Problem - is you chose not to understand the context of my pointer. The horse is central in RV theology because the largest number of "gods" ride them? But the supreme god is still not a horse - onlee a rider of the horse. If the RV world's pivot was the horse - you would expect a hose god - won't you?

Both cattle and horses are important in RgVeda. Since there is no Cow God either, I'm not sure what you want to imply.

It is not the nature of phonetics - but a modern observation based on already stabilized or converged pools of phonation.

It's not 'observation' of emitted sounds. It is the way human vocal cords, lips, tongue and breath combine to produce sounds. If the human moves his tongue forward to articulate a vowel, there is a tendency to also move the velar consonant forward to the human palate.

It's not empirical - but based on bio-mechanics of phonation.

The horse is so important that it remains static in theological importance. While river names, gods and goddess identities mutate - change - disappear completely.

That's exactly what 'natural' non-dogmatic religions which are not controlled by central authority do - they keep what is relevant, like the horse which is crucial to their lifestyle. And forget old Gods or transmute them.

I find it surprising that you have failed to see this contrast in your very immaculate studies of centrally controlled theologies that you make on other threads.

No, I do need to see the identification of RgVedic conclusive proof of "aswa" meaning modern horse. Because if you are saying that you cannot conclusively prove this - the whole debate about horse underlying PIE theory is unfounded.

This is probably the height of quibbling. If you want to claim that the current meaning of a word is not what the ancient one was, it's you who must show evidence. Without which, the current meaning stands

[I fail to see why you have to be so blindly defensive about the Myc. inscription. The dilemma is not the proof.

I think it is. Eg. if someone misspells quality as 'kwality' in certain ambiguous words; and spells other non-ambiguous words as 'kw' too, we can be reasonably sure the sound is a velar + labial or velar + glide + labial.

No, it merely shows that the writer does not have a symbol map to distinguish k from w pronunciation when done in quick succession.
[/quote]

They do have a symbol map. And sometimes separate symbols for k and w are also used.

It is an alternative hypothesis. "Specialists"?

Specialists are those who are familiar with Greek and it's development and have studied Minoan inscriptions.

It could be the result of an imperfect assimilation or approximation attempted to mimic one specific sound - depending on two distinct population groups who have their preexisting predilection in two different directions.

Give pointers to population groups and their predelictions.

[ManishH]

OK. Where was it composed then according to AIT/AMT? In India?

Yes in India.

What should be the age of RigVeda be then? I think you are being deliberately vague here. If RigVeda cannot be in 3500BC why don't you take the trouble of mentioning a date.

shiv's post here said 3500 BC
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 1#p1295091

But based on archaeological evidence, I think the earliest it could be is the start of 2nd millenium BC. None of these dates are written in stone - new archaeological evidence will change all models.

[Dan Mazer]

Surely electrons weren't 'proto-electrons' before someone first named them?

Weird analogy. Languages are created by humans. Electrons are natural.

My point was that an entity doesn't begin to exist only when someone names it i.e. Sanskrit would have existed before Panini called it as such.

Leaving that aside, could you please explain what would be the problem with this scenario: PIE comes to India. Evolves into Sanskrit in India. PIE/Sanskrit becomes more widely spoken during this transition period (by some mechanism). Rig Veda is composed by some other groups in India speaking this new evolving language i.e. Rig Veda has nothing to do with some supposed 'Indo-European' culture, religion etc... This would explain the strong linguistic evidence and eliminate the need to explain away all the weak evidence linking Rig Veda and the original PIE homeland.

[tyroneshoes]

Problem - is you chose not to understand the context of my pointer. The horse is central in RV theology because the largest number of "gods" ride them? But the supreme god is still not a horse - onlee a rider of the horse. If the RV world's pivot was the horse - you would expect a hose god - won't you?

Both cattle and horses are important in RgVeda. Since there is no Cow God either, I'm not sure what you want to imply.

Indra and Agni are "Bulls" - several verses in multiple mandalas to quote.
Even other Gods are referred to as the Bull - example Visnu, etc.
The "Bulls" tear down cities (nay small encampments )
The Gods are never a Horse, they just ride the dumb horses.

Interestingly, there are some verses of Mystical Horses killing serpents, etc.
I'd never consider (most breeds I know) a horse to not spook seeing a snake, heck they spook on anything that even looks like a snake!

I have seen Mules doing that....


It just makes me wonder what kind of horse is this? Someone who knows Horse behavior can perhaps clarify. I have not seen evidence of bravery from horses with snakes, quite the opposite actually.

In any case....

The Horse is mystical, the Gods are Bulls!

[Lalmohan]

we also need to think of earlier and later migrations to see if there might be patterns or inferences
1. homo erectus and later sapiens spreading out from africa and into india (archeological remains in the thar and elsewhere) - what happened to these populations?
2. post AIT/OIT invaders/migrants - Kushanas, Shakas, Hunas - presumably repeating the pattern of AIT - in each case we see absorption into the established culture that they invaded - what does that imply for AIT?
3. If OIT is true, then what happened to the Indic cultural traits once outside the 'homeland'?

[shiv]

shiv's post here said 3500 BC
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 1#p1295091

Bliss to read again saar. I wrote 3500 BCE (Before Current Era) which is 1500 BC.

[RajeshA]

By the same logic, the absence of steppe river names/goddesses in India should prove that AIT did not take place.

Where's the 'absence' ? Sarasvati does not go back to united IE times. But I also quoted the example of 'dyaus pitar' and 'jupiter' that go far back to IE dispersals.

"Dyaus Pitar" is according to you a pre-Rigvedic deity. Other than that he is found in Greek-Roman mythology, is there any evidence placing him chronologically as pre-Rigvedic and not Rigvedic.

[shiv]

RgVeda cannot be in 3500 BCE. Not even by OIT chronology which says mahabharata war itself ended in 3000 BCE and RgVeda took 2000 years to compose. Rest of your logic was built on this assumption.

No saar, Here is my post translated from BCE to BC

2. If a "proto-Indo Iranian" language (or a proto Sanskrit) existed it needs to have evolved into Sanskrit before the Rig Veda was composed. That is "Proto Sanskrit" or PII (Proto Indo Iranian) existed prior to Rig Veda which is dated to 3500 BCE (1500 BC). That means that a proto language, yet to become Sanskrit had entered the "Indo-Iranian" land area before 3500 BCE (1500 BC).

Now the Botai remains are dated to 3500 BCE (1500 BC). Since archaeologists do not clutch at straws, there is NO evidence of horse domestication prior to 3500 BCE (1500 BC) and that domestication occurred in Central Asia. But, concurrently, in 3500 BCE (1500 BC) the Rig Veda was being composed in faraway India. That means that proto-Indo Iranians had entered the area BEFORE horse domestication occurred (since one cannot live in hope about future findings) and long before Sanskrit itself was a separate language.

Despite this paradox, where horse domestication is pinned to 3500 BCE (1500 BC) in Botai, and Proto Indo-Europeans predate horse domestication, it is accepted that the people who composed the Rig Veda had domesticated horses. This can only mean that there is a likelihood that horses were indeed domesticated earlier than 3500 BCE (1500 BC) although firm evidence (absence of straw clutching) is pinned at Botai 3500 BCE (1500 BC).

[RajeshA]

RajeshA, Hyagriva avatar of Vishnu.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayagriva

The story goes that on the banks of river Saraswati, once a daitya called Hayagriva (one with the neck of a horse) meditated on Devi using the Bija Mantra. He eschewed all comforts and after severe penance and when Devi appeared, Hayagriva requested a boon of immortality. Devi asked him to take another boon as immortality was not for the life-forms. So Hayagriva requested that he be killed only by another Hayagriva.

This instilled a sense of invincibility and he started harassing the Devas. The Devas approached Vishnu to come to their rescue. However Vishnu was sleeping in Vaikuntha with his head lying upon his bow.

The Devas and Brahma were in a quandary how to wake up Vishnu. Brahma asked some Vamri (white ants) to chew on the bowstring, hoping that Vishnu would awaken once it snaps. However as the string was cut by the ants, the bow snapped with such force that the bow-string also cut off Vishnu head, which landed in the salty ocean.

On seeing this, the Devas were naturally horrified. But Devi comforted them and said that it was all a part of the plan. She then suggested that the Devas go and get a horse's head. Vishwakarma then fixed the horse's head on Vishnu shoulders. Hence Vishnu was recreated as Hayagriva.

The Vishnu-Hayagriva proceeded to fight the daitya Hayagriva and killed him.

--------------------------------------

As is often said, one can read Hindu scriptures at multiple levels. Here is how I would interpret it somewhat more anthropologically.

There was an asuric presence on the banks of Saraswati - either an army headed by a general on a horse or one with cavalry. The devas did not have horses.

It is only when the devas (the Indics) decided to use horses as well, did the asuric presence retreat.

That means an army with horses could only be defeated by another army if it too deployed horses in its main assault, so to speak, headed by horses.

We seem to be speaking of a time

1. When Saraswati was flowing (normally).
2. When the Iranians (Asuras) were still in the Saraswati region and the Indo-Iranians had not yet dispersed.
3. When the tensions among the Indo-Iranians had already increased, as Iranians were not respectful of (particular) Vedic practices or Vedic practices (conducted by particular groups, fearing them).
4. Iranians were having access to horses, most probably through their own trade relations with Central Asia.

Moreover if one looks at the boon that daitya Hayagriva receives, that he be killed only by another Hayagriva, it also infers to the general paucity of horses in the Subcontinent. The Daitya Hayagriva asks for such a boon, hoping that since horses were so scarce, no enemy would be able to set up a cavalry so large which could defeat it, making him practically invincible.

Possibly the cutting of Vishnu's head through the work of some "white ants" could refer to a change in leadership of the armies of the Devas (Indics), bringing in a leadership which was more willing to make use of horses.

The legend of Hayagriva Avatar of Vishnu is mostly popular in Shakti traditions, and Shakti traditions are known since 22 kya in the Subcontinent.

Disclaimer: Intent was not to hurt the feelings of anybody, but just to look at the legend from a different angle.

[ManishH]

shiv's post here said 3500 BC
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 1#p1295091

Bliss to read again saar. I wrote 3500 BCE (Before Current Era) which is 1500 BC.

shiv-ji: BCE is 'before common era'. it's just a non-christian way of saying BC. The two are numerically equivalent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era

You should have written 3500 BP (before present) if that's what you meant. I'm not sure how many conclusions you have derived built on the misunderstanding that BCE != BC.

Anyway, your red-marked post is going to create more muddle now. I suggest correcting it to avoid further confusion on the thread.

Especially important is that Botai findings are 3,500 BCE which is around 1,500 years before Surkotada horse finding of 2,100 - 1,700 BCE

[ManishH]

ManishH, the main conclusion has to be that the Rg Veda was composed long after PIE dispersal (whether AIT or OIT).

I agree.

[RajeshA]

ManishH, the main conclusion has to be that the Rg Veda was composed long after PIE dispersal (whether AIT or OIT).

PIE dispersal or OIT need not be seen as a one time affair.

There were probably several Out-of-India migrations - proto-Iranians, Mitannis and Romas being just few of them, and many of those migrations could have taken place after Rigvedic composition.

After all "Dyaus Pitar" was also known in Greece and Rome as Zeus and Jupiter!

[shiv]

shiv-ji: BCE is 'before common era'. it's just a non-christian way of saying BC. The two are numerically equivalent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era

OK thanks for the correction. Won't bother changing posts because I don't think I have made too many other errors but will stick to BC or other less confusing (to me) dates.

Date of Rig Veda - 1500 BC
Per Googal - Botai horse skulls are 2500 BC from this source.

I did find a Wiki source quoting 2100 to 1700 BC for the same (age of horse skulls) . The David Anthony you have quoted so often is cited as a reference for this in Wiki. These are what I had in mind when I erred in the post. These dates would be almost concurrent with Rig Veda given that 500 years seems only a flash to be added or subtracted between friends. In general I am unable to find definite references for the age of the horse bones although the Botai sites are listed as being 5000-5500 years old and show evidence of horse milk in ceramic apart from horse teeth with bit wear. But its the dates of those horse teeth/jawbones that I have been looking for. "Domestication of the horse" is said to have taken place 5-6000 years ago. But what is the age of those skulls in the Botai graves?

My post was based on the assumption of a similar date for those buried skulls and Rig veda. What is the age of those horse skulls, not the entire site or the graves?

[shiv]

Especially important is that Botai findings are 3,500 BCE which is around 1,500 years before Surkotada horse finding of 2,100 - 1,700 BCE

Yes. It is the 2100-1700 BC date of the horse bones that roughly coincides with the Rig Veda. Everything I can find on the net suggests that the Botai site is 5000 years old, but when we speak of unequivocal proof of dating of something tangible like bit wear - that date comes to 2100 to 1700 BC as far as I can tell. The earlier dates refer to the layers that the grave sites correspond to and other ancillary dating methods and not something as objective as mass spectrometry.

I can see that milk soaked ceramics exist and phosphorus (horse manure remains) rich circles of holes thought to be remnants of corrals exist. But what objective dating has been done?

[ManishH]

OK thanks for the correction.

No issues.

Date of Rig Veda - 1500 BC
Per Googal - Botai horse skulls are 2500 BC from this source.

shiv-ji: The domesticated horse find in Botai is not 2,500 BC. It is a millenium before that - ~3500 BC.

The case for horse management and riding at Botai and Kozhai 1 is
based on the presence of bit wear on seven Botai-Tersek horse P 2 s from
two different sites, carcass transport and butchering practices, the discov-
ery of horse-dung-filled stable soils, a 1:1 sex ratio, and changes in econ-
omy and setdement pattern consistent with the beginning of riding. The
case against riding is based on the low variability in leg thickness and the
absence of riding-related pathologies in a small sample of horse vertebrae,
possibly from wild hunted horses, which probably made up 75-90% of the
horse bones at Botai. We are reasonably certain that horses were bitted
and ridden in northern Kazakhstan beginning about 3700-3500 BCE.

My post was based on the assumption of a similar date for those buried skulls and Rig veda.

There is a gap of ~1,500 years between Botai find and Surkotada find.

[ShauryaT]

Do not know, if the contents of this site has entered the debate here. I have B.B Lal's works with me, remember reading about this controversy, which is not new.

http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifa ... ebate.html