Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[SaiK]

Taxonomists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy

In the East, one of the earliest recorded pharmacopoeias was written by Shen Nung, Emperor of China (c. 3000 BC). He wanted to spread information related to agriculture and medicine, and is said to have tasted hundreds of plants with the goal of learning their medicinal value. Records after this are difficult to interpret for some time, but medicinal plant illustrations show up in Egyptian wall paintings from c. 1500 BC.[9]

Now, I think we have missing data in this wiki link. Are we blank here?

[RajeshA]

Like for the Indians it is obvious and for some less so, that India is the homeland of our civilization, for Iranians a similar conviction seems to carry less meaning.

In "The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis" Talageri looks at the evidence that the Avesta provides about the earlier homeland of the Iranians.

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There is, however, an older source of evidence: the Avesta.

As Skjærvø puts it, “the only sources for the early (pre-Achaemenid) history of the eastern Iranian peoples are the Avesta, the Old Persian inscriptions, and Herodotus. … In view of the dearth of historical sources it is of paramount importance that one should evalute the evidence of the Avesta, the holy book of the Zoroastrians, parts at least of which antedate the Old Persian inscriptions by several centuries.”

The Avesta is the oldest valid source for the earliest history and geography of the Iranians, and Skjærvø therefore examines the “internal evidence of the Avestan texts” in respect of geographical names.

About the “earliest geographical names”, he tells us: “A very few geographical names appear to be inherited from Indo-Iranian times. For instance, OPers. Haraiva-, Av. (acc.) HarOiium, and OPers. HarauvatI, Av. HaraxvaitI-, both of which in historical times are located in the area of southern Afghanistan (Herat and Kandahar), correspond to the two Vedic rivers Sarayu and SarasvatI. These correspondences are interesting, but tell us nothing about the early geography of the Indo-Iranian tribes.”

Here again we see the sharp contradiction between the facts and the conclusion: “the earliest geographical names … inherited from Indo-Iranian times” indicate an area in southern Afghanistan, as per Skjærvø’s own admission. However, this evidence does not accord with the Theory. Hence Skjærvø concludes that while this information is “interesting” (whatever that means), it “tells us nothing about the early geography of the Indo-Iranian tribes”!

The geography of the Avesta is also equally “interesting”: “Two Young Avestan texts contain lists of countries known to their authors, YaSt 10 and VidEvdAd, Chapter 1. The two lists differ considerably in terms of composition and are therefore most probably independent of one another. Both lists contain only countries in northeastern Iran.” Skjærvø clarifies on the same page that when he says “northeastern Iran”, he means “Central Asia, Afghanistan and northeastern modem Iran”. All these places are “located to the east of the Caspian Ocean, with the possible exception of Raga”. But, again, he clarifies later that this is only if Raga is identified with “Median RagA … modem Ray south of Tehran. In the VidEvdAd, however, it is listed between the Helmand river and Caxra (assumed to be modern Carx near Ghazna in southeast Afghanistan) and is therefore most probably different from Median RagA and modern Ray.”

While Skjærvø accepts that western Iran was unknown to the early Iranians, he is deliberately silent on a crucial part of the Avestan evidence.

He deliberately omits to mention in his list of names “inherited from Indo-Iranian times” (i.e. common to the Rigveda and the Avesta) as well as in his description of the areas covered in YaSt 10 and VidEvdAd, Chapter 1, the name of a crucial area known to the Avesta: the Hapta-HAndu or the Punjab!

Skjærvø does mention the Hapta-HAndu when he details the list of names given in the VidEvdAd; but he merely translates it as “the Seven Rivers”, pointedly avoids mentioning anywhere that this refers to the Punjab, and generally treats it as just another piece of information which is “interesting” but “tells us nothing” about anything, since it runs counter to the Theory.

But whatever the conclusions of the scholars, the facts of the case, as indicated by themselves, give us the following picture of Iranian geography:

1. Pre-Avestan Period: Punjab, southern Afghanistan.

2. Early and Late Avestan Periods: Punjab, Afghanistan, Central Asia, northeastern Iran.

3. Post-Avestan Period: Afghanistan, Central Asia, Iran.

....

We will examine the geography of the Avesta, as detailed by Gnoli as follows:

A. The West and the East.
B. The North and the South.
C. The Punjab.

II. A. The West and the East

Gnoli repeatedly stresses “the fact that Avestan geography, particularly the list in Vd. I, is confined to the east,” and points out that this list is “remarkably important in reconstructing the early history of Zoroastrianism”.

Elsewhere, he again refers to “the entirely eastern character of the countries listed in the first chapter of the VendidAd, including Zoroastrian RaYa, and the historical and geographical importance of that list”.

The horizon of the Avesta, Gnoli notes, “is according to Burrow, wholly eastern and therefore certainly earlier than the westward migrations of the Iranian tribes.”

In great detail, he rejects theories which seek to connect up some of the places named in the Avesta (such as Airyana VaEjah and RaYa) with areas in the west, and concludes that this attempt to transpose the geography of the Avesta from Afghanistan to western Iran “was doubtless due to different attempts made by the most powerful religious centres of western Iran and the influential order of the Magi to appropriate the traditions of Zoroastrianism that had flourished in the eastern territories of the plateau in far-off times. Without a doubt, the identification of RaYa with AdurbAdagAn, more or less parallel with its identification with Ray, should be fitted into the vaster picture of the late location of Airyana VaEjah in ADarbAyjAn.”

The crucial geographical list of sixteen Iranian lands, in the first chapter of the VendidAd, is fully identified: “From the second to the sixteenth country, we have quite a compact and consistent picture. The order goes roughly from north to south and then towards the east: Sogdiana (Gava), Margiana (Mourv), Bactria (BAx?I, Nisaya between Margiana and Bactria, Areia (HarOiva), KAbulistAn (VaEkArAta), the GaznI region (UrvA), XnAnta, Arachosia (HaraxvaitI), Drangiana (HaEtumant), a territory between Zamin-dAvar and Qal‘at-i-Gilzay (RaYa), the LUgar valley (Caxra), BunEr (VarAna), PañjAb (Hapta HAndu), RaNhA … between the KAbul and the Kurram, in the region where it seems likely the Vedic river RasA flowed.”

Gnoli notes that India is very much a part of the geographical picture: “With VarAna and RaNhA, as of course with Hapta HAndu, which comes between them in the Vd. I list, we find ourselves straight away in Indian territory, or, at any rate, in territory that, from the very earliest times, was certainly deeply permeated by Indo-Aryans or Proto-Indoaryans.”

Although the scholars are careful to include “northeastern modem Iran” in their descriptions, the areas covered by the VendidAd list only touch the easternmost borders of Iran: but they cover the whole of Afghanistan, the northern half of present-day Pakistan (NWFP, Punjab), and the southern parts of Central Asia to the north of Afghanistan, and, again, in the east, they enter the northwestern borders of present-day (post-1947) India.

Gnoli identifies fifteen of the sixteen Iranian lands named in the VendidAd list. But he feels that “the first of the countries created by Ahura Mazda, Airyana VaEjah, should be left out” of the discussion, since “this country is characterized, in the Vd. I context, by an advanced state of mythicization”.

While this (i.e. that Airyana VaEjah is a mythical land, a purely imaginary Paradise) is a possibility, there is another alternate possibility: the other fifteen lands, from Gava (Sogdiana) to RaNhA (the region between the KAbul and Kurrum rivers in the NWFP) are clearly named in geographical order proceeding from north to south, turning east, and again proceeding northwards.

That the list of names leads back to the starting point is clear also from the fact that the accompanying list of the evil counter-creations of Angra Mainyu, in the sixteen lands created by Ahura Mazda, starts with “severe winter” in the first land, Airyana VaEjah, moves through a variety of other evils (including various sinful proclivities, obnoxious insects, evil spirits and physical ailments), and comes back again to “severe winter” in the sixteenth land, RaNhA.

A logical conclusion would be that the first land, Airyana VaEjah, lies close to the sixteenth land (RaNhA). The lands to the north (VarAna), west (VaEkArAta, Caxra, UrvA), and south (Hapta-HAndu) of RaNhA are named, so Airyana VaEjah must be in Kashmir to the east of RaNhA. RaNhA itself leads Gnoli “to think of an eastern mountainous area, Indian or Indo-Iranian, hit by intense cold in winter”.

In sum, the geography of the Avesta almost totally excludes present-day Iran and areas to its north and west, and consists exclusively of Afghanistan and areas to its north and east, including parts of Rigvedic India (see map opposite p.120).

II. B. The North and the South

The geographical horizon of the Avesta (excluding for the moment the Punjab in the east) extends from Central Asia in the north to the borders of Baluchistan in the south.

This region, from north to south, can be divided as follows:

1. Northern Central Asia (XvAirizAm).

2. Southern Central Asia (Gava, Mourv, Bax?I, Nisaya), including the northern parts of Afghanistan to the north of the HindUkuS.

3. Central Afghanistan (HarOiva, VaEkArAta, UrvA, XnAnta, Caxra) to the south of the HindUkuS

4. Southern Afghanistan (HaraxvaitI, HaEtumant, RaYa) to the borders of Baluchistan in the south.

Let us examine the position of each of these four areas in the geography of the Avesta:

1. The Avesta does not know any area to the north, or west, of the Aral Sea. The northernmost area, the only place in northern Central Asia, named in the Avesta is Chorasmia or KhwArizm, to the south of the Aral Sea.

The compulsion to demonstrate an Iranian (and consequently Indo-Iranian) migration from the north into Afghanistan has led many scholars to identify Chorasmia with Airyana VaEjah, and to trace the origins of both Zoro-astrianism as well as the (Indo-)Iranians to this area.

However, Gnoli points out that Chorasmia “is mentioned only once” in the whole of the Avesta. Moreover, it is not mentioned among the sixteen lands created by Ahura Mazda listed in the first chapter of the VendidAd. It is mentioned among the lands named in the Mihr YaSt (Yt.10.14) in a description of the God Mitra standing on the mountains and surveying the lands to his south and north.

Gnoli emphasizes the significance of this distinction: “the countries in Vd.I and Yt.X are of a quite different nature: the aim of the first list is evidently to give a fairly complete description of the space occupied by the Aryan tribes in a remote period in their history.” Clearly, Chorasmia is not part of this space.

As a matter of fact, Chorasmia is named as “practically the very furthest horizon reached by Mi?ra’s gaze” and Gnoli suggests that “the inclusion of the name of Chorasmia in this YaSt … could in fact be a mention or an interpolation whose purpose, whether conscious or unconscious, was rather meant to continue in a south-north direction the list of lands over which Mitra’s gaze passed by indicating a country on the outskirts such as Chorasmia (which must have been very little known at the time the YaSt was composed)”.

The suggestion that the inclusion of Chorasmia in the YaSt is an interpolation is based on a solid linguistic fact: the name, XvAirizAm, as it occurs in the reference, is “in a late, clearly Middle Persian nominal form”.

Hence Gnoli rejects as “groundless” any theory which attempts “to show that airyanAm VaEjO in the VendidAd is equivalent to XvAirizAm in the Mihr YaSt”44, and which tries to reconstruct “from a comparison of the geographical data in the Mihr YaSt and the ZamyAd YaSt the route followed by the Iranian tribes in their migration southwards, or the expansion in the same direction of the Zoroastrian community”.

As a matter of fact, even though it contradicts the Theory, there have been a great many scholars who have claimed a movement in the opposite direction in the case of Chorasmia: “It has been said that the Chorasmians moved from the south (from the territory immediately to the east of the Parthians and the Hyrcanians) towards the north (to XwArizm).”

The scholars who make this claim suggest that “the probable ancient seat of the Chorasmians was a country with both mountainous areas and plains, much further south than XIva, whereas the oasis of XIva was a more recent seat which they may have moved to precisely in consequence of the growing power of the Achaemenians by which, as Herodotus says, they were deprived of a considerable part of their land”.

While Gnoli does not agree with the late chronology suggested for this south-to-north movement, and gives evidence to show that “Chorasmia corresponded more or less to historical XwArizm even before Darius I’s reign (521-486 BC)”, he nevertheless agrees with the suggested direction of migration, which is, moreover, backed by the opinion of archaeologists:

“As a matter of fact, we are able to reconstruct a south-north migration of the Chorasmians on a smaller scale only, as it is a well known fact that the delta of the Oxus moved in the same direction between the end of the second millennium and the 6th century BC and ended up flowing into the Aral Sea.” Therefore, “we cannot rule out the possibility that the Chorasmians, as pointed out, moved in this same direction and that at the beginning of the Achaemenian empire there were still settlements of them further south. At all events, this is the explanation that archaeologists give for the proto-historic settlement of Chorasmia, without taking into account precise ethnic identifications.”

In short, far from being the early homeland from which the (Indo-)Iranians migrated southwards, “XwArizm … appears upon an unprejudiced examination, as a remote, outlying province which never played a really central part in the political and cultural history of Iran before the Middle Ages”. And the region was so unknown that there was, among the Iranians, “absence of any sure knowledge of the very existence of the Aral Sea as a separate body of water with a name of its own, even as late as the time of Alexander”.

2. The countries in southern Central Asia and northern Afghanistan (Sogdiana, Margiana and Bactria), particularly southern Bactria or Balkh which falls in northern Afghanistan, are very much a part of Iranian territory as per the evidence of the Avesta.

However, this evidence also makes it clear that these territories were, in the words of Gnoli, “peripheral”, and the traditions to this effect persisted as late as the period of the Macedonian conquest of these areas.

As Gnoli puts it: “in the denomination of Ariana, which became known to the Greeks after the Macedonian conquest of the eastern territories of the old Persian empire, there was obviously reflected a tradition that located the Aryan region in the central-southern part of eastern Iran, roughly from the HindUkuS southwards, and that considered some of the Medes and the Persians in the west and some of the Bactrians and Sogdians in the north as further extensions of those people who were henceforth known by the name of Ariani. And this, to tell the truth, fits nicely into the picture we have been trying to piece so far. Here too, as in the passages of the Avesta we have studied from the Mihr YaSt and the ZamyAd YaSt, the geographical horizon is central-eastern and southeastern; the northern lands are also completely peripheral, and Chorasmia, which is present only in the very peculiar position of which we have spoken in the Mihr YaSt, is not included.” (Note: by “eastern Iran”, Gnoli refers to Afghanistan, which forms the eastern part of the Iranian plateau.)

Balkh or southern Bactria does play a prominent role in later Iranian and Zoroastrian tradition “which would have ViStAspa linked with Balx and SIstAn” (i.e. with both the northernmost and southernmost parts of Afghanistan).

However, referring to “the tradition that links Kavi ViStAspa with Bactria”, Gnoli notes that “the explanation of ViStAspa being Bactrian and not Drangian is a feeble one”. He attributes the tradition to “the period of Bactrian hegemony which Djakonov dates between 650 and 540 BC”, during which “the old … tradition of Kavi ViStAspa, who was originally linked with Drangiana, could have taken on, so to speak, a new, Bactrian guise”.

The Avesta itself is clear in identifying ViStAspa with the southern regions only.

In sum, the more northern regions of Sogdiana and Margiana were “completely peripheral”, and, in the words of Gnoli, “we may consider that the northernmost regions where Zoroaster carried out his work were Bactria and Areia”.

3. When we come to the areas to the south of the HindUkuS, we are clearly in the mainland of the Avestan territory.

Gnoli repeatedly stresses throughout his book that the airyo-Sayana or Land of the Aryans described in the Avesta refers to “the vast region that stretches southward from the HindUkuS,”58 that is, “from the southern slopes of the great mountain chains towards the valleys of the rivers that flow south, like the Hilmand…” In this respect he notes that “there is a substantial uniformity in the geographical horizon between Yt.XIX and Yt.X ... and the same can be said for Vd.I … these Avestan texts which contain in different forms, and for different purposes, items of information that are useful for historical geography give a fairly uniform picture: eastern Iran, with a certain prevalence of the countries reaching upto the southern slopes of the HindUkuS.”

Likewise, in later Greek tradition, ArianE “is the Greek name which doubtless reflects an older Iranian tradition that designated with an equivalent form the regions of eastern Iran lying mostly south, and not north, of the HindUkuS. It is clear how important this information is in our research as a whole.”

Again, it must be noted that Gnoli uses the term “eastern Iran” to designate Afghanistan, which forms the eastern part of the Iranian plateau.

4. But it is the southern part of this “vast region that stretches southward from the HindUkuS,” which clearly constitutes the very core and heart of the Avesta: SIstAn or Drangiana, the region of HaEtumant (Hilmand) and the HAmUn-i Hilmand basin which forms its western boundary (separating Afghanistan from present-day Iran).

Gnoli notes that “the Hilmand region and the HAmUn-i Hilmand are beyond all doubt the most minutely described countries in Avestan geography. The ZamyAd YaSt, as we have seen, names the Kasaoya, i.e. the HAmUn-i Hilmand, USi?am mountain, the KUh-i XwAja, the HaEtumant, the Hilmand, and the rivers XvAstrA, HvaspA, Frada?A, XvarAnahvaitI, UStavaitI, Urva?a, ?rAzi, ZarAnumaiti, which have a number of parallels both in the Pahlavi texts, and especially in the list in the TArIx-i SIstAn. Elsewhere, in the AbAn YaSt, there is mention of Lake FrazdAnu, the Gawd-i Zira.”

He notes the significance of “the identification of the VourukaSa in Yt.XIX with the HAmUn-i Hilmand … of the NAydAg with the SilA, the branch connecting the HAmUn to the Gawd-i Zira, of the FrazdAnu with the Gawd-i Zira … and above all, the peculiar relationship pointed out by Markwart, between VaNuhI DAityA and the HaEtumant…”

Gnoli points out that “a large part of the mythical and legendary heritage can be easily located in the land watered by the great SIstanic river and especially in the HamUn”64, including the “important place that Yima/ JamSId, too, has in the SIstanic traditions in the guise of the beneficient author of a great land reclamation in the Hilmand delta”.

ViStAspa is identified with Drangiana, ZarathuStra with RaYa to its northeast. But, “the part played by the Hilmand delta region in Zoroastrian eschatology ... (is) important not only and not so much for the location of a number of figures and events of the traditional inheritance - we can also call to mind DaSt-i HAmOn, the scene of the struggle between WiStAsp and ArjAsp - as for the eschatology itself. The natural seat of the XvarAnah - of the Kavis and of the XvarAnah that is called axvarAta - and of the glory of the Aryan peoples, past, present and future, the waters of the Kasaoya also receive the implantation of the seed of Zara?uStra, giving birth to the three saoSyant- fraSO- CarAtar-”.

This region is subject to “a process of spiritualization of Avestan geography … in the famous celebration of the Hilmand in the ZamyAd YaSt…”, and “this pre-eminent position of SIstAn in Iranian religious history and especially in the Zoroastrian tradition is a very archaic one that most likely marks the first stages of the new religion … the sacredness of the HAmUn-i Hilmand goes back to pre-Zoroastrian times…”

Clearly, the position of the four areas, from north to south, into which the geographical horizon of the Avesta can be divided, shows the older and more important regions to be the more southern ones; and any movement indicated is from the south to the north.

Before turning to the Punjab, one more crucial aspect of Avestan geography must be noted.

According to Gnoli: “the importance of cattle in various aspects of the Gathic doctrine can be taken as certain. This importance can be explained as a reflection in religious practice and myth of a socioeconomic set-up in which cattle-raising was a basic factor.”

Therefore, in identifying the original milieu of the Iranians, since “none of the countries belonging to present-day Iran or Afghanistan was recognised as being a land where men could live by cattle-raising, the conclusion was reached once again that the land must be Chorasmia, and Oxus the river of Airyana VaEjah”.

However, this conclusion was reached “on the basis of evidence that turned out to be unreliable, perhaps because it was supplied too hastily”. As a matter of fact, a “recent study … and, in general, the results obtained by the Italian Archaeological Mission in SIstAn, with regard to the protohistoric period as well, have given ample proof that SIstAn, especially the HAmUn-i Hilmand region, is a land where cattle-raising was widely practised. And it still is today, though a mere shadow of what it once was, by that part of the population settled in the swampy areas, that are called by the very name of GAwdAr. From the bronze age to the Achaemenian period, from Sahr-i Suxta to Dahana-i-GulAmAn, the archaeological evidence of cattle-raising speaks for itself: a study of zoomorphic sculpture in protohistoric SIstAn, documented by about 1500 figurines that can be dated between 3200 and 2000 BC leads us to attribute a special ideological importance to cattle in the Sahr-i Suxta culture, and this is fully justified by the place this animal has in the settlement’s economy and food supply throughout the time of its existence.”

We may now turn to the Punjab, an area in which there can be no doubt whatsoever about cattle-raising always having been an important occupation.

II.C. The Punjab

The easternmost regions named in the Avesta cover a large part of present-day Pakistan, and include western Kashmir and the Indian Punjab: VarAna, RaNhA and Hapta-HAndu, and, as we have suggested, Airyana VaEjah itself.

Gnoli’s descriptions of Avestan geography, whether or not such is his intention, indicate that the Iranians ultimately originated either in southern Afghanistan itself or in areas further east. Neither of these possibilities is suggested, or even hinted at, by Gnoli, since, as we have pointed out, Gnoli is not out to challenge the standard version of Indo-European history, nor perhaps does he even doubt that version.

However, his analysis and description of Avestan geography clearly suggest that the antecedents of the Iranians lie further east:

1. Gnoli repeatedly stresses the fact that the evidence of the Avesta must be understood in the background of a close presence of Indoaryans (or Proto-Indoaryans, as he prefers to call them) in the areas to the east of the Iranian area: “With VarAna and RaNhA, as of course with Hapta-HAndu, which comes between them in the Vd.I list, we find ourselves straightaway in Indian territory or, at any rate, in territory that, from the very earliest times, was certainly deeply permeated by Indo-Aryans or Proto-Indoaryans.”

In the Avestan descriptions of VarAna (in the VendidAd), Gnoli sees “a country, where the ‘Airyas’ (Iranians) were not rulers and where there was probably a hegemony of Indo-Aryan or proto-Indoaryan peoples.”

Gnoli is also clear about the broader aspects of a historico-geographical study of the Avesta: “This research will in fact help to reconstruct, in all its manifold parts, an historical situation in which Iranian elements exist side by side with others that are not necessarily non-Aryan (i.e. not necessarily non-Indo-European) but also, which is more probable, Aryan or Proto-Indoaryan.”

The point of all this is as follows: Gnoli’s analysis, alongwith specific statements made by him in his conclusions with regard to the evidence, makes it clear that the areas to the west (i.e. Iran) were as yet totally unknown to the Avesta; and areas to the north, beyond the “completely peripheral” areas of Margiana and Sogdiana, were also (apart from an interpolated reference to Chorasmia in the Mihr YaSt) totally unknown.

On the other hand, the areas to the east were certainly occupied by the Indoaryans: the eastern areas known to the Avesta were already areas in which Iranians existed “side by side” with Indoaryans, and “where there was probably a hegemony” of Indoaryans. Logically, therefore, areas even further east must have been full-fledged Indoaryan areas.

The earlier, or “Indo-Iranian”, ethos of the Iranians cannot therefore, at any rate on the evidence of the Avesta, be located towards the west or the north, but must be located towards the east.

2. Gnoli, as we saw, describes the eastern areas as “Indian territory”, which is quite correct.

However, he goes on to modify this description as “at any rate ... territory that, from the very earliest times was certainly deeply permeated by Indo-Aryans or Proto-Indoaryans”.75

Here Gnoli falls into an error into which all analysts of Iranian or Vedic geography inevitably fall: he blindly assumes (as we have also done in our earlier book) that the Saptasindhu or Punjab is the home of the Vedic Aryans.

This assumption, however, is supported neither by the evidence of the Rigveda nor by the evidence of the Avesta:

The evidence of the Rigveda shows that the home of the Vedic Aryans lay to the east of the Punjab, and the Saptasindhu became familiar to them only after the period of SudAs’ conquests westwards.

The evidence of the Avesta shows that the home of the Iranians at least included the Punjab, long before most of the present-day land known as “Iran” became even known to them.

The point of all this is as follows: Gnoli’s analysis shows that most of the historical Iranian areas (even present-day Iran and northern Central Asia, let alone the distant areas to the west of the Caspian Sea) were not part of the Iranian homeland in Avestan times.

On the other hand, an area which has not been an Iranian area in any known historical period, the Punjab, was a part of the Iranian homeland in Avestan times.

So any comparison of Avestan geography with latter-day and present Iranian geography shows Iranian migration only in the northward and westward directions from points as far east as the Punjab.

The Avesta can give us no further information on this subject.

But, as Gnoli himself puts it, “Vedic-Avestan comparison is of considerable importance for the reconstruction of the ‘Proto-Indoaryan’ and early Iranian historical and geographical milieu.”

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Conclusion: Almost the whole of present day Iran was excluded from the traditional territories of Iranians. They used to live east of those territories.

That is probably the reason, the AIT doesn't seem to bother the Iranians. Does it matter whether they came from Central Asia or South Asia, as they would still be immigrants to the area.

[RajeshA]

Bringing in N.S. Rajaram into the OIT debate:

The Harappan Civilization and Myth of Aryan "Invasion": Hindustan Times

perspective, that the Harappan civilization came at the end of the Vedic age also helps explain a major puzzle; the technological basis for this great civilization. Even a superficial study of Harappan sites suggests that its builders were extremely capable town planners and engineers. And this requires a sophisticated knowledge of mathematics, especially geometry. Elaborate structures like the Great Bath of Mohen-jo-daro, the Lothal harbor or the citadel at Harappa are inconcievable without a detailed knowledge of geometry.

The world had to wait 2000 years more, till the rise of the Roman civilization for sanitation and town planning to reach a comparable level. The question is: where did the Harappans get the necessary mathematical and engineering knowledge? History books tell us that Indians borrowed their geometry from the Greeks. This is absurd. The Harappans must have had the neccessary technical knowledge at least 2,000 years before the Greeks. Without it the civilization would never have seen the light of day. It is as simple as that.

But once we recognise that Harappan archaeology belongs to the closing centuries of the Vedic age, the mystery vanishes. The late Vedic literature includes mathematical texts known as the Sulba-sutras which contain detailed instruction for the building of sacrificial altars. After a monumental study spanning more than 20 years, the distinguished American mathematician and historian of science, Abraham Seidenberg showed that the Sulba-sutras are the source of both Egyptian and old Babylonian mathematics. The Egyptian texts based on the Sulba-sutras go back to before 2,000 BCE. This provides independent comfirmation that Indian mathematical knowledge existed long before that date, ie, during the height of the Harappan era. For further mathematical evidence and quotations please see: Scientific Verification of Vedic Knowledge.

The sulba-sutras are part of the vedic religious literature known as the Kalpasutras. They were created originally to serve as technical manuals for the design and construction of Vedic altars. As previously noted, Harappan sites contain many such altars, a fact that supplies a link between Vedic literature and Harappan archaeology. It serves also to show that the vedic literature could not have been brought in by any invaders - they were needed for building the altars that are very much part of the Harappan archaeology! The sulba-sutra are the oldest mathematical texts known. A careful comparison of the sulba-sutras with the mathematics of Egypt and old Babylonia led Abraham Seidenberg to conclude:

"... the elements of ancient geometry found in Egypt and old Babylonia stem from a ritual system of the kind found in the Sulba-sutras."
What is interesting is that the origins of ancient mathematics are to be found in religion and ritual. So the great engineering feats of the Harappans can be seen as secular off-shoots of the religious mathemtics found in vedic literature. This can in a way be compared to the history of books and publishing, The first books printed were Bibles, like the Gutenberg bible; but the technique of printing soon transcended its original niche and led to an explosion of knowledge that made possible the European renaissance. Similarly, the 'ritual mathematics' in the Sulba-sutras led eventually to the purely secular achievements of the Harappans like city planning and the design of harbours.

The Rig Veda calls the Saraswati the greatest of rivers (Naditame) that flowed from "the mountain to the sea". The latest satellite data combined with field archaeological studies have shown that the Rig Vedic Saraswati had stopped being a perrenial river long before 3,000 BCE.

As Paul-Henri Francfort of CNRS, Paris recently observed,

"...we now know, thanks to the field work of the Indo-French expedition that when the protohistoric people settled in this area, no large river had flowed there for a long time."

The protohistoric people he refers to are the early Harappans of 3,000 BCE. But satellite 'photos show that a great prehistoric river that was over 7 kilometers wide did indeed flow through the area at one time. This was the Saraswati described in the Rig Veda. Numerous archaeological sites have also been located along the course of this great prehistoric river thereby confirming Vedic accounts. The great Saraswati that flowed "from the mountain to the sea" is now seen to belong to a date long anterior to 3,000 BCE. This means that the Rig Veda describes the geography of North India long before 3,000 BCE. This is further supported by the fact that the Drishadvati river, also described in the Rig Veda, had itself gone dry long before 3,000 BCE. All this shows that the Rig Veda must have been in existence no later than 3,500 BCE.

[RajeshA]

Although many doing comparative mythology are of the AIT view, still there is work they have done, that can be interpreted differently.

Published on May 19, 2012
Author: George William Cox
An Introduction to the Science of Comparative Mythology and Folklore
Page 11

many names which in some one or more of a group of dialects have no meaning are perfectly intelligible in other kindred languages; or, to put it in another way, that words which in the one look only like proper names of human beings or of gods with human forms and human appetites appear in the other as names of clouds or storms, light or darkness, mountains, trees, waters, or other objects of the outward world. Thus in Greek, the words Argynnis, Phorôneus, and Erinys, are names which do not explain their own meaning, as do Selênê and Helios, Eos and Asterodia. They cannot be interpreted by any words in the Greek language, or at least the old Greeks were quite unable to find the clue. But in the earliest traditions of India we still find them retaining their original force, and serving simply as names for visible things in heaven and earth. Erinys is thus found to be Saranyû, a name for the dawn as it creeps along the sky;¹ Argynnis appears as Arjuni, a name denoting the brilliancy of the morning o early day; and Phorôneus becomes intelligible as the god of fire Bhuranyu.

¹ The root of the name is Sar, to creep. It gives us not only the name Saranyû, but Sarama, who in the Rig Veda is likewise the dawn, as the guardian of the cows of Indra, which she rescues from the Panis, the robbers of the night. The child of Sarama is Sarameyas, which in Greek is transliterated into Hermeias, or Hermes, the air in motion, or wind. The Sarama itself is reproduced in the Greek Helenê. From this root we have also the name of the Lykian chief Sarpêdôn, the serpent or creeper. Mythology of Aryan Nations, book ii. ch. ii.

Also the S -> H reminds one of Iranian influence in between, i.e. it is another hint that the Alinas, the Hellenes took the Southern route, South of the Caspian Sea to reach Greece, and that Alinas were once part of the Anus.

[member_22872]

From what Bji and shiv ji said about Witzel's internal Chronology of Rg Veda:
So if I understand correctly, I also think he is also attacking chronology of MB, as, if MB is composed around 3000BC, then Rg Veda which was composed earlier than MB should be much older or at least around that time.

1. So what is doing is first he is saying that MB is 'fixed' or doctored.
2. Rg veda could have upto 4% loan words from non IA languages. So he is saying that is only possible only because of foreign influence like AMT perhaps because the words sound more like PIE or atleast non IA.
3. I think there is one more aspect he mentions:

RV words such as k ̄ın ̄a ́sa, K ̄ıkata, Pramaganda, Balbu ̄tha, Brbu, Brsaya are simply not explainable in terms of IE or IIr:

Kikata, is Magadha kingdom, mentioned by Talageri to show that Rg Veda may be earlier mandalas were composed near ganga/yamuna basin. And now Witzel is saying Kikata itself is a loan word, so he is basically is saying that Vedic Indians named it kikata from a memory of some other place? looks like this is his defense to Talageri's chronology.

One more thing Talageri seems to have done apart from looking at just Rg Vedic evidence of chronology is, he looked into Avesta and saw the progression, that is a good idea. Two people of two different geographical entities won't have the same/similar references. Avesta seems to have picked up where later mandalas of Rg Veda left off according to Talageri.
Now even if Witzel argues that even Rg veda is doctored, two different compositions namely Avesta and Rg veda can't be doctored to fix the time lines.

[SaiK]

when it comes to evolution of sounds, even when we compare two discrete set of geographically independently grown sects or even Aborigines or cavemen who have no links/connections whatsoever, could have identically sounding words and sounds.

[member_22872]

^^^ Sai garu, that is true, but if the words look similar, if one's Gods are another's enemies, in the same time zone, that could point that those people could be somehow related, as perceived enemies or distant cousins or just abhorring neighbours.

[SaiK]

I think you defined the relationship here - enemies. one thing is perception, and entirely different aspects are these factoids that comes by way of theories. if one brings out the timeline first, and without going out of time scope, establish the distant cousins, then we are really hyphenated and cannot come out of it. It would be like India-Paki hyphenation that will always remain, no matter we like it or not.

[ramana]

SaiK, The antiquity of China is never questioned. The reason is Indians hold the key to Western civilization and have to be demolished. Its all political. The odd thing is Witzel is on this crusade even after colonialism is dead. Its a new Imperium they are fighting for.
In one sense Witzel is a crytpo Nazi. Let me explain.

Hitler wanted to move Europeans and Christianity out of Hebrew and Jews. He had a slogan "Without Rome, Without Jews we will emerge into a new order!" Maybe some one can get the exact German quote. The point is Witzel and his ilk (Wendy's Children, Martha Nussabum) are pursuing the same.

[RajeshA]

Saik ji,

IMHO, in this Indo-European debate, the Indo-Iranian connection is one which strengthens one another and tilts the debate in favor of the Indians.

[RajeshA]

ramana garu,

IMHO, the agenda has moved on somewhat. It is not any more about getting rid of the Judean shadow. I think they have accustomed themselves with its presence, and don't see it as necessarily negative or weakening them.

I think today, it is really about bolstering the ideological claims and thus foundation of the West. Whichever new "*-ism" or "-cracy" they come up with, is designed to weaken the claims of all other living civilizations to present an alternative model for emulation. And so the rape of history continues by the West with the West offering both the categories to understand world history, as well as proposing their own civilizational superiority having digested the cream from all other civilizations.

It is civilizational war by other means. Islam, Sinic and Dharmic civilizations remain potent adversaries, however Dharmic is the only one that can really prey upon the people in their own ranks. Sinic is too ethno-centric, while Islamic is too-barbarian. So Dharmic Civilization continues to be preyed upon from various angles.

Just my 2 cents.

[ramana]

Agreed.

[SaiK]

The problem could be origination from the core school -

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwcv.htm Maharrsi Balmiki (Sanskrit) Campus, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal, 1972/1973: Mimamsa philosophy (teaching medium Sanskrit, under Nayib Gurujyu Jununath Pandit)

Just bring out all the faults in his investigations, and he would lie thread bare here!

[RajeshA]

By Dorothy Matilda Figueira
Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority Through Myths of Identity
Page 28

Since the modern Occident had no mythology of its own, he noted that "one would have to be invented" (Schlegel 1846: 4.197) The inspiration for this new mythology and hence the Romantic poetry was to be found in the Orient (Schlegel 1906: 2.362). By Orient, Schlegel meant India (Schlegel 1906: 2.357 ff)

[member_22872]

Some time back I was reading "Indo-German Identification : Reconciling South Asian origins and European destinies", some excerpts:

Friedrich Schlegel also found Hinduism to have paved the way for Christianity, which was to provide the foundation for modern Europe’s salvation from degeneration. Schlegel and Schelling, however, lived on to become more politically conservative, more devoutly Christian, and to ultimately reject their initial zealous praise of ancient Indian philosophy.

FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL CONTINUED the tradition of locating the origins of the Germans in India, but eventually took an adversarial stance against South Asian religions. In Über die Sprache und die Weisheit der Indier (On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians, 1808) he described Hinduism and Buddhism as not only pale imitations of the perfected Christianity to come, but essentially nihilist. He thus established a viewpoint about Asian religion that would prove detrimental to the interpretation of Asian religious texts well into the twentieth century. The primary problem for Schlegel’s encounter with Hinduism and the reason for his eventual attack on it is the irreconcilability of Eastern concepts that have no Western equivalents, such as the concept of the void. He was unable to reconcile these cyclical and rectilinear systems because of what one might call his “fear of infinity.”

Novalis saw Hinduism as paving the way for Christianity, and Schlegel, like Schelling, not only agreed with this formulation, but increasingly believed Hinduism to be but a faint shadow of the perfected Christianity to come. This is already foreshadowed in Über die Sprache und die Weisheit der Indier in his exegesis of Sanskrit texts such as the Manusmriti, the Ramayana, the Upanishads, the Pura¯n.as, the Bhagavad Gı¯ta¯, and Abhijña¯nas´a¯kuntalam. He makes very strong claims about the identification of ancient Indians and modern Germans, about mass migrations out of northern India that eventually led to the settling of both northern and southern Europe, thus bringing together the Hellentistic tradition of describing “Aryan” superiority, the Reformation-era tradition of describing all Europeans as Germans, and the emerging anthropological theories of his own time, establishing a line of thought that Poliakov argues led to the “Aryan myth.”1 Yet he finds that it is the destiny of modern Germans to rediscover and further refine the original wisdom of the Indians, which has been sullied by centuries of misinterpretation, desuetude, and ignorance.

I have pdf book. If anybody wants, I can upload it to scribd.

[ramana]

So 'zero' truimphs again. There are many books that criticise the meaning of zero from Christian theology aspects.

Bji, might be able to comment on this.

Also maybe it was to counter Schlegel's view of OIT that they reversed it to AIT and added his views on Indians as degenerate descendents?

[SaiK]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ry-of-zero
check out the comments too.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... gin-of-zer


TIMELINE shows the development of zero throughout the world. The first recorded zero appeared in Mesopotamia around 3 B.C. The Mayans invented it independently circa 4 A.D. It was later devised in India in the mid-fifth century, spread to Cambodia near the end of the seventh century, and into China and the Islamic countries at the end of the eighth. Zero reached western Europe in the 12th century.

[member_22872]

There is rebuttal article to Kaplan's claim that it is not India responsible for the concept of zero. I'm not able locate the article now.

[brihaspati]

ramana ji, "zero" and numbers - the numerals, I think is a key [among many others of course] I feel is important in decoding what happened really. The etymology of numbers is a hotly debated topic. I will try to write on this when I get the time.

So far here is my speculation on the RV process:

(1) Assumption, there was a trans subcontinental and beyond, language process, which out of necessity of commerce and other social exchanges, converged to a common language system - rather than one single language. By a system I mean a multifaceted process - with each facet representing subtle or not so-subtle differences from each other based not only on regions or subregions but also on social position, layers within demographic complexes, professions etc - which is seen even in later or other language processes we can study more reliably. This collective language process became known later as "praakrit", language of the "people". As such it showed the persistent layers and differences from one source to another.

(2) Over time, climatologic and other state formation processes drove regional or competing elite needs to construct identities to mobilize behind their power. Language was seen as a ready tool, because multilinguality is intellectually costly for most of humanity - while, humans are hardwired to detect minutest changes in pronunciations of others. Additionally, from language related studies on social identity construction, we know that language is used to sharpen distinctions in the presence of perceived "others".

(3) The elite competition drove formation of groups of "language" streams that deliberately sharpened distinctions over a base/substrate that was common to all. Such an event is more likely to have happened in whole society versus society rivalry and especially with neighbours fighting over resources. This could be over land and water and trade route dominance. Change of direction of rivers, change in hydrologic flows, change in precipitation, all might be factors.

(4) The war/contest/rivalry could have developed within India, and need not be searched for among "steppenwolfs". This neighbourly competition would be reflected in common memes, expressed in similar linguistic terminology - reflecting the shared cultural past - but subtle differences would be deliberately introduced to sharpen identity distinctions. This sharpening would happen at the hands of the elite or their intellectual leadership - and might be reflected in deliberate construction or "setting down" of language rules to be followed by their followers, with a conscious adoption of changes to heighten differences with rivals.

The RV narratives underlying parts formed in the backdrop of (3)+(4). The centre of narrative creation might have been based more on central-east GV than the west. Hence the underlying base would not show preponderance of Punjab. This would be the period of drier periods during early Holocene - until 8000 ybp, when monsoon was weaker [and continuously increased in strength up to 8 KYBP from which it has gone down slightly to current levels]. During this stage - large river systems lower delta would be the places where sufficient fresh water flowed to make some form of livelihood better feasible as organized larger societies.

(5) In India the possible regional competition centres were based on (a) Sindh-Gujarat-Saraswati estuary (b) the entire main Himalayan piedmont running across from Kashmir to eastern GV (c) coastal southern peninsula [with a possible east and west split]. Each of these major groupings might have their own subregional contests - whichw ere taken advantage of by the rival groupings along the virtual "frontiers". For our purposes, one such frontier would be that between (a) and (b) that of current Rajasthan and unified Punjab.

Linguistcally this would be reflected in elite subregional attention to linguistic "cleaning up", and perhaps the beginning of north-south and east-west drifts. However this would also see explorations into observing speech processes, and the beginnings of a theory of languages and pronunciation. Thus here the "Sanskritization" process and "Tamilization" process might have already started off.

(6) As has repeatedly happened in Indian historical processes later, this GV-Sindh-Saurashtra arc of economic and social processes [with their mutual contest also] has been taken advantage of by independent "in-betweeners", the classic frontiersman, with identities problematic and subject to manipulation by the larger sandwiching powers - but rising up militarily and opportunistically to establish their own cut on the flow. Typically this almost always happened with managing alliances with the "neighbours" in Gandhara-land.

(7) Thus in this framework - a Sudasa or Indra, in their human interpretations, would be the Punjabi "frontierman" leading bands with the intent of establishing their own cut on the northern Indian flow. [Indra III, ancestor of Prithviraj for example, or even ChandraGupta maurya establishing in Parvatak country and gaining power first in Taxila]. They might have allied with Gandhara based similar opportunists, or for that matter from time to time various infighting factions of both Saurashtra and GV [reflected in peculiar narratives of sometimes granting boons to "demons", or allying with them, or diplomatic manipulations].

(8) By Sudas's time - if he had succeeded, militarism, state formation on more modern ideologically familiar imperialist basis would start to form. His intellectual adherents, would be tasked with supporting the state formation [in this case imperialist ambitions] using the legitimizing devices afforded by the collection of narratives that made up the underlying RV.

Moreover, alliances with groupings further to the west - would bring linguistic influences outside of the "cleaning up" traditions, reflected in "stems" resulting from misused versions of the "cleaned up versions" [need not yet be classical Sanskrit as it is called] - from these "western" periphery, into Sudas's camp followers. This would introduce items or elements in structure and usage that are found to be "erroneous" by classical Sanskritists who might have continued to evolve towards more rigorous framing of languages - quite independently of the Punjabi admixyure.

(9) The "legitimizing" device followed by Sudas camp would then be to use the ready made [and propaganda wise useful] pre-existing version of RV into a version that eulogizes the Indra/Sudas model. In this therefore, it will be natural to expect the introduction of more "western-hybrid" linguistic and cultural elements in the "ealier" parts of the preexisting narrative - and elements important for the imperialist expansion drive that Sudas represented - aswa used for ratha in the military sense. They would find any previous metaphorical usage of aswa - a fast large equid - or ratha - a wheeled animal drawn cart - connecting possible astronomical spiritual constructs, most convenient to modify into something that suits their current propaganda image.

The pushing of such elements to the front of RV, both in narrative ordering as well as in elaboration elements of practical recognizability - would serve the legitimization purpose. However, Talageri would of course be able to trace elements of the uderlying older substrate in the early parts pointing towards a more eastern/GV centric origin, and gradual expansion layers to the west - while Witzel would find traces of "substrate" languages not only from "indus" but also from central Asia and Iran, as well as his "sure" evidence for "western outside of India" "flows" into RV. The latter is guided by the assumption that the "departure from classical Sanskrit" in RV represents the assumed older founder inflow from outside.

If we drop that assumption, the departure can also be modeled as corruption of proto-Sanskrit as the imperialist faction recruited Maruts in their drive to the western reaches and stressed the army more than the previous more commercial/educational society. [How camp Farsi and Turki corrupted Hindawi into Urdu].

[A_Gupta]

There is rebuttal article to Kaplan's claim that it is not India responsible for the concept of zero. I'm not able locate the article now.

Is it this?
http://www.slideshare.net/kameshaiyer/b ... april-2006

[A_Gupta]

Kaplan claims that the Sanskrit Kendram (center) is from the Greek Kentron, and that is one of the symptoms of Greek influence on Indian astronomy and mathematics. All it would take is a early enough use of the word to disprove Kaplan. The other would be to locate the word that Indians used for the same concept even if it was later superseded by the Greek word.

[svinayak]

Nakshatra system is not there is Greek astronomy

[SaiK]

I think brihaspati / deva-guru MUST have gotten us the ZERO and the number system.

[member_22872]

Arun Gupta ji, thank you very much, yes that was the article, I read it online as a blog? so couldn't locate it. Eerily, Kaplan's method of taking things at face value about the narration in the sutras sounds familiar to us. It is very similar to Witzel's. Who can take people of great reputation to task? who is to question their expertise? if anything they would twist questioners objections as prejudices filled with chauvinism.

[shiv]

Who can take people of great reputation to task? who is to question their expertise? if anything they would twist questioners objections as prejudices filled with chauvinism.

That is why it is important to create our own narrative. The resurgence or advancement of any civilization requires the creation of a narrative, which is what the west did. Assaulting their narrative makes them accuse you of prejudice and chauvinism. What Indians have done is to allow others to create a narrative for us and we ignore our own narrative.

From the viewpoint of "science" and what is "peer reviewable" there is absolutely nothing that can be used to pinpoint the date of the Rig Veda. So people like Witzel will do dates as per their worldview which demands that language spread in a particular way.

Anyhow I am going to try and move on to the basics of linguistics despite knowing that glottochronology has been trashed. I need to confirm for myself that the assumptions made are credible.

You see this whole language theory rests on the assumption that one proto language split into a satem branch and a centum branch. I need to see is this assumption is valid. I need to see if it is not possible in the evolution of language for people to start saying ch instead of sh or vice versa. I find it very difficult to believe that people will mistake cha or sha for kh or qa (as in Khan or Qatl/mulaqaat).

However if an original word was "ksha" or "chha" (as in chhod or chhaap) it is conceivable that a sha-cha exchange can occur. But I need to see what rules have been documented by linguists using cognates.

I do believe that the change of sound from "ra" to "la" and vice versa is possible and common, also may even "da". Also va and ba/ or wha/bha.

What I find particularly ironic about the satem/centum divide is that the name itself is derived from "shata" in Sanskrit and "cent" in Latin. Actually Italians "chent" for "cent" , hence "Guchi" for Gucci. A totally different word - for "head" - cepalus is pronounced as kephalus. Sanskrit has many words for head including words starting with "ka", and "sha"

As I see it, one problem is that Latin and Greek have a limited and "phonetically challenged" alphabet that cannot express sounds like "kha' and "chha" and "ksha".If you take Sanskrit and "reduce" it to the Roman alphabet you lose the pronunciation very soon. That is why linguists have to stick to a new convention that assigns sounds to the existing Roman alphabet symbols and communicate in gobbledygook like "retroflex" and "palatal" and "aspirate". In Hindi or Sanskrit the sounds they are talking about can easily be expressed by a word which has the appropriate letters. I am sure a lot has been lost over the centuries because of a restricted alphabet. As far as I can tell Latin words with two c's as in "bucca" or "accedere" can be pronounced variably as "cha" or "ka'

So when an English speaking linguist reads about aspirates and retroflexes he may understand bloody well nothing. The ability of an average English onlee speaker in terms of pronunciation leaves a lot to be desired. But the only way I can confirm or allay my own suspicions is to learn.

[shiv]

Language has two problems

1. If you take any language and study it over time - there is a gradual change in words, meanings and pronunciations. Nothing can be done about this and perhaps nothing needs to be done. But the only way of having a record of what a language "used to be" is to have old books/texts (last for up to 1000 years or so) or old sound recordings (last 100 years). The Vedas are like an ancient sound recording. No other language has an equivalent. How do you know that it is an ancient sound recording? Because the Vedas, as chanted in any part of India, be it Srinagar, Kerala or Varanasi are exactly the same in content and pronunciation. There is an inbuilt algorithm for keeping it that way.

2. If you write down the language, your alphabet should ideally have ALL the different types of pronunciation that your language needs. That means that you should be able to accurately read and pronounce ANY word of the language provided you know the alphabet. Here English is very poor and Sanskrit scores very high.

Alphabet is particularly vital in terms of phonetics because they serve as the link between sound and vision. Typically this is taught to children and passes down the generations "manually". If you suddenly find an ancient and unknown alphabet, you can translate it only is there is some context - like a consistent label associated with a picture of a fish or bird or number. Or else you need to have a translation into a known language. But either way the original pronunciation of the alphabet will be unknown.

Linguists have made a whole lot of "working" assumptions based on observation and comparison. The problem for me is to know how far they have stuck to robust science and logic and at what point they have gone apeshit and extrapolated too far. The fact that they have gone apeshit in extrapolation is perfectly clear and there are many "peer reviews" of that fact.

[RajeshA]

On Linguistics,

1) I think it would be worthwhile to introduce a parameter of error probability based on their assumptions. The more assumptions they make, the higher would be its value.

Of course one would have to make it sensitive enough to differentiate between educated guesses and theoretical possibilities, but one would also have to see on what sort of proof, the educated guesses are based on, but even in the case of educated guesses the value of the error probability would be substantial. When one adds up all the error probabilities using some suitable formula, one should be able to arrive at the error probably inherent in each claim be that of a word, or a sentence, or the pronunciation.

Some such system should be introduced and used, just to show on how thin the theoretical ice is on which the PIE people stand.

If it comes out that the chance of correspondence of "constructed PIE" and "real PIE" is only 2 or 3% and has a large accumulated error, it may give other people pause before they start believing "constructed PIE" == "real PIE".

If linguistics is science, why isn't there a suitable error probability parameter already in use?

The AIT linguists have created an artificial language with all sorts of unpronounceable laryngeals etc. and are using the weight of their seats in the academic world to push through and market this PIE. Soon etymological dictionaries would be referring only to PIE origins of words, making this artificial system even more entrenched.

What we need to do is to build a parallel system of error probability based on our own coefficients and models and then for every word and sentence coming out of the PIE camp assign the corresponding error probability to it.

That alone would take away much of their credibility.

2) We also need to build our own models of language development. I assume such models would make it much tougher to create proto-languages with any level of assurance.

[ramana]

Kapala for skull.

[A_Gupta]

^^^^
Shiv, please read through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%81%E1%B9%87ini about Panini, before complaining about retroflex, palatal, etc. The technical stuff begins with him, not with the western linguists.

[RajeshA]

Nothing wrong with linguistics. It is comparative and historical linguistics that is the problem.

[shyam]

Kaplan claims that the Sanskrit Kendram (center) is from the Greek Kentron, and that is one of the symptoms of Greek influence on Indian astronomy and mathematics. All it would take is a early enough use of the word to disprove Kaplan. The other would be to locate the word that Indians used for the same concept even if it was later superseded by the Greek word.

British and other western expers were digesting Indian literature for more than 300 years, and still they called decimal numbers system as Arab-numerals. This name was used till recently until Indians started questioning it. This was a delibrate propaganda by western experts, and Kaplan also uses the same name.

[shiv]

^^^^
Shiv, please read through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%81%E1%B9%87ini about Panini, before complaining about retroflex, palatal, etc. The technical stuff begins with him, not with the western linguists.

No Arun. The problem does not begin with him. Panini did not try to lay down rules for all languages. He laid down rules for Sanskrit. And Panini never claimed that script could substitute for verbal pronunciation.

If you don't know how to pronounce a retroflex "l" or "zh" as in "Kanimozhi" no text can teach you and no text written by a Tamizh scholar will ever help a reader learn. Modern linguistics lays down rules for all sounds first by the use of a specially created alphabet called IPA. Furthermore sounds are clarified by descriptive phrases like "aspirated" or "retroflex". This is praiseworthy stuff and can be called a linguistic tool to compare and study languages. No complaint whatsoever.

The complaint arises when linguists surmise/imagine and attribute sounds from decoded texts of long lost languages. The problem is compounded when those decoded sounds are applied to create an earlier non existent language like PIE.

In fact the Wiki link you have posted has an EXACT illustration of what i am complaining about and how a circular argument is used by linguists to prove themselves right. See this passage:

Dhatupatha

The Dhatupatha is a lexicon of Sanskrit verbal roots subservient to the Ashtadhyayi. It is organized by the ten present classes of Sanskrit, i.e. the roots are grouped by the form of their stem in the present tense.

The ten present classes of Sanskrit are:

1. bhū-ādayaḥ (root-full grade thematic presents)
2. ad-ādayaḥ (root presents)
3. ju-ho-ti-ādayaḥ (reduplicated presents)
4. div-ādayaḥ (ya thematic presents)
5. su-ādayaḥ (nu presents)
6. tud-ādayaḥ (root-zero grade thematic presents)
7. rudh-ādayaḥ (n-infix presents)
8. tan-ādayaḥ (no presents)
9. krī-ādayaḥ (ni presents)
10. cur-ādayaḥ (aya presents, causatives)

Most of these classes are directly inherited from Proto-Indo-European.[citation needed]

Do you see what I mean? PIE is cooked up using many daughter languages of which Sanskrit is one. And then the conclusion is "The mother language (PIE) sounds thus, so that is why Sanskrit sounds like its mother that we cooked up earlier using Sanskrit as one starting point". See the chutzpah here? You use Sanskrit to cook up an earlier "mother" language and then claim that Sanskrit is descended from the very language you have just cooked up. This is a blatant circular argument being passed off as linguistic "science". Heck many of the "sister languages" of Sanskrit used for this "back calculation" of PIE exist only as fragments of texts. You cannot reliably glean pronunciation of dead languages from texts unless a live speaker can tell you how words are pronounced.

Panini has nothing to do with this. The problem never arose for Sanskrit because Panini laid down those rules for people who knew Sanskrit and it has stayed alive for millennia. Unless you kill off all Sanskrit speakers and destroy all sound recordings, the phonetics of Sanskrit will not die.

[RajeshA]

Now here is a great paper! Also seems like "pir-reviewed". They make a convincing case as to why Indo-Aryans could not have come from Europe or Central Asia based on genetic information.

@Korenine: Project - Origin of the Slovenian People

Indo-Aryan and Slavic Linguistic and Genetic Affinities Predate the Origin of Cereal Farming
By Joseph Skulj, Jagdish C. Sharda, Snejina Sonina, Ratnakar Narale

The Hindu Institute of Learning, Toronto, Canada
Paper read at: The Sixth International Topical Conference: Origin of Europeans in Ljubljana, Slovenia
June 6th and 7th, 2008.

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Abstract
Linguistic comparisons between Indo-Aryan languages, Vedic Sanskrit in particular, and Slavic languages show evidence of remarkable similarities in words of elemental nature and those describing the process of domestication of animals specially the terminology regarding the sheep and the cattle. Similarly, Haplogroup (Hg) R1a1 (HG3 in Rosser’s nomenclature), the male lineage Y-Chromosome genetic marker found at high frequencies both in the Slavic and the Indo-Aryan male populations points to a common genetic origin of a large percentage of speakers of Slavic and Indic languages. Judging from the linguistic evidence, t he separation of these Indo-European branches appears to predate the advent of cereal domestication. Applying Alinei’s ‘Lexical Self-Dating’ (LSD) methodology to date the linguistic and the genetic evidence, we estimate that the split between Indo-Aryans and the ancestors of Slavs occurred, after the domestication of the sheep and cattle, about 10,000 years ago, but before cereal farming became a common industry amongst the ancestors of Slavs in Europe and Indo-Aryans on the Indian sub-continent. Moreover, the genetic evidence does not indicate that there were any major migrations of people from Europe, including the ancestors of the present day Slavs, to the Indian sub-continent during the last 8,000 years. The migration appears to have come from the Indian sub-continent to Europe. However, there is a record of many military incursions over the millennia into the sub-continent.

Furthermore, based on the linguistic, genetic, zooarchaeological and population growth evidence, the coalescence of R1a1 in an ancestor common to many Indo-Aryans and Slavs, probably occurred during the hunting-gathering era and there is evidence that the close contact between the ancestors of Indo-Aryans and Slavs continued during the sheep and cattle domestication, up to and including the nomadic pastoral age. Based on this evidence, the major population expansion from the Indian sub-continent into Europe appears to have come, before the age of cereal farming.

Also the patrilineal Y-Chromosome genetic marker Hg R1a1, that accompanied this expansion, appears to be more than 100,000 years old, based on its relative high frequency, diversity and wide distribution extending from the Balkans to the Bay of Bengal. This estimated age, based on the reproductive rates of historical individuals, is considerably older than the molecular ages calculated on the basis of mutation rates as reported in the literature.

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Direction of gene flow
Some would argue that genetic and linguistic affinity between Slavs and Indo-Aryans is due to the recent arrivals from the east. However, a recent migration from the east would have also brought Hg N3 to the Balkans, since it is widely distributed in Russia and Ukraine - between Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, but this genetic marker has not been found in the Balkans. This indicates that R1a1 migration to the Balkans took place before Hg N3 arrived in European Russia and Ukraine. Hg N3 has the highest frequency amongst the Finns at 61% and has been considered a Finno-Ugric marker. Laitinen et al. (2002) estimate that Finno-Ugric tribes arrived in the Baltic region 5,000-6,000 years ago. Therefore, the Hg R1a1 migration from the east to the Balkans must have occurred prior to the Hg N3 expansion and thus avoided the contact with the populations when Hg N3 was already present (Skulj et al. 2006).

Significantly, Hg I-M170 (Figure 2), which is posited to be older than Hg R1a1-M17 and is believed to have expanded from a refuge in the northern Balkans after LGM (Semino et al. 2000), has not been detected in India (Sengupta et al. 2006). Hg I is widespread throughout Europe; from British Isles to Russia and from Baltic Sea to the Balkan peninsula. The frequency is particularly high in the Balkans, as high as ~71% in the Croats of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is frequent in Russia and Ukraine at ~20%, and also the rest of Europe, particularly in Scandinavia. In England the frequency is 18%, Germany 20%, Denmark 39%, Norway 40%, south Sweden 40% and Estonia 19%. The estimated age of Hg I is 22, 000 years, which would give it an abundance of time for expansion, and it is also considerably more widely spread in Europe than Hg R1a1. It should be stressed that, despite the theories of Aryan home in Germany or Germanic lands (Ghosh 1951: 213-214), Hg I has not been detected in India. This would rule out Europe as the home of the Aryans after the last Ice Age. Hg I-M170 has been detected in Pakistan at 0.57 % (Sengupta et al. 2006) and at 0.3 % (Firasat et al. 2007), where it could have been brought by the army of the Alexander the Great (Qamar et al. 2002, Firasat et al. 2007). At lower frequencies, Hg I is found in the Near East, Caucasus and Central Asia but not in Iran. In the populations of Central Asia, the frequency is only 1.5% (Marjanovic et al. 2005, Qamar et al. 2002, Rootsi et al. 2004).

Furthermore, another haplogroup can provide some insights into the origins of the Indo-Aryans. It is Hg K*-M9, which is widespread in Asia and appears at high frequencies in Koreans at 69 %, Mongolians at 25 %, Uzbeks at 15 %, Kazakhs at 11 %, Tatars at 9 %, Russians/Tashkent at 6 % (Nasidze et al. 2005), Russians/Yaroslavl at 14 % (Malyarchuk et 25 al. 2004). In India it was not detected in a sample of 728 males, but in Pakistan there was one individual in a sample size of 176 or 0.57 % (Sengupta et al. 2006). While Kivisild et al. (2002) has found that Hg K* (HG26-M9) is absent in Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Sri Lanka, but is present at 0.8 % in India as a whole, but at 3.2 % in Western Bengal and 3.4 % in Gujarat and also in Iran at 3.6 %. From Chatterji (1988) we learn that there is a Mongoloid stratum in the Himalayas and in the tracts immediately to the south, in Assam, in North and East Bengal and that he observed Sino-Tibetan influence is still present there.

It is significant, that Hg N3 and also Hg I did not reach Iran and India. This can be taken as another indication that the migration(s) carrying Hg R1a1 did not originate in Europe. A northern, central or east European origin of Hg R1a1, and the subsequent expansions and migrations would have picked up both Hg I and Hg N3 chromosomes and the linguistic affinities with Sanskrit and taken them eastward in the direction of India. However, high frequency of Hg R1a1 chromosomes, and the high linguistic affinities with Sanskrit are primarily common only to Slavic and Indo-Aryan populations. This is not the case for other European or eastern European genetic markers such as Hg I and Hg N3, since Hg I and Hg N3 are absent from India. Also the virtual absence of Hg K* also rules out central Asia or Siberia as the homeland of the Indo-Aryans.

As mentioned before, Hg N3, which is widely distributed among Finno-Ugric populations where the high frequencies occur, is also frequent in the Slavic populations surrounding the Baltic and Black Sea, where the largest absolute numbers occur. This marker, which is considered to be as old as R1a1, has not reached the Balkans, nor has it migrated to India (Skulj 2007) (Figure 3).

Based on the above mentioned genetic markers, one has to conclude that Hg R1a1 chromosomes came from India and reached the Balkans, before Hg N3 expanded between the Baltic and the Black Seas. Also the expansion of Hg I from the Balkans was impeded and did not reach India. All of this is in agreement and supports Out of India Theory (OIT) of the ‘satem’ branch of the Indo-European language family. Furthermore, the domestication of cattle in the Indus valley and no indication of domestication of European aurochs (Edwards et al. 2007) further support the OIT.

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Conclusions

1. High Hg R1a1 (Y-DNA, Indo-European marker) in North Indians and Slavic people => common origin
2. No Hg I (Y-DNA, European marker) in India => Europe ruled out as origin
3. No Hg N3 (Y-DNA, Finno-Ugric marker) in India or in Balkans => Migration Time > 5000-6000 BP
4. Little Hg K* (mtDNA, Central and East Asia marker) in India, e.g. none in Punjab or even Pakistan, and where prominent like in WB explainable through proximity to Sino-Tibetan region. => Central Asia ruled out as origin.
5. Also the Slavs experienced the domestication of the zebu together with the Vedic Indians in the Indian Subcontinent, before migrating out.
6. Slovenian still retains the dual form of verbs (i.e. singular, dual, plural) like Sanskrit, something which other languages have already aborted. Slovenian helps to find the common roots of many Slavic words in Vedic Sanskrit.

Please read the whole paper. Also look at the similarity of Slovenian and Sanskrit words! Baffling!

[A_Gupta]

^^^ Phonetics is part of the grammar that Panini put together. As others have pointed out, the problem lies in the comparative method.

[RajeshA]

Looking at the table of occurrence of Hg R1a1 in the paper cited above, some figures

Code: Select all

East Punjab: 51%
Sindhi: 49%
Pathan: 45%
Pakistan: 37%

Sorbs: 63%
Poles: 54%
Belarussians: 51% (Behar 2003)
Russians: 47%
Slovaks: 47%
Czechs: 38%
Slovenians: 37%
Croats: 29%
Germans: 30%

Sorbs are a small minority of Slavs within Germany and they enjoy a minority status. Interesting that their %age of R1a1 is so high. If India is indeed Urheimat, then it seems this group mixed the least with other groups, and did not allow non-R1a1 men into the group, and thus would be most Indian from y-chromosome's side. Today they look like this.



10,000 years can change people!

[RajeshA]

California textbook controversy over Hindu history: 2006

[SaiK]

Kapala for skull.

there was half heart-ed approach to draw many of the forgotten story lines, and bring about a new sense in the myths by a tamil sequel/show (I heard that it was taken out from a telugu - not sure / nagamma) that ran for few months.. the director (Gerard) ran short of ideas... and have no idea why he stopped.

kap(b)ala-malai (hills) [maalai(necklace)] [kabalas (wear skull ornaments, apply ash on their body, cult) were the villain gangs in the story, with kali as their godess], where these men will do a human sacrifice if one is caught.. there was an interesting twitch to the story as well, where a future gen afsar goes into investigations [idol/precious metal smuggling], and finds all kinds of magical/mystery things happening.

only pure siddhars can counter these kabalas. .. very interesting story line, but gerard ran out of ideas.. he paused/stopped telecasting. lot of forgotten stories have been laced into the sequel. may not represent exact myth, but a nice attempt to interlace the concept with modern thinking.

[Lalmohan]

rajeshji, the article on slavs you reference basically mirrors the dispersal model that i mentioned a while back of the nilotic east african cattle herders to the high veldt of south africa

i find it interesting that none of us (you) wanted to explore that model further in terms of OIT

[RajeshA]

Lalmohan ji,

only newly learning to cook OIT, so still dependent on pakke-pakae pakwaan!

[shiv]

Looking at the table of occurrence of Hg R1a1 in the paper cited above, some figures

10,000 years can change people!

R1a1 is transmitted in males only, so the wimmens in the photu will not have any.