Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[ramana]

JohneeG, My thinking is Buddha (~500BCE) is not right for him to be accepted as an avatara. It has to be much older.
Consequently the others also move back. The Kanchi thing is fake controversy.

[RajeshA]

ramana garu,

can this be one of the reasons that some guys come up and start writing books destroying the credibility of Kanchi Math?!

[shiv]

Thanks, my thoughts, we would need a whole series of words (well, perhaps three or four examples at least) showing the same pattern like asa to aspa; otherwise I cannot say which is closer to aswa or *ekhwos (or whatever).

Regarding the enormous bluff, it is established by layer upon layer of citation; and some correct stuff mixed with a lot of force fit "evidence" or flights of fancy.

One of the ideas to deal with it is to see how the theory deals with cases such as Paul Thieme on the Mitanni.

Here is a little exchange I had with ManishH after I did a manual search for possible cognates that underwent the same sound change that is alleged tohave occurred that made the Greek word "kleos" and its alleged Sanskrit cognate "sravas"
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 2#p1337742

Every time PIE is invoked. PIE is the strawman that one has to get past if one disagrees with the obviously contentious claim that a one-off word like "kleos" in Greek became "sravas" in sanskrit beacuse both had a PIE proto word that was somewhat like "kleos". So the "palatalization" of "k" make it "s" (just like the k_y in thank you comes out with a hiss that sounds like an s). That would make it "sleos" But the Indians also "rhotacized" their "l" (like "tarrel and deepel") and l became "r". So a proto word like "kleos" became "sreos"- "sravas" in sanskrit.

You look for other examples and you find that this is almost an isolated example that is "proven" because "these changes do occur and are known to occur in many languages".

Do you see the pathetic logic here? Since such changes "can occur", these changes "have occurred" in this case. PIE does not exist. A PIE word gets invented based on supposed cognates from many languages which are deemed to be sister languages. By considering them sister languages a definite chronological judgement is being made about how they may be related to each other with no real proof of how that conclusion was reached. Then that freshly cooked PIE word is deemed to have undergone incredible contortions of palatalization and rhotacization that converted a word like Greek "Kleos" into Sanskrit "sravas"

In fact the exact opposite explanation can be arrived at as follows. The Sanskrit word is "shravas". Greek has no way of pronouncing the "shra-" in shravas. The Greek sound "s" (sigma) makes it "sravas". The closest Greek sound is to use the phoneme "X" - "xravas". Once you have a guttural h/k sound of X the following consonant "r" can end up being pronounced as "L" so you get the sound "hkhlavas" and then on to klavas-kleos.

Do such sound changes occur? Yes. "Tarrel and Deepel" are examples of L-R reversal. And Tamil speakers regularly say their guttural "ha" like "ka" A mispronounciation of Sanskrit can explain the change without invoking any PIE. There is no proof that I am any more wrong than the PIE theory.

But what is even more galling to me is the Wiki description of "kleos" which is a concept of fame that appears in Greek classics like the Iliad where people must work for "unwilting fame" and the need to increase a father's fame is passed on to his son.

This Greek mythological concept is claimed as the same sentiment that created the Rig veda where poets sang praises of kings. If you recall, ManishH said pretty much what is stated in this Wiki link. And the link tells us about "PIE society". How much more bullshiiting and fakery can we get? And i get accused by ManishH for using the word bluff. That word is not enough to describe the crime that has been committed by these linguists. Indians deserve to perpetually lick firangi asses if we can't see what is being done to our history by these "scholars". We still have people coming on here asking that some of these people should get some respect and credibility
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleos

he Greek term kleos is derived from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) term *ḱlewos, which expressed a similar concept in PIE society. As the PIE people had no concept of the continuation of the individual after life, one could only hope to achieve *ḱlewos *ndhgwhitom, or "the fame that does not decay."[1] As Bruce Lincoln notes, "In a universe where impersonal matter endured forever but the personal self was extinguished at death, the most which could survive of that self was a rumor, a reputation. For this, the person craving immortality--a condition proper only to the gods and antithetical to human existence--was totally reliant on poets and poetry."[2]

[RajeshA]

I tried to find the following report, but somehow it did not really work out. I got some free-flow text from the this site. Since I consider the following report very important, I decided to format it, correct the various spelling and grammar mistakes, add a table of contents and uploaded it to scribd.



REPORT OF THE SANSKRIT COMMISSION 1956-1957

It is actually a litany of broken promises! But the reason I find the document crucial is because it in fact shows that we could have had Sanskrit as India's Rashtra-Bhasha.

I touched on this topic earlier.

The move to have Sanskrit had support in three crucial quarters, during the discussions in Constituent Assembly and within the Congress:
1) Scheduled Castes: B.R. Ambedkar was strongly in favor of making Sanskrit as India's National Language.
2) Muslims: Shri Naziruddin Ahmad (formerly Muslim League) made a strong appeal to have Sanskrit.
3) South India: Many Tamil members were also in favor.

Here I reproduce a part from the above report (Page 133):

As already indicated, the Constituent Assembly did not give a smooth sailing to the Bill on Hindi asthe Official Languages. The majority which decided such a vital issue was one of the narrowest. During the few stormy days of the Constituent Assembly's discussion of this question, the impasse was sought to be solved by some members by proposing Sanskrit as the Rastrabhasa; and the late Dr.B.R. Ambedkar, who as the Law Member, was piloting the bill, was also reported to have favoured that proposal. In the course of the discussion of this question in the Assembly, several members, including some ardent protagonists of Hindi, paid due homage to Sanskrit. Apart from all this, the onlyother Indian languages for the adoption of which as the Rastra bhasa a regular amendment was moved, and discussion on which took a good part of the time of the Assembly, was Sanskrit.

As Shri Naziruddin Ahmad, advocating Sanskrit, put it on the floor of the House, a language that is adopted for the whole country, where so many languages are spoken, should be impartial, alanguages which is not the mother-tongue of any area, which is common to all regions, and the adoption of which will not prove an advantage to one part of the country and a handicap to all otherparts. The late Lakshmi Kanta Maitra, who moved the amendment seeking to replace Hindi by Sanskrias the Official Languages, observed in the Assembly, that, if Sanskrit was accepted, "all the jealousies, all this bitterness will vanish with all the psychological complex that has been created ............. there will not be the least feeling of domination or suppression of this or that". Thus, neutrality (or notbeing the spoken language of any section) has been urged as the first criterion of a National Language. That is why efforts were being made to create in Europe quite a new languages like Esperanto, to be used as the International Language perfected for this very purpose of all-India use through all these centuries, why throw it away? The neutrality of Sanskrit is not a mere negative quality; it is also the positive virtue of having grown by incorporating into itself elements from all other languages of the country. In this respect again, Sanskrit, which, as has been pointed out elsewhere, is a synthesis of the best in all the cultural constituents of India, can truly claim to have been developed and enriched by every part of India.

I am trying to collate more information on the the proceedings in the Constituent Assembly and within Congress Party itself regarding the proposal of Sanskrit as India's National Language.

I think that one vote by President Rajendra Prasad which clinched the choice in favor of Hindi, really changed the whole course of world history (if I may be so bold as to say that)! I am trying to retrace the steps! If Sanskrit had been adopted, English would not have been necessarily continued after its foreseen initial 15 years! Sanskrit would have been the only language!

However the report deserves to be read regardless of the above reason!

[shiv]

Here is a question for Arun Gupta, Dubeyji or anyone else who is interested.

Why did Sapta-Sindhu become Hapta-Hindu in Avestan? Or alternatively, why did Vedic people start pronouncing "Hapta-Hindu" as Sapta Sindhu?

[A_Gupta]

^^^ The s- to h- correspondence between Sanskrit and Avestan has quite a few examples at least, so it is credible.

sapta - hapta
sindhu - hindu
asura - ahura
nasatya - nah.....(something)

Why it went that way, I don't know.

[KLP Dubey]

^^^ The s- to h- correspondence between Sanskrit and Avestan has quite a few examples at least, so it is credible.

sapta - hapta
sindhu - hindu
asura - ahura
nasatya - nah.....(something)

Thanks for listing. All such corruptions are explained by the same/similar defective pronunciation issues as stated in the pratishakhya. The pratishakhya is quite comprehensive in the case of vowels and standalone consonants. In the case of compound consonants (which offer many more possibilities for corrupted versions), it gives several examples but states that "there is no end of defective pronunciations of compound consonants". Thus new work would be needed to catalog these defects.

Why it went that way, I don't know.

One can never know unless one asks the Iranians, and even then I am pretty sure they will not have much to offer by way of records. But most likely reasons are:

(1) speech defects (once set in, they become ingrained generation after generation), and/or:

(2) deliberate insistence on corrupting the original words (humans are famous for doing these things).

Without the well-defined and timeless "standard" provided by the RV and the Indian grammarians, we would not even have any knowledge of the correct words. All Indians need to be aware of this difference between the correct Sanskrit words and corrupted words found in other languages.

KL

[Agnimitra]

^^^ Iranians have a recorded history of deilberately and systematically distorting pronunciations, especially to set themselves apart from a people they feel overwhelmed by or resentful against. We see a similar case with post-Islamic Iran. A particularly clear example of this is the following - pre-Islamic Iranian language had the phoneme "th" (a soft "th" the way an Englishman would pronounce "through", different from the Sanskrit "th" or aspirated "thh"). Now Arabic also has the same phoneme. Yet, after becoming Arabized, the Persians decided to drop their own letter "th" and replace it with "s"! Thus, an Arabic word like "thuraiyyah" is pronounced by Persians as "soraiyyah".

So its quite possible that after the Iranics got defeated and scattered abroad in the Battle of Ten Kings, they decided to form a schism in all respects, including linguistic. The Zoroastrian Gathas do speak of this separation from the land of seven rivers and the subsequent wanderings of the Iranians in search of new life, and new identity.

[Nilesh Oak]

b) *All* references given in a) above are searched by planetarium and they match perfectly with a Mahabharat starting on 22 Nov 3067 BC. He uses SkymapPRO10 and cybersky 4 software. (Discusses the limitations of these software and compares them to others in the market and why he rejected the other software. This is how a scientist works in callibrating his tools.

Peter

Please post 150+ references you refer to in your previous post at another thread on BRF called 'Discussions of Epics, texts..etc.".

Once you post them and complete reading of my book, let me know. We will continue out dicussion there. Alternately you can create a new thread, as suggested by RajeshAji, in GDF.

Happy Reading.

[disha]

Here is a question for Arun Gupta, Dubeyji or anyone else who is interested.

Why did Sapta-Sindhu become Hapta-Hindu in Avestan? Or alternatively, why did Vedic people start pronouncing "Hapta-Hindu" as Sapta Sindhu?

Blame it on Gujjus or Kachis or somebody from Saurashtra.

I know of a gujarati family, the whole of the family (incl. parents, grandparents, uncles, nephews, grand children etc) have a tendency to pronounce "h" (soft ha) sounds for words with "sh". For example the gujarati "shoon thayu? (what happened?)" becomes "hoon thayu?"! Same for verbs like "sharku che! (is it proper!)" to "harku che!". Now this family is also relatively successful and it has fashionable for people around them and their hanger ons to copy them (to gain by association) and the grand kids (or the great grand kids) are identified to the family branch by the teachers on how the pronounce the "sh" sound. Funny thing is the all the members of the family (including the incoming son in laws and daughter in laws) adapt to the above and various other mannerisms (like making some guttural sounds after explaining a logic or posing a question)., like it is a copyrighted trademark of the family. And this gujarati family claims ancestory from kutch., so I will not be surprised that if they run into a distant clan line - they will find good company and camraderie.

The point is once a sound pattern takes hold, it propagates for various reasons, the closest being the clan identity. By clinging to certain mannerisms (like a tribal group dance or passing nuts before a mars landing) a certain cultural, tribal or a clan identity is forged.

The question about how it happens can perhaps be pointed out by Dubeyji's pratishakya rules. That is "Sh->S" (like "pratishakya" -> "pratisakya") or "Sh->ha" (like "pratishakya->pratihaka" ). I will not be hurprhied to hee "s" become "h".

The question on why could be many, including speech or ear defect causing corruption of the sound.

Again one of the reason for propagation is given - to forge a cultural /clan/tribal/distinctive identity.

I have another counterpoint to the linguists, take a set of "imperfect" sounds and see that it can be refined to a "perfect" sound which cannot be mangled further but can be only mangled into the imperfect constituents. I am proposing a reverse pratishakya. The reason is simple, if I am going to appeal to a higher authority (God, Indra, King, Judge, a tribal chief or the passport officer), I would like to present myself as cultured as possible - in clothes and in language. It helps to have a reverse pratishakya in my pocket to prove my sophistry at the very least.

Hence the Sanskrit from various prakrits.

[peter]

b) *All* references given in a) above are searched by planetarium and they match perfectly with a Mahabharat starting on 22 Nov 3067 BC. He uses SkymapPRO10 and cybersky 4 software. (Discusses the limitations of these software and compares them to others in the market and why he rejected the other software. This is how a scientist works in callibrating his tools.

Peter

Please post 150+ references you refer to in your previous post at another thread on BRF called 'Discussions of Epics, texts..etc.".

Once you post them and complete reading of my book, let me know. We will continue out dicussion there. Alternately you can create a new thread, as suggested by RajeshAji, in GDF.

Happy Reading.

I read the chapter on Arundhati in your book @ google books. Well written but incomplete. You discuss RN Iyengars paper but do not discuss the second shloka he mentions. The second shloka about dhruva is what I have asked you about too.

quote from Achar:

There are a large number of references to astronomical events, which arescattered throughout the text of the epic and have been catalogued18. Figure 3 gives the distribution among the parvas of the slokas, about one hundred and fifty in number, and referring to astronomical events. Admittedly many of the references are astrological in nature and the possibility that of some these may be later interpolations can not be overruled. However, there must be a few genuine events that were observed and noted in view of the importance of the war. In fact, a majority of the astronomical references appear in udyoga and Bhishma parvas referring to events just before or at the start of the war. A set of about forty references has been selected out of more than one hundred fifty for simulation by the planetarium software. The hundred and odd references not included in the basic set contain: (a) repeated references to the events already selected, (b) references of a very general nature such as time and its division into kaal, muhurta, paksha, maasa etc., (c) references that are not directly connected with the war, and finally, (d) those that are purely astrological in nature. A further subset of the selected list of about a dozen astronomical references gives a more or less coherent chronology of astronomical events starting with Krishna's departure for his diplomatic mission to Hastinapura before the war and ending with Bhishma's death after the war at the beginning of uttarayana:

After this is the list that I have already posted in one of the earlier posts starting from Krishna's departure.

Are you still not able to see Mars retrograde path?

PS: This dating of MbH has direct bearing on AIT/OIT so I want to resolve it hear. Please keep the length of the posts short and I will do the same.

[brihaspati]

^^^ The s- to h- correspondence between Sanskrit and Avestan has quite a few examples at least, so it is credible.

sapta - hapta
sindhu - hindu
asura - ahura
nasatya - nah.....(something)

Thanks for listing. All such corruptions are explained by the same/similar defective pronunciation issues as stated in the pratishakhya. The pratishakhya is quite comprehensive in the case of vowels and standalone consonants. In the case of compound consonants (which offer many more possibilities for corrupted versions), it gives several examples but states that "there is no end of defective pronunciations of compound consonants". Thus new work would be needed to catalog these defects.

Why it went that way, I don't know.

One can never know unless one asks the Iranians, and even then I am pretty sure they will not have much to offer by way of records. But most likely reasons are:

(1) speech defects (once set in, they become ingrained generation after generation), and/or:

(2) deliberate insistence on corrupting the original words (humans are famous for doing these things).

Without the well-defined and timeless "standard" provided by the RV and the Indian grammarians, we would not even have any knowledge of the correct words. All Indians need to be aware of this difference between the correct Sanskrit words and corrupted words found in other languages.

KL

Deliberately sharpening minute differences in pronunciations to point out distinction of identities in contact with each other is very well known in social identity studies. For example the Republican/Catholic Irish would stress the "h" with a deep "hva" sound in the same English word when in contact socially with Orange/English in northern Ireland. This is spectacular when say one is required to spell out words containing "h" - it will be pronounced "heich" - with the "opponents" saying "eich".

Actually real world lingusitics studies should have BS'd many of so-called "phonetics guided unidirectionality" claims.

[member_22872]

Avestan<->Vedic h<->s sound change:

Is it because of McGurk Effect? shiv ji posted a youtube video long back. Or Chinese whispers effect over space and time leading to eventual speech defect that Dubey ji suggested?

[Nilesh Oak]

Peter ji,

Page # 77 of this thread, post# 7, and also 11, I have given links to 8 videos enumerating MBH references of Mahabharata text related to Mars.

This may assist you with understanding of explanation for Mars observations as you read the book.
I am glad you already reached chapter on Arundhati. No, the chapter is not incomplete. And there is no alternative but to read my book in entirety if you plan to discuss MBH evidence and work of other researchers with me.

I am eager to see 150 references of Achar, please post them at the earliest. No need to post portions of his papers. I have his papers.

Cheers! Happy Reading.

[shiv]

Thanks for all the s>h sound change inputs. The clan identity reason for perpetuation is credible.

At least as a mental exercise, let us assume that the names hapta (for seven) and hindu (for Sindhu) were created by Iranians/Avestans before the Vedics got off their horses and chariots. Does anyone know of examples where H becomes S?

It means that the Avestans came riding in found the Saraswati and Sindhu and called them Haraxwati and Hindu respectively . They also coined the term "Hapta-Hindu". Then the Vedic people converted the sound to "S" and immortalized everything in poems and spread the mispronunciation all over India.

Carl's hypothesis is particularly interesting. He quotes an example of th>s conversion in Iran. I had posted that humorous German coast guard video of exactly the same thing. So there is no problem in the ability to pronounce "s". That aside, the Behistun inscription translations (assuming they are correct - I think they need a modern day revalidation) show that Zoroastrian Old Persian under Darius had separate T, H and S sounds but sounds that were "S" in Sanskrit consistently became "H" in Old Persian. A_Gupta has a list above. I will add to that list the Sanskrit suffix "-asya" which is always "-ahya" in Old Persian.

But there is yet another curious feature in the Old Persian translations. There are names that start with "H" in Old Persian like "Haxamanasiya", "Harauvatis" and "Haraiva", which get the Greek equivalents "Achaemenes" , "Arachosia" and "Aria" respectively. Remember that Greek does not have a "H". Even "Helleda" (Greece) is pronounced "Elleda"

So there is a very strong resemblance between the assumed Old Persian pronunciation and Greek pronunciation. The word "hapta" for seven is unique to Greek, Old Persian and some Turkic languages. Everyone else used "sapta or "sept". In other words, from Europe to India via Iran, there is a strip of land from Greece, Turkey and Iran right up to Afghanistan where people say "Hapta" instead of "sapta". There appears to have been a two step process of conversion of Sanskrit S to Avestan H, and the H in Avestan becoming silent in Greece. I am unable to see how a silent H in Greece could become S in India. We will have to invoke a mythical PIE between Greece Iran and India to explain this anomaly.

Traditional AIT theory has it that the language spread from central Asia west to Greece and east to Iran. This has more holes than a dosa. The commonality between Greek and Iranian suggests that language could have spread from Greece to Iran or from Iran to Greece.

It seems to me that the serial conversion of S to H and "H" to "silent H" in Greece might mean that the Zoroastrians under Darius or earlier actually conquered and influenced Greece. That also explains why Greek history has so much about Persia and even India. I find it less credible to Believe that the Greeks brought their silent H to Iran, where the H got a voice and then that voiced H became S in India.

All this seems to fit in well with what was written by Malati Shendge who said that Iranians themselves were in two groups. One the traditional Iranians to Western Iran and the Zoroastrians running out of India. Clearly those Zoroastrians dominated Iran under Darius and had close links and wars with Greece. That history is attested Only the dates are likely to be uncertain (as usual)

[KLP Dubey]

KLP Dubey ji,

Kota Venkatachelam in his book, "Age of Buddha, Milindia & Amtiyoka and Yugapurana", says that Sri Kumārila Bhaṭṭa was born in 557 BCE in Jayamangala, a village on the banks of Mahanadi somewhere on the boundary between Andhra and Odisha. (Ref: page 60 of the pdf file)

From the traditions you are aware of, would you consider that to be correct.

I don't think the 557 BCE data is correct, nor can the 700 CE date claimed to be correct.

The 700 CE date is based upon various legendary accounts found in the Vedanta, later Mimamsa, and Buddhist literature. None of these can be trusted as they are totally contradictory and partisan in nature.

A precious little "datable" material can be found from Kumarila's own works, particularly the mammoth work "Tantravartika". The following are often mentioned by scholars:

1) Kumarila in the Tantravartika lists some Tamil words, specifically "chor" (rice), "paamp" (snake), "vayar" (stomach). Maybe a Tamil expert can comment whether the form of these words has any historical significance (e.g., Old Tamil or Middle?).

2) Similarly, he mentions the languages of the "Parasis" (Iranians), "Barbaras" (barbarians...likely Huns, Jats, or some such group), "Yavanas" (Greeks), and "Raumakas" (Romans).

A detail to mention here - which is not mentioned by scholars - is that Kumarila lists the above words in the Purvapaksha (i.e., opponent's view) section, i.e. he is presenting the opponent's view in quotation. Therefore, it is possible that he was only repeating verbatim what an opponent had argued earlier (we do not know if the opponent personally was known to Kumarila, or whether a historically "old" argument was being rehashed). Or, it could be that Kumarila was personally embellishing/illustrating an opponent's argument with his own "current" examples, before proceeding to refute it in the Siddhanta section.

Anyway, the presence of these words allows us to conjecture an "upper bound" on Kumarila's date.

In my opinion, since Yavanas are mentioned, and assuming this is referring to Greeks, then clearly Kumarila cannot be dated to 557 BCE as claimed by Venkatachalam, since the Greeks came into contact with the Indian mainstream only after 300 BCE or so.

Similarly, since Raumakas (Romans) are mentioned, it seems we have to push Kumarila's date into further modernity (CE era). I am not aware of any significant Roman interaction with India before the CE era. Also, I am told that in Indian texts from the CE area, the word "Roman" can refer to the Eastern Roman Empire (with Constantinople as its capital) and not the Western one (with Rome as capital). Thus there is a possibility of the date being even later, and the language referred to was not necessarily Latin.

Again, the "dates" I give above are conjectures based upon the authenticity of identifying Yavanas as Greeks and Raumakas as Romans. Kumarila does not mention any specific words of the Yavana or Raumaka languages.

Namaskar,

KL

[ramana]

Greek contact might be before Alexander too. It could be via Darius I contact with Punjab. There could be Greeks at that time.
Pythogoras is said to have visited India.

[Prem]

Greek contact might be before Alexander too. It could be via Darius I contact with Punjab. There could be Greeks at that time.
Pythogoras is said to have visited India.

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

Scylax of Caryanda
Scylax of Caryanda was a renowned Carian ( Mediteranian Tukey) explorer and writer of the late 6th and early 5th centuries BCE. His own writings are lost, though occasionally cited or quoted by later Greek and Roman authors. The Periplous preserved under his name is not, in fact, by him but is a geographical study (rather than a travelogue) written in about the early 330s by an unknown author working in the ambit of the post-Platonic Academy and/or the Aristotelian Peripatos (Lyceum) at Athens; it is known as the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax. about 515 BCE, Scylax was sent by King Darius I of Persia to follow the course of the Indus River and discover where it led.[1] Scylax and his companions set out from city of Caspatyrus in Gandara, in today's Afghanistan. Scylax sailed down the river until he found it reached the sea. He then sailed west across Indian Ocean until he arrived at the Red Sea, which he also explored. He travelled as far as the Red Sea's western end at Suez, before returning to report to Darius I. His entire journey took thirty months.
Such, at least, is the prima facie narrative based on Herodotos. Recently, however, Dmitri Panchenko has argued persuasively, on the basis of apparent references to Scylax's work in the late Greek author Philostratos, that Scylax in fact travelled across N. India, made his way down the Ganges, and arrived at Taprobane (Sri Lanka). He has also calculated the likely date of Scylax's departure for India as July 518 BCE.[2]Scylax was famous in the ancient world. He is mentioned by Strabo as an "ancient writer." According to the Suda, he also wrote (perhaps "in the decades around 480 B.C."[3]) a life of his contemporary, Heraclides of Mylasa (τὰ κατὰ Ἡρακλείδην τὸν Μυλασσῶν βασιλέα), who is mentioned in Herodotus 5.121.

[shiv]

Greek contact might be before Alexander too. It could be via Darius I contact with Punjab. There could be Greeks at that time.

This is what I am saying. Darius's Behistun inscription shows both the S>H changes of Avestan (Zoroastrianism) and reveal the H to silent H changes from Old Persian names to Greek. Contacts were surely there earlier as well as conquests and exchanges.

Need to look at how Darius was dated. There is definitely some gol-maal in Zoroastrianism dating.

[RajeshA]

Need to look at how Darius was dated. There is definitely some gol-maal in Zoroastrianism dating.

And Buddhism Dating
And Hinduism Dating
And Jainism Dating

Paper by K.V. Ramakrishna Rao
A Paper presented during the International Seminar on "Saraswati and Hindu Civilization" held at New Delhi from Oct. 24 to Oct 26, 2008
GVC to IVC to SVC

A good paper on European fraud in dating Indian history, bringing in archaeology to back up the claims!

[shiv]

One of the things we have to consider when we speak of "Out of India" is that the group of people who went out of India, and then became Zoroastrians may have in later centuries delivered IE in some from to Greece - even if IE existed earlier in Greece. When you have IE spoken over a huge huge area, migration from one place to another will only mean spread from IE speaking area to IE speaking area. A well known example is the UK, where Germanic languages were influenced by Italic languages when the Romans came.

But let me stick to Zoroastrians..

If you look at the dating of Darius - you find that he is dated to around 500 BC. Before him were the Scythians - possibly the "Sakas" mentioned in sanskrit texts. Now here is a very interesting passage about the Scythians:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians

A number of studies on ancient DNA recovered from Scythian kurgan burials were published in the 2000s.

In a 2009 study, the haplotypes and haplogroups of 26 ancient human specimens from the Krasnoyarsk area in Siberia dated from between the middle of the second millennium BC. to the 4th century AD (Scythian and Sarmatian timeframe). Nearly all subjects belong to haplogroup R1a1-M17.

Now read about R1a1-M17

In 2009, several large studies of both old and new STR data[39] concluded that while these two separate "poles of the expansion" are of similar age, South Asian R1a1a is apparently older than Eastern European R1a1a, suggesting that South Asia is the more likely locus of origin.[40]

An increasing number of studies have found South Asia to have the highest level of diversity of Y-STR haplotype variation within R1a1a. On this basis, while several studies have concluded that the data is consistent with South Asia as the likely original point of dispersal (for example, Kivisild et al. (2003), Mirabal et al. (2009) and Underhill et al. (2009)) a few have actively argued for this scenario (for example Sengupta et al. (2005), Sahoo et al. (2006), Sharma et al. (2009). A survey study as of December 2009, including a collation of retested Y-DNA from previous studies, makes a South Asian R1a1a origin the strongest proposal amongst the various possibilities.

muahahahahahahaha! Teh M17 sub-clade of R1a1 has its greatest diversity in India including South Indian tribals and suggests its origin from India.

But that's a real laugh. many people hate this finding and would prefer the AIT

And here is what Wiki says about the same R1a1 M17 that is currently thought to originate in India

the constellation of populations known variously as Scythians, Andronovians, etc. were blue (or green)-eyed, fair-skinned and light-haired people which might have played a role in the early development of the Tarim Basin civilization

If this is not a racist viewpoint posted on Wiki my name is Aishwarya Rai.

[shiv]

http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ ... _table.htm

R1a and R1a1a are believed to have originated somewhere within Eurasia, most likely in the area from Eastern Europe to South Asia. Several recent studies have proposed that South Asia is the most likely region of origin. But on the other hand, as will be discussed below, some researchers continue to treat modern Indian R1a as being largely due to immigration from the Central Eurasian steppes or Southwestern Asia.

R1a has been found in high frequency at both the eastern and western ends of its core range, for example in India and Tajikistan on the one hand, and Poland on the other. Throughout all of these regions, R1a is dominated by the R1a1a (R-M17 or R-M198) sub-clade.

In South Asia R1a1a has often been observed with high frequency in a number of demographic groups. The main two subclades of R1a1a are R1a1a* and R1a1a7. R1a1a7 is positive for M458 an SNP that separate it from the rest of R1a1a. It is significant because M458 is a European marker and the epicenter is Poland. M458 marker is rare in India.

In India, high percentage of this haplogroup is observed in West Bengal Brahmins (72%) to the east, Konkanastha Brahmins (48%) to the west, Khatris (67%) in north and Iyenger Brahmins (31%) of south. It has also been found in several South Indian Dravidian-speaking Adivasis including the Chenchu (26%) and the Valmikis of Andhra Pradesh and the Kallar of Tamil Nadu suggesting that M17 is widespread in Tribal Southern Indians.

Besides these, studies show high percentages in regionally diverse groups such as Manipuris (50%) to the extreme North East and in Punjab (47%) to the extreme North West.

In Pakistan it is found at 71% among the Mohanna tribe in Sindh province to the south and 46% among the Baltis of Gilgit-Baltistan to the north. While 13% of Sinhalese of Sri Lanka were found to be R1a1a (R-M17) positive.

Hindus of Terai region of Nepal show it at 69%.

In Afghanistan, R1a1a (R-M17) is found at 51.02% among the Pashtuns (the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan) and 30.36% among the Tajiks, but it is less frequent among the Hazaras (6.67%) and the Turkic-speaking Uzbeks (17.65%).

[A_Gupta]

http://vedicempire.com/index.php?option ... &Itemid=27
Pompeii's ivory figurine frm India

[A_Gupta]

Ancient iron working in the Gangetic Valley
http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/tewari/tewari.pdf

[KLP Dubey]

Greek contact might be before Alexander too. It could be via Darius I contact with Punjab. There could be Greeks at that time.

This is what I am saying. Darius's Behistun inscription shows both the S>H changes of Avestan (Zoroastrianism) and reveal the H to silent H changes from Old Persian names to Greek. Contacts were surely there earlier as well as conquests and exchanges.

Need to look at how Darius was dated. There is definitely some gol-maal in Zoroastrianism dating.

Quite possible that the Greeks were in earlier contact with India through Iran, and in fact picked up Sanskrit words and grammar due to this interaction. What about Romans ? Contacts from the 1st century CE are well known. A_Gupta posted the article about the Indian artifact at Pompeii. In that article someone also thinks the figure is "much older", around 300 BCE.

As far as Kumarila is concerned, the words in the Tantravartika allow us to date him to a period when the language of both Yavanas and Raumakas was known in India.

If the history of corruption of Sanskrit S ---> Iranian H ---> Greek silent H can be traced, it would be a further corroboration of the "speech defect" model of corrupted Sanskrit words found in Asia and Europe.

A related question for Nilesh Oak: you may have covered this already, but if the Mahabharata is dated to before 3000 BCE, why is it that it mentions Yavanas, Chinas, Hunas, Keralas, and other groups ? Are these later additions to the text?

KL

[RajeshA]

As far as Kumarila is concerned, the words in the Tantravartika allow us to date him to a period when the language of both Yavanas and Raumakas was known in India.

KLP Dubey ji,
I presume that is a response to my earlier query!

Pandit Kota Venkatachelam speaks of Yavanas and Yonas and Ramakas as tribes that were known in India even at the time of Mahabharata, however he says that these are not to be confused with Greeks or Romans. These were tribes which lived in Northwestern India.

[Nilesh Oak]

A related question for Nilesh Oak: you may have covered this already, but if the Mahabharata is dated to before 3000 BCE, why is it that it mentions Yavanas, Chinas, Hunas, Keralas, and other groups ? Are these later additions to the text?
KL

I did research on Yavanas and Chinas in the context of MBH/MBH text/timing. I did not do any research on Hunas or Keralas.

If one looks at names of Yavana kings (and their directional/potential locations).....the names are Indian sounding rather than greek or non-Indian sounding and as to location, they were all over India.. especially North, east, west, NW, South....
Thus based on internal evidence of MBH text, no reason and no justification for Yavanas= Greeks.

With 'Chinas' (since I was interested in history and culture of China) I studied this subject by going to root of the word 'Chin' from Chinese perspective.
Run of the mill explanation is the word was coined after 'Quin' dynasty .. which is pronounced as 'Chin'.. think of Chin Chin..(money. money).. but really.. Royal royal...etc.
Interestingly the origin of 'Chin' goes beyond (in antiquity) based on public sources (wiki, books etc), beyond Qin dynasty and in further anitiquity where records are sparse.

Again no reason to assume (based on available evidence) to jump to conclusion that 'Chinas' must have beed added to MBH text, after Indinan contact with China, after Qin dynasty (Qin dynasty.. is dated around 300-400 BC or some thing like that, maybe few centuries earlier).

The evidence of interpolation in MBH text that I found, and could verify using techniques of Archeo-astronomy is in relation to timing of Bhishma Nirvana.

The MBH text (multiple versions) refer to time of winter solstice with Full moon near Hasta (Lunar months of Phalguna and Chaitra) (5000-6000 BC).....this is based on solid evidence coming from varioud Parvas put together.. Udyoga-Bhishma-Drona-Karna-Shalya-Shanti-Anushasan, to full moon near Magha (1500 BC- 2500 BC), to full moon near Pushya (500 BC- 1500 BC).

Since these interpolations (or at a minimum variations did occur), additions related to other races/countries of the world, states/provinces of India, could have been added later on in MBH text, however, each such occurance/claim has to be investigated in the light of what we know today.

[Nilesh Oak]

A related question for Nilesh Oak: you may have covered this already, but if the Mahabharata is dated to before 3000 BCE, why is it that it mentions Yavanas, Chinas, Hunas, Keralas, and other groups ? Are these later additions to the text?KL

In 17th Century AD, In Maharashtra and in the context of King Shivaji, the word 'Yavan' was used referring to Moghals, so I guess (could be wrong) in a generic sense of forigners.

Analogy and history of word - Vilayat (spelled in many different ways.. Wilyaet, Wilay, etc.) is relvant in this context.
In persian, Turkik, Arabic ,, etc it meant 'adiministrative region' or area.
Arabs used it (last few centuriesa) as referring to USA,
Indians are using that word for last few centuries ...as referring to UK/England/GB

One of the origin for Indian usage suggested is.. that while traveling to UK from India..boats used to go to area of Turky.. 'administrave area' - travel business I suppose..then via land route to mediterrian sea and further to UK.
Thus going to Vilayet (admin area of Turky) became equivalent to going to UK (or France, Germany, spain.. whereever.. away from India.. to foreign destination).

Food for thought.

[brihaspati]

We should not so quickly accept the identifications of words like Yavana/Barbara/Raumaka and use that to date Kumarila. Kumarila could very well have been later in CE but that should not be concluded from those words.

In fact the word Barbara is problematic. The Greeks used it too - and barbara in Skt., probably is connected to stammering/halted/unclear speech. The Greek use of the word therefore could be a loanword/or a derivative from a Sanskrit or Sanskrit like language(SSLL). However in Greek, the word is primarily connected to "otherness/strangeness/unclear speech" and used more in that sense. This is the sense it was popularized in Latin.

As in many other Greek or Latin derivations, there is less of a clear cut rules based derivation from roots or stems compared to Sanskrit, and hence the general European tendency of associating words more by usage meaning rather than deconstructive meaning - shows up.

Thus Barbara could be a much older Indian word, from times when "Greek" as an idenity and language was yet to be formed as a distinction.

Scylax has already been mentioned, but the Greek connection to Persia comes from much before. If one follows up on the Athenian-Sparta civil war, one will see that things were interconnected from the time of Cyrus I. Look at the "March of the Ten Thousand" by Thucydides, and there are plenty of indicators that Greek mercenaries were very much part of the Persian empire. Greek politicians frequently allied with Persian powers against fellow Greeks.

Romans were on the Med trade route dominance swing already by 280 BCE. As part of the Greek overlordship, and Persian dominance over Med east - they could have been part of Greek and Persian maritime enterprises as early as 6th century. It is difficult to say what originally signified "Raumaka". The addition of "k" is the problem if it was a loanword entirely - for no other geographically intermediate culture adds any after the terminal vowel [at most Rumi, Roma, Rome].

Yavana is of course a long disputed category. MBH mentions Arjuna fighting yavanas, Sahadeva defeating Yavanas to the west, Karna defeating Yavanas to the west, and to top it all - even the Kamarupa king to th east is mentioned as Yavana.

Either push core events in MBH down to post-Greek, or accept that Yavana - derived from Yayati clan in the eastern GV, could be a general category for those pushed out of Vedic society for various transgressions, and who then occupied the peripheral regions around the then centre of Vedic culture - GV. Since west allowed the largest possible expulsion/expansion comapred to the more difficult eastern expansion - in time Yavanas cam eto be associated with non-Vedic cultures residing to the west - but whose faint ancestral/cultural links are remembred as having common source.

Grecian identity would perfectly fit the bill - with a forgotten corrupted language, and lots of things in common ritually.

[RajeshA]

Okay some linguistic speculation here!

Yavana sounds a bit like "Ja vana" or "go to the forest". It could mean "expelling somebody from society" as perhaps some tribes were expelled from Vedic society for various transgressions!

Ramaka can simply mean "of Rama", i.e. those tribes which had rulers from the progeny of Rama, and used to live in Northwest India.

[Nilesh Oak]

Grecian identity would perfectly fit the bill - with a forgotten corrupted language, and lots of things in common ritually.

This would make sense.

On another but related subject........

What one should be careful with.... is not to take this Gracian identity= Yavanas of MBH, and then combine with AIT/Wit-mer BS and use it as evidence for 'Interpolation' in or writing of MBH in 400 AD.

Dr. NO

[brihaspati]

Grecian identity would perfectly fit the bill - with a forgotten corrupted language, and lots of things in common ritually.

This would make sense.

On another but related subject........

What one should be careful with.... is not to take this Gracian identity= Yavanas of MBH, and then combine with AIT/Wit-mer BS and use it as evidence for 'Interpolation' in or writing of MBH in 400 AD.

Dr. NO

I wanted to problematize it by mentioning Bhagadutta.

[Murugan]

in Gujarat, especially in saurashtra region, Sa become Ha as one proceeds from well educated population to sparsley populated and illiterate regions

Saaru becomes Haaru, saaru means good
Samajyo becomes Hamajyo, samajyo means understood
Saat becomes Haat, saat means seven
Saatu becomes Haatu

Cha becomes Sa
Samachar becomes hamasaar, haara hamasaar means good news
Saachu becomes haasu, saachu means satya, true

Imho, the population occupied in layman jobs do not like to speak energy intensive sounds

[Abhibhushan]

in Gujarat, especially in saurashtra region, Sa become Ha as one proceeds from well educated population to sparsley populated and illiterate regions

Saaru becomes Haaru, saaru means good
Samajyo becomes Hamajyo, samajyo means understood
Saat becomes Haat, saat means seven
Saatu becomes Haatu

Cha becomes Sa
Samachar becomes hamasaar, haara hamasaar means good news
Saachu becomes haasu, saachu means satya, true

Imho, the population occupied in layman jobs do not like to speak energy intensive sounds

This mutation of sa to ha is common to Bangla dilects of eastern districts (now in Bangladesh) like Barisal/Kumilla etc.

[Virendra]

Kumarila cannot be dated to 557 BCE as claimed by Venkatachalam, since the Greeks came into contact with the Indian mainstream only after 300 BCE or so.

Dubey Ji, Venkatachalam has said that today's Greeks themselves are a mix of northern settlers and relegated Vedic tribes some of whom went to Greece.
If that is the case, we cannot be sure that after such break up from India there was no contact or knowledge of these people among the Vedic tribes till 300 BC and then suddenly they show up.
I don't have the book right now but as soon as I access it, I will try to post his arguments here.

Regards,
Virendra

[Prem Kumar]

RajeshA, JohneeG: besides the Sandrocottus = Chandragupta Maurya reference by Megasthenes (sheet anchor), do we have any other independent account in favor of that theory - like from Chinese visitors etc?

Before we diss that theory, we need to be aware of all the evidence that support it (or) the lack thereof. Otherwise the Sandrocottus = Chandragupta Gupta theory can end up looking like a Tejo Mahalay story

[RajeshA]

Prem Kumar ji,

look up Pandit Kota Venkatachelam's book "Age of Buddha, Milinda & Amtiyoka and Yugapurana"!

He does bring out a lot of evidence to bear upon the case!

Also check out the following blog for his writings

http://trueindianhistory-kvchelam.blogspot.de/

[shiv]

in Gujarat, especially in saurashtra region, Sa become Ha as one proceeds from well educated population to sparsley populated and illiterate regions

Saaru becomes Haaru, saaru means good
Samajyo becomes Hamajyo, samajyo means understood
Saat becomes Haat, saat means seven
Saatu becomes Haatu

Cha becomes Sa
Samachar becomes hamasaar, haara hamasaar means good news
Saachu becomes haasu, saachu means satya, true

Imho, the population occupied in layman jobs do not like to speak energy intensive sounds

This mutation of sa to ha is common to Bangla dialects of eastern districts (now in Bangladesh) like Barisal/Kumilla etc.

Great info. And yet I have never yet heard of ha becoming sa. I am not saying that it cannot happen, but unless at least one example of a "natural sound change" of ha>sa is shown to me, the conclusion is that Avestan is a later development than Sanskrit. But the AIT Nazis will not agree because they have bypassed the problem and cooked up a PIE word using Greek and Sanskrit and other languages that very very conveniently can "degenerate" to either "h" or "s" and they say "Oh Avestans simply started saying "H" and Vedics chose "S".

This was the point I have been making to ManishH. In linguistics, when a sound change occurs naturally in the direction that the linguists want it to go (from Central Asia to India) it is used as proof. But when sound changes cannot be explained - they simply construct a PIE word that has elements of both sounds and say "See? You can get both words out of the proto-word we have constructed. So that PIE word must have existed." Linguists don't seem to see the point that the PIE word exists only because they have constructed it to have both sounds. And when it does not have all the sounds they explain it away as further sound change. The whole think is a mess of faking mixed up with some genuine stuff. If a sound change can be explained without PIE it should be explained directly. You can actually reverse a "natural" sound change by an artificial construct like PIE.

Avestan and old Persian have features that actually make them offshoots of Sanskrit. By invoking PIE this an be changed to make them sister languages to fit a theory of language spread.

I found one pir reviewed paper that shows that S>H is possible but there there is no H>S
http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/~oh ... rc_exp.pdf

[RajeshA]

This was the point I have been making to ManishH. In linguistics, when a sound change occurs naturally in the direction that the linguists want it to go (from Central Asia to India) it is used as proof. But when sound changes cannot be explained - they simply construct a PIE word that has elements of both sounds and say "See? You can get both words out of the proto-word we have constructed. So that PIE word must have existed." Linguists don't seem to see the point that the PIE word exists only because they have constructed it to have both sounds. And when it does not have all the sounds they explain it away as further sound change. The whole think is a mess of faking mixed up with some genuine stuff. If a sound change can be explained without PIE it should be explained directly. You can actually reverse a "natural" sound change by an artificial construct like PIE.

That is basically it!

Unidirectionality Laws of Sound-Changes are to disallow a Sanskrit -> Indo-European sound change possibilities.

PIE Tree is to allow improbable sound changes of Indo-European -> Sanskrit.

They say, okay show any evidence of any sound changes from Sanskrit to other Indo-European languages. We say Greek, and they say, no that came from PIE, palatalization of front vowels is unidirectional!

It's like they say you cannot have children who look like Papadreos but George of Central Asia can! You say, sure you can have! They say prove it! You say just look at Papadreos, Sakhashvili, Krüger! They say, no they are all children of George of Central Asia! That proves you cannot have children like P, S, K! So sound changes are unidirectional!

[peter]

Peter ji,

Page # 77 of this thread, post# 7, and also 11, I have given links to 8 videos enumerating MBH references of Mahabharata text related to Mars.

This may assist you with understanding of explanation for Mars observations as you read the book.

I saw your Mars videos. Thanks for putting them up. I liked the idea and presentation. But you have invented new definitions which is not correct. Here is a picture of retrorgade mars . This is similar to what Achar has.

I am glad you already reached chapter on Arundhati. No, the chapter is not incomplete. And there is no alternative but to read my book in entirety if you plan to discuss MBH evidence and work of other researchers with me.

It is incomplete and there is really nothing to read further till you answer what pole star was visible in 4500 BC and was moving "apasavyam" and other questions that have been raised.

I am eager to see 150 references of Achar, please post them at the earliest. No need to post portions of his papers. I have his papers.

Cheers! Happy Reading.

Are you serious? You claim you have his papers. So what part of Achar's statement given below you don't understand? (I had posted this earlier viewtopic.php?p=1340884#p1340884)

There are a large number of references to astronomical events, which arescattered throughout the text of the epic and have been catalogued18. Figure 3 gives the distribution among the parvas of the slokas, about one hundred and fifty in number, and referring to astronomical events.

Since you have the paper you should know that:

18 Sathe, S., Deshmukh, V., and Joshi, P., Bharatiya Yuddha: Astronomical References, Shri Babasaheb Apte Smarak Samiti, (Pune, 1985).