Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 02 Oct 2012 19:54

Anand K wrote:IScientific method and hard evidence it is.

JMVHO

Yes, no other way but NOT their chosen scientific tools and frameworks. The BS of horses and PIE cannot be the framework chosen. Chose your own routes. We have our own cleanup activities to do, from the mess we ourselves have but this cleanup cannot be on the basis of a western interpretation of our texts.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Oct 2012 20:38

RajeshA wrote:shiv saar,

some Western scholars make it an issue of Pāṇini's mention of the word 'yavanani', possibly as a reference to an available script. Westerner say that the word refers to Greeks, and as such he may either be after Alexander's march to the gates of Bharat, or say that even before Alexander, there was Greek elite influence in the region.

Sometimes they come up with many nutty theories!

Pandit Kota Venkatachelam says these "Yavanas" had nothing to do with any Ionians or Greeks who had ventured into the Indian region. He says these Yavanas were more like Bharatiya Kshatriyas who had been pushed out of India, even excommunicated because they did not use to adhere to the Vedic ways!

I think the concept of Yavanas need a lot more research.

I'm having some issues with photobucket. the concept of yavanani is controversial and Panini is being dated on that one word. But nothing can change the fact that Gandhara was way past the date when Panini could have lived there. By 515 BC Darius himself has specifically mentioned control of Gandhara in the Behistun inscription and subjugation of the people near the Indus. This was not a Panini era. I'm not sure how this glaring anomaly has been missed.

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 02 Oct 2012 20:59

shiv wrote: Whether the writing part is confirmed or not here is one sure proof that Gandhara came under Darius around the time assumed for Panini. In fact this adds to may argument that Panini needs to get an earlier date and that wil carry the entire horse, cart and manure argument back by several centuries.

Not sure what date for Panini you were looking (desiring) for, when you say, "Panini needs to get earlier date".

per astronomy ref. internal to his work.. he can be placed at ~ 1300 BC (and this is by conservative estimate by interpreting his statement in the most conservative fashion. Equinoxes and solstices go in cycles and earlier timing is very much a possibility.. but will require other stronger mile posts)

(Now keep in mind ...Lords of Error probability can bring his time anywhere they like, including, he will take birth 500 years from today).

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 02 Oct 2012 21:21

A_Gupta wrote:^^^ So a prediction would be that archaeologists will uncover horse and chariot remains from 3000 BC or so in India. One thing it means is that so far they've been looking in the wrong places.

For uncovering something... one has to depends on 'numerous efforts' (Vividhascha prithak cheshta) and 'luck' (daivam chaivatra panchamam).

Of course one also need a 'goal' (ASI.. having a goal of exploring.. some work was done under BB Lal and others, based on assumptions existing at that time)..(Adhisthanam tatha karta)

Of course need money and technology and manpower and other resources (karanam cha prithak vidham)

Oh well, here it is...

adhiÍÊhÀnaÎ tathÀ kartÀ karaÉaÎ ca pÃthagvidham |
vividhÀÌ ca pÃthakceÍÊÀ daivaÎ caivÀtra paÈcamam ||18-14||

While the prediction is not claiming what would happen...

The point is that if archeologists ever uncover horse and chariot remains from 3000 BC , or 6000 BC or 10000 BC, on Indian soil, this should not surpirse anyone.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Oct 2012 22:07

Nilesh Oak wrote: Not sure what date for Panini you were looking (desiring) for, when you say, "Panini needs to get earlier date".

per astronomy ref. internal to his work.. he can be placed at ~ 1300 BC (and this is by conservative estimate by interpreting his statement in the most conservative fashion. Equinoxes and solstices go in cycles and earlier timing is very much a possibility.. but will require other stronger mile posts)

(Now keep in mind ...Lords of Error probability can bring his time anywhere they like, including, he will take birth 500 years from today).

Thanks for that interesting date - can you fill in some more details about what astronmical dtails you refer to here?

I have no "desire" other than accuracy and truth. I am puzzled by how Panini is given dates like 400 BC and 500 BC when the areas in question were under Cyrus or Darius. Too late today but I shall continue my digging tomorrow. I am amazed at how a lot of refs seem to say that the Kambojans (Gandhara probably being part of that) were "Both Iranians and Kshatriyas who were Avestan speaking". They were followers of Zoroaster as far as I can tell - so how does Panini include them in his Kshatria Janapada? Something smells fishy here.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 02 Oct 2012 22:18

From the blog Kota Venkata Chelam - Ancient Indian History

Published on Apr 28, 2009
Yavanas and Yavana Kingdoms referred in Rajatarangini

Reference to Yavana countries:
To the west of Kashmir there were five Yavana countries. Some of them are now part of Kashmir Empire. These Yavanas were not Greeks but they belonged to the Kshatriya race of India. As these disregarded and neglected the performance of vedic duties and rites they were called Mlechchas. In those Yavana regions lived four castes of people. As all these castes relinquished Vedic rites, their caste-names were merely nominal. Among the people of the Yona kingdoms Rajatarangini relates that there were castes called Yona Brahmins, Yona Kshatriyas, Yona Vaisyas and
Yona Sudras.

Yona or Yavana Kingdoms:

Abhisara,
Uraga (Urasa),
SimhaPura (Singapura)
Divya Kataka (Deva Kataka or Kataka )
Uttara jyotisha.

Empire of Kashmir

"Abhisara" consisted of two regions namely "‘Darva" and "Abhisara." The kings of these Yavana regions were Kshatriyas who became Mlechchas, were subordinate and paid tribute to Kashmir Kings. We find in Rajatarangini many instances, when these Yavana rulers revolted and became independent and the Kashmir monarchs subdued the rebels and brought them again under their sovereignty. Some of these five regions are part of Kashmir and others are on the western border. In the list of the Kashmir Kings, during the reign of 130th ruler, Kalasa Maha Raja, there was the description of Yona Brahmin as follows,

"There was a Brahmin born in the Yona Village who begged alms of paddy. His name was "Loshtaka" and he was considered to be an Astrologer of that village." So says Rajatrangjni. From this, it is evident that the Kshatriyas residing in the Yona regions, on the borders of Kashmir, though they were firstly Kshatriyas, were treated as Mlechchas, on account of their disregarding their vedic duties; the other caste people also were called Mlechchas. Therefore, Rajatarangini relates that there were caste differences even among the Mlechchas. The yona Brahmins were experts in Astrology. The ‘Yavana. Rishi', the author of "Yavana Siddhanta", was a ‘Bharatiya Yavana Brahmin’, but not a Greek. The territory "Ionia" which got that name, on account of its conquest by the Yavanas of india, was later called Greece from its contact with the savage Greek tribes. The Bharata Yavanas were of a very ancient origin. They took the sciences of Astrology and others, on their migration to ‘Ionia’(modern Greece) from India, but India borrowed nothing from Greece. On the other hand, the western writers turned matters topsy-turvy and proclaimed that all the arts and sciences flowed from Greece to India. The histories containing this inverted information were introduced as Text-Books and our children were taught these packs of lies in the schools and colleges. As the students were manufactured to be disciples of the Greeks, as a result, they cultivated a love for Greek lore and learning and developed a hate for Bharatiya knowledge and wisdom. Until and unless correct and true history of Bharat is written and these authentic books are prescribed as Texts for study in the schools and Colleges, these wrong and baneful notions cannot be torpedoed and the minds of future generations of young men cannot be diverted from the tinsel glamour of west to the true glory of the East, the hearth and home of culture and civilisation from time immemorial.

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

Wikipedia: Yona

The word "Yona" in the Pali language, and the analogues "Yavana" in Sanskrit, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil; and "Javanan" in Bengali, are words used in ancient India to designate Greek speakers. "Yona" and "Yavana" are both transliterations of the Greek word for "Ionians" (Homeric Greek: Iāones, Ancient Greek: *Iāwones), who were probably the first Greeks to be known in the East.

The Yavanas are mentioned in the Buddhist discourse of the Middle Length Sayings, in which the Buddha mentions to the Brahman Assalayana the existence of the Kamboja and Yavana people who have only two castes, master or slave. The direct identification of the word "Yavana" with the Greeks at such an early time (6th-5th century BCE) can be doubted. However, in the Hindu epic Mahabharata, the word "Yavana" is used to identify the Greeks.

Examples of direct association of these with the Greeks include:

The mention of the "Yona king Antiochus" in the Edicts of Ashoka (280 BCE)
The mention of the "Yona king Antialcidas" in the Heliodorus pillar in Vidisha (110 BCE)
King Menander and his bodyguard of "500 Yonas" in the Milinda Panha.
The description of Greek astrology and Greek terminology in the Yavanajataka ("Sayings of the Yavanas") (150 CE).
The mention of "Alexandria, the city of the Yonas" in the Mahavamsa, Chapter 29 (4th century CE).

_____________

Pandit Kota Venkatachelam goes into some detail and deals with them references. Considering that so many of our texts refer to Yavanas, this fraud needs to be corrected. Yavanas are not Greeks! Period!

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 02 Oct 2012 22:42

shiv wrote: Thanks for that interesting date - can you fill in some more details about what astronmical dtails you refer to here?

I have no "desire" other than accuracy and truth. I am puzzled by how Panini is given dates like 400 BC and 500 BC when the areas in question were under Cyrus or Darius. Too late today but I shall continue my digging tomorrow. I am amazed at how a lot of refs seem to say that the Kambojans (Gandhara probably being part of that) were "Both Iranians and Kshatriyas who were Avestan speaking". They were followers of Zoroaster as far as I can tell - so how does Panini include them in his Kshatria Janapada? Something smells fishy here.

While his work is well known, so little is known about it. Thus for now, we are stuck with 'tooth' here and 'bone' there.

Panini refers to 'Shrvaistha (Dhanishta) nakshatra ganana' (I don't have his exact reference handy.. if someone can post, that will be great), and in recent time Dhanistha being at any cardinal point was in ~1430 BC when winter solstice coincided with Dhanistha. The actual recognition could occurs +/- 100-200 years.. i.e. 1400 BC +/- 200 years. That is why I said ~ 1300 BC.

Now do keep in mind, what makes this date unreliable, in the absence of any other stronger data point about/for Panini.. is at times corrections to 'Nakshtra ganana' take much longer and it may not even occur due to disputes/reistance/lazyness of Calendar makers. For example, we are still follwing 'Ashwini' gananda, soem 1500+ years since it occcurred.

On the other hand, Panini referring to 'Shrvistha(Dhanistha) ganana does not mean necessarily its coincidence with Winter solstice. It could be anything...including Dhanistha becoming 1st Nakshatra when it coincided with Summer Solstice (14000 BC... chapter 5 ..Envious sisters and Fall of Abhijit).

Bottom line, we need additional mile posts that allows us to eliminate certain years and thus define upper and lower bounds for his time. Study of Ashthadhyayi.. may and just may provide us some clues.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 02 Oct 2012 23:02

Shiv,
You may want to look at the introductory part of this:
The Hymns of Atharvan Zarathushtra by Jatindra Mohan Chatterji. Chatterji's translation of the Gathas, kindly contributed by the Calcutta Parsi Anjuman and Sohrabji Panthaky, and scanned by Soli Dastur.

Available here:
http://www.avesta.org/chatterj_opf_files/slideshow.htm

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 03 Oct 2012 00:00

venug wrote:Just curious, who authored Bible? What is Stand of Church on this? If Bible is off limits to scrutiny, why is that we don't take the same stand with regards to Vedic corpus? But again I do understand whether Bible has a author or not, Vedic Corpus can be considered given in the first place.

The Bible is only doctrinally off-limits; in practice it has been examined up and down and sideways and backwards.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 03 Oct 2012 01:01

Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī

Original Text

Publication Date: 1891
Author: Srisa Chandra Vasu
The Ashtadhyayi of Panini Translated Into English [rarebooks.com]

Volume 6 (1897) @Internet Archive Online!
Covers chapters 6, 7 and 8 of Ashtadhyayi.

Publication Date: 1963
Author: Vasudeva Sharana Agrawala
India as known to Pāṇini: a study of the cultural material in the Ashṭādhyāyī

If somebody finds an online version of this book, it would be great!

A critique on Dr. Agrawala's India as known to Panini (1900) by T. Venkatacharya

Publication Date: 1955
Author: Vasudeva Sharana Agrawala
Pāṇinīkālīna bhāratavarsha: ashṭādhyāyī kā Sāṃskr̥tika adhyayana

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 03 Oct 2012 01:18

RajeshA, Also recall the Kalayavana episode in the Bhagavatam. Kalayavana is an ally of Jarasandha who goes after Krishna and the Yadavas, Krishna retreats to the hills and lets Kalayavana get killed by encounter with an old king Machkund.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 03 Oct 2012 01:33

ramana garu,

I think that Yavana is very much an Indian word. In Vedic Sanskrit the word is 'Javana'. That really sounds like 'Ja Vana', i.e. "Go to Forest", meaning "exile". Mleccha may be another word for it.

Pandit Kota Venkatachelam thinks these were Bharatiya Kshatriyas who were pushed out for their wayward ways.

Also Persians, who were culturally close to Indians in the distant past, may also have been users of the word 'Javana' as people who were to be considered outsiders. It is possible the Persians or even other India-originating tribes in West Asia may have started calling some people living in the region called Ionia, as Yavanas, and the proto-Ionians took the name given to them by the Persians.

The Indians basically may not really have much to do with Ionians. The Yavanas spoken of in Indian texts were not Greeks. Sure there may have been some Greeks traveling to India for education, but Greeks were not really militarily to see anywhere near India until Alexander took a long walk!

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 03 Oct 2012 01:52

Ionia/Anatolia is what is now Turkey. Its not the Greek Isles.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 03 Oct 2012 02:20

The Greeks are referred to as yunana by the arabs, clearly derived from yavana .... In fact the Turks call Greece yunanistan if my memory serves...

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 03 Oct 2012 02:21

the word yunani is part of Hindi/Urdu. I am not sure what it means.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 03 Oct 2012 02:30

Unani is the Islamic medical stream. Its based on Greek ideas of healing.
You see a lot of Unani medical stores in Hyderabad.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 03 Oct 2012 02:45

JE Menon wrote:The Greeks are referred to as yunana by the arabs, clearly derived from yavana .... In fact the Turks call Greece yunanistan if my memory serves...

The issue was to whom did the people in Ramayana, Mahabharata, Puranas, etc. refer to when they spoke of Yavanas or Yonas, in India's Northwest.

The Greeks were never so close to India till much later, after Alexander undertook his march, not even by the times given by AIT-Nazis. Wiki says "most likely Mahabharata took place in the beginning of the 9th century BCE." So if Mahabharata talks about Yavanas, how can Mahabharata have taken place in the beginning of 9th century BCE, when Yavanas, if they were Greeks, didn't appear on the scene till 500 years later.

So obviously we are talking about some people other than Greeks when we speak of Yavanas. So why do AIT-Nazis use the "yavanani" reference in Aṣṭādhyāyī to mean Greeks and then try to date Aṣṭādhyāyī and Pāṇini accordingly, or even other stuff.

For example, Yavanajataka is considered a Greek work! Why?

It is the Indian word "Javana", "Yavana", "Yona" that traveled westwards through the Persians and ended up naming a people living in Anatolia, and this transfer may have happened before Zarathustra, when the Persians were still closer to Vedic way of looking at things.

ShyamSP · Post by **ShyamSP** » 03 Oct 2012 02:54

^ Could that Yona Kshtriyas be Mittanis?

Mittanis spoke of Vedic gods. So during Mahabharata time people knew some westward movement of fallen Kshtriyas and those left were referred to as Yavanis. Obviously, Mahabarata should be moved to some 1500 BC unless knowledge about Yavanis are later insertions.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 03 Oct 2012 03:02

ramana wrote:Unani is the Islamic medical stream. Its based on Greek ideas of healing.
You see a lot of Unani medical stores in Hyderabad.

Unless Yunani Medicine has its origins much before Ionians were named as Ionians. It is possible that the medicine referred to the medicine of the Yona, Yavanas, etc. to the East of the Arabs. They may have been introduced to this system of medicine through the Persians.

Once however Ionians got named, it may have caused some confusion, and the Arabs ended up thinking the medicine system referred to that of the Greeks!

The whole Unani medicine system was developed by Persians and some Arabs. The connection to Greece is basically only through the word equivalence of Ionia == Yona. There is hardly any references to this system of medicine from any Greek sources, whereas in the region of India, Northwest of India, Persia, Arab regions, it is widely spread.

In fact this just proves that Yonas, Yavanas lived much closer to India, from whom the medicine got its name. The Greeks/Ionians had nothing to do with this system of medicine. They have no contributions to offer in the field of Unani medicine, except a dubious name.

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 03 Oct 2012 03:03

Above link provided by Gupta ji (thank you!) is awesome. A lot of questions get addressed and the frustration felt by author on racist "experts" is not unlike what we see also among all other indologist.

However, the dates seem to be all over the place.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 03 Oct 2012 03:19

A_Gupta wrote:The Hymns of Atharvan Zarathushtra by Jatindra Mohan Chatterji. Chatterji's translation of the Gathas, kindly contributed by the Calcutta Parsi Anjuman and Sohrabji Panthaky, and scanned by Soli Dastur.

Available here:
http://www.avesta.org/chatterj_opf_files/slideshow.htm

Chatterji depends on his dating of Atharvan Zarathustra on Tilak's dating of Rigveda. So there may be some errors, which may have crept in. Also too much of Semitic prophet talk!

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 03 Oct 2012 04:12

^^^ You need to read further. As per the work, Avestans and Vedics had a split because Zarathustra sort of does a Muhammad on the Vedics, and tries to get them to abjure the multiple devas, etc., and become strictly monotheistic. That is why there is a schism, and why Zarathustra is termed as a Prophet.

Moreover, the work identifies a story in the Mahabharata as one of a Vedic who went and lived among the Avestans for a while.

The work also identifies exactly the same problem with the ruler contemporaneous to Zarathustra that we have the Chandragupta/Sandracottus - the predecessor and successor kings don't match, and yet that is used to set a date.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 03 Oct 2012 04:16

Here is some Wikipedia jñāna!

1) Ancient Greek medicine
2) Medicine in the medieval Islamic world

The article talks about Hippocrates, Galen, Dioscorides influence on Islamic Medicine. But the question is do any of these Greeks ever describe their medicine system as Unani? It could be possible but does the word Unani come up even in the works of Arabs when referencing the works of these Greeks, or is Unani also used in other contexts, pertaining to other sources of medicine?

If one were to even check where these personalities lived, one would see they were hardly in today's Greece. They all came from Anatolia.

Hyppocrates from Kos (36°51′N 27°14′E) - medical ethics
Galen from Pergamon (39°07′N 27°11′E) - dissections, surgery?
Dioscorides from Anazarbus (37°15′50″N 35°54′20″E) - botany

True then Greece was considered as having a spread into Anatolia, but having these people so much into the East means they were nearer to other knowledge centers. Anyway these people were definitely Asians and not Europeans.

I don't want to say Greeks made less of an impact on Unani medicine of the Arabs and the Persians, but I think one needs to have a critical look at the claims.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 03 Oct 2012 04:19

A_Gupta ji,

I don't think one could call Zoroastrianism as strictly monotheistic. It is more of duality.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 03 Oct 2012 04:49

A_Gupta wrote:The Hymns of Atharvan Zarathushtra by Jatindra Mohan Chatterji. Chatterji's translation of the Gathas, kindly contributed by the Calcutta Parsi Anjuman and Sohrabji Panthaky, and scanned by Soli Dastur.

Available here:
http://www.avesta.org/chatterj_opf_files/slideshow.htm

So there is mention of Ahura Mazda in Mahabharata, and some dating can be done here. Also it is possible that Zoroastrianism may have remained a small force for quite some time before becoming the state religion or the religion of the majority.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 03 Oct 2012 06:17

Whether or not you believe The Hymns of Atharvan Zarathushtra by Jatindra Mohan Chatterji, he shows yet another way of looking at the whole issue, which is Iran (upto Armenia) and Sapta Sindhu as part of one large cultural complex for several thousand years. In that sense AIT/OIT is a false dichotomy induced by the greatly shrunken boundaries of Indic culture. Rather, Vedics and close relatives occupied a large area (and were in this area from the beginning of human memory), and this area was whittled away over the last 2500 years, until we see much of that area as non-India.

Chatterji quotes a hymn that he interprets that the western boundary of the Indo-sphere was the Tigris.

Nevertheless, the center of Vedic action for Jatindra Mohan Chatterji is north India.

KLP Dubey · Post by **KLP Dubey** » 03 Oct 2012 06:49

Carl wrote:For instance, "go" can be cows, but also earth, or the senses? Were those differences in meaning earlier indicated by accent?

Excellent question! Answer is: maybe.

The thing is that one has to treat the Veda as an intrinsic/independent observable. Therefore, the rules one makes, and the results one gets, are going to depend on the assumptions. As far as "successful" RV interpretation is concerned, the "sit up and take serious notice" time will come when a set of assumptions gives completely consistent results. It hasn't happened yet.

So far, the assumption has been that single Vedic words have a unique accent of their own (which implies a single meaning) but that the accent can change depending upon its combination with other words. This has led to a set of "rules" being formulated - purely based upon observation of the RV - about when a word accent should change. Again, the "fitting" of these rules is never perfect. All the "rules" have either exceptions or frequent deviations.

Hence, one can always raise the question whether the accent changes could (at least some of the time) imply word meaning changes instead. The problem is that we do not know a priori what the Vedic words really mean in the first place. The only hope for solving this problem is with large-scale computational resources and advanced algorithms which could crunch through the myriad possibilities given a set of high-level rules/assumptions. "Seeding" the program with varying numbers of "known meanings" would be necessary. The objective would be to come up with at least one consistent interpretation of the 400,000-odd sounds.

KL

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 03 Oct 2012 07:07

A_Gupta wrote:Shiv,
You may want to look at the introductory part of this:
The Hymns of Atharvan Zarathushtra by Jatindra Mohan Chatterji. Chatterji's translation of the Gathas, kindly contributed by the Calcutta Parsi Anjuman and Sohrabji Panthaky, and scanned by Soli Dastur.

Available here:
http://www.avesta.org/chatterj_opf_files/slideshow.htm

Brilliant stuff Arun. I had seen that e book before and had browsed through parts of the text but had not bothered to read the intro which is relevant to what I have been digging for.

Let me list some points - some of which derive support from that e book. I will however use only AIT nazi approved dates and timelines wherever possible

1. Avestan and Sanskrit are very close. The Zend Avesta corresponds to "Chand Upastha" and constitutes a part of the Atharva Veda
2. Panini likely knew of the Chand Upastha and actually talks of the derivation of "upastha"
3. Panini was writing about Vedic Sanskrit and possibly Avestan when it was very close to Sanskrit
4. Old Persian may be a later development than Avestan and while close to Sanskrit, is a different language.
5. AIT linguists place Avestan at about 1200 BC, while Old Persian is attested from 500 BC
6. Putting Panini in the middle of an Old Persian speaking civilization and Achaemenid ruled city and saying that he defined the grammar of Vedic Sanskrit and its sister language old Avestan is clearly a mistake.

If Old Persian is attested from 500 BC. In contrast Avestan is from 1200 BC "Vedic times" (700 years earlier as per AIT nazi dates). It is far more likely that Panini himself lived 500 to 600 years earlier than he is currently dated, at a time when Avestan and Sanskrit were similar and Old Persian had not yet developed out of Avestan. That would be the latest date for Panini. He could have lived earlier.

The significance of that is that if Panini lived around 1000 BC as the available information suggests, we also know form most AIT sources that the Vedic period from the first Vedas to the time when the epics were composed were estimated to have lasted 600 to 800 years. That puts the Rig Veda in the 1800 to 1600 BC period, ahead of Mitanni.

If Rig Veda came before Mitanni, the Indo European language Vedic Sanskrit was already inside India at a time it is claimed to have been still on its way to India from Central Asia.

Of course even these dates are probably too late. Most likely that the Vedas are from 3000 BC or earlier but the above is the best date I can get using AIT approved dates and AIT is an epic fail using AIT Nazi dates. I think I will move on to the Anatolian AIT dates next. Kurgan is a dead horse in too many ways aprt from the hilarious finding that the "blonde, fair haired" human bones from Kurgan graves showed R1a1 with the Indian origin M17 sub clade genes

SDRE

KLP Dubey · Post by **KLP Dubey** » 03 Oct 2012 07:13

venug wrote:Dubey ji, could you also share some good references on Mimamsa and other important Vedic works if you don't mind?

I highly recommend the following three excellent works/translations by Mahamahopadhyaya Ganganath Jha:

- The Purva Mimamsa Sutras of Jaimini (original text + translation + condensed commentaries of Shabara, Kumarila, and Prabhakara)...great introductory text

- The Slokavarttika of Kumarila (translation + commentaries by the later Mimamsakas Sucharita Mishra and Parthasarathi Mishra)...excellent for deep understanding of all the high-level arguments

- The Tantravarttika of Kumarila - Volumes I and II (translation) Huge work revealing the complex Vedic linguistic philosophy that drives the pursuit of Dharma.

The works on Shiksha (Rg and Yajur pratishakhya) and Nirukta-Nighantu (by Yaska), have already been posted/linked by RajeshA and others on the thread.

KL

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 03 Oct 2012 07:22

Dubey ji,

I see. So, seeded with any particular set of postulates, the semantic residual will keep raising further questions and speculation until it becomes vanishingly small. I think multiple, ordered supersets of such postulates can be created, depending on what the epistemological starting point is, all tending towards an optimum balance. Completeness and consistency, being relative, can only be at the point of balance. From a cognitive viewpoint, this would imply a right-brain left-brain balance? Certainly we see this functional dichotomy in terms of how treating the language of the Vedas as a written language will take one down one route versus treating it as purely oral. Or even in written forms, there is a distinct difference in the cultural phenomena related to scripts that are based more on pictographic pattern recognition versus symbolic alphabet, etc.

Here is an interesting article by someone trying to make a statement on this subject -- I think some of his assumptions are ridiculous and very West-centric (e.g. the bible is the first written scripture, etc), but nevertheless he makes some interesting suggestions. The Alphabet versus the Godess:

In this groundbreaking book, Leonard Shlain, author of the bestselling Art & Physics, proposes that the process of learning alphabetic literacy rewired the human brain, with profound consequences for culture. Making remarkable connections across a wide range of subjects including brain function, anthropology, history, and religion, Shlain argues that literacy reinforced the brain's linear, abstract, predominantly masculine left hemisphere at the expense of the holistic, iconic feminine right one. This shift upset the balance between men and women initiating the disappearance of goddesses, the abhorrence of images, and, in literacy's early stages, the decline of women's political status. Patriarchy and misogyny followed.

I believe computational models to observe the effects of hearing, reading and speech in terms of this psycho-acoustic "center of gravity" already exist.

Could you also answer an earlier question by RajeshA ji - how does someone like us take up the study of Veda? I guess buying books would not be the way. Are there camps, retreats, or networks of individuals within or outside India who cater to such interest? How does one get started?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 03 Oct 2012 07:28

Carl wrote:
In this groundbreaking book, Leonard Shlain, author of the bestselling Art & Physics, proposes that the process of learning alphabetic literacy rewired the human brain, with profound consequences for culture. Making remarkable connections across a wide range of subjects including brain function, anthropology, history, and religion, Shlain argues that literacy reinforced the brain's linear, abstract, predominantly masculine left hemisphere at the expense of the holistic, iconic feminine right one. This shift upset the balance between men and women initiating the disappearance of goddesses, the abhorrence of images, and, in literacy's early stages, the decline of women's political status. Patriarchy and misogyny followed.

Carl I think that author has bent things too far. Rewiring of the brain from language is well known, but claiming that the rewiring led to the initiation of "disappearance of goddesses, the abhorrence of images, and, in literacy's early stages, the decline of women's political status. Patriarchy and misogyny followed" is in my view, complete nonsense because the man seems to be referring to Abrahamic religions with zero insight into India. Goddesses and images did not disappear in India where society is just as patriarchal. The business of Gotras discussed earlier is patriarchal and was designed to keep the oral tradition alive and error free.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 03 Oct 2012 07:54

Monotheism is the beginning of totalitarianism.

Anand K · Post by **Anand K** » 03 Oct 2012 08:28

Shiv wrote:Putting Panini in the middle of an Old Persian speaking civilization and Achaemenid ruled city and saying that he defined the grammar of Vedic Sanskrit and its sister language old Avestan is clearly a mistake.

The Indian lands were the 20th Satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire..... but that control had waned by 400BC during the reign of Artaxerxes II. Well, if they were in control, how do we have Spitamenes, Alexander's dogged adversary in N. Afghanistan or Ambhi in Taxila? Still, the empire did exercise control in parts of Baluchistan and hired mercenaries from Indian lands.
Anyway, the Satrapy system provided a great deal of autonomy.... the Greeks and Jews in Persian lands thrived and fought for Persia. You also have Armenian Princess commanding the Persian Navy and Jewish texts praising the Emperor. (In fact, in many ways the Greeks were the terrorist state and Persia the superpower of those times.)
Therefore, IMO it is not inconceivable that an Indian living in a fringe Satrapy could develop a grammar magnum-opus. Didn't an institution like Taxila itself flourish during the Achaemenid days? It was ancient even during Chanakya's time!

PS: Interesting thing, there are references to Cypriot/Egyptian rebellions against Achaemenid rule but none about any Indian rebellions.

KLP Dubey · Post by **KLP Dubey** » 03 Oct 2012 08:31

shiv wrote: 1. Avestan and Sanskrit are very close. The Zend Avesta corresponds to "Chand Upastha" and constitutes a part of the Atharva Veda
2. Panini likely knew of the Chand Upastha and actually talks of the derivation of "upastha"
3. Panini was writing about Vedic Sanskrit and possibly Avestan when it was very close to Sanskrit
4. Old Persian is a later development from Avestan and while close to Sanskrit, is a different language.
5. AIT linguists place Avestan at about 1200 BC, while Old Persian is attested from 500 BC
6. Putting Panini in the middle of an Old Persian speaking civilization and Achaemenid ruled city and saying that he defined the grammar of Vedic Sanskrit and its sister language old Avestan is clearly a mistake.

I have come across this work before. Agree 100% with all points you have summarized above. However the author makes some elementary mistakes. He claims Zarathusthra is indirectly referred in the Rgveda (!!) because of some correspondences between Avesta words used to describe him, and certain RV words.

Particularly, he claims the use of the word "Vena", "Rama", "Maghavat" etc indicate Zarathushtra was referred to in the RV. Classic mistakes of selective quotation, by which one can conjure up almost anything.

E.g. on page xviii he claims Vena and Rama of RV 10.93 are referring to Zarathusthra, when it is obvious they are being referred to as devatas of the Sukta. RV 10.93 has Vishvedevas as the devatas, and Vena and Rama are two of these deities (mentioned along with others). If it wasn't obvious already, Vena is also the devata of a complete Sukta in RV mandala 10, i.e. 10.123.

The obviously correct explanation is that these RV words were later taken by the authors of the Atharva Veda as well as the Iranians as epithets.

KL

KLP Dubey · Post by **KLP Dubey** » 03 Oct 2012 09:11

Carl wrote:Could you also answer an earlier question by RajeshA ji - how does someone like us take up the study of Veda? I guess buying books would not be the way. Are there camps, retreats, or networks of individuals within or outside India who cater to such interest? How does one get started?

It depends on what you mean by "studying" the Veda. If you are talking about memorizing and reproducing the sounds of Rgveda as much as you can (indeed the most "useful" way of connecting with the RV), you need to have an oral recording, a reliable text, and the pratishakhya with you.

If you are intending to study the Vedic words "academically", then it is better to become proficient in Sanskrit first. If you already know Sanskrit, then you can use a Vedic grammar and reader (Macdonell is excellent) to get familiar with.

KL

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 03 Oct 2012 09:32

Anand K wrote: Therefore, IMO it is not inconceivable that an Indian living in a fringe Satrapy could develop a grammar magnum-opus. Didn't an institution like Taxila itself flourish during the Achaemenid days? It was ancient even during Chanakya's time!

Your post has no dates. The dates are important because the Babylonians were knocking on India's shores 1000 BC to 700 BC. The Medians controlled Iran from 700 BC to 500 BC. The Achaemenids came in after 500 BC. The Achaemenids used old Persian as their language. Avestan by then was already a dead language used only in religious rites. What you are saying is that if you accept the 400 to 600 BC dates for Panini, it means Panini was sitting in Gandhara at a time when the local language was no longer Avestan. Old Persian was the official language of the empire. Cuneiform writing was well known in Persia and already in use for Old Persian, but Panini was doing grammar for Sanskrit and Avestan in this land and recorded in his work that the very Gandhara that was under the Persians was a "Mahajanapada" of Vedic Kshatriyas? The Achaemenids were Zoroastrians to the core, hardly Vedic. But this is AIT logic and I believe it is wrong.

Arjun · Post by **Arjun** » 03 Oct 2012 09:59

A_Gupta wrote:Whether or not you believe The Hymns of Atharvan Zarathushtra by Jatindra Mohan Chatterji, he shows yet another way of looking at the whole issue, which is Iran (upto Armenia) and Sapta Sindhu as part of one large cultural complex for several thousand years. In that sense AIT/OIT is a false dichotomy induced by the greatly shrunken boundaries of Indic culture. Rather, Vedics and close relatives occupied a large area (and were in this area from the beginning of human memory), and this area was whittled away over the last 2500 years, until we see much of that area as non-India.

This is probably the right approach. Also, may well be likely that BMAC was an extension of this same large cultural complex that developed at some stage when it expanded northwards.

member_22872 · Post by **member_22872** » 03 Oct 2012 10:04

Dubey ji, thank you. Greatly appreciate your sharing.

Anand K · Post by **Anand K** » 03 Oct 2012 10:26

Shiv wrote:The Achaemenids used old Persian as their language. Avestan by then was already a dead language used only in religious rites. What you are saying is that if you accept the 400 to 600 BC dates for Panini, it means Panini was sitting in Gandhara at a time when the local language was no longer Avestan. Old Persian was the official language of the empire. Cuneiform writing was well known in Persia and already in use for Old Persian, but Panini was doing grammar for Sanskrit and Avestan in this land and recorded in his work that the very Gandhara that was under the Persians was a "Mahajanapada" of Vedic Kshatriyas?

I did not understand the Panini-Avestan link. Care to explain?

Old Persian was an imperial construct..... Old Aramaic was still the popular language and was used for administrative purposes. The Achaemenid nobility started the Old Persian cuneiform project because Aramaic was the language of the conquered assyrians, their old oppressors. Still, Aramaic was favored due to the homogeneity and was in vogue from Egypt to Gedrosia. However, this was not the common language in the current Afghan or Indian satrapies. Whatever be the case, the Achameneids were not philistines who invested in Kulturkampf and destruction of local identities.

Also, if Panini lived in the 7th-5th century BCE the aam admi languages were probably the "Prakirits" or the so-called Middle Indo-Aryan languages. In this timeline, it is possible he could have created his great work even though it was under a Persian satrap, who was prolly interested in tax collection and army levies only.
OTOH if he lived in the 18th-15th century BCE (fitting with the Mauryas of 1500 BCE thing), what was the aam admi language and what script did Panini use? Unlike hymns, a corpus of this scale and scope cannot be codified and transmitted in purely oral fashion, right? Also Panini does mention a script.... and there are threads which tie the 7th-5th century BCE timeline to origin theories of Kharoshti and Brahmi scripts. But if he was from the 15th cent. BCE, the script and the aam admi language questions remains, no?

Arjun · Post by **Arjun** » 03 Oct 2012 10:31

Here's a genetic study of relationship between Parsi genes and Indian (in this case that of Gujarat):The Complex mtDNA Landscape of the Southwest and Central Asian Corridor

In contrast to the parallelism between mtDNA and Y-chromosomal data in most populations, the Parsis and the Makrani both show a sharp contrast between these loci. The Parsis live in southeastern Pakistan, and historical records indicate an Iranian origin (Nanavutty 1997). These followers of the prophet Zoroaster started their migration from Iran in the 7th century a.d., settling in the northwestern Indian province of Gujarat around 900 a.d. and eventually moving to Mumbai in India and Karachi in Pakistan. Y-chromosome data show that they resemble Iranian populations rather than their neighbors in Pakistan: an admixture estimate of 100% from Iran was obtained (Qamar et al. 2002), supporting the historical records. However, when the Parsi mtDNA pool was compared with those of the Iranians and Gujaratis (their putative parental populations), a strong contrast with the Y-chromosomal data emerged. About 60% of their maternal gene pool belongs to South Asian haplogroups, which make up only 7% of the combined Iranian sample (table 2). The very high frequency of haplogroup M among the Parsis (55%), similar to those of Indian populations and much higher than that of the combined Iranian sample (1.7%), highlights their close affinities with India (fig. 6). Our results lead to an admixture estimate of 100% from Gujarat and provide a strong contrast between the maternal and paternal components of this population. Although the small population size of the Parsis (a few thousand) may have distorted haplogroup frequencies in this population, diversity of both Y-chromosome and mtDNA lineages remains high, making a strong drift effect unlikely. Our results therefore support a male-mediated migration of the ancestors of the present-day Parsi population from Iran to India, where they admixed with local females, or directional mating in Gujarat between Iranian males and local women, leading ultimately to the loss of mtDNAs of Iranian origin.

The study notes strong linkages between Parsi and Gujarati genes, but limits speculation regarding cause to Iranian men intermarrying with Gujarati women after landing in India. The actual genetic linkage may be much more ancient.