Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

[TSJones]

tainted no doubt by the euros......


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian% ... ace_treaty

[Prem Kumar]

ukumar:

Are you @Dirghakarna on Twitter because your arguments are very similar?

1) As Shiv said, lets not assume anything about how old language or PIE is. Also, when early reports of R1a being common to Europe & India were found, the same linguists/geneticists claimed that as proof of AIT (with no consideration for the dates being ancient!)

2) If you say that M458, z283 and Z93 is found in ancient steppe remains, you need to back that up with references. And dates. Just because an ancient Steppe DNA shows Z93 doesn't mean that it originated there, as you obviously know

3) If you say Z93 came into India, you need to provide references that explain this. Per Underhill's 2014 paper, R1a*, R1a1a*, Z93 are all Asian, the last 2 possibly being South Asian. And mind you, the 2014 Underhill paper under-samples Indian population. Will post about it separately. If more Indian populations are sampled, the locus is likely to shift more towards India because more mutations might be observed

[A_Gupta]

Re: Hittite, it was deciphered by a Czech:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed%C5%99ich_Hrozn%C3%BD

The book we need to get hold of is:
Die Sprache der Hethiter: Ihr Bau und ihre Zugehörigkeit zum indogermanischen Sprachstamm: ein Entzifferungsversuch
https://books.google.com/books?id=5lpiAAAAMAAJ

This paper provides some background:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/263436?seq= ... b_contents

[shiv]

tainted no doubt by the euros......


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian% ... ace_treaty

Jones you don't know how close you are to the truth. That paper about the decipherment of Akkadian has this:
http://cdli.ucla.edu/files/publications ... 11_001.pdf

Sayce (1882: 378) said many years later that no problem in decipherment ever seemed to baffle him

Now Sayce is an interesting guy. Here he speaks of the origins of the Indo-European languages in his book "The Primitive Home of the Aryans"

“The conclusion is obvious, southern Scandinavia and the adjacent districts must be the first home and starting-point of the western branch of the Indo-European family. If we turn to the eastern branch, we find that the farther east we go, the fainter become the traces of the tall blonde race.”

More about Sayce:

A.S. Sayce writes :-
"But as far as man was concerned, his history was still limited by the dates in the margin of our Bibles. Even today the old idea of his recent appearance still prevails in quarters where we should least expect to find it and so-called critical historians still occupy themselves in endeavouring to reduce the dates of his earlier history.... To a generation which had been brought up to believe that in 4004 B.C. or thereabout the world was being created, the idea man himself went back to 100,000 years ago was both incredible and inconceivable."

- and these are the guys who wrote the history of India and the near East for us

[shiv]

Re: Hittite, it was deciphered by a Czech:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed%C5%99ich_Hrozn%C3%BD

The book we need to get hold of is:
Die Sprache der Hethiter: Ihr Bau und ihre Zugehörigkeit zum indogermanischen Sprachstamm: ein Entzifferungsversuch
https://books.google.com/books?id=5lpiAAAAMAAJ

Yes. That is exactly what Googe reveals. Did you try getting hold of or reading the book? Its in the Czech language. If I am not mistaken (I searched for this stuff a couple of years ago) - it was then translated into Germaan. Anyhow this is Hrozny's story and I have rarely heard a more unlikely story

A Czech linguist, Bedrich Hrozný who specialized in Semitic languages decided to attempt the decipherment of the Hittite cuneiform script. He was able to visit Istanbul and obtain copies of some of the cuneiform text from Boghaz Keui. In one text he found a example of two rhyming lines that looked promising. He knew the phonetic values of the cuneiform symbols so he rendered the two lines into the Latin alphabet as:

nu ninda en e-iz-za-te-ni
wa-a-tar-ma e-ku-ut-te-ni

Hrozny recognized the cuneiform ideogram ninda as representing bread. This led him to speculate that some of the other words in the lines might be for something like eating. He at that point was still considering Hittite as a Semitic language so he was looking for words that might be cognate with words for eating and so forth in other Semitic languages. Hrozný was a Semitic scholar but as a Czech he was also familiar with German. In scanning the lines looking for something that would be associated with bread what does he find at the beginning of the second line but wa-a-tar. It fairly leaps out as virtually the English word water although Hrozný probably saw it as a cognate of the German word for water, wasser. This was the clue to Hrozný that Hittite belonged to the Indo-European language family. He found similarities of the words in the lines to other Indo-European languages and was able to translate the pair of lines as:

Great. So "watar" sounds like "water" right?

With this breakthrough Hrozný and others were very quickly able to translate the Hittite cuneiform script and recover the historical record of the Hittite empire and its culture.

So how did Hrozny do all this with a knowledge of Czech and German? It was done more than a century ago? Who has cross checked and re verified his work?

Who will do it now? Its in the Czech language? Who is interested? (other than some of us). But these old works - especially with some racist Europeans - esp German Assyriologists who were the forebears of Nazis involved in the writing of history - the whole edifice looks fake to me.

I have some access to jstor and I found this commentary on Hittite which I downloaded - a 1921 paper
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/593721. ... 3361276525

My readers will ask point-blank: 'Is Hittite Indo-European?'
I answer that it seems to contain an injection of I. E. material in
a composite pidgin-Kanesian, but even of this I do not feel quite
certai

Even the Indo European character of Hittite is questioned.

On the other hand the same paper mentions that Hittite texts

. First, I may
mention an inscription which contains Sanskrit words, especially
the odd numerals from one to seven in the forms aika, tiera, panza,
and satta, in close vicinity to the cuneiform signs of these
numerals by wedge count. They occur in composition with a
word vartana, again obviously Sanskritic, as epithets of horses in
a sort of LerIrucej composed by 'Kikkuli5 from the land Mittani',
and lend obvious support to the four much-discussed names of
Vedic gods (Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and the Ndsatyas), dis-
covered long ago by Hugo Winckler.6 Dr. Forrer thinks that
these Sanskrit traces are to be assigned to the 'Urinder', whose
original home he places on the right bank of the river Kur (Cyrus)
up to the Kaspian sea, and that they crossed the Kaukasus into
Hittite land at about 2500 B. C.7 More likely they came to the
Hittites from Mittani. It seems quite clear that both the god
names and the 'horse numerals', as we may now call them, are
not 'Aryan', but Sanskrit; the numeral aika, as compared with
aiva, the'Achemenidan Persian and Avestan form, as well as the
specific Vedic form of the four god names, makes this almost
certain

This suggests that Rig Veda and Sanskrit pre dated Hittite - which is not really an Indo European language

Arun there is a lot of fog here and a lot of fudging

[ukumar]

ukumar:

Are you @Dirghakarna on Twitter because your arguments are very similar?

1) As Shiv said, lets not assume anything about how old language or PIE is. Also, when early reports of R1a being common to Europe & India were found, the same linguists/geneticists claimed that as proof of AIT (with no consideration for the dates being ancient!)

2) If you say that M458, z283 and Z93 is found in ancient steppe remains, you need to back that up with references. And dates. Just because an ancient Steppe DNA shows Z93 doesn't mean that it originated there, as you obviously know

3) If you say Z93 came into India, you need to provide references that explain this. Per Underhill's 2014 paper, R1a*, R1a1a*, Z93 are all Asian, the last 2 possibly being South Asian. And mind you, the 2014 Underhill paper under-samples Indian population. Will post about it separately. If more Indian populations are sampled, the locus is likely to shift more towards India because more mutations might be observed

No, I am not that active on Twitter. But I'll go check out his tweets.

I was afraid you'll ask for reference. You need to look in to supplement data in ancient genetic papers I had referenced few weeks back. This http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/copperbronzeagedna.shtml site keeps summary of ancient DNA for easy reference.

I realize that we'll not come to common ground any time soon. My request would be that you incorporate ancient DNA finding in your model. As I mentioned before, they provide different picture than modern DNA based conclusion from Underhill's paper.

[hanumadu]

There seems to be a pattern in all this. Every time a new field or new discovery is made, the assorted Indologists and linguists claim that as proof for AIT. By the time the rest of the folks catch up and point out the flaws, they move on to a more recent discovery and say why this is correct and supersedes the old research without as much as acknowledging that they were wrong with the earlier findings.

[peter]

There seems to be a pattern in all this. Every time a new field or new discovery is made, the assorted Indologists and linguists claim that as proof for AIT. By the time the rest of the folks catch up and point out the flaws, they move on to a more recent discovery and say why this is correct and supersedes the old research without as much as acknowledging that they were wrong with the earlier findings.

But who is stopping the "rest of the folks" to be trail blazers? And let the Indologists follow suit?

[shiv]

There seems to be a pattern in all this. Every time a new field or new discovery is made, the assorted Indologists and linguists claim that as proof for AIT. By the time the rest of the folks catch up and point out the flaws, they move on to a more recent discovery and say why this is correct and supersedes the old research without as much as acknowledging that they were wrong with the earlier findings.

The way to counter that is to stop following the AIT folks and write our own stuff. Talageri, Kak, our very own RajeshA and a whole lot of others have done just that. As long as one follows manasatarmgini et al , one is going to be "following" and not leading bewitched by claims of what is latest.

Our basic problem was a colonized mindset where we were told by Brits: "We speak objective truth. Your works are fiction". We swallowed that and say "They speak objective truth. What comes from us is fiction". It always reminds me of the parting line of comedians Ronnie Barker and the late Ronnie Corbett. Barker would say "And its good night from me.." and Corbett would echo and say "And it's good night from him"

[shiv]

There seems to be a pattern in all this. Every time a new field or new discovery is made, the assorted Indologists and linguists claim that as proof for AIT. By the time the rest of the folks catch up and point out the flaws, they move on to a more recent discovery and say why this is correct and supersedes the old research without as much as acknowledging that they were wrong with the earlier findings.

But who is stopping the "rest of the folks" to be trail blazers? And let the Indologists follow suit?

The "followers" will always "follow". Mental block. White man is right man.

[Pulikeshi]

The way to counter that is to stop following the AIT folks and write our own stuff. Talageri, Kak, our very own RajeshA and a whole lot of others have done just that. As long as one follows manasatarmgini et al , one is going to be "following" and not leading bewitched by claims of what is latest.

The thread is about OIT - from Theory to Truth. There is the occasional myth engineering.
There is more AIT and AMT bashing and less on putting together evidence for the hypothesis of OIT.
Every politico-economic power goes back to an origin story... it is the nature of the beast!
A picture is worth a 1000 words, but a good myth is worth a 1000 rebuttals!
Kudos to all of you who are trying to create a new myth...

[RoyG]

Yes, that is my guess too. I te hink r1a1a diversified in Iran and went to both Europe and India. You may want to read http://new-indology.blogspot.com/ if you haven't already. I think he is more closer to truth.

Correct. Post glacial expansion of M17 oit and then split. Could've happened in Iran. However, earliest z93 migration occured to India while sister branch r1a migrated to Europe. Would explain why we have hardly any European markers but possess the oldest z93 marker while central Asia and parts of Europe have the youngest. Even if the dating is off it still would be ancient enough to invalidate AIT nonsense.

[A_Gupta]

Thanks the mist is clearing. But not out of the woods yet.
....
how is it certain that m417 is above z282 and z93?
do you know what logic was used to arrive at this conclusion?
This picture is from underhill paper and based on my poor understanding from ukumar's explanation that this picture did not include the full genome data.

The Y chromosome passes unchanged (apart from copy errors) from father to son. Mitochondrial DNA goes unchanged from mother to her children. The rest of the chromosomes undergo recombination - a mixing up of what was received from the grandparents - and that makes it much more complicated to trace lineage.

Since the tree shows 417 is one node up from z282 and z93 one possibility is everyone who has z282 or z93 has m417 but not all m417 have z93 or z282?

I think so, but now that you ask, I will work on understanding the actual algorithms and analysis that is done.

But in the full genome there would certainly be more such genes showing similar sought of relationships. Have we gone through them? How does one go through this data? And where does such data exist?

The whole genome, for reasons mentioned above, is much more complicated to analyze for lineage. I'm not sure my simple mental model applies any more.

Furthermore What if there is a natural process by which mutation m417 reverses itself? In such a scenario how would one distinguish m417 as parent of z93?
In otherwords is it possible someone have m515 and z93 and not m417?

The error rate is very tiny, I think Underhill mentions a range of 1 per 100 years or 1 per 122 years and so on. It is very unlikely that m417 reverses itself. Remember also, that all this is in the non-functional DNA, where mutations are neutral in their effect. Mutations in working genes very likely change the odds of survival and reproduction, and that complicates matters enormously.

[A_Gupta]

I was afraid you'll ask for reference. You need to look in to supplement data in ancient genetic papers I had referenced few weeks back. This http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/copperbronzeagedna.shtml site keeps summary of ancient DNA for easy reference.

Looking for Z93 on that page,

one gets:
Srubnaya Russia Novoselki, Northern Forest, Samara [I0232/SVP 12] M 1850-1200 BC R1a1a1b2 Z93

Srubnaya Russia Barinovka I, Samara River, Samara [I0423/SVP 31] M 1850-1200 BC R1a1a1b2 Z93

some undated stuff from Mongolia, this from Mongolia:

Mongolia Takhilgat Uzuur-5 [TU34]
Dark blond/ brown hair; brown eyes M 1011 BC R1a1a1b2(Z93)

Hard-pressed to see how something from 1850 BC, say 3900 years BP pins the origin of Z93, which is at least from 5800 BC?

[Prem Kumar]

There seems to be an inconsistency in the classification tree between Underhill 2014 paper and what I see in ISOGG:

1) Per Underhill, Z93 is R1a1a2
http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v23/n1/fig_tab/ejhg201450f1.html#figure-title

2) Per ISOGG, Z93 is R1a1a1b2. There is no R1a1a2
The ISOGG definition is what's mentioned in the link referred to by both Ukumar and A_Gupta (regarding ancient DNA)
http://isogg.org/tree/2015/ISOGG_HapgrpR15.html

Both ISOGG and Underhill's classification agree that:

1) M17 is R1a1a*
2) M417 is R1a1a1*

The confusion seems to be below M417. Hence, I think Underhill's 2014 paper has the wrong diagram

To summarize:
R1a1a1b1 is Z283, under which most of the European branches like Z280, Z282 etc fall
R1a1a1b2 is Z93, under which most of South Asia falls

As you can see from the ISOGG diagram, more European sub-branches of Z283 are studied than its sister Z93. This could be due to the fact that Europe has more well-preserved ancient DNA than India due to the colder climates. Secondly, they are more interested in their "history" and genetic-origins than we are.

[johneeG]

johneeG: sometimes genetics can reveal smaller dates as well. Like the Priya Moorjani paper that talked about ANI-ASI admixture between 4200-1900 YBP (that's a recent and narrow time window). Or the recent paper by Poznik that talks about Z93 population expansion in India 4500-4000 YBP.

But agree with you that those who want to slip away can do so by ignoring evidence, not giving a forum to alternate voices, concoct new theories, selectively pick data & a whole bag of other dirty tricks.

Even on the issue of Saraswati (which I agree is clinching evidence), linguists have come up with a crap-theory that it refers to a river in Afghanistan named Harahvaiti - the Aryans apparently transferred the same name to the Indian Saraswati river. Except somehow this didn't happen for the other river-names in the Nadistuti Sukta! Aryans sought it fit to name the mighty Saraswati after a creek in Afghanistan (& Saraswati was not even the Indian first river that they had come across)

Exactly! Thats why one needs MB to establish that Saraswathi is indeed an Indian river in India. Rig Veda mentions a major river called Saraswathi neighbouring Sindhu river. MB tells us about the same Saraswathi in the same region with same neighbouring rivers. But, during MB, Saraswathi is drying up. By the time Ramayana is written, there is no mention of Saraswathi river in the west. Only Sindhu river is mentioned in the west in Ramayana. So, all the 3 phases are covered by ancient Indian literature to clearly establish that Saraswathi flowed in India and dried up. And Vedic Indians were living in India while Saraswathi was flowing, while it was drying up and after it dried up. The AITists have no such supporting evidence on their theory of Harahvaiti. This clearly establishes that Indus-Saraswathi civilization is a vedic Indian civilization connected to Vedas, MB and Ramayana.

[A_Gupta]

Re: Hittite, will this book be useful?
The Elements of Hittite (English and Hittite Edition) Paperback – October 27, 2011
by Theo van den Hout
http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Hittite- ... ds=Hittite

[shiv]

Re: Hittite, will this book be useful?
The Elements of Hittite (English and Hittite Edition) Paperback – October 27, 2011
by Theo van den Hout
http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Hittite- ... ds=Hittite

Arun these resources are useless because none of them refer back to the original process of decipherment, but take as accepted fact what has already been done 100 or 200 years ago. With Google - Hittite language resources and syllabaries are a dime a dozen - just like references to AIT. AIT is based on fundamentally flawed and racist guesswork done 200 years ago. A Google search for how the Aryans came to India would be as useful as a modern guide to Hittite.

Hittite is a scam. That it is taken as fact is an issue that I allege is part of the scam. The way to change that is to find proof that my suspicions are wrong - but even a little digging seems to throw up stuff that does not inspire confidence. I actually "worked" (for a short while) on Hittite resources a couple of years ago.

I came up against several walls that I decided would not be worth my while in trying to pass. First, there are no non-Czech Euroepan language translation of Hrozny's original logic used in the alleged "decipherment" of "Hittite". At least non available to me - I think that there is some stuff in libraries in Harvard/Oxford/Berlin etc .That logic is crucial because it need to be cross checked. Even Europeans of that period would have come across this same wall but there certainly are commentaries on Hrozny's decipherment.

The first problem that I find is that all the arguments are based on arcane linguistics methods. In linguistics - cognates are the easiest to understand for the non expert. Looking at a Hittite dictionary the link to any Indo European language is unclear to me and I speak or understand 3 Indo European languages and two Dravidian languages

Try this dictionary
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ ... -BF-X.html

Then, when you start looking at linguistic arguments that make people say a language is IE - you find that grammar and structure of language is cited as an important factor. So we are looking at Hittite grammar. But for grammar to be decoded, the meaning has to be right. For example teh expression "tall mountain" or "mountain, tall" are appropriate - but if you get a word that does not actually mean mountain you could get a nonsense expression like "tall milk" or "milk, tall" So the meanings are critical. Where is the validation of Hrozny's work available? The meanings of all "Hittite" texts are not clear so grammar surely must take a hit.

Finally linguists resort to sounds and phonemes in their "proof" and when things are not clear they say that "sounds have changed" with "older sounds" and "younger sounds" and glottals and fricatives etc. But a wide slew of references about Hittite agree that the exact sounds and pronunciation are not known.

Duh? If the exact sounds and pronunciation are unknown how does one come to definitive conclusions about meaning, grammar and sound changes? How would one differentiate between piss, piece, peas, and peace?

Even if I set aside all these issues and look at the general way in which linguists have created theories - it looks like cooking up stuff is par for the course. No wonder linguistics per se is a dead speciality. Its methods simply do not stand up to modern day scrutiny.

And finally, if you search, you will find people asking if the name "Hittite" and the "Hittite empire" existed at all? the whole concept simply may been cooked up as a convenient story that fits what Assyriologists and archaeologists and linguists wanted to find. It seems clear to me that in the field of linguistics and archaeolinguistics, what has been accepted as "true" are what has been declared as true by a series of "Professors" holding high positions in linguistic depts in Harvard, Stuttgart, Paris, Berlin, Oxford etc. Once the Ayatollah passes the truth fatwa, it is put down on paper as true. Except that we are not attuned to seeing things this way. We laugh and mock the Iranian Ayatollah but respect and quote the Harvard professor. To their respective followers, the declarations by either the prof or the ayatollah are the pinnacle of truth.

[A_Gupta]

Shiv,
Decipherment of a long lost language and writing will always be a matter of probabilities.
And in these, the probabilities of getting the sounds right is low. After all, even with the unbroken presence of Latin, the Anglosphere had a contentious "Is Cicero pronounced Sisero or Kickero?"

One's confidence in the meaning provided by decipherment is based on the degree of internal consistency. This one can check from a contemporary book, without knowing the original method of decipherment. One needs the original texts and the meaning ascribed to each word or symbol in the text.

[shiv]

Shiv,
Decipherment of a long lost language and writing will always be a matter of probabilities.
And in these, the probabilities of getting the sounds right is low. After all, even with the unbroken presence of Latin, the Anglosphere had a contentious "Is Cicero pronounced Sisero or Kickero?"

One's confidence in the meaning provided by decipherment is based on the degree of internal consistency. This one can check from a contemporary book, without knowing the original method of decipherment. One needs the original texts and the meaning ascribed to each word or symbol in the text.

Not just innocent "decipherment". Obscure decipherment and taxonomic classification of deciphered language as archaic "Aryan/Indo-European" to fit into a previously conjured up history of language spread. A similar thing was done with "Avestan"

It's like this.

There is a language in those clay tablets that has been called "Hittite". Hrozny deciphered the language and said it was "Indo-European". Actually "Indo-European" is a modern term for Aryan and older texts refer to some names in Hittite texts as "Aryan" names. I will explain why this is important below.

A few years after Hrozny an American called Sturvetant did a lot of significant work on Hittite. He was not completely convinced that it was an "Indo-European" language but felt it was a cousin. Most of the argument is about grammar and pronunciation, which no one could be sure of because of the cuneiform text used. Finally Sturvetant learned about "laryngeals" which were used to explain the differences between what was known of "Hittite' and other Indo-European languages. The laryngeal theory itself is not accepted by all but it is needed specifically in this context.

Linguists then started claiming that the "laryngeal" explanation using "ha" sounds that later became silent was an archaic phenomenon of a very old language and newer languages like Sanskrit and Greek did not have those "ha" grounds because they were newer. This of course is nonsense in terms of Sanskrit, but who cares about Indians when European profs say something.

Now there is where "Indo-European"" and "Hittite" fit into the "Aryan Invasion theory"

Hitties are mentioned in the Bible. Clay texts found in the 19th century were thought to be in a Semitic Hittite language until someone discovered "Aryan names" in them Those Aryan names were the same as the Rig Vedic and Sanskrit names found in the Mitanni texts. Hence a connection was made between "Aryan" and the clay texts. This empire was called the Hittite empire and was thought to have been taken over by Invading Aryans from Europe. Then came the need to accept the language as Indo-European. Grammatical forms which can occur in non IE languages were said to be IE and therefore Hittite was Indo-European. Finally the laryngeal theory clinched the age of Hittite - it was an IE language older than Sanskrit and Greek. The actual clay texts have not been dated earlier than 1800 BC. Therefore Sanskrit had to be younger. Rig Veda was post 1500 BC

The Hittite story fits in well with the theory of invading Aryans going to Syria and later Iran and later India. Even without the evidence of Sanskrit being older, the story has holes in it which have been filled by cooking up history.

Probabilities have been used to create a story that is improbable in my view.

[ukumar]

Looking for Z93 on that page,

one gets:
Srubnaya Russia Novoselki, Northern Forest, Samara [I0232/SVP 12] M 1850-1200 BC R1a1a1b2 Z93

Srubnaya Russia Barinovka I, Samara River, Samara [I0423/SVP 31] M 1850-1200 BC R1a1a1b2 Z93

some undated stuff from Mongolia, this from Mongolia:

Mongolia Takhilgat Uzuur-5 [TU34]
Dark blond/ brown hair; brown eyes M 1011 BC R1a1a1b2(Z93)

Hard-pressed to see how something from 1850 BC, say 3900 years BP pins the origin of Z93, which is at least from 5800 BC?

Please check these three samples:

Samara Eneolithic Russia Khvalynsk II, Volga River, Samara [I0433/SVP 46] M 4700-4000 BC R1a1 -> M459

Corded Ware Germany Bergrheinfeld [RISE446] M 2829-2465 BC R1a1a1 -> M417 CTS7278+, CTS10993+, FGC2547+, FGC2550+), xCTS4385 (Z2461-), xZ645 (Z647-)

Poltavka outlier Russia Potapovka I, Sok River, Samara [I0432/SVP 42] M 2925-2536 BC R1a1a1b2a -> Z94


M459 is ancestral to M417.
M417 (+Z645) is ancestral to Z93
R1a1a1b2a (Z94) is ancestral to most Z93 sub clades in India. This Poltavka sample is very close to ~3500bc expansion date of Z93.

[ukumar]

Thanks the mist is clearing. But not out of the woods yet.
If you look at this picture:
how is it certain that m417 is above z282 and z93?
do you know what logic was used to arrive at this conclusion?
This picture is from underhill paper and based on my poor understanding from ukumar's explanation that this picture did not include the full genome data.

Since the tree shows 417 is one node up from z282 and z93 one possibility is everyone who has z282 or z93 has m417 but not all m417 have z93 or z282?

You got it right. In this case, there would be three gene sequences as below. + means mutation is present and - means mutation is absent.

+ m417, -z282, -z93
+ m417, +z282, -z93
+ m417, -z282, +z93

But in the full genome there would certainly be more such genes showing similar sought of relationships. Have we gone through them? How does one go through this data? And where does such data exist?

This is very good question. Uni-perantal analysis doesn't work for other chromosomes and one needs to use autosomal DNA analysis. Y DNA only provides part of the ancestry. For example Z93 in India may belong to people with ANI autosomal component and in Europe it may belong to EHG component. Beyond this you may have to study yourself. I am a lazy writer to explain this in detail

Furthermore What if there is a natural process by which mutation m417 reverses itself? In such a scenario how would one distinguish m417 as parent of z93?
In otherwords is it possible someone have m515 and z93 and not m417?

It is possible. However, folks who assign haplogroup are aware of this and they only use stable mutations before adding in official tree.

[ukumar]

There seems to be a pattern in all this. Every time a new field or new discovery is made, the assorted Indologists and linguists claim that as proof for AIT. By the time the rest of the folks catch up and point out the flaws, they move on to a more recent discovery and say why this is correct and supersedes the old research without as much as acknowledging that they were wrong with the earlier findings.

I am hoping that this is general comment and not directed at me. I am no AIT person. I deeply want Indologists to get egg on their face.

I just wanted you smart folks to be aware of key facts. Like it or not, genetics is very happening field. New findings are made every few months. Any attempt to create a narrative without factoring in latest learning is doomed to backfire. Last word is not written on this debate yet so it is not too late.

[hanumadu]

Please check these three samples:

Samara Eneolithic Russia Khvalynsk II, Volga River, Samara [I0433/SVP 46] M 4700-4000 BC R1a1 -> M459

Corded Ware Germany Bergrheinfeld [RISE446] M 2829-2465 BC R1a1a1 -> M417 CTS7278+, CTS10993+, FGC2547+, FGC2550+), xCTS4385 (Z2461-), xZ645 (Z647-)

Poltavka outlier Russia Potapovka I, Sok River, Samara [I0432/SVP 42] M 2925-2536 BC R1a1a1b2a -> Z94


M459 is ancestral to M417.
M417 (+Z645) is ancestral to Z93
R1a1a1b2a (Z94) is ancestral to most Z93 sub clades in India. This Poltavka sample is very close to ~3500bc expansion date of Z93.

But how does any of this prove that z93 originated out of India or Iran?

How does ancestral DNA help more than how current DNA cannot? What additional hypotheses can be drawn about migration into India or out of India from ancient DNA that current DNA cannot provide?

What is your reading (or other researchers) of the ancient DNA results so far wrt origin and age of M17, M417, Z280, Z93?

If the origin of a haplogroup is 50000 ybp, what difference does ancient DNA that is 10000 ybp make vis a vis present DNA?

[RajeshA]

Previously in the earlier OIT Thread, I had written on the time of Buddha. Time of Buddha is important because it affects the chronology of almost all of Asia as well as India's influence in these countries, not to speak of how important age of Buddha is for Indian chronology.

Well the puzzle stands solved. WHAT?

Yes, the puzzle is solved, and one can say the puzzle is solved only when all of the apparently conflicting data regarding Buddha's chronology has been explained. Now everything has been explained.

I am posting the full article here. It is long but well-worth the read for all those interested. I personally consider it as the single most important article written in the history of mankind.

_____________________________________________________

The date of Buddha Nirvana

By Vedveer Arya
Published on May 16, 2016



It is a well-known fact that the epoch of the Buddha nirvana has been referred to in the Buddhist literature and traditions of India, Tibet, Bhutan, Burma, Sri Lanka, China, Thailand, Japan and Mongolia. Some inscriptions found in India and Burma also refer to the epoch of the Buddha nirvana. Many scholars, Indologists, historians and archaeologists have researched extensively to establish the epoch of the Buddha nirvana since the era of the Chinese traveller Fa hien (337-422 CE) but the exact date of the Buddha nirvana yet to be convincingly established.

During the last 200 years, Indologists and historians have explored various Buddhist sources and shortlisted the following dates of the Buddha nirvana which can be categorised into six groups.




We have to understand the historical background of these dates of Buddha nirvana. First of all, we have to eliminate the spurious dates. The dates of Group B have been calculated based on the chronology given in Rajatarangini of Kalhana. Abul Fazal worked out the date of 1366 BC considering the epoch of Kaliyuga in 2448 BC. In fact, all three dates (around 1350 BC) have been worked out with reference to the epoch of Kaliyuga in 2448 BC. It is a well-established fact that Kaliyuga commenced in 3102 BC and not in 2448 BC. The epoch of 2448 BC was established in the medieval period because the epochs of the Saka and the Salivahana eras have been considered identical. In reality, the Saka era commenced in 583 BCE and the Salivahana era commenced in 78 CE. If we add the difference of 661 years, the dates of Group B would be qualified to be in Group A. Thus, we can club the dates of Group B with Group A.

It is evident that the dates of Group D generally evolved because an era of 835 BC was adopted at Lhasa based on average of nine dates as quoted by Padma Karpo who himself rejected the date of 835 BC. Because it is absurd to take average of historical dates to fix an epoch. Therefore, we can ignore the dates of Group D. Now we have broadly three categories as under:

1. Around 644-544 BC
   
   
2. Around 1100-1000 BC
   
   
3. Around 2100-2000 BC

How modern historians fixed the epoch of the Buddha nirvana around 483 CE

It is well known that western Indologists and historians believed in the contemporaneity of Chandragupta Maurya and Alexander around 324 BC and established it as the sheet-anchor for the reconstruction of not only Indian chronology but also the chronology of Tibet, Burma, Sri Lanka and some South Asian countries. The Buddhist literature and traditions tell us that Buddha attained nirvana 100 years (short chronology) or 218 years (long chronology) before the coronation of King Asoka. Since 100 years is too short, they started searching for a date of Buddha nirvana around 160 years before 324 BC. Finally, they somehow got an epoch of 544 BC in the Burmese traditions.

According to Burmese sources, King Sumundri has established an epoch referred to by historians as “The Prome epoch” in the 623rd elapsed year of the sacred era i.e. the Buddha nirvana era. Now, historians concocted that the 1st year of the Prome epoch is identical with the epoch of Salivahana era i.e. 78 AD. They calculated 623 elapsed years back and fixed an epoch of 544 BC. Thus, historians propagated that the epoch of 544 BC is indeed the epoch of the Buddha nirvana era that was in practice during ancient times of Burma.

However, the date of 544 BC was 60 years longer than the required date but historians could not find a date closer than 544 BC. Now, the historians found the Dotted record of the Canton (Chinese) which informs us that 975 years elapsed up to the year of 489 AD from the date of the Buddha nirvana. According to Chinese accounts, when Buddha attained nirvana, Upali finalised the text of Vinayapitaka and put one dot on its front page of the manuscript in commemoration of the event. Upali handed over the manuscript to his disciple. The adding of one dot to its front page every year continued for several centuries. An Indian sthavira took this manuscript to China and established his headquarters at Canton and continued the practice of putting one dot every year. These dots were counted during the reign of a king belonging to a Loyang dynasty and their number was found to be 975. The practice of adding dots to the book had stopped 53 years before the time of their counting which took place in 535 AD. If we deduct 53 from 535, the last year would be 482 AD when the practice of adding dots was stopped. Some historian calculated 975 years back from 482 AD and arrived the year 493 BC.

W. Pachow mentions in his article “A Study of the Dotted Record” that the 975th dot was placed in the 7th year of Yung-ming i.e. 489 AD. We get 489 AD minus 975 years equals 486 BC. But Pachow concocted that three extra dots had been inadvertently added. Therefore, the actual number of dots should have been 972 and not 975. Thus, historians somehow established a tailor-made year of 483 BC and propagated that the actual date of Buddha nirvana should be 489 CE minus 972 equals 483 BC.

Apart from the above, historians again concocted based on the Kiribat Vehera Pillar Inscription that a chronology starting from 483 BC as Buddha nirvana had been used in Sri Lanka until the 11th century but 60 years extra had been added into the chronology of the kings of Sri Lanka. Thus, the Buddhavarsha of 544 BC was generally accepted a later date in Sri Lanka.

The Myth of the Buddhavarsha of 544 BC or 483 BC

In reality, no Buddhist tradition of Burma, Sri Lanka or Siam ever had been used the epoch of 544 BC or 483 BC. Actually, Western Indologists and historians blindly believed in the contemporaneity of Chandragupta Maurya and Alexander based on the references of “Sandrokottus” by ancient Greek historians. They never honestly verified the Indian traditional historical account to support their assumptions. Rather they indulged in distorting the historical data of entire south Asia to uphold their blind believes as established historical facts.

The Sri Lankan chronicles (Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa) mention that King Asoka was consecrated 218 years after Buddha nirvana. Since the historians believed that Chandragupta Maurya, the contemporary of Alexander, ascended the throne in 324 BC and his grandson Asoka ascended the throne in 265 BC, therefore, they desperately wanted an epoch of 483 BCE (265+218). As explained above, most of the traditional dates of Buddha nirvana indicate an epoch greater than 1000 BC. Historians rejected all these traditional dates as spurious because they are more than 500 years earlier than 483 BC. Finally, historians came to know from Burmese sources that King Sumundri has introduced a calendar in 623rd year after Buddha nirvana. In fact, King Sumundri established Prome city as his capital in the 623rd year. Historians came up with a brilliant idea to calculate 623 years back from the epoch of the Salivahana era i.e. 78 AD and concluded 78 minus 623 equals 545 BC. Somehow they squeezed one year and proclaimed the discovery of the Burmese epoch of Buddha nirvana as 544-543 BC. Historians never produced any evidence to prove that the Prome epoch commenced in 78 AD. Since the Prome epoch of 78 AD somehow reconciles the chronology of Burma and Sri Lanka with the chronology of India, historians could establish the epoch of 544 BC as the date of Buddha nirvana.

According to historians, the Dotted Record of Canton is contained in the “Li-tai san-pao chi” (The chronicle of three Jewels) was composed in Changan in 597 CE by Fei Chang-fang. This compilation often refers to the Ch’u san-tsang chi chi but also quotes several ancient catalogues which it lists. These catalogues had already been lost in Fei Chang-fang’s time but he was able to quote them second-hand, probably from Li- tai Chung ching mu lu finished in 518 CE by Pao-Ch’ang2. The epoch of 483 BC as derived from this Dotted record is just a speculative conclusion. If this Dotted record would have been more than 975 dots, historians would have demonised this record as mythology. Since it somehow reconciles with their preferred epoch, they accepted it as authentic. Interestingly, no Indian or Chinese Buddhist scholar from Lokakshema (147-220 AD) and Dharamaraksha (230-300 AD) to Kumarajiva (334-413 AD), Fa Hien (337-422 AD) and Hien Tsang (602-664 AD) had the knowledge of this Dotted record. Therefore, the Dotted record of Canton cannot qualify to be the primary evidence to fix the epoch of Buddha nirvana.

The Kiribat Vehera Pillar Inscription of Sri Lanka simply refers to the 14th regnal year of King Siri Sangbo (Sri Sanghabodhi). Wickremasinghe, an archaeologist of Sri Lanka has calculated certain dates based on too many assumptions and claimed that Sri Lanka might have followed an epoch of 483 BC till 11th century which was later replaced by the epoch of 544 BC3. This claim did not get much acceptance among historians.

In view of above, we can conclude that there is no direct evidence exists to prove the epochs of 544 BC and 483 BC.

The traditional epochs of Buddha Nirvana

First of all, we have to understand the epochs of various eras used in Southeast Asian countries.

Cambodia:

Saka era (583 BCE): Many Sanskrit inscriptions found at Bayang, Vat Chakret, Vat Prey Vier and Chumnik etc. refer to the era as “Sakendra Varsha”, “Sakabda”, “Sakapati-Samayabde” and “Sake” which clearly indicates that the epoch of the Saka era (583 BCE) was in vogue in Cambodia. Apparently, Indian kings of Cambodia introduced this era.

Salivahana era (78 CE): The Sanskrit inscriptions of Cambodia also refer to the era as “Saka-nripa-kalatita-samvatsara” and “Salivahana” which indicates that the Salivahana era (78 CE) was also introduced by Indian kings of Cambodia.

Burma (Myanmar):

The epoch of 691 BC?: Irwin mentioned that an epoch of 691 BC as “Einzana” or “Anchana”. It is said to be employed for horoscopes of the Buddha’s life on the ceiling of Pagan Temple 845, Ku Tha (early 1200 AD). It is speculated that Anjana was the grandfather who introduced this epoch in 691 BC. According to some scholars, it has its origin in March 691 BC and may have been an expedient adopted to avoid the use of negative numbers for that period of Buddha’s life before Buddhavarsha commences4. I could not get any traditional account of Burma to verify how the epoch of 691 BC has been calculated. Most probably, it might have been calculated by Irwin based the so-called Buddhavarsha of 544 BC.

The Srikshetra or Prome epoch: According to ancient Burmese sources, Prome became the capital city of government in Burma in the year 623 after Buddha nirvana and continued to be a major centre of Buddhism for 395 years. Thereafter, the capital city was removed to the city of Pagan where it continued for more than fifteen centuries. Thus, the so-called Prome epoch is only a date when Prome city became the capital of Burma. The Burmese sources does not mention anything about an era that commenced in 623rd year of Buddha nirvana.

The Buddhavarsha (544 BCE)?: Historians erroneously calculated back 623 years from 78 CE and fixed the epoch in 544 BCE as Buddhavarsha. No Burmese tradition provides any direct evidence to support it.

The Mahasakkaraj era and the Chulasakkaraj era or the Saka era (583 BCE) and the Salivahana era (78 CE): The Burmese Buddhist literature and traditions refer to two different epochs as Mahasakkaraj era and Chulasakkaraj era. Maha means greater and Chula means lesser. It is obvious that Mahasakkaraj era was Saka era (583 BCE) whereas Chulasakkaraj era was Salivahana era (78 CE). Since the epoch of 583 BCE was not known to historians, they concluded that Mahasakkaraj era commenced in 78 CE and Chulasakkaraj era commenced in 638 CE. Historians propagated that Mahasakkaraj era & the Prome epoch are identical and also Chulasakkaraj era and Burmese era are identical.

In fact, the Srikshetra or Prome epoch is based on the epoch of Buddha nirvana which cannot be convincingly fixed until we discover the exact epoch of Buddha nirvana. There is no direct evidence to prove that Chulasakkaraj era commenced on 638 CE. Burmese inscriptions generally refer to “Sakkaraj” for Mahasakkaraj era and Chullasakkaraj era. Therefore, the assumption of historians i.e. “Mahasakkaraj era & the Prome epoch are identical and also Chulasakkaraj era and Burmese era are identical” has been accepted as a fact without any evidence. In reality, both Sakkaraj eras have been borrowed from India. Therefore, we must conclude that Mahasakkaraj era was the Saka era (583 BCE) whereas Chulasakkaraj era was the Salivahana era (78 CE).

Burmese era (638 CE) or Pyu Era: According to historians, the Pagan kingdom followed the Saka era (583 BCE) but in 640 CE, King Pouppa-tsau-Rahan recalibrated the calendar, naming the new era as Kawza Thekkarit and started the 0 years on 22nd March 638 CE. This epoch needs to be verified with reference to the chronology of ancient Burma.

Mohnyin era: Historians found that there is also a “Mohnyin era” which commenced in the year 798 i.e. 1436 CE. They calculated 798 years from 638 CE and concluded that Mohnyin era started in 1436 CE. According to Burmese tradition, the astrologers convinced Mohnyin that the era current was going to end two years before its time and that he should sacrifice himself allowing a new era to begin. The Burmese sources do not call this era as “Mohnyin” but they refer to Mahasakkaraj era or Chulasakkaraj era. It is evident that we should not calculate the epoch from 638 CE. The year 798 must be either Saka 798 or Salivahana 798. We have to check it with reference to the chronology of ancient Burma.

An epoch of 320 CE?: The recent research indicates that an epoch of 320 CE (close to Valabhi era) was also in vogue in Burma but this epoch is not yet accepted by the historians.

Thailand:

The Mahasakkarat era (583 BCE) and the Chulasakkarat era (78 CE): The use of the Chulasakkarat era (78 CE) was in most common use in Thailand than the Mahasakkarat era (583 BCE). Historians wrongly gave the epoch of the Chulasakkarat era of Thailand as 638 CE because the chronology of Burma and Thailand is interlinked.

(It may be noted that the reference of the Mahasakkaraj era and the Chulasakkaraj era or the greater Saka era and the lesser Saka era is itself also an evidence to prove that there were two epochs of the Saka era were in vogue. One was the greater (583 BCE) and another was the lesser (78 CE).)

It is evident from the above that the epochs of the Saka era (583 BCE) and the Salivahana era (78 CE) were in common use in Cambodia, Burma and Thailand.

Let us now discuss the traditional dates of Buddha nirvana.

India:

Epigraphic evidence of the Buddha nirvana era (13th century BC)

An inscription found at Gaya is dated in the year 1813 of Buddha nirvana (Bhagavati parinirvrite samvat 1813 Karttika badi 1 budhe...)5. This inscription refers to a King Asokachalla. An inscription dated in the year 51 of the Lakshmanasena (LS) era mentions the ruling king Asokachalla6. Another inscription dated in the year 74 of the LS era mentions the ruling king Dasharatha, the younger brother of Asokachalla7. I have discussed the epoch of the LS era in detail in my book8. The Bisapi inscription of Shiva Simhadeva clearly indicates that the epoch of the LS era commenced in Saka 1028 i.e. 444-445 CE. The Tirhut tradition also confirms that the epoch of the LS era commenced in 444-445 CE. Thus, the 51st year of the LS era was 496 CE and the 74th year of the LS era was 519 CE.

Undoubtedly, the inscription of Gaya dated in the year 1813 of Buddha nirvana must have been engraved after 519 CE. It uses “Lit” for Asokachalla which means the King Asokachalla died before the inscription was written. It mentions that Asokachalla restored the Buddhism (Bhrashte muneh shasane sthityoddharamasau chakara…). The palaeography of the inscription also suggests that it might have been written within 100 years after 519 CE. Thus, we can conclude that an epoch of Buddha nirvana was in vogue that was roughly commenced between 1294(1813-519) BCE and 1194 (1813-619) BCE.

Another inscription found in Bodh Gaya is dated in the year 2427 of Buddha Varsha (Buddhavarshe 2427). JF Fleet concluded that it is a modern inscription dated in 1884 AD but it seems to be extremely impossible9. The date 2427 might have been inscribed in the beginning of 13th century.

Kalhana’s Rajatarangini (2100 BCE)

Kalhana mentions that Hushka, Jushka and Kanishka started ruling over Kashmir 150 years after the Buddha nirvana (Tada bhagavatah Shakyasimhasya parinirvriteh…. sardham varshasatam hyagat)10. Considering the epoch of the Saka era (583 BCE), Kalhana wrote the chronological history of Kashmir from 3147 BCE to 449 CE. The 52 kings of Kashmir ruled for 1266 years from 3147 BCE to 1881 BCE. Hushka was the 48th king, Jushka was the 49th king and Kanishka was the 50th king. Considering the beginning of the rule of Hushka, Jushka and Kanishka around 1950 BCE, we can easily calculate the date of Buddha nirvana around 2100 BCE. Thus, Kalhana gives the date of Buddha nirvana around 2100 BCE. Most probably, various traditions of Tibet also followed the same Kashmir sources and fixed the date of Buddha nirvana around 2134 BCE.

Abul Fazal and modern historians calculated 1266 years from 2448 BC and concluded that Kalhana’s date of Buddha nirvana is around 1366-1332 BCE. The error of 661 years existed in these calculations because historians considered the Saka era (583 BCE) and Salivahana era (78 CE) as identical.

Manimekhalai (1616?)

Tamil poet Sitalai Sattanar authored the famous epic “Manimekhalai” in which he mentions about the birth of Abuttiran in Javakanadu (Java) with the astronomical position, which is very similar to that of the birth of Buddha. Buddha was born in Vaishakha month, full moon day, Vishakha nakshatra, Rishabha Rasi and out of 27 nakshatras, 13 crossed and Vishakha nakshatra was in the middle as Krittika is taken as the first star. DS Triveda has calculated the date of birth of Buddha around 1870 BCE based on the details given in Manimekhalai.

Interestingly, Manimekhalai mentions that a very great intellect like Buddha will reappear again in the year 1616 [(2 × 8 × 100) + (2 × = 1600 + 16 = 1616]. Most probably, the date of 1616 has been given in the epoch of Buddha nirvana. It also clearly indicates that Manimekhalai was written at an earlier date than the year of 1616 of Buddha nirvana.

Burma:



The Myazedi inscription at Pagan: This is the oldest inscription of Myanmar that found on a stone pillar near Myazedi Pagoda at Pagan. It was written in four languages: Pali, Burmese, Talaing and Pyu. This inscription tells us that one thousand six hundred twenty eight (1628) years of the Buddha’s religion having elapsed, King Tribhuvanaditya Dhammaraja ascended the throne in the city of Arimaddanapur (Nibbana Lokanathassa atthavimsadhike gate, sahasse pana vassanam cha-sate va pare tatha ||). Trilokavatamsaka Devi was his wife and Rajakumar was his son. It also informs that the king Tribhuvanaditya attained nirvana having ruled for 28 years11.

A Pali text “Sasanavamsa” (the historical account of Buddhist Religion in Burma) states that King Anuruddha began to reign in the Jinachakka (Jinachakra = Buddhist Religion or Buddha nirvana) year 1561 and the year 371 of Sakkaraj era (tato paccha Jinachakke eka-satthadhike (61) panchasate sahasse (1500) cha sampatte kaliyuge eka-sattatadhike tisate (371) sampatte Anuruddha raja rajyam papuni…). The difference between the Jinchakka era and Sakkaraj era was 1190 years. Considering the epoch of the Saka era (583 BCE), the epoch of Jinachakka or Buddha nirvana or Buddha religion was commenced in 1773 BCE. Thus, we can fix the date of King Anuruddha around 212 BCE and the date of Tribuvanaditya Dhammaraja around 145-117 BCE. Many Burmese inscriptions mention the era of Buddha religion and the Sakkaraj era as details given below:



It is evident from the above that there was a difference of 1182 to 1197 years between the epoch of Buddha Religion or Jinachakra or Buddha nirvana and the epoch of the Saka era (583 BCE). Since the most of the inscriptions indicate the difference of 1182 years, historians calculated 1182 years starting from 544 BCE and proclaimed that the epoch of the Sakkaraj era commenced in 638 CE. Thus, historians unreasonably brought forward the inscriptional history of Burma by 1182 years and propagated that the earliest inscription of Burma is dated 1085 AD.

In fact, the Burmese inscriptions clearly tell us that the Buddha Religion era commenced 1182 years before the epoch of the Sakkaraj era (583 BCE) i.e. around 1765 BC. For the sake of argument, even we consider the 1182 years before from the epoch of the Salivahana era (78 CE), the epoch of Buddha Religion must have commenced around 1104 BCE.

The Kalyani inscriptions of Ramannadesha (Hamsavatipura): South-eastern Burma and Thailand (the Monland) was called Ramannadesha or Suvarnabhumi in ancient times. Its capital was Hamsavatipura. The inscriptions of Ramannadesha were dated in the epoch of Sakkaraj era from the year 607 to 841. These inscriptions also refer to the epoch of the Buddha nirvana as “Jinachakra”.

An inscription of King Ramadhipati of Ramannadesha informs us that in the 1472nd year that had elapsed since the establishment of the religion in Lankadvipa and the 1708th year that had elapsed since Buddha nirvana and the 18th year since the Maharaja Sirisanghabodhi Parakramabahu was ruling in Lankadvipa12. It was recorded in the Kalyani inscription that the excellent compilers of Atthakathas have declared that the religion of Buddha will last 5000 years; but alas only 2047 years have now passed away since the enlightened one attained Buddhahood. The inscriptions dated in the year 837 to 841 of the Sakkaraj era (583 BCE) refer to the reigning king Ramadhipati.

Considering the epoch of the Saka era (583 BCE), the inscriptions of Saka 837-841 are dated around 254-258 AD. Considering the date Saka 837 (254 AD) as the 2047th year, the epoch of the Buddha’s enlightenment might have commenced around 1793 BCE.

Thus, we can conclude that the Burmese traditions used an epoch of Buddha nirvana around 1793-1765 BCE.

Tibet

Atisa Dipankara and the tradition of Sa-skya-pa scholars: Atisa Dipankara Srijnana was a great Buddhist scholar of Mahayana and Vajrayana who revived Buddhism in Tibet. He also visited Sumatra before going to Tibet. Historians fixed his date around 984-1054 AD. The error in the chronology is again 661 years. He was in Vikramasila University during the reign of the Pala Dynasty. I have already explained in my book that the Palas ruled over Bengal from the 2nd century to the 5th century. Therefore, the date of Atisa must be around 323-393 AD. It is well known that Buddhism was revived in the 4th century. It is evident that Atisa of the 4th century was instrumental in reviving the Buddhism in Tibet.

Atisa gave the date of Buddha nirvana around 2136 BC whereas Sa-skya-pa scholars fixed the date of the Buddha nirvana around 2134 BC. A peace treaty between China and Tibet is dated in the year 2955 of the Buddha nirvana era i.e. 822 AD. Some Tibetan treatises also referred to the year 3300 (1167 AD) and the year 3349 (1216 AD) of Buddha nirvana. It is evident that the Tibetan tradition followed an epoch of Buddha nirvana around 2136-2134 BC from 4th century to 17th century.

In the 16th century, Buddhist scholar Padma Karpo calculated a date of Buddha nirvana around 1058 BC. Finally, frustrated Tibetan Buddhist scholars came with an innovative idea of taking average of 9 acceptable dates and established an epoch of 835 BC.

Sri Lanka

Dipavamsa, Mahavamsa and Chulavamsa : These famous Sri Lankan chronicles indicate that the epoch of Buddha nirvana commenced around 1204 BCE. Historians fixed the epoch of Buddha nirvana given in Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa as 544 BCE. This is nothing but the same chronological error of 661 years.

Fa Hien (337-422 AD)

The Chinese Buddhist scholar Fa Hien mentioned that the image of Maitreya Bodhisatva was set up rather more than 300 years after the nirvana of Buddha which may be referred to the reign of King Ping of the Zhou dynasty (770-720 BC). It is evident that Fa Hien indicated an epoch of Buddha nirvana that commenced around 1100-1050 AD.



Now we can categorise the traditional epochs of Buddha nirvana into three groups:

• Around 2134 BC to 2100 BC
  
  
• Around 1793-1765 BC
  
  
• Around 1204-1050 BC

The Burmese epoch of 1765 BC is the oldest traditional date of the Buddha Religion

Undoubtedly, the Burmese epoch of 1765 BC not only the oldest but also continuously used for more than 900 years in the inscriptions. The difference between the epoch of the Sakkaraj era (583 BCE) and the epoch of Buddha Religion was 1182 years. Interestingly, the Burmese epoch was generally referred to as “the epoch of the religion of Buddha”. It may be noted that 2nd Buddhist Council was held in the 100th year of Buddha nirvana. Most probably, Buddhism was introduced in Burma immediately after 2nd Buddhist Council. In fact, Kalashoka ascended the throne in the 100th year of Buddha nirvana. He established “Jinashasanam” means Buddhism in his Empire as mentioned by Kalhana. Some historians speculated that Kalashoka was a Jain but later he promoted Buddhism. It is totally absurd because Buddha was popularly referred to as “Jina” in ancient times. Amarakosha gives “Jina” as another name of Buddha (Samantabhadro bhagavan .... Marajit Jinah). Many inscriptions of Burma and India refer to Buddha as Jina. In fact, the Burmese inscriptions mention the epoch of 1765 BC as “Jinachakra” meaning the beginning of the Buddhism.

It is evident that the epoch of 1765 BC was introduced in Burma in commemoration of “Jinachakra” or the 2nd Buddhist Council but later it has also been considered as the epoch of Buddha nirvana. Gradually, the epoch of “Jinachakra” and the epoch of Buddha nirvana became identical in Southern tradition of Buddhism. Therefore, we have to consider 100 years more to fix the epoch of Buddha nirvana.

Thus, we can conclude that Buddha attained nirvana on 5th April 1865 BC (without 0 year) or 5th April 1864 BCE (with 0 year) whereas the epoch of “Jinachakra” or the religion of Buddha commenced in 1765 BC. Considering the different epochs of Buddha nirvana (1865 BC) and the religion of Buddha (1765 BC), we can perfectly explain the short chronology of the northern tradition of Buddhism and the long chronology of the southern tradition of Buddhism.

Now the question arises that if 1865 BC was the epoch of Buddha nirvana and 1765 BC was the epoch of Buddha religion era based on ancient Burmese tradition than how epochs of 2134 BC or 1204-1050 BC were established in Tibetan, Indian, Chinese and Sri Lankan traditions?

The epoch of 2134 BC: Most probably, Buddhism was introduced in Tibet during the reign of Kanishka, the greatest king of Turushka Shahis. According to Kalhana, Hushka, Jushka and Kanishka started ruling 150 years after Buddha nirvana. Tibetans were fully dependent on the chronology of Kashmir to fix the date of Kanishka. It appears that there was a chronological error of 300 years in the ancient historical records of Kashmir. Kalhana tried his best but could not rectify the error of 300 years. He had no other option to adjust the error of 300 years as the reign of Ranaditya. Historians always ridiculed Kalhana and rejected his chronology for assigning 300 years for one king. Truly speaking, Kalhana was the greatest historian of India and he tried his best honestly to present the chronology of Kashmir based on various evidences without distorting the ancient historical records. Kalhana refused to distort the ancient records and left the error of 300 years as it was whereas modern eminent historians shamelessly indulge in distorting and concocting the historical records to present their understanding of the chronology. I leave it to the readers to judge who deserved to be eminent? Kalhana or these so-called modern historians?

Though I have no conclusive evidence, but the Burmese traditional epoch of Buddha religion clearly indicates that there was an error of 300 years in the Kashmiri and Tibetan traditions. I propose that we must consider 1566 years for 52 kings of Kashmir and 2030 years for rest of the kings of Kashmir instead of 1266 years and 2330 years respectively as given by Kalhana. With this correction of 300 years, we can not only reconcile the traditions of Burmese, Tibetan and Kashmiri but also the chronology of Kashmir. Considering the epoch of 1865 BC, Hushka, Jushka and Kanishka started reigning around 1715 BC (1865-150).

The epochs around 1204-1050 BC: These epochs of Buddha nirvana gained currency probably from 1st century BC to 4th century. First of all we have to understand the historical background of 1st millennium BC. Buddhism that flourished in India starting from the reign of Kalashoka (1765 BC) but almost lost the royal patronage from the rule of King Pushyamitra Sunga (1475 BC). Yavana kings continued to patronise Buddhism in Afghanistan and north western Pakistan whereas Ikshvaku kings of Amaravati started patronising Buddhism in South India around 12th century BC to 7th century BC. The advaitavada (non-dualism) of Adi Sankara (509-476 BC) and Kumarila Bhatta’s philosophy posed a greatest challenge to Buddhist scholars and gradually Buddhism declined in India. The Gupta kings (335-93 BC) were Paramabhagavatas and did not promote Buddhism.

In the due course, Jainism entered South India when Jain monk Bhadrabahu came to Sravanabelgola in Karnataka in 11th century BCE. It seems that Pandya kings patronised Jainism around 800-500 BCE. Later, Ganga kings also promoted Jainism. Vikramaditya of Ujjain (719 BCE) drove away Sakas and patronised Jainism in central India. Later, Rashtrakutas, Chavadas and Chaulukyas patronised Jainism from the 2nd century to the 6th century. Thus, Jainism flourished in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Central India and South India under the royal patronage from the 8th century BCE to the 6th century CE. Most of the Jain literature also came into existence during this period.

Jain scholars were not historians. They were only interested in compiling the historical account of the kings who patronised Jainism and not the chronological history of India. While writing the history of Jainism, they erroneously identified Chandragupta, the king of Ujjain and the disciple of Bhadrabahu with the Mauryan king Chandragupta. I have discussed this mistaken identity in detail in my book13. Accordingly, Jain historians also identified Shrenika, Kunika with Bimbisara, Ajatashatru respectively. Seemingly, these identities have been well established in South India by 1st century BC and the same got transmitted to Sri Lanka.

Atthakathas were the earliest historical accounts of Southern tradition of Buddhism. Evidently, Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa were written based on the Atthakathas but seemingly, the chronology of ancient Sri Lanka was undergone certain corrections. It appears that the authors of Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa were under the influence of the historical identities of Jainism. According to Jain sources, Kunika or Ajatashatru ascended the throne around 25 years before the nirvana of Mahavira. Considering the epoch of the Saka era (583 BCE), Mahavira attained nirvana 605 years and 5 months before 583 BCE i.e. 22nd Oct 1189 BCE. Thus, we can fix the date of coronation of Kunika around 1212 BCE. Since the entire Buddhist tradition mentions that Buddha attained nirvana in the 8th regnal year of Ajatashatru, Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa might have roughly fixed the epoch of Buddha nirvana around 1204 BCE and the chronology of Sri Lanka has been re-worked out by cutting short of the duration of the reign of certain kings. At present, it is extremely difficult to pinpoint the chronological corrections proposed in Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa because unfortunately Atthakathas are not available today.

The Pala dynasty of Bengal revived Buddhism in North India during 100-500 AD. Dharmapala had close political relations with the Rashtrakutas (the patrons of Jainism). He also married the daughter of the Rashtrakuta king. Sri Lankan Buddhist monks used to visit Bodha Gaya since ancient times. Thus, the Sri Lankan epoch of 1204 BCE got acceptance in north India. This is the reason why some inscriptions of Bodh Gaya referred to the epoch of 1204 BCE as the date of Buddha nirvana. Most probably, the author of Sumatitantra (219 CE) also got influenced by the mistaken identities of Jainism & the epoch of Sri Lankan chronicles and wrongly concluded that Nandas started ruling 2000 years after the epoch of Kaliyuga i.e. 3102 BCE contrary to the chronology given in Puranas.

Now the question arises that if the epoch of Sri Lankan tradition was 1204 BCE than why it varies roughly 150 to 180 years at lower side in various traditions. Though Jain and Buddhist historians referred to certain dates in the Saka era but they failed to maintain the accuracy of the chronology with reference to the epoch of the eras. For instance, Jinasenasuri authored Harivamsa Purana in Saka 705 (122 CE). He mentions that starting from the nirvana of Mahavira, Palakas ruled for 60 years, Vishayas for 150 years, Murundas for 40 years, Pushpamitra for 30 years, Vasumitra and Agnimitra for 60 years, Rasabha kings for 100 years, Naravahana for 40 years, Bhattubanas for 240 years and Guptas for 231 years. Thus, the rule of Guptas ended 951 years after the date of Mahavira nirvana. If we consider 1189 BCE as the date of Mahavira nirvana, the rule of Guptas must have been ended by 238 BCE but in reality, the rule of Guptas ended around 150 years later. Even we consider 527 BCE as the date of Mahavira nirvana, the rule of Guptas must have been ended by 424 CE but in reality, the rule of Guptas ended around 125 years later. Most probably, this chronological inconsistency of Jain historians also affected the chronology of Buddhism because the dates of Mahavira nirvana and Buddha nirvana now got interlinked due to mistaken identity of Kunika with Ajatashatru. This is the reason why Buddhist scholar Padma Karpo calculated the date of Buddha nirvana around 1058 BCE and various Buddhist traditions around 1027 BCE.

The epoch of 544 BCE: As explained earlier, Indians forgot the epoch of the Saka era (583 BCE) after 10th century and started considering the epochs of the Saka and the Salivahana eras as identical. Since the Buddha nirvana era was also linked with the Saka era in Burmese and Sri Lankan chronology, the epoch of 1204 BCE has been brought forward by 661 years. Thus, historians established that Sri Lanka and Burma traditionally followed the epoch of 544 BCE as the date of Buddha nirvana.

Why the ancient Burmese tradition of Buddha nirvana is more authentic?

In fact, the epoch of 1204 BCE or 544 BCE was the tradition of Sri Lanka but it was introduced in Burma at a very later stage. Therefore, we must consider the ancient Burmese tradition as the most authentic and original. Interestingly, when JF Fleet proposed that ancient Burmese traditions followed the epoch of Sri Lanka, CO Blagden strongly opposed it. CO Blagden has worked on Burmese epigraphy extensively and had the in-depth knowledge of Burmese traditions. CO Blagden rightly concluded:

“Having regard to the other two cases previously mentioned, where the initial point of the Buddhist era used in Burma was not the usual 544 BC, I think that the evidence is insufficient to enable us to assert that this era as used in Burma in these early days was identical in origin with the Ceylon one. But it is consistent with the view that a method of reckoning from some assumed parinirvana date had existed in Burma independently of the Ceylon method, and was in use there before 1165 AD, but was subsequently superseded by the Ceylon method.”

Though JF Fleet understood the validity of the facts presented by CO Blagden but he deliberately overruled CO Blagden and established the myth that the epoch of 544 BCE existed in the ancient Burmese tradition. At this point, I can confidently say that JF Fleet was intellectually dishonest to CO Blagden. Instead of promoting further research, JF Fleet preferred to suppress the findings of CO Blagden. In fact, JF Fleet distorted the Burmese Buddhist traditions and brought forward the history of the Burmese and Ramannadesha (Thailand) Buddhism by 1182 years and fixed a fictitious Sakkaraj era in 638 AD that never existed in ancient Buddhist tradition. The Kalyani inscription of Ramannadesha dated in the year 2047 of Buddha nirvana refers to the reigning king Ramadhipati Maharaja but the atrocious historians identified Ramadhipati Maharaja with King Dharmmacheti of 15th century. King Ramadhipati ruled in the first half of the 3rd century whereas King Dharmmacheti ruled in the second half of the 15th century. Thus, the innocent Buddhism of Burma and Thailand has been robbed off their history of 1182 years due to the serious anomaly of 1182 years in the epoch of Buddha nirvana.

The important dates of Buddha

In view of the above, we can conclude that Ancient Burma followed an epoch of Buddha religion around 1765 BC, 1182 years before 583 BCE. Buddha attained nirvana exactly 100 years before 1765 BC i.e. 1865 BC. Therefore, we can calculate the important dates of Buddha as under:

• The date of Birth of Buddha : 21st March 1945 BC or 1944 BCE
  
  
• The date of Enlightenment at the age of 35 : 25th Mar 1910 BC or 1909 BCE
  
  
• The date of Buddha nirvana : 5th April 1865 BC or 1864 BCE

Interestingly, Samyutta Nikaya says that Buddha was staying in Sravasti about three months before his death. During this time, a lunar eclipse followed by a solar eclipse was observed at Sravasti. Considering the date of Buddhanirvana on 5th April 1865 BC, a lunar eclipse occurred on 7th Mar 1865 BC or 1864 BCE and an annular solar eclipse occurred on 22nd Mar 1865 BC or 1864 BCE and both eclipses were visible at Sravasti.



Let us now reconcile the chronology of ancient India, Sri Lanka and Burma.

The Chronology of Ancient India (from Brihadrathas to Guptas ):

Colonial historians always blamed that Puranas, Buddhist texts, Jain texts and Rajatarangini chronologically contradict each other. Therefore, it is impossible to draw a common chronology based on these Indian literary evidences. As I have explained above, the mistaken identity of Kunika as Ajatashatru and Chandragupta of Ujjain of 11th century BC as Chandragupta Maurya of 16th century BC has brought forward the date of Buddha nirvana by 660 years. Since Kashmir has traditionally recorded the dates in Saptarshi calendar instead of a fixed epoch, a chronological error of 300 years had been cropped up which is clearly visible in the chronology of Kashmir given by Kalhana. I have reconciled the entire Indian literary evidence and reconstructed the chronology from Brihadrathas to Guptas as given below:





Modern historians failed to reconcile the northern tradition of Buddhism and the southern tradition of Buddhism because the short and the long chronologies followed by them respectively. Finally, they rejected the short chronology and accepted the long chronology because it was more suitable for their scheme of the chronology.

In fact, the modern historians failed to reconcile the northern and the southern traditions because they clubbed these traditions and tried to reconcile. Actually, the Asoka mentioned in the northern tradition was Kalashoka who ascended the throne 100 years after the Buddha nirvana (1865 BC) whereas the Asoka mentioned in southern tradition was Asoka Maurya who was consecrated 218 years after the epoch of Jinachakka or Buddha religion (1765 BC). Kalashoka was the great Ashoka who started his rule in Takshasila and took over Pataliputra after death of his father. He established the rule of Buddhism and placed Rock Edicts at various places from Shahbazgadhi to Karnataka. Historians wrongly claimed that the Greek and Aramic inscriptions found in Kandhar belong to Ashoka but the text does not match with the rock edicts. They came with an Idea that these Greek inscriptions were actually abridged versions of Ashokan rock edicts. In fact, these Greek and Aramaic inscriptions belong to a later Yavana king.

Kalashoka convened the 3rd Buddhist Council in 1765 BC and the compilation of Tripitakas has been completed. The date of the 3rd Buddhist Council became popular as the epoch of Jinachakka or Buddha religion in the southern tradition. Gradually, it has been mistakenly considered as the date of Buddha nirvana. This is exactly why the southern tradition says that Ashoka Maurya was consecrated 218 years after Buddha nirvana. Actually, Asoka Maurya was consecrated 318 years after Buddha nirvana (1865 BC) and 218 years after the epoch of Jinachakka (1765 BC). Historians not only considered both Ashokas as same but also considered the epoch of Buddha nirvana and the epoch of Jinachakka as identical. Therefore, they failed to explain the northern tradition satisfactorily till date.

Kalhana mentions that the Turushka Shahi king Kanishka started ruling 150 years after Buddha nirvana. The script of many inscriptions of the Kushana Shahi king Kanishka suggests that Kanishka must be dated few hundred years after Ashoka Maurya. Historians mistakenly considered the Turushka Shahi king and the Kushana Shahi king as identical. In fact, the Kanishka mentioned in the Rabatak inscription was the Turushka Shahi king who ruled over Afghanistan and Kashmir and promoted Buddhism 150 years after Buddha nirvana. He also convened the 3rd Buddhist Council (according to northern tradition) 200 years after Buddha nirvana i.e. 1665 BC. The Kushana Shahi Kanishka ruled around 12th or 11th century BC and most probably there were many (two or three) Kanishkas in the Kushana dynasty. They ruled over the Empire from Udabhandapura to Magadha for some time when no central power was existing in Magadha.

The chronology of Sri Lanka:

The famous Sri Lankan chronicles, “Dipavamsa”, “Mahavamsa” and “Chulavamsa” are the main source for the chronology of ancient Sri Lanka. First of all, we have to fix certain dates of Sri Lankan kings based on the epigraphic evidence and the contemporaneity of Indian kings.

The Kalyani inscription gives the chronology of Sri Lankan Buddhism.

• The Kalyani Inscription states that one Mahamahindathera, who was sent by Moggaliputta-Tissa-Mahathera, went to Tambapannidvipa (Sri Lanka) and established the religion 236 years after Buddha nirvana. Devanampiya Tissa became the king of Sri Lanka and founded Mahavihara monestry in the year 1529 BC (1765 BC – 236). From the date of the foundation of Mahavihara, the religion remained pure for 218 years (1529-1311 BC). Then King Vattagamini-Abhaya conquered Dadhiya, king of Damilas (Tamil regions) and attained to kingship in Lankadvipa. A confederacy of seven Damila princes defeated King Vattagamini-Abhaya. The Sri Lankan King Vattagamini-Abhaya fled and remained in hiding for 14 years. Thereafter, he restored his kingdom and invited a Thera named Mahatissa who assisted him during his exile and founded Abhayagiri-Vihara monastery. Thenceforward, the Buddhists were divided into two sects, namely Mahavihara and Abhayagiri-Vihara. Thus, Abhayagiri-Viharawas founded in 1297 BCE (1311 BCE – 14). In the 357th year that had elapsed since the foundation of the Abhayagiri-Vihara, a king called Mahasena ruled over Lankadvipa for 27 years. Thus, we can fix the reign of Mahasena around 940-913 BCE (1297 BCE – 357). Mahasena founded Jetavana Vihara and presented it to Tissathera. Thus, a third sect of Jetavana Vihara came into existence.
  
  
• The Kalyani inscription further informs that since three sects have been established within 600 years from the establishment of religion in Lankadvipa i.e. 1529 BC, gradually, the religion became impure and tainted. Therefore, Sri Lankan King Sirisanghabodha-Parakramabahu purified the religion by commanding the expulsion of large number of unorthodox and sinful priests and declared that the Mahavihara will be the only sect in Lankadvipa. This event occurred in the year 1708 of the Buddha religion (1765 BCE) i.e. 57 BCE and in the year 1472 of the establishment of the religion in Lankadvipa (1529 BCE - 1472) i.e. 57 BCE and in the 18th regnal year. The Kalyani inscription of Ramannadesha also mentions that King Siri-Sanghabobhi Parakramabahu purified the religion in Lankadvipa in Sakkaraj era 526 (57 BCE). Thus, we can fix the date of coronation of the King Sirisanghabodha-Parakramabahu in 75 BCE. Thereafter, Vijayabahu and Parakramabahu also took various steps to purify the religion. The Kalyani inscription also informs that Sri Lankan king Bhuvanaikabahu was the contemporary of King Ramadhipati of Ramannadesha (237-282 CE).

The Kalyani inscription gives the chronology of Sri Lanka up to Mahasena who ruled around 940-913 BCE. Interestingly, this inscription simply skips the history of 800 years and mentions that King Sirisanghabodha-Parakramabahu purified the religion in 57 BCE. Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa also give the history of Sri Lanka up to Mahasena only.

Chulavamsa was written in three parts. The first part was written during the reign of King Dhatusena and the second part was written during the reign of Parakramabahu. Interestingly, the third part was written in 1825 AD during the reign of Colonial rulers. I suspect that there are many distortions in the Chulavamsa. I could not get the Pali text of Chulavamsa.

I want to highlight certain distortions by eminent historians.

• It is claimed that Chinese writer Wang-hiuen-tse refers to that an ambassador was sent to the court of San-meou-to-lo-kiu-to (Samudragupta???) by Sri Lankan King Chi-mi-kia-po-mo (Sri Meghavarman???) who had asked his permission to build a monastery at Bodhgaya for the monks travelling from Sri Lanka. I have no idea how San-meou-to-lo-kiu-to means Samudragupta and Chi-mi-kia-po-mo means Sri Meghavarna.
  
  
• According to Chinese sources, one embassy of King Mo-ho-nan (Mahanama???) came to China in the year 428 AD and another embassy came from Ceylon to China sent by King Kia-che (Kassyapa???) in the year 527 AD.

Historians rejected the Chinese record that King Mo-ho-nan was in 428 AD because according to their chronology, it was Upatissa was ruling in 428 AD. It is evident that historians somehow wanted to establish the chronology because they blindly believed in the contemporaneity of Chandragupta Maurya and Alexander around 324 BC.

At present, I have no other source than Chulavamsa for the chronology of Sri Lanka after Mahasena (940-913 BCE). Therefore, I am searching for the Sri Lankan historical sources written before the arrival of colonial rulers. But, the Burmese epigraphic evidence clearly tells us that Sri Lankan King Sirisanghabodhi Parakramabahu purified Religion in Saka 526 (57 BCE). Therefore, we have to take the date of Sirisanghabodhi Parakramabahu as sheet anchor for reconstructing the later chronology of Sri Lanka.

The Chronology of Burma:

We have to fix certain historical dates based on epigraphic evidence which may be sheet anchors for reconstructing the chronology of Burma.

• Sasanavamsa mentions that King Anuruddha ascended the throne in the Jinachakka year 1561 and Sakkaraj era 371. Considering the epoch of the Saka era (583 BCE), King Anuruddha began to reign in Saka 371 i.e. 212 BC in Arimaddanapura i.e. Pugama i.e. Pagan. The Kalyani inscription also tells us that King Anuruddha brought a community of Buddhist priests together with the Tripitaka from Ramannadesa and established the religion in Arimaddanapura(Pagan) in the year 1601 of the Jinachakka era and Sakkaraj era 419 (164 BC). Thus, we can conclusively fix the date of Pagan King Anuruddha around 212-164 BC.
  
  
• An inscription of Shwezigon Pagoda informs that the Pagoda was built by Anuvrata in Sakkaraj 421 (162 BC). Evidently, Anuvrata was the son of Anuruddha and ruled from Saka 420 to 446 (163-137 BC)
  
  
• The Myazedi inscription tells us that King Tribuvanaditya ascended the throne in the year 1628 of the Buddha religion and ruled for 28 years. Therefore, we can fix the date of King Tribhuvanaditya around 137-109 BC.
  
  
• Rajkumara, the son of King Tribhuvanaditya succeeded his father around 109 BC.
  
  
• According to Kalyani inscription, King Narapatijayasura was ruling at Pagan around Sakkaraj era 543 (40 BC). (pp. 53)
  
  
• The Kalyani inscription mentions that King Ramadhipati was ruling in Hamsavatinagara, Ramannadesha in the year 2002 of the Buddha religion and Sakkaraj era 820 (237 CE). He assumed the title of Siripavaramaha-Dhamma-Rajadhiraja. He ruled over Ramannadesha which comprised the three provinces of Kushimandala, Hamsavatimandala, Muttimamandala. Most probably, Muttimamandala was the modern Thailand.

Historians mistakenly identified King Anuruddha (137-109 BC) as King Kyansittha (1030-1113 AD) and King Ramadhipati Siripavaramaha-Dhamma-Rajadhiraja of Hamsavatipura (237-282) as King Dhammaceti of Pegu (1460-1491 AD). The chronology of Burma has been brought forward by 1182 years due to these mistaken identities. Moreover, historians created a fictitious epoch of the Sakkaraj era in 638 AD to explain the dates mentioned in inscriptions. It is evident that the above assumptions of historians are nothing but concoctions. These historians had an obsession to prove that the contemporaneity of Chandragupta Maurya and Alexander is an eternal historical fact. Unfortunately, Burma suffered a loss of 1182 years of history.

There is a serious need of further research to establish the lost chronology of Burma. I invite my Buddhist friends and Indologists to relook into the various literary and epigraphic evidence of Burma so that we can reconcile the history of 1182 years of Burma from 3rd century to 15th century.

References:

1. Age of Mahabharata, edited by GC Agarwala, 1979, Motilal Banarasidass, pp. 35.
   
   
2. Suramgamasamadhisutra by Etienne Lamotte, pp. 56.
   
   
3. Epigraphia Zeylanica, Vol I, pp. 156-161.
   
   
4. The Calendrical Systems of Mainland South-East Asia by John Christopher Eade, pp. 15-19.
   
   
5. IA, X, pp. 341-346.
   
   
6. Ibid, pp. 346.
   
   
7. EI, XII, pp. 30.
   
   
8. The Chronology of Ancient India: Victim of Concoctions and Distortions, pp. 313.
   
   
9. The Origin of the Buddhavarsha, The Ceylonese reckoning from the Death of Buddha, by JF Fleet, The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (Apr 1909), pp. 323-356.
   
   
10. Rajatarangini, 1st Taranga, Verse 172.
    
    
11. Epigraphia Birmanica, Vol 1, pp. 25.
    
    
12. The Kalyani Inscriptions, Published in 1892, pp. 70-71.
    
    
13. The Chronology of Ancient India: Victim of Concoctions and Distortions, pp. 173-177.

[Nilesh Oak]

^ RajeshA ji,

This might explain why there might be renewed interest in writing/rewriting/re-editing of Puranas (Bhagavat, Vishnu, etc.) and also many Upanishads (Maitrayani Upanishad.. note the word 'Maitreya') during this time period. Some of the references within these texts allow us to date them (for their composition or updates) at this time... (1650 BCE - 1900 BCE).

[A_Gupta]

Please check these three samples:

Samara Eneolithic Russia Khvalynsk II, Volga River, Samara [I0433/SVP 46] M 4700-4000 BC R1a1 -> M459

Corded Ware Germany Bergrheinfeld [RISE446] M 2829-2465 BC R1a1a1 -> M417 CTS7278+, CTS10993+, FGC2547+, FGC2550+), xCTS4385 (Z2461-), xZ645 (Z647-)

Poltavka outlier Russia Potapovka I, Sok River, Samara [I0432/SVP 42] M 2925-2536 BC R1a1a1b2a -> Z94


M459 is ancestral to M417.
M417 (+Z645) is ancestral to Z93
R1a1a1b2a (Z94) is ancestral to most Z93 sub clades in India. This Poltavka sample is very close to ~3500bc expansion date of Z93.

If Z94 is absent in India, that would be a strong case for Z93 coming from outside. But I believe Z94 is found in India.

[RajeshA]

Some of the references within these texts allow us to date them (for their composition or updates) at this time... (1650 BCE - 1900 BCE).

Do you mean:

a) Does Buddha Nirvana date of 1865 BC help in dating of these Puaranas

or

b) Do Puranas have independent verification of dates, showing these texts to be lying in the period 1650 to 1900 BCE?

[Nilesh Oak]

Some of the references within these texts allow us to date them (for their composition or updates) at this time... (1650 BCE - 1900 BCE).

Do you mean:

a) Does Buddha Nirvana date of 1865 BC help in dating of these Puaranas

or

b) Do Puranas have independent verification of dates, showing these texts to be lying in the period 1650 to 1900 BCE?

The latter.
--

Internal references of Purana (or Maitrayani Upanishad...and I think few other documents also...e.g. Sushrut Samhita), which are independent of any references related to Buddha, lead us to this timeframe (1650 BCE - 1900 BCE).

Of course this could be a coincidence.

[RajeshA]

Internal references of Purana (or Maitrayani Upanishad...and I think few other documents also...e.g. Sushrut Samhita), which are independent of any references related to Buddha, lead us to this timeframe (1650 BCE - 1900 BCE).

Of course this could be a coincidence.

Interesting indeed. Perhaps the date-related information in the Puranas can also be collated .

[Rony]

The political and social implications of the unproven AIT which Kalavai is silent about aptly illustrated by this comment in his blog

Comment by one 'Arash' in Kalavai Venkat's AIT blog

Arash
Indian civilization is just an extension of Iranian civilization as proved by this Aryan invasion theory. Hinduism is just an extension of Zoroastrianism. India is just a geographical place where the martial Iranian tribes starting from the Aryans later Parthians, Mughals etc impregnated the local black dravidian women and established themselves.

[A_Gupta]

Shiv, I still think that quantifying the number of special cases, exceptions, vanished sounds, and so on required to "understand" Hittite might be a useful thing. Perhaps not a high priority.

[peter]

Comment by one 'Arash' in Kalavai Venkat's AIT blog

Arash
Indian civilization is just an extension of Iranian civilization as proved by this Aryan invasion theory. Hinduism is just an extension of Zoroastrianism. India is just a geographical place where the martial Iranian tribes starting from the Aryans later Parthians, Mughals etc impregnated the local black dravidian women and established themselves.

Ask him to send his girlfriend over.

[shiv]

Folks let us not fret about Z93 or M417, but follow what is known.

Let us see the info we have.
According to Underhill M417 - father of Z93 came into existence in Iran about 6000 years ago.
That aside (taking a hint from ukumar) I found that about 5 sets of men in unlikely places called Poltavka and Srubnaya have shown Z93 about 5000 years old. The Russians claim Z93 is of steppe origin
Here is an image of Z93 in India
Note that the distribution of Z93 in India across Gujarat, Rajasthan and Punjab is about 20-30% of men, and 30-40% men in Bihar and UP
This is interesting because the colour distribution (of Z93) suggests multiple events in history where one group of men invaded or amssacred all other men/rulers.

1. First I would list the mahajanapadas which extended all the way from Afghanistan to Bihar. The Mahabharata war ended with the elimination of one set of related kings. Z93 may have been related men of the war winners.
2.But that is not all. If you look at the Mongol kingdom - you find that the Mongols ruled an area that looks like the Z93 map. Now if Z93 was already present in the area from the time of the Mahabharat war, the Mongol invasions would simply have caused more churning and mixing of Z93 in India and neighbouring countries.
3.Finally you look at the Islamic Caliphate conquests from Turkey to Bihar and the Bahamani kingdoms to the south (Karnataka) you get more raping and more mixing of Z93 in the areas that it already existed.

The point is that Z93 may have nothing to do with language. Z93 may already have been widespread by the time of the Mahabharata war - maybe the percentages were different. It only kept getting mixed and remixed. It could still mean that the much older M17 that went from India to E Europe could be the Sanskrit language gene.

Map below:

[shiv]

Comment by one 'Arash' in Kalavai Venkat's AIT blog

Arash
Indian civilization is just an extension of Iranian civilization as proved by this Aryan invasion theory. Hinduism is just an extension of Zoroastrianism. India is just a geographical place where the martial Iranian tribes starting from the Aryans later Parthians, Mughals etc impregnated the local black dravidian women and established themselves.

Hinduism is an "extension of Zoroatrianism". This comment does not bear discussion. This fellow is in Arash a rush to have himself look like a moron. Please do not cross post idiot comments for dissing.

[A_Gupta]

Shiv, which ancient DNA Z93s are 5000 years old? I found a max. of 3900 so what did I miss?
I thought ukumar only showed 5000 year old close ancestors of z93.

[shiv]

Shiv, I still think that quantifying the number of special cases, exceptions, vanished sounds, and so on required to "understand" Hittite might be a useful thing. Perhaps not a high priority.

Not a high priority indeed. There are so many things that hit you straight in the face.

First off - every single name in those texts is Semitic. The language was thought to be Semitic. Although in a different area there are Biblical references to a Semitic tribe called the Hittites. So what are the "Aryan names" the found which constituted "proof of European Aryans"? The same vedic and Sanskrit names that you and I discussed earlier and you actually pulled up some very valuable references by Paul Thieme

I have been doing as much referencing as possible again because it got too boring last time. The declaration of the language as "Indo-European" is very very dubious. There is nothing obvious. Compare that with any IE language. The links hit you in the face like an artillery shell. Here there are completely alien words and names and a convoluted linguistic process has been cooked up saying that the grammar is Indo European and that the words are IE. In fact one of the things they are suggesting is that hIttite is very similar to another old language called Luwian. Luwian words have obvious similarities with Greek and it was spoken in an area near the "Hittite" region. It is claimed that Luwian influenced Hittite. I cannot dispute this, but I can only say that it has taken obscure reasoning, and the creation of new and obscure and controversial (among linguists) rules to somehow pull "Hittite" into the realm of Indo-European. Even Sturvetant proposed the existence of a separate "Indo-Hittite" language - that was criticized by others. An obituary written about Sturvetant praises him for accepting that he had made many mistakes.

Unless one of us does a degree in linguisitics I doubt if we are going to understand the logic of making Hittite IE. I can think of more obvious reasons for doing that. I have a reasonable grasp of a wide variety of arcane subjects and in this case I smell a rotten rat. But I don't see myself working on confirming my own doubts.

This exchange started because you asked if Cuneiform texts did not represent the oldest language. I would say "no they don't" The earlier date from 1800 BC and I now have two references that say that Rig veda and Sanskrit proper names have been found in those Cuneiform texts - making the latter much older. That is apart from other evidence which might all possibly come together in my book - inshallah

[shiv]

Shiv, which ancient DNA Z93s are 5000 years old? I found a max. of 3900 so what did I miss?
I thought ukumar only showed 5000 year old close ancestors of z93.

http://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/ ... 7.full.pdf
Poltavka grave bones (single male individual) - around 2200 to 2900 BC

[A_Gupta]

Shiv, which ancient DNA Z93s are 5000 years old? I found a max. of 3900 so what did I miss?
I thought ukumar only showed 5000 year old close ancestors of z93.

http://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/ ... 7.full.pdf
Poltavka grave bones (single male individual) - around 2200 to 2900 BC

For future reference, from the main text:

A discontinuity between earlier and later steppe populations is also suggested by the shift from an R1b Y-chromosome gene pool into an R1a-dominated one in the Srubnaya (Supplementary Data Table 1). We caution that this does not mean that new populations migrated into the steppe as R1a was also detected in Eneolithic Samara and an outlier Poltavka individual (Supplementary Data Table 1); it is possible that R1a males continued to abide in the Samara region but were not included in the rich burials associated with the Yamnaya and Poltavka elites in the intervening period

Further evidence for a connection between the Srubnaya and populations of central/south Asia—which is absent in ancient central Europeans including people of the Corded Ware culture and is nearly absent in present-day Europeans— is provided by the occurrence in four Srubnaya and one Poltavka males of haplogroup R1a-Z93 which is common in present-day central/south Asians and Bronze Age people from the Altai (Supplementary Data Table 1). This represents a direct link between the European steppe and central/south Asia, an intriguing observation that may be related to the spread of Indo-European languages in that direction

From supplementary table 1, filtered for "R1a*" and in descending order of "Min Date".
PS: trimmed to make pretty.

Code: Select all

Unique ID Archaeological culture    Date (2-sigma)Min Date Max Date  Y haplogroup
I0061     EHG                       5500-5000 BCE    7515    7015    R1a1
I0433     Samara_Eneolithic         5200-4000 BCE    7215    6015    R1a1
I0432     Poltavka_outlier          2925-2536 BCE    4940    4551    R1a1a1b2a
RISE61    Northern_LNBA             2851-2492 BCE    4866    4507    R1a1a1
RISE446   Central_LNBA              2829-2465 BCE    4844    4480    R1a1a1
RISE94    Northern_LNBA             2621-2472 BCE    4636    4487    R1a1
I1536     Central_LNBA              2500-2050 BCE    4515    4065    R1a
I1538     Central_LNBA              2500-2050 BCE    4515    4065    R1a
I1544     Central_LNBA              2500-2050 BCE    4515    4065    R1a
I1541     Central_LNBA              2500-2050 BCE    4515    4065    R1a
I1532     Central_LNBA              2500-2050 BCE    4515    4065    R1a1a
I1540     Central_LNBA              2500-2050 BCE    4515    4065    R1a1
I0104     Central_LNBA              2559-2296 BCE    4488    4363    R1a1a1
RISE386   Sintashta                 2298-2045 BCE    4313    4060    R1a
I0419     Potapovka                 2200-1900 BCE    4215    3915    R1a1a1b
RISE392   Sintashta                 2126-1896 BCE    4141    3911    R1a1a1b
I0424     Srubnaya                  1850-1600 BCE    3865    3615    R1a1a1b2
I0430     Srubnaya                  1850-1600 BCE    3865    3615    R1a1a1b2a2a
I0232     Srubnaya                  1850-1200 BCE    3865    3215    R1a1a1b2
I0360     Srubnaya                  1850-1200 BCE    3865    3215    R1a1
I0361     Srubnaya                  1850-1200 BCE    3865    3215    R1a1a
I0423     Srubnaya                  1850-1200 BCE    3865    3215    R1a1a1b2
RISE512   Andronovo                 1446-1298 BCE    3461    3313    R1a1a1b
I0099     Central_LNBA              1193-979 BCE     3128    3036    R1a1a1b1a2
I0247     Scythian_IA                380-200 BCE     2395    2215    R1a1a1b2a2a


[A_Gupta]

If I restrict the table above to R1a1a1b*, I get what's below. Apart from the first entry that is 5000 years old (Z94), I'm sorry, I don't see anything else that is 5000 years old. The next oldest is 3900 years old. So where are these 5000 year old Z93s?

Code: Select all

Unique ID   Archaeological culture  Date (2-sigma)   Min Date   Max Date   Y haplogroup   Y derived SNPs supporting haplogroup determination
I0432   Poltavka_outlier           2925-2536 BCE       4940   4551   R1a1a1b2a     Z94
I0424   Srubnaya                   1850-1600 BCE       3865   3615   R1a1a1b2      Z93
I0430   Srubnaya                   1850-1600 BCE       3865   3615   R1a1a1b2a2a   Z2123
I0232   Srubnaya                   1850-1200 BCE       3865   3215   R1a1a1b2      Z93
I0423   Srubnaya                   1850-1200 BCE       3865   3215   R1a1a1b2      Z93
I0247   Scythian_IA                380-200 BCE         2395   2215   R1a1a1b2a2a   Z2123