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

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

Post by Rudradev »

Prem Kumar wrote:
*****************
A new study conducted by Kurukshetra University has concretized the evidence for the Sarasvathi and its tributary, the Dhrishadhvathi.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/c ... ce=twitter

A very interesting data-point
All major archaeological sites in Haryana - Siswal, Rakhigarhi, Banawali, Bhirrana, Kunal, Balu, Thana – were located at a radial distance of less than 500m from the paleochannels of Saraswati or the Drishadwati rivers
I have the Chaudhri et al paper if you want it-- write to [e-khat redacted] if interested and I can send the pdf. It is very compelling.
Last edited by Rudradev on 24 Jun 2021 21:17, edited 1 time in total.
Prem Kumar
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Prem Kumar »

Rudradev: e-khat sent
Rudradev
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Rudradev »

Prem Kumar: replied-- let me know if attachment came through, it's 4.17 MB
Prem Kumar
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Prem Kumar »

Got it - thanks!

Had a quick, initial browse through it. Its a very thorough paper & the evidence is quite clinching. The mighty Sarasvathi river system existed, it supported the IVC through millenia & its the Rig Vedic Sarasvathi
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Vayutuvan »

Rudradev wrote:I have the Chaudhri et al paper if you want it-- write to [e-khat redacted] if interested and I can send the pdf. It is very compelling.
Please put a link or reference to the paper. Some can access it even if it behind the paywall of the journal publisher. TIA.
Prem Kumar
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Prem Kumar »

Vayutuvan: here is the link

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/arp.1829

Paper titled: "Saraswati River in northern India (Haryana) and its role in populating the Harappan civilization sites—A study based on remote sensing, sedimentology, and strata chronology", published on 13th June, 2021
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Prem Kumar »

Chariot expert Crouwel, in a 2019 essay, calls out Anthony & other Kurganist frauds by stating unequivocally that the Sintashta and other Kazakhastan wheel-imprints were not those of chariots. They were not suited for speed & maneuverability.

This is in a book called: Equids and Wheeled Vehicles in the Ancient World: Essays in Memory of Mary A. Littauer

He re-asserts what he had originally stated in 1996. Anthony knew about this serious issue, but pretended like it didn't exist.

Verdict: Sintashta did not have chariots. So, the Steppe people did not introduce it into India. Crouwel hypothesizes that the Steppe people learnt about it from the Near East

https://twitter.com/TrueShoebill/status ... 4134592513

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Prem Kumar
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Prem Kumar »

This post is about the one-way borrowings from Indo-Iranian into Uralic (which is a non-IE language). Watch the below snippet from Shrikant Talageri:



There are several key points he makes:

1) The one-way word borrowings are across all key aspects of life: domestic animals, pastoral processes, farming, metal, social relations, Indo-Iranian words like "dasa", "asura", words for heaven/earth, "vajra" etc etc. Its extensive.

2) When people live close to each other, language borrowings occur in both directions. But when the people who immigrated to a region don't transmit these borrowings back to their homeland, then their language in the mother country doesn't have these borrowed words.

Example Set 1: Indians in Fiji, Suriname & Mauritius and Indians in South-East Asian countries are all examples where the migrant Indians contributed words to their neighbors where they settled, but also borrowed words from their neighbors. But they never transmitted these words back to India because they hardly came back & this was in the era where back-and-forth communication wasn't prevalent. That's why native Fijians have Hindi words & native SE Asian countries have Sanskrit words, but Hindi and Sanskrit don't have Fijian or Thai words

Example Set 2: Arabic and Turkish words entered Hindi vocabulary but the reverse didn't happen because the invaders came here, settled and mingled with the local population. There was no reverse-movement & no easy communication

Example Set 3: English influenced worldwide languages and English also borrowed from others. This was possible because there was not only back & forth movement (it was in relatively recent times) but also extensive communications (books, letters etc)

All the above show that it was an Indo-Iranian speaking population that went to the Uralic speaking regions & not the reverse
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Prem Kumar »

Another good piece of evidence (in addition to Talageri's extensive work) on why the Mitanni text is contemporaneous with late RigVedic and Post-RigVedic texts. And how it cannot be that the Mitanni Indo-Aryan language and the RigVedic tribes split from a common ancestor.

This is from Dr. Premendra Priyadarshi's book. He refers to Mitanni words like Mitta & Satta, which are the later linguistic forms of RV's Mitra and Sapta. Mitra can change to Mitta, but not the other way around

Image

From this tweet: https://twitter.com/hamsanandi/status/1 ... 8088125442
Prem Kumar
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Prem Kumar »

A recent article (in a presentation format) by Talageri, about the Ashva/Chariot discussion:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/06/t ... ebate.html

From Teetar, a key take-away: Talageri points out that the RigVeda is the only text that shows a transition from solid to spoked wheels. The word "Ara" is used for the 1st time in the New Rig Vedic books. Its completely absent in the Old Books.

https://twitter.com/cookiec75190643/sta ... 9888039939
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by chetak »

should be sent to the dravidians who continue to keep sucking on the dried out caldwell tit

Clear-headed (and profane) Croatian, Italian, and Greek Redditors demonstrating how to properly pay respect to the 'Aryan Invasion/Migration' myth and its equivalents, when applied to their ancient civilisations by fragile Western academics and propagandists.
via@ruchirsharma_1


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

Post by Prasad »

Keeping history of India aside, we definitely know that the so called indo-european guys went into Europe. If these guys could write the Rig Veda after entering India (acc to them), did they write anything similar when they entered Europe proper. The most ancient was Greece/Greek. Are there any works, folklore, orally-transmitted stories in Greek that mention weird, new outsiders coming in on charriots or otherwise? If not, why not? And this is a wide wide swathe of land. All the way from Latvia to Scandinavia to Germany. Somebody must've made stories or songs or cave paintings or writings about the influx.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Rudradev »

No. Nobody made anything, ever, talking about invading overlords (coming on chariots or horses or donkeys or by any means) from the area known today as the Pontic Caspian Steppe. There is no folklore account of such an influx anywhere. Even the Rig Veda, which these people are supposed to have written, talks only and exclusively about India. Not a word is recorded about bronze age forefathers coming from some other place, let alone which place. Not in any of the vast range of locations where these overlords are supposed to have spread out and invented civilization.

Not one. Unless these Steppe Aryans were like modern left-wing PIO/NRIs, it is impossible to imagine them hating their ancestral homeland so much as to completely erase it from folk memory everywhere they went. Actually, even left-wing PIO/NRIs still at least mention India, if only as a focus for self-loathing condemnation.

The whole scam is based on the "Proto Indo European" reconstructions of some theoretical linguists (which, in fact, even many linguists consider to be purely theoretical, and regard as a totally unrealistic representation of any language actually spoken in the history of the world).

This is what economic strength & political backing can do for your agenda. Empower you to fabricate knowledge, backed by zero evidence, out of whole cloth.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Prem Kumar »

On the other hand, there is evidence of a foreign homeland in the Avesta. They talk about the Sapta Sindhu region & about regions in Aghanistan as their ancient homeland. You cannot get more clear-cut evidence than the Avesta itself that it was a breakaway late Rig Vedic faction!

Similarly, there are folk traditions in Slavic countries like Lithuania that their ancestors came from India. Not sure if these are date'able texts or only folklores. But even they're its just folklores, its interesting that they remember faraway India as their home! Also its important to treat folklores seriously because they contain kernels of truth that transmit across 1000s of years, which no written text does.

The Rig Veda & the Puranas talk about other people (outside the Sapta Sindhu region), but always with respect to India. There are references to (what is today) Afghanistan in the Rig Veda. The Puranas refer to Uttara Kuru and Uttara Madra, which Talageri says are the ancient secondary homelands in Central Asia, for the Tocharian and Druhyu emigrations. The Uttara here refers to the regions North of us - with "us" meaning the Sapta Sindhu region.

So, if there is any literary or folk evidence at all of a foreign homeland, it only refers to India. The literature in India itself is firmly grounded in India.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by sudarshan »

Rejoice, the message is spreading.

https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/q ... -abandoned

The questioner seems genuinely curious. The answer portrays Talageri as "incompetent Hindu nationalist." Good, any publicity is good publicity. Just so long as the questions start coming.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Prem Kumar »

The answer is by Arnaud Fournet, whose pathetic objections to Talageri's book was taken apart by the latter.

The fact that he needs to:

1) Assume that the questioner has been influenced by Talageri (as if that is wrong)
2) Tries to tie OIT to Hindutva
3) Brings emotions, prejudices & politics in a response to a straightforward question

....shows that Fournet is a fraud, who has lost the argument
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Maria »

Prem Kumar wrote:The answer is by Arnaud Fournet, whose pathetic objections to Talageri's book was taken apart by the latter.

The fact that he needs to:

1) Assume that the questioner has been influenced by Talageri (as if that is wrong)
2) Tries to tie OIT to Hindutva
3) Brings emotions, prejudices & politics in a response to a straightforward question

....shows that Fournet is a fraud, who has lost the argument
Tried answering on that page as an amateur, I thought we must not let Fournet's narrative be the only one there.

https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/q ... 1614#41614

BRF vashis, feedback please.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by sudarshan »

Maria ji, I took a look yesterday. At that time, your reply had gathered 13 comments and 5 downvotes. I was curious to see how long your reply would last. And lo and behold, it is gone today. I'm assuming you didn't remove it yourself, which would mean that some admin deleted it.

The best thing is to stick with facts, not to make things political. Now, it is certainly a fact that the reason why India is not even considered as the original homeland, is entirely political. But if you point that out, the discussion becomes political. And gets downvotes. And gets deleted.

Just find the facts which refute the other side, and present them blandly, in an apolitical way.

I have to admit though, that the original poster set up the question in such a way, that it was hard not to get political. The poster could simply have asked a question, which makes it easy to present facts refuting AIT. Instead, the poster asked "why is India not even considered the homeland?" Now with a question like this, if one tries to present facts refuting AIT, that becomes off-topic - because that's not the question which was asked. The answer to "why is India not considered the homeland" cannot avoid politics. So I would say the OP set up a loaded question, which made it easy for the AIT side to respond to, and very hard for the OIT side. If the questioner is indeed sympathetic to the OIT side, then this was one of the worst ways to frame the question, a self-goal in essence.

Now because of how clumsily the question was framed, the AIT side is having a field day, while the other side gets its responses deleted or moved to chat or deemed as "unhelpful and off-topic."

So I would say - in addition to learning how to answer, so that one doesn't get provoked, but rather gets the other side to go off the handle, one should also learn how to ask the question in the first place.

This is not about you, I appreciate the effort you put in. But as you can see, your reply is gone within a day.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by sudarshan »

You can also see the number of comments along the lines of "this is a linguistics forum, if you want to talk about archaeology or hydrology, go to that forum, don't post that stuff here." The aim being to keep the narrow focus on linguistics and ignore everything else.

Linguistics is a pseudo-science, which was basically invented to push AIT. I would say - don't give it any importance. So when I see comments like "the Hindoo nationalists are incompetent at linguistics," I get a good laugh. It's like accusing somebody, that they're incompetent at water-divining or reading tarot cards. Focus on hard scientific facts, from archaeology, astronomy, or hydrology. Let the linguists languish away.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Rudradev »

Prem Kumar wrote:The answer is by Arnaud Fournet, whose pathetic objections to Talageri's book was taken apart by the latter.

The fact that he needs to:

1) Assume that the questioner has been influenced by Talageri (as if that is wrong)
2) Tries to tie OIT to Hindutva
3) Brings emotions, prejudices & politics in a response to a straightforward question

....shows that Fournet is a fraud, who has lost the argument
Prem Kumar ji

Please check your e-khat (address where we communicated previously). Thanks.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Maria »

sudarshan wrote:Maria ji, I took a look yesterday. At that time, your reply had gathered 13 comments and 5 downvotes. I was curious to see how long your reply would last. And lo and behold, it is gone today. I'm assuming you didn't remove it yourself, which would mean that some admin deleted it.

The best thing is to stick with facts, not to make things political. Now, it is certainly a fact that the reason why India is not even considered as the original homeland, is entirely political. But if you point that out, the discussion becomes political. And gets downvotes. And gets deleted.

Just find the facts which refute the other side, and present them blandly, in an apolitical way.

I have to admit though, that the original poster set up the question in such a way, that it was hard not to get political. The poster could simply have asked a question, which makes it easy to present facts refuting AIT. Instead, the poster asked "why is India not even considered the homeland?" Now with a question like this, if one tries to present facts refuting AIT, that becomes off-topic - because that's not the question which was asked. The answer to "why is India not considered the homeland" cannot avoid politics. So I would say the OP set up a loaded question, which made it easy for the AIT side to respond to, and very hard for the OIT side. If the questioner is indeed sympathetic to the OIT side, then this was one of the worst ways to frame the question, a self-goal in essence.

Now because of how clumsily the question was framed, the AIT side is having a field day, while the other side gets its responses deleted or moved to chat or deemed as "unhelpful and off-topic."

So I would say - in addition to learning how to answer, so that one doesn't get provoked, but rather gets the other side to go off the handle, one should also learn how to ask the question in the first place.

This is not about you, I appreciate the effort you put in. But as you can see, your reply is gone within a day.
Yes, Sudharshan ji - a lot to learn Sir. However, even if my answer is devoid of politics, it will still be brickbatted to death. This was the very 1st time I did this and I took on someone who weighs far more than I do in this battle of wits. Next time, when we answer (we cannot let their narrative thrive alone) - we need to organize ourselves for the Upvotes so that our answers can remain.

Is it possible to create our own Stack Exchange for OIT? It seems there is some sort of a vetting process: https://communitybuilding.stackexchange ... k-exchange

Thank you again Sir. Will keep your feedback in mind.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by SRajesh »

Prem Kumar wrote:A recent article (in a presentation format) by Talageri, about the Ashva/Chariot discussion:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/06/t ... ebate.html

From Teetar, a key take-away: Talageri points out that the RigVeda is the only text that shows a transition from solid to spoked wheels. The word "Ara" is used for the 1st time in the New Rig Vedic books. Its completely absent in the Old Books.

https://twitter.com/cookiec75190643/sta ... 9888039939
Premji
A noob pooch??
Re Horse and the Chariot!
Recently a BRFite posted a video on Bhimbetka caves and watching that I distinctly remember seeing representation of Chariot and the Horse there.
How old are those paintings??
And if it is correct representation of spoked wheels what does that tell us??
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by wig »

Palaeolithic cave paintings found in corner of NCR could be among oldest
extracts
The caves are nestled amid a maze of quartzite rocks in the Aravalli mountain ranges, just outside the national capital, and a stone’s throw from the region’s only surviving patch of primary forest, a holy grove called Mangar Bani.
the caves have paintings which are known to the local dwellers
The caves are nestled amid a maze of quartzite rocks in the Aravalli mountain ranges, just outside the national capital, and a stone’s throw from the region’s only surviving patch of primary forest, a holy grove called Mangar Bani.

While the residents of Manger village, and adjoining villages such as Selakhari, say generations have been aware of the paintings, it is only recently that the Haryana government’s museum and archaeology department took note of them. It sent a fact-finding team to the area in the last week of June.

“So far, cave paintings in Delhi-NCR have only been found here. Most pre-historic sites have been traced in the Aravalli region. The paintings are yet to be dated but at least some of them belong to the Upper Palaeolithic period in all likelihood. We are viewing the paintings in continuation with the Soanian culture which has been found in Shivalik hills, Narmada and Aravallis,” said Banani Bhattacharyya, deputy director of the department of archaeology and museums.
probable period
The Mangar cave art is 20,000-40,000 years old, according to Bhattacharyya, but this is something that can be established through archaeological dating. Experts also use qualitative techniques, by comparing the cave art to other cave art, and that found in other excavations.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-ne ... 54624.html
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Prem Kumar »

Rudradev: responded to your e-khat.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Prem Kumar »

Rsatchi wrote: Premji
A noob pooch??
Re Horse and the Chariot!
Recently a BRFite posted a video on Bhimbetka caves and watching that I distinctly remember seeing representation of Chariot and the Horse there.
How old are those paintings??
And if it is correct representation of spoked wheels what does that tell us??
Rsatchi: I'd highly recommend reading this paper by our own @bennedose (Dr. Shiv Sastry). He quotes extensively from Neumayer. Chariots (of varying stages of sophistication) have been represented in art from since 2500 BCE, which means that they have been in existence even before that.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... astry_2018

Various ways of dating: based on carbon-dating of other materials found in the caves, the nature of artifacts (stone, metal etc) found in the cave, the analysis of dust that covers the painting etc.

What these cave paintings tell us is that horses were native to India and so were chariots. Unlike Steppes, where the "technology continuum" doesn't seem to exist, in India, there is evidence of various stages of tech development
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by SRajesh »

^^^Thank you very much Premji
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by SRajesh »

Premji
Another pooch of a slightly different kind?? please indulge
Horse and chariot present in Indian sub-continent for a long time
If so why were the cavalry tactics nascent or not well developed until the Islamic hordes poured out of the Khyber Pass
The reason I ask is because of the raids (17 if going by history) of Muhammed of Ghazni a la Mongol type lightning raids, bypassing towns encircling others and after looting laying waste to the towns and no efforts to stop or effective tactics to counter the cavalry raids.
If an argument made for south being saved from raids because of the topography then why the northern plains failed to developed the cavalry tactics given the flat topography???
Or was the old Indian war games and tactics was entirely reliant on the Mahabharat type wars with : Infantry , Chariots and War elephants with hardly any flanking manoeuvres by the cavalry
I remember the old Kannada Movie Immadi Pulakeshi (whether folklore or myth) of Pulakeshi flooding the war field with Narmada to prevent easy movement. Again not sure if Harshavardhana had no Cavalry and was reliant on war elephants and Chariots??
We had horses and the tech for chariots and spoked wheels but did we fail to develop effective counters to cavalry raids!!
We did seem to have stopped initial assault (as historians Rastrakuta and their Gujurat Vassal Kings stopped at least one assault in Sindh) and later Prithviraj won first the round
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Rudradev »

Horses (Equus caballus) were extremely rare in India. India did not have the appropriate climate or terrain for breeding E. caballus. We did have Equus hemionus (Onager/wild ass) all over the ISVC territory and Kutch. But these were nowhere near as easy to domesticate and train as mounts.

Talageri himself has attested to the fact that horses were rare, something that is entirely consistent with his linguistic analysis of Rig Veda. Some more details are given here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSsSjwjwcAM

E. caballus bones were found in Surkotada (ISVC site) from the 2100 BCE- 1700 BCE period (so again, well before the AIT dates claim)... still, compared to E hemionus, E asinus, and of course sheep and cattle, they are very rare indeed at any bronze-age archeological site in the Indian subcontinent.

It's almost certain that horses (referring henceforth to E caballus) were nearly all imported, very few in number (compared to infantry and elephants), and owned only by the top elites (rajas etc of considerable wealth and influence) who could afford them. You can't really develop "military tactics" around something that rare, which was as much a prestige/status symbol (pulling the chariots of "maharathis") as an actual instrument of war.

This necessarily meant there were strong restrictions against experimentation (which is necessary for the development of military tactics). Both the horses themselves, and the occupants of the chariots they pulled, were high-value items that needed to be "handled with care". In this situation you can't keep continuously testing their limits, trying out new tactics, all of which necessarily involve the risk of injuring or losing animals that are not easily replaceable. Indeed, that is why the Ashvamedha Yagna was such an enormously prestigious act-- it showed that a monarch was so great that he could afford to sacrifice an animal so precious as a horse.

Note: the fact that chariots/horses appear in artistic representations across many Indian sites do not mean that horses/chariots themselves were common. In fact it could imply the exact opposite. Artists could be expected to represent objects or animals that were rare and sensational, and also attached to legends of royal or heroic prestige. After all when we were schoolboys, we would draw pictures of fighter planes (rare) much more frequently than the lowly TATA truck (abundant). And all ancient portraits/statues are more likely to represent kings or elite personages than just common people.

Tragi-comically, the fascination with (foreign-derived) horses as an expensive, elite instrument of war is reminiscent of the Indian Armed Forces' fixation on military imports as a lynchpin of warfighting even today.

By contrast, in the Turkic lands, horses were plentiful (because of appropriate climate/terrain for breeding) and the entire culture developed around raising, domesticating, milking, eating, and riding horses. So they had a culture perfectly tuned to the evolution of cavalry tactics, and had been honing these for 1000s of years by the time of Ghorid/Timurid invasions.

There are appropriate counters to cavalry tactics (such as pikemen, developed in medieval Europe, that can stop a cavalry charge in its tracks, as well as specific defences like pit traps, fire arrows etc.) These are necessarily asymmetric and require thinking about new ways to shape and leverage the battlespace... not just charging into the rann-bhoomi and expecting things to turn out like the old days.

There are many reasons why Indian rulers did not adopt too many of these techniques (at least, until Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj). One may be that Indian rulers were comfortable simply hiring Muslim cavalry as mercenaries (this turned out disastrously for Vijayanagara at the Battle of Talikota) instead of developing their own counters... yet again, a warning to modern Indian military thinkers whose preferred solution is to import everything.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Cyrano »

Rudradev ji,
There are simply too many references to horses "ashwa" across vedas, Puranas, Ramayana and Mahabharata to think that horses were an extremely precious and rare commodity in ancient India. There are more than enough references to breeding and rearing of horses and their possession by the warrior class across the ages. While they were not so abundant that they become accessible to common man, he probably did not need them because they enable fast and long travels which he did not usually undertake (villages and regions were mostly self sufficient), and they are poor beasts of burden which made them less useful for most of his needs.

Ashwamedha Yagna is not horse sacrifice by killing a precious animal made holy by its role in the Yagna. The King or Chakravarti would perform a great Yag(n)a (the word is often mistranslated by the west to mean sacrifice ie ritual killing) or Havana or Havan (derived word) seeking divine blessings for the establishment of his empire and a long prosperous reign. As a part of it he would tie his royal flag on the back of a horse and let it roam free across his kingdom/sphere of influence, a royal army contingent follows it. Anyone who does not object the horse's passage is considered as accepting the Chakravati's dominance and anyone who captures the horse is refusing the same and is challenging the Chakravarthi. Ritual offerings are construed as sacrifice meaning killing which could have happened, but in Yagnas, sacrifice could also simply be symbolic.

In Uttara Ramayana, Ram's sons Lava and Kusha capture his horse when Ram performs Ashwamedha Yaga and then fight Ram's armies and defeat them. Bharata and numerous other kings are cited as performed Ashwamedha as well.

Horses where perhaps precious in ancient India like high-end cars today but surely not as rare as planes. A king's army could afford a few hundred horses, could feed and breed them just fine. For instance, Nakula in Virata Parva becomes the chief keeper of horses for King Virata.

The question then is why didn't we evolve cavalry manoeuvres like the invaders did? The answer may lie not in availability of horses but in the philosophy or code of conduct in wars. Perhaps Indic view was that fighting must be done fairly, face to face and in known configurations of battle. Surprise moves, flanking manoeuvres were perhaps considered as unethical, indicating deceit and cowardice ? Perhaps Indian kings and their armies did not adopt these tactics even after seeing invaders employ them again and again because they considered these as "a-dharm" and therefore dishonourable.

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

Post by Rudradev »

Cyrano wrote:Rudradev ji,
There are simply too many references to horses "ashwa" across vedas, Puranas, Ramayana and Mahabharata to think that horses were an extremely precious and rare commodity in ancient India. There are more than enough references to breeding and rearing of horses and their possession by the warrior class across the ages.
This is where the problem of "etymological exactitude" arises. Shrikant Talageri himself explains it very well in this presentation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib7W9bgv4OI

You say there are too many references to "asva". But what did "asva" actually mean? Why do we take it for granted that it always and only meant Equus caballus? It certainly suits the AIT theorists if we accept that "asva" was only and exactly the term for E. caballus, because these were clearly not native to India, yet mentioned multiple times in the Rig Veda.

In fact, there are sound linguistic reasons to believe that "asva" originally meant E. hemionus, or the onager, which was plentiful in India. Initially when E. caballus was introduced (as a rare commodity) it was referred to in Sanskrit as "haya" (as in hayagreeva, hayavadhana etc., a superior form of steed). Only much later did "asva" come to be applied to E. caballus specifically, and later terms like gardhaba etc. came to be applied to the onager and to donkeys (which were themselves a Middle-Eastern import). These types of semantic drifts are seen to occur during the evolution of many languages.

One line of evidence comes from the linguist Watkins (1994), who observes that in Armenian even today, the word "es" (cognate of "asva") means donkey or ass, not "horse". Meanwhile the Armenian word "ji", a cognate of "haya", is the word for horse or E. caballus. This suggests that Armenians-- whom Talageri has equated to Anus and/or Druhyus, or a tribe that departed from India following the Dasarajna war-- continued to carry the Old Rigvedic Sanskrit with them (in which asva = onager or ass, haya = Equus caballus horse). The identity between Armenians and Druhyus has been further highlighted by B B Lal in his study of the Baudhayana Srautasutra, which mentions a tribe going from India to the land of Aratta, identified with Armenia.
Ashwamedha Yagna is not horse sacrifice by killing a precious animal made holy by its role in the Yagna. The King or Chakravarti would perform a great Yag(n)a (the word is often mistranslated by the west to mean sacrifice ie ritual killing) or Havana or Havan (derived word) seeking divine blessings for the establishment of his empire and a long prosperous reign. As a part of it he would tie his royal flag on the back of a horse and let it roam free across his kingdom/sphere of influence, a royal army contingent follows it. Anyone who does not object the horse's passage is considered as accepting the Chakravati's dominance and anyone who captures the horse is refusing the same and is challenging the Chakravarthi. Ritual offerings are construed as sacrifice meaning killing which could have happened, but in Yagnas, sacrifice could also simply be symbolic.

In Uttara Ramayana, Ram's sons Lava and Kusha capture his horse when Ram performs Ashwamedha Yaga and then fight Ram's armies and defeat them. Bharata and numerous other kings are cited as performed Ashwamedha as well.
I am aware of what Ashwamedha Yagna was. Reports differ on whether the horse was actually killed or not after completing its journey. The point still stands that very few of all monarchs could even afford to consider such a project. It was a sign of extreme confidence in the ability to dominate ALL potential rivals to the extent they did not dare touch the Chakravarti's horse. Only very few monarchs would be so wealthy and powerful as to undertake such a yagna (and the fact that they are mentioned many times in literature afterwards only explains why it was such a prestigious thing to do... it does not suggest that it was done very often).

Again, the very fact that they used a rare, imported animal for this purpose underscores the idea of dominance through prestige and wealth. It's like driving your Rolls Royce through the other contenders' neighbourhoods and daring them to even put a scratch on it. It wouldn't have the same sort of psycho-political effect with a Maruti Wagon-R or whatever.
Horses where perhaps precious in ancient India like high-end cars today but surely not as rare as planes. A king's army could afford a few hundred horses, could feed and breed them just fine. For instance, Nakula in Virata Parva becomes the chief keeper of horses for King Virata.
How does the Nakula reference establish how many horses a king's army could have? I think there is strong reason to believe they were at least, if not more, rare than fighter planes are in military establishments today. You had a handful of commanders on each side mounted on chariots pulled by horses. Then you had larger numbers of elephants and very large numbers of infantry. The chariot warriors were specialists like CAS fighter pilots are today... fast moving, dealing damage with standoff weapons (bows/arrows) and capable of traveling rapidly between different areas of the battle to rally the troops and issue orders. Elephants and foot soldiers would have been more in the proportions of tanks/armour and infantry-- the fighting troops of the line.
Perhaps Indian kings and their armies did not adopt these tactics even after seeing invaders employ them again and again because they considered these as "a-dharm" and therefore dishonourable.
This would not explain why-- as recorded in history, many Hindu kings hired Turkic mercenary cavalry to fight for them.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Cyrano »

I see the point you're trying to make, however we are discussing horse from Vedic times (roughly 6000BC) to Turkic and medieval islamic invasions. Thats about 7.5 Millenia. The rarity of the horse surely cannot be the same across such a long span of time !

Nakula is given an important position, its my conjecture that the size of Virata's stables would have been big enough to justify putting Nakula in charge of them since in my view horses were not as rare as you deem them to be.
You had a handful of commanders on each side mounted on chariots pulled by horses.

Its still not clear to me what this extreme rarity assumption is based on, besides the linguistic arguments. And why they overweigh the innumerable references to lets say a sizeable number of horses employed by kings and warriors across millennias of Indian texts and literature.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Cyrano »

You say there are too many references to "asva". But what did "asva" actually mean? Why do we take it for granted that it always and only meant Equus caballus? It certainly suits the AIT theorists if we accept that "asva" was only and exactly the term for E. caballus, because these were clearly not native to India, yet mentioned multiple times in the Rig Veda.
Is it inconceivable that the horse E Caballus came to India through trade routes since ancient Indian kingdoms extended up to Iran/Iraq and definitely traded beyond that? Inidan traders had such a large variety of highly sought after goods, some of them could be sold in exchange for horses and thus "imported" into India quite often? I mean what else would central asian peoples have of value that ancient India/soney ki chidiya could not produce itself ?

Saying horses where prevalent in India since ancient times doesn't equate to accepting AIT at all !
This would not explain why-- as recorded in history, many Hindu kings hired Turkic mercenary cavalry to fight for them.
You're right, my idea doesn't explain everything. How prevalent was this practice of hiring mercenaries ? Was it only for their cavalry and tactics or for other reasons as well? Its hard to make a generalisation one way or the other across large swaths of time and a large geography. Its a fascinating topic.

I came across an interesting reference on Kurukshetra war :
https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Kurukshetra_War
Army divisions and weaponryedit | edit source
Each army consisted of several divisions; the Kauravas had 11 while the Pandavas controlled 7. A division (akshauhini) includes 21,870 chariots and chariot-riders, 21,870 elephants and riders, 65,610 horses and riders, and 109,350 foot-soldiers (in a ratio of 1:1:3:5). The combined number of warriors and soldiers in both armies was approximately 3.94 million.[15] Each Akshohini was under a commander or a general, apart from the Commander in chief or the generalissimo who was the head of the entire army.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Rudradev »

Cyrano wrote:I see the point you're trying to make, however we are discussing horse from Vedic times (roughly 6000BC) to Turkic and medieval islamic invasions. Thats about 7.5 Millenia. The rarity of the horse surely cannot be the same across such a long span of time !
Did you watch this presentation? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSsSjwjwcAM

What you call "the horse" itself did not exist more than a few centuries ago. It was the directed product of breeding over many millennia that produced it, selecting for traits that were the most beneficial to military and commercial use. It would never have existed were it not for artificial selection over scores of generations.

That is what is meant by breeding-- you need to be able to generate such a vast surplus of primitive horses that you can waste most of them, select only the ones you want (that have favourable attributes of physical structure and adaptability to training), refine the pedigree by allowing only those specimens to breed with each other, etc. You need to have lots and lots of extra specimens so that you don't run into the genetic drawbacks of intercrossing-- such as the preponderance of recessive traits.

And like it or not-- the biological reality that this was just not possible to do in the Indian subcontinent. Animals will readily breed in certain conditions of climate, temperature, moisture, available food sources, etc that were conducive to their natural evolution. If you take them out of that environment, they will often lose their vitality and will to reproduce, and without techniques like artificial insemination etc that means you will not be getting future generations in any sizeable numbers.

And just as elephants are more than happy to breed in India but not the Steppe-- Equus caballus horses are more than happy to breed in the Steppe, and even parts of Western Asia, but not in India.
Its still not clear to me what this extreme rarity assumption is based on, besides the linguistic arguments.
As explained above, and in more detail in that video, the simple biological realities that constrain domestic animal breeding. There are more than enough population-genetics references on PubMed that establish how every ancestor of every horse strain used for military and transportation purposes throughout the world originated not in India, but either in the Iberian plains or the Eurasian Steppe. Unless you can show how it might have been possible to breed and evolve sizeable numbers of horses in India, and provide genetic evidence for the same, I'm afraid extreme rarity is the only viable assumption.
And why they overweigh the innumerable references to lets say a sizeable number of horses employed by kings and warriors across millennias of Indian texts and literature.
References to hard numbers (of horses, sons, wives, jewels, or whatever) in ancient literature, especially epic poetry, are almost invariably inflated as a matter of poietic license. Actual records kept by the stable-masters of medieval rulers are perhaps more reliable as a source of hard numbers.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Rudradev »

Cyrano wrote:
Is it inconceivable that the horse E Caballus came to India through trade routes since ancient Indian kingdoms extended up to Iran/Iraq and definitely traded beyond that? Inidan traders had such a large variety of highly sought after goods, some of them could be sold in exchange for horses and thus "imported" into India quite often? I mean what else would central asian peoples have of value that ancient India/soney ki chidiya could not produce itself ?
There is no doubt that they came to India through trade routes. The question is: how many? Think about the difficulties involved in transporting horses (or any living animal) vast distances through unfamiliar territory and climate where they are susceptible to all sorts of unfamiliar germs and pathogens. A huge number, probably the majority of the consignment, would have died.

It's not like transporting bronze tools or clay pottery or spices/agricultural produce that were going in the other direction. That is exactly why horses were so rare (and no doubt expensive). They had to be priced to amortize the huge losses that the herd would suffer while being transported.

This would not explain why-- as recorded in history, many Hindu kings hired Turkic mercenary cavalry to fight for them.
You're right, my idea doesn't explain everything. How prevalent was this practice of hiring mercenaries ? Was it only for their cavalry and tactics or for other reasons as well? Its hard to make a generalisation one way or the other across large swaths of time and a large geography. Its a fascinating topic.
Cavalry and artillery were the main types of foreign mercenary units retained by Hindu kingdoms. RC Majumdar as well as Neelakanta Sastri (a historian of South India) attest to this being a regular practice throughout the medieval ages and across the subcontinent.
I came across an interesting reference on Kurukshetra war :
https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Kurukshetra_War
Army divisions and weaponryedit | edit source
Each army consisted of several divisions; the Kauravas had 11 while the Pandavas controlled 7. A division (akshauhini) includes 21,870 chariots and chariot-riders, 21,870 elephants and riders, 65,610 horses and riders, and 109,350 foot-soldiers (in a ratio of 1:1:3:5). The combined number of warriors and soldiers in both armies was approximately 3.94 million.[15] Each Akshohini was under a commander or a general, apart from the Commander in chief or the generalissimo who was the head of the entire army.
See my point about epic poetry. For one thing, the extent of forces arrayed opposite each other in the Mahabharata is unique... that's why it is the "Mahabharata". For another-- I may accept as a matter of faith that Gandhari gave birth to 100 children at the same time, but it's hard to use that assertion as scientific substantiation for any argument.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Cyrano »

oh no ! not AIM again !!
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Rudradev »

:D
Argue with him on the substance of what he's saying, boss. As a molecular biologist by training, I can attest that his views on the biology/animal-husbandry of horse breeding and rearing (as expressed in this video) are accurate. Whatever else he says, if you want to take it with a pinch of salt, or not take it at all, go ahead!

Or if you prefer you can just watch Talageri's video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib7W9bgv4OI in which he recaps some of the key points AIM made about horses.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Cyrano »

I watched part of that video, especially the part where AIM talks about bows. As a practicing recurve and longbow archer (hobby) since several years, I can tell you he is making things up as he goes along and spouts utter nonsense from his musharraff. To hit a long range target you must fire arrows in parabolic trajectory. And yes, with a strong enough shaft and hard enough arrow head, it can pierce steel plate armour at even 100m distance. But that makes for very heavy arrows and to propel them you need 6 foot bows from yew wood with draw weight of 100-150 pounds. They didn't have the required materials to make recurve bows to take that kind of draw weight hence only longbows. How they were carried - strung or unstrung is irrelevant to the discussion point. Shorter bows came about for horseback shooting, they had to be recurve to generate some piercing power despite small size. Etc etc.

Elsewhere he confuses Turkish and Turkic, horses needing millions of sq kms to be bred etc etc. Why couldn't Indians breed horses when they could breed cattle for desirable traits? The basic principles of selection are not that different. They could have got an expert from ME to come with the horses to do/show how its done. Its very much possible to provide required hay/grains for a few hundred horses in most kingdoms in India. May be Indian kings didn't care enough for horses or cavalry tactics due to decadence, ignorance or may be they did but their soldiers lacked the cruel zeal of invading hordes and hence lost many (not all) wars to invaders. I found no conclusive evidence presented to back up the theories AIM gives out to be the ONLY reasons why Indian rulers could not keep muslim invaders out. The individual bits he asserts are highly debatable, the overall story is not convincing to me.

AIM is a master of putting out scientific sounding nonsense by selecting facts to support his imaginative assertions. If this is what you are basing your arguments on, good luck to you. I'll stop here.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Rudradev »

Cyrano wrote:I watched part of that video, especially the part where AIM talks about bows. As a practicing recurve and longbow archer (hobby) since several years, I can tell you he is making things up as he goes along and spouts utter nonsense from his musharraff. To hit a long range target you must fire arrows in parabolic trajectory. And yes, with a strong enough shaft and hard enough arrow head, it can pierce steel plate armour at even 100m distance. But that makes for very heavy arrows and to propel them you need 6 foot bows from yew wood with draw weight of 100-150 pounds. They didn't have the required materials to make recurve bows to take that kind of draw weight hence only longbows. How they were carried - strung or unstrung is irrelevant to the discussion point. Shorter bows came about for horseback shooting, they had to be recurve to generate some piercing power despite small size. Etc etc.

Elsewhere he confuses Turkish and Turkic, horses needing millions of sq kms to be bred etc etc. Why couldn't Indians breed horses when they could breed cattle for desirable traits? The basic principles of selection are not that different. They could have got an expert from ME to come with the horses to do/show how its done. Its very much possible to provide required hay/grains for a few hundred horses in most kingdoms in India. May be Indian kings didn't care enough for horses or cavalry tactics due to decadence, ignorance or may be they did but their soldiers lacked the cruel zeal of invading hordes and hence lost many (not all) wars to invaders. I found no conclusive evidence presented to back up the theories AIM gives out to be the ONLY reasons why Indian rulers could not keep muslim invaders out. The individual bits he asserts are highly debatable, the overall story is not convincing to me.

AIM is a master of putting out scientific sounding nonsense by selecting facts to support his imaginative assertions. If this is what you are basing your arguments on, good luck to you. I'll stop here.
As I said, the easiest thing in the world is to shoot the messenger. AIT-ists do it all the time, which is why Talageri's work is also convenient ignored by labeling him a "Hindu Nationalist" and so on.

I have researched the population genetics of the AIT/OIT debate pretty extensively on my own, which includes the population genetics of domesticated animals, so I'm not relying on Abhijit Iyer Mitra for this part of the story. I can, however, attest that what he says about this aspect of horse breeding is correct. You do need large amounts of land of a certain type of terrain to breed horses effectively. You need certain conditions of climate, vegetation, ambient microbiome, nutrient availability-- failing which horses simply will not reproduce at the levels required for selective breeding. Nor will any animal, in fact-- why do you think zoos even in developed first-world countries have to import new African or Asian wild animal specimens, rather than simply allowing their existing specimens to mate? It's because 99% of the time, their existing animals simply won't do the deed. Their epigenetics are dysregulated by changed environment and unfamiliar microbes in the diet (gut flora), water, and air-- as a result, the hormonal drive to reproduce is strongly dampened.

That is why it is impossible for Indians to have bred horses locally on the scale required to have a cavalry-based army or develop cavalry tactics. The genetic evidence is all there. There are simply no ancestral strains of domesticated horses intrinsic to the Indian subcontinent at all.

If you really are interested in the principles of animal husbandry and breeding, there is more than enough literature out there. Start on PubMed.

You ask: why could Indians not breed horses if they could breed cattle? Read about the specific strains of domesticated cattle that exist in different parts of the world, and why they were selected for breeding in those parts of the world. Here's a beginning: https://www.pnas.org/content/103/21/8113.

Bos indicus cattle were always native to India-- their wild type predecessors evolved in this climate/terrain and were domesticated within India. Genetically, they diverge very significantly from Bos taurus cattle of West Asia/North Africa or the Aurochs of Europe. Modern European cattle had to be interbred between Aurochs males and successive waves of females from imported Bos taurus herds (which could survive and breed in the Mediterranean lands but not central or northern Europe, unless interbred with the native Aurochs species).

India did not have any native horse species to attempt anything analogous. All we had were onagers (wild asses) and middle-eastern donkeys. If you cross-breed a horse with a donkey, you get a mule, which is sterile. Hence-- the strategy used in Europe to make imported cattle viable there was impossible to use for breeding horses at any kind of scale in India.
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by SRajesh »

Rudradevji
Per wiki, the original wild horse (E ferus)was present everywhere but died out suddenly in Pleistocene disappeared from americas and left only in old world.
Could these be the bones found in Indian sub continent or referenced in Mahabharata wars!!
E caballus might have come through the trade routes.
Remember hearing stories of ports and Portuguese traders and Arab traders during the Vijayanagar times and one of the main imports being horses
I mean if you could you spend millions buying horses how difficult to breed from the imported lot
How is that a populace that could figure out 'Zero' domesticate cattle failed to figure out ways to stop bleeding 'golden varahas' to the yavanas sir!!
And furthermore, what's the need for chariot tech if the proverbial 'horse' is not around!! to pull it.
Understand if the wheel tech i.e, evolved more due to improvements of the cattle cart rather than the chariot!
This thing about horse being precious hence 'Ashwamedha' its difficult to accept isnt it.
Did not the greek kings take an oath of 'Quatered Horse' that nobody will try to steal Helen after her marriage Agemenon's brother
My feeling is that the 'Horse' was the original man's best friend until the 'Dog' came along to steal that tag
Per indian Mythology only major animals indigenous to Indian Sub-continent were accorded companion status or revered
And the horse is there!
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Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

Post by Yayavar »

Rsatchi wrote:Rudradevji
Per wiki, the original wild horse (E ferus)was present everywhere but died out suddenly in Pleistocene disappeared from americas and left only in old world.
Could these be the bones found in Indian sub continent or referenced in Mahabharata wars!!
E caballus might have come through the trade routes.
Remember hearing stories of ports and Portuguese traders and Arab traders during the Vijayanagar times and one of the main imports being horses
I mean if you could you spend millions buying horses how difficult to breed from the imported lot
How is that a populace that could figure out 'Zero' domesticate cattle failed to figure out ways to stop bleeding 'golden varahas' to the yavanas sir!!
And furthermore, what's the need for chariot tech if the proverbial 'horse' is not around!! to pull it.
Understand if the wheel tech i.e, evolved more due to improvements of the cattle cart rather than the chariot!
This thing about horse being precious hence 'Ashwamedha' its difficult to accept isnt it.
Did not the greek kings take an oath of 'Quatered Horse' that nobody will try to steal Helen after her marriage Agemenon's brother
My feeling is that the 'Horse' was the original man's best friend until the 'Dog' came along to steal that tag
Per indian Mythology only major animals indigenous to Indian Sub-continent were accorded companion status or revered
And the horse is there!
Valid points.
Marwari horses were the war horses of Mewar. Chetak, the legendary horse of Rana Pratap was marwari horse. This breed was/is bred in India.
Indian army has bred horses for more than 100 years.
Kathiawari horses are another breed.
Was it a focus on Arab horses by Mughals or English for larger European horses that created the more recent focus on specific breeds?
How did Marathas get their horses - the dakhini breed? They probably were reared locally.
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