Distorted History - Causes, Consequences and Remedies

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sanjaychoudhry
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Post by sanjaychoudhry »

JwalaMukhi
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Post by JwalaMukhi »

Bala Wrote:
From the sanjaychoudary link which i had read sometime back, but could not find, is this from the great Carl Sagan. Couple this observation with the multiverse concept of String Theory and things make sense. Of course the "sense" is from the ancient Hindu cosmology..
Reading the Soundarya Lahari (Inundation of Divine Splendour)(a short book of 181 pages by Ramakrishna Math - especially starting from verse 42) and then comparing notes with
The elegant Universe by Brian Greene (even there is Video series) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elegant_Universe one cannot help but wonder that modern science still coming to grips to describe the phenomena of universe.
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Post by Kaushal »

As a follow on to the seminar held in Dallas we are planning a number of seminars in India and the U S
.
I am seeking individuals who will help assist in setting up these seminars, especially in the major metropolitan areas of US and India. I pefer individuals who have an abiding passion and interest in these areas, especially in history and its impact on the strategic security of the Indic civilization and the only nation state that is still extant . The only remuneration that we can offer is a chance to work on one of the most fascinating subjects. I mention this as the commitment in hours could be substantial. I can be reached at history-seminar at heconf dot com
Kaushal

Request for Intent to participate Delhi Seminar (2008/2009) Proposed Venue Center for Policy Research, New Delhi What is Past is Prologue (to the Future) said the bard You are cordially invited to participate in a Seminar titled The Impact of a Distorted History on Strategic issues confronting the Indic civilization". Tentative date January 9-11,2009. This is a request for intent to participate, a preliminary response will help us plan the event as optimally as possible. It is generally accepted by the cognoscenti in India that the Geopolitical and Strategic Environment facing India during the early decades of the 21st century remains a challenging one.Such a reality was part of the set of assumptions made by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. As India's first Prime Minister ,in the aftermath of the gaining of independence from the authoritarian centuries of colonial rule, a rule where the Colonial overlord was extremely solicitous in shielding us from the burden of making choices relative to our own governance, Pundit Nehru fashioned his own unique response to these challenges by formulating a non alignment policy premised on the reality that the world had to contend essentially with 2 superpowers. The fact of the matter was he leaned heavily towards the western alliance at least till the end of his tenure in office. It was only during subsequent years and decades that India and the Congress Party interpreted the policy of non alignment as if it were a canonical principle of Indian foreign policy. In other words, there is ample evidence that at least in the conception of Pundit Nehru , non alignment was a means to an end rather than an end in itself , a subtlety that was frequently forgotten during subsequent decades. In so doing India veered away from its roots as enunciated by Chanakya (aka Kautilya) as laid out in his Arthasastra. How so , is a legitimate question ? We can only cite a couple of examples. Chanakya was firm that there was little room for morality in the conduct of foreign policy or in dealings with other powers. The paramount question in such dealings with adversaries, was whether the action being contemplated was in the self interest of the Kingdom. Among the many other remarks he makes are the use of spies or human intelligence as it is now called . The vision of the Arthasastra is truly breath taking, its practical utility timeless and the clarity of its exposition unique. The techniques of manipulating public opinion and creating disinformation, propounded by Chanakya anticipated modern intelligence systems by several centuries. It is not surprising then, that the lessons taught by that Master strategist, Chanakya alias Kautilya should have served as an appropriate example for India in the fashioning of its own modern intelligence apparatus.

We like to think all would have been well had India adhered to Chanakyan principles at least in dealing with potential adversaries and those who would attempt to dominate India's role in the world. But alas the sad reality is that India has been far from Chanakyan, preferring indeed to adopt a moralistic tone(during the first 3 or 4 decades) in its conduct of foreign policy and it is Pakistan that has done a far more creditable job in adopting Chanakya-niti than has India. It is our premise that such a laissez faire attitude towards the conduct of foreign policy stems from the propensity to amnesiacal bouts that the Indic periodically inflicts upon himself when it comes to his/her history.
This brings us to the motivations for holding the seminar. There is widespread nonchalance to the history of India amongst the body politic and a certain amount of disdain that the ancients have anything to teach us. We wish to do our part in dispelling such attitudes . The objective of the seminar is to increase awareness of the importance of learning the accurate History of India. The seminar is a small step towards questioning the established narrative of Indian history, present new research, uncover new facts, examine the relevance to the current strategic environment and propagate the correct history to the public at large in general, the classrooms and eventually influence those who would make policy for India.
In addition to Indologists, historians, and the community of think tanks specializing in strategic issues, the contents of the seminar are equally relevant to parents of school-going children, community and educational leaders, and public service professionals. Cultural self-esteem among impressionable young minds is a direct derivative of correctness of history taught in schools. Also the representation of the community in the media and in public space is a consequence of the same. Thus, for all of the above reasons and many more there is a veritable need from all quarters, scholars and general public alike to come together and effect a joint program of correction and propagation of the true history of the subcontinent.
We request interested authors to submit presentations in related areas including but not restricted to, the following
1. Identify key distinguishing characteristics and dates of the Indic civilization of relevance to the current strategic environment facing india
2. Indicate those areas of Indian history which are egregiously in error and the resulting impact on the manner in which India is viewed in the world today
3. Provide examples of policy based on an erroneous interpretation of History
4. Propose methodology and criteria to evaluate the accuracy of the current or future proposed narratives
5. Discuss the extent of India’s contribution to technology and the sciences in the past and the consequences for Indian policy makers in dealing with other civilizations and nation states
6. Discuss the implications of the location of the Sarasvati Sindhu civilization on the posture of Pakistan and the relationship between India and Pakistan


A paper submission is not necessarily required to participate in the session deliberations. You may choose to contribute ad-hoc to the process of corrections of history, and be part of the plan for propagation among students and general public including the media. Conference attendance is highly recommended but not mandatory to be a valuable asset to the session deliberations. You can submit your paper which will be tabled at the session in absentia, and deliberated
upon by the session participants. If I can answer any of your questions, feel free to reach me via e-mail by replying to this communique.
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Post by Rudranathh »

Must Read

This is a very interesting scientific finding which debunks the Aryan Invasion Theory(AIT) and the aryan v/s dravidian divide.

The scientific study also shows "even the high castes share more than 80 per cent of their maternal lineages with the lower castes and tribals." And
“it was not possible to confirm any of the purported differentiations between the caste and tribal pools,â€
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The Caste System and Aryan Invasion Theory

Post by Rudranathh »

The Caste System and Aryan Invasion Theory

Marianne Keppens

Abstract

The controversy about the Aryan Invasion Theory has occupied scholars from several domains over the last few decades. The advocates of this theory claim that a Sanskrit-speaking Aryan people invaded or entered India around 1500 BC and brought along a language, religion and social structure, which they imposed on the indigenous population.

The opponents claim that the Aryan people, their language and religion have always been present in India and hence that an invasion could never have happened. When we analyze the arguments from both sides, these sustain only one general conclusion: India has a long history of co-existence and cross-fertilization of different groups of people, cultural traditions, languages, etc.

Given the trivial nature of this conclusion, the question becomes: why have so many scholars debated the Aryan Invasion Theory with such passion? To answer this question, my paper looks at how the Aryan Invasion Theory was developed in the nineteenth century. I argue that the theory itself did not emerge from empirical evidence or scientific theorizing about the Indian languages, archaeology or history.

Instead this theory developed as an explanation of two entities central to the European experience of India: the caste system and Hinduism as a degeneration of Vedic religion. The Aryan Invasion Theory not only explained how the caste system came into being, it also accounted for the degeneration of the religion of the Vedas and allowed for the classification of its evolution into three main phases: Vedism, Brahmanism and Hinduism.

The contemporary debate shows that it remains impossible to defend the occurrence of an Aryan invasion on the basis of the available linguistic, archaeological and other evidence.

However, the significance of the Aryan invasion controversy becomes intelligible when one realizes that this theory did not emerge as a description of real historical events. Rather, it is a theory that explained entities which exist only in the European experience of India.

As such, if we desire to understand how the ‘Aryan invasion' as well as the ‘caste system', ‘Brahmanism' and other related concepts came into being, we need to study the development of Western culture.
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Post by JE Menon »

about time, honey
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Post by Kaushal »

That explanation does not peel the layers of the onion sufficiently, although , it is significant that Europe has taken the leaD IN DEBUNKING THIS absurd theory (as opposed to the Americans). The real reasons which impelled William Jones and Max Mueller to put forward this theory is twofold

1. one is their inability to come to terms with the signjificant advances in mathematics and science that the Indian had made. This is the loin cloth syndrome where the sophistication of a civilization is measured by the number of layers of clothing one wears. Ergo, people who habitually clothe themselves in loin cloths are incapable of making civilizational progress .

2. In order for the indians to have come up with the sigificant advances, they would therefore have to had copied it from somebody else and so, the answer was that the Indians borrowed it from the Greeks.

3. But the Greeks come into the picture only late in the game, circa 500 BCE and hence nothing could have originated from india before 500 bCE.

4. So the logical conclusion was that the Aryans came in and seeded the civilization at some point in time and then all the discoveries started to appear aided by copious plagiarism from the greeks.

The trick was to fix the date as late as possible without making it absurd.

sothey fixed 1300 BCE as the earliest date of the migration and that would would leave enough time for the Aryan barbarians to freshen up and transform themselves to sophisticated purveyors of philosophy and mathematics.

That would also solve the very inconvenient problem of explaining how their own language derived from Sanskrit and claim that sanskrit was infact a language of the invaders, and avoid pesky questions as to how loin cloth wallahs could have developed a sophisticated grammar for sanskrit in 1300 BCE.

So great was their success with this theory that till the 90's a majority of Indians bought into this very dubious set of assumptions, and this happens to be still the official version taught to Indian school children

I have summarized the sequence of events with a more plausible set of assumptions andchronology in the book 'Astronomical dating and select vignettes from Indian History' , which is also an anthology of papers presented at Dallas in 2007 (trhe same confernece that is the title ofthis thread and it is nowe available at http://www.lulu.com/author/content_revi ... ID=2060969

This has a lot of useful info , not easily found elsewhere and is definitely worth owning as a reference or as a cofee table book (even though my opinion maybe slightly biased)
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Post by ramana »

Kaushal, Only if you autograph it! Would copies be available at our meet?
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Post by shiv »

I need a copy - aha - looks like I have to register.

Hmm - looks like I am unable to access the book to buy.
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Post by shiv »

I am cross posting my own post on this thread because I believe it has relevance here:
shiv wrote:
mayurav wrote: Are these Americans clueless or are they pretending to be clueless? They don't acknowledge the importance of Islam in partitioning of India because they would have tried to partition India anyways. India, a new country had to be partitioned to keep it weak and Islam presented itself as a convenient means. If not Islam, it would have been something else according to these western folks.

Look how Tim takes it as a given that Pakistan has a right to exist as an independent state. And upon that he wants to make it "stable, peaceful, economically strong" etc. Of course he wants it that way so that it remains viable to keep India tied down.

The best thing for India is the destruction of the Pakistani state which is the worst thing for America. All this Tim asking for desi opinion is hog wash. Our aims towards Pakistan are diametrically opposite and irreconcilable.

Tim, lets fight it out in Pakistan and may the best man win. Stop pretending that you really care about what we think. We want end to Pakistan, and you cannot take that.

Another article to be copied over to Psy Ops thread.
Well this is one viewpoint I guess.

What I believe is possible is that the affront that Hindus feel for being dubbed and assumed as bigots who are "naturally against Islam" is ignored and does not come into conscious thought, and the Islamic grievance story of Pakistan's creation is swallowed whole by entities such as US policymakers. No credence is given to the effort put in by India and Indians to have a united society, and Pakistan's horribly hate-filled Islamist birth is glossed over, giving credibility to the story of Hindu bigotry.

That concoction of Hindu bigotry, having been internalized by the US, is then forgotten and Pakistan is declared a great new state and a loyal ally. And part of the process of this alliance between the US and Pakistan is a regular reminder by Pakistanis to their elder brother the US that Hindu bigots may take over Islamic Pakistan, so we (the Paki army) need to be strong before we can help you out.

A second or third generation consequence of such a distorted and egregious view of history is the likes of Tim Hoyt making the statement:
http://www.americansecurityproject.org/ ... lancingThe Relationship.pdf
As the U.S. relationship with India improves, for example, the United States will act as an implicit security guarantor for the region—a role it has already played in the nuclear crises of 1999 and 2001-2002.
From the Indian viewpoint this statement means:
The US will continue to let the Pakistani army off the hook for starting wars like the 1999 Kargil war, and using terrorists to attack the Indian parliament in 2001, and will do all it can to prevent India from kicking Pakistani butt and then take credit for that and prove its friendship credentials to its Pakistan army allies by saying "the United States will act as an implicit security guarantor for the region—a role it has already played in the nuclear crises of 1999 and 2001-2002. "
Tim is a longstanding BRF member and i am certain that he does not intend any such meaning to be taken from what he has written. But I am equally sure he does not realise the implication of the words from an Indian viewpoint. He has grown up in an environment in which things have been taken for granted and he speaks from that vantage point, unable to see that the story is quite different from an Indian view and will not go away.

I believe it is our duty to make the Indian stand clear to generations of students of history and geopolitics of how spin given to a story in a bygone era can have consequences decades or centuries later.
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Post by SwamyG »

Is that book available elsewhere - like Amazon or something.
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Post by Kaushal »

I should have mentioned that , I have yet to receive my version and after i have proofread it and uploaded the corrections,then (and only then) will it be available. I plan to be in UK for a week (any BRites interested in meeting me let me know)and so the book will be available after 3 weeks.
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Post by Kaushal »

There are 2 book s that are worth owning There is the book by Narendra Singh Sarila, called Shadow of the great game who held high level posts before and after indepedence and was ADC to Mountbatten and then there is a lesser know book by Prodosh Aich , an Indian professor in Germany called Lies with long legs.

The first book complements my presentation on the South ASia file (and nmy BR monitor article on the great game) very well..
Considering tht he was so close to the centres of power, that is remarkably good for what i said in the South Asia file. But still i wihs i had weitten that book. I would have been able to give more coherent explanations for the preordained tilt to towards Pakistan. But th ebook remains highly readable.

As for my book, it will appear on AMazon, and most likely i will make it available on Amazon Kindle also, It is 450 pages with copious tables and figures
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Post by ramana »

We got to see the pre-print copy at the BRF meet. Looks good and hope to get a copy when it comes out.

Meantime does any one know about this book in Marathi?

Sahā Sonerĩ Pānẽ

by Savarkar.
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Post by Kaushal »

The book is now available both in hardcover and soft cover
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Post by ramana »

Re the post on Saha Soneri Panne
Thanks, Ananth
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Post by Shankk »

ramana wrote:Meantime does any one know about this book in Marathi?

Sahā Sonerĩ Pānẽ

by Savarkar.
Ramana, full name of that book by Savarkar is "Bhartiya Itihasachi Saha Soneri Paane" (Six golden eras of Indian History)

The motto and core idea of the book is about debunking the theory that India was never a single unit in any way but rather an area with princely states constantly fighting with each other and it was first Islam and then British who united this land to present as one coherent piece. It talks about six kings/kindoms/eras to show that this Islam/British theroy is nothing but a hogwash. India was united as one unit many times before Islam first set it's foor in this land.

In a way it is an attempt to deny outsider's claims that India is what they (Islam/British) created and hence they have as much right on the land as native Indians do.
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Post by Tilak »

ramana wrote:Re the post on Saha Soneri Panne
Does anybody have links to the full book ?
Kaushal wrote:The book is now available both in hardcover and soft cover
Name of the book/ISBN number, please.. TIA
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Post by svinayak »

Review of "Astronomical Dating of Events & Select Vignettes from Indian history"
Edited by Kosla Vepa PhD
ISBN 978-1-4357-1120-4

http://www.lulu.com/content/2060969
This is an anthology of essays on the distortions that have accreted in the historical narrative of the Indic peoples and their civilization. Most of these egregiously erroneous accretions have been initiated at the behest of the colonial overlord and are the result of preconceived notions on the part of the Colonial Power . These preconceived notions include



The set of assumptions underlying the Aryan Invasion Theory . The most important assumption was that the Indic civilization could not possibly have been the product of the autocthonous peoples of the subcontinent and must have been seeded by a superior race of people from elsewhere.

In order to make this hypothesis stick with some degree of credibility, the other major postulate was that the seeding occurred after the Golden age of Greece (400-600 BCE)and that all of the science developed in the subcontinent was a derivative of the Greeks

The inherent contradictions of the Aryan Invasion Theory by the mythic and yet to be identified Aryan race.

The insistence on clinging to a racial terminology even when it is widely discredited and abandoned elsewhere

The insistence that Indic astronomy , geometry and mathematics was not autochthonous to India but was borrowed from the Greek or the Babylonians,without any evidence

The origin of the Brahmi script becomes a victim of the 'anywhere but India' syndrome

Devaluation and denigration of the extent of the ancient Indic contribution to Mathematics and Astronomy

There are resulting inconsistencies in the chronology of the Indic historical narrative, which is now horribly mangled to fit the straightjacket of British assumptions.


The result is a tectonic shift in the Chronology of the Indic civilization, with the resulting falsification of most of the important dates
Dating of the Mahabharata
Dating of the Satapatha Brahmana
Dating of the Veda
Dating of the Vedanga Jyotisha
Dating of the Sulva sutras
Beginning of the Vikrama era
Dating of the Buddha
Dating of the Arthashastra
Dating of Chandragupta Maurya
Dating of Panini's Ashtadhyayi and consequentially the dating of Panini himself
Dating of Aryabhata


Such a distortion has resulted in vast gaps in the narrative of the history of the Indics and has resulted in absurdities such as the naming of the calendar after a person who is yet to be born.

This collection of papers , summarizes these lacunae in the chronology and advocates the use of Astronomical Software to determine the accurate dates.
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Post by shiv »

http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/04/stories ... 850900.htm
[quote]

Eminent Finnish Indologist Asko Parpola on the status of research on the undeciphered script, the new Dholavira finds, whether the Indus script was a system of writing, the Dravidian-Aryan question, the present state of Sanskrit and Vedic studies in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and the Tirukkural.

Asko Parpola’s field of specialisation is Sanskrit, especially Vedic Sanskrit, and the Indus Valley Civilisation, particularly its script, on which he is one of the world’s leading authorities. This renowned Indologist from Finland has done significant research on the Sama Veda, having studied it under the guidance of a Namboothiri scholar of eminence from Panjal, Kerala. Dr. Parpola is Professor Emeritus of Indology and South Asian Studies at the University of Helsinki. About 4,000 seals have survived from the Indus Valley Civilisation, which flourished around 2600-1900 BC. The two volumes he co-edited, Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions (Helsinki, 1987 & 1991), are considered the standard work in the field. His study concludes that the Indus script encodes a Dravidian language. The Indus script is perhaps the most important among ancient systems of writing that are undeciphered. Excerpts from an interview with Dr. Parpola, who was in Chennai recently to deliver a lecture at the Indus Research Centre at the Roja Muthiah Research Library:
I learn that you have come to Chennai straight from Dholavira in Gujarat. Have the new finds in Dholavira, like the signboard, made any difference to our understanding of Indus script?
Yes... the Dholavira signboard is the first example of what we could call monumental inscriptions. Each sign is about 30 cm high. The usual sign on a seal is less than one cm, as you know. The board itself is three metres long. We have also got some new seals and artifacts. However, though these are important finds, they do not bring about any fundamental change in our understanding of the Indus script.
What is the present status of research on the Indus script?
We shall soon have all the material relating to the script in an easily accessible form, in good photographs, or as good as we can get, and also all sorts of indexes and concordances. Thus, good manuals will soon be at hand. As far as decipherment is concerned, we can run various computer programmes that can help in classifying the Indus signs into groups of functionally similar signs. But the real decipherment can only come from making detailed informed guesses and then testing them, seeing if they have enough support from different kinds of evidence. The main thing is that the hypotheses follow strict rules and agree with generally accepted knowledge: the history of writing, proven methods of decipherment, and linguistic and historical evidence.
You have stated in your book Deciphering the Indus Script (London, 1994) that the script cannot be fully deciphered in the present state of our knowledge. Are you hopeful of an eventual full decipherment of the Indus script?
I do not believe in a full decipherment. But I am convinced that some two dozen specific signs have already been deciphered, because in these cases there appears to be sufficient confirmation — it all makes good sense together. In principle, we have a real chance of decipherment only with those signs that we can clearly identify pictorially.
There is a recent controversy that the Indus script is not a system of writing at all. What are your comments on this?
In December 2004, Steve Farmer and his two colleagues published an article where they mention several reasons why the Indus script cannot be writing. In the paper I presented here in Chennai, I examined each one of their nine arguments, concluding that none holds water. For instance, they claim that there is no repetition of signs within a single Indus seal, emphasising this as the most important indicator. But I can quote many examples where such repetition is found.
Another claim was that no longer texts in other writing media like palm leaves have been found at Indus sites. We know from Greek sources that cotton cloth was used as writing material in 325 BC in the Indus Valley. But preserved Indian texts written on cotton cloth date from more than a thousand years later. We know for certain that the Indus people had cotton, but only microscopically small remains of cotton have been preserved in association with metal objects.
Farmer and his colleagues do not discuss the evidence supplied by the Indus sign sequences, which make it virtually certain that the Indus script is writing. How else can we explain that in hundreds of sequences, the signs are always written in the same definite order? If they were just non-linguistic symbols, why did they follow such rules, and did the Indus people keep long registers of sign orders in all the many dozens of sites?
How did you reach the conclusion that the Indus script is Dravidian?
We started with the premise that from the point of view of linguistic history, Dravidian is the most probable alternative. There are several language families in South Asia, the biggest being Indo-European and Dravidian. About a hundred years ago, some 25 per cent of people in South Asia spoke a Dravidian language. Numerically Dravidian is the most important among the non-Indo-European languages of the subcontinent. Brahui, a North Dravidian language, is still spoken in the Indus region. The Munda languages are mainly spoken in eastern India by rather few people and their linguistic relatives are in South-East Asia. The only non-Indo-European language family of South Asia from which there are widely accepted loan words in the Rig Veda is Dravidian. And when applied to the Indus script, Dravidian puns make sense.
Is there scope for further collaboration between Indian and western scholars in studying the Indus script?
I have discussed the possibilities of collaboration. Personally I would be very happy with such a development. Iravatham Mahadevan has been preparing the ground for further Indian research work in this field. India is one of the leading countries in information technology. You have a wealth of young IT experts, and some of them are eager to work on the Indus script. I cannot do this work myself, and would have to hire experts to update our concordances. But no formal decision of collaboration has yet been made. (The Indus Research Centre at Roja Muthiah Research Library Chennai has an ongoing collaborative project with the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai and the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai. A team of experts had a discussion with Dr. Parpola on this subject – Theodore Baskaran.)
You are a Sanskritist by training. What attracted you to study the Indus Civilisation?
I went to the university to study the classical languages of Europe, Latin and Greek. In those days we had to choose three subjects and Sanskrit sounded an interesting choice. It became my main field. The Indus Script attracted me when a friend offered to help with computers in any problem relating to my field. At that time, in the early 1960s, the Greek ‘Linear B’ script had recently been deciphered. It was a great sensation in those days. [Linear B is a script used for writing Mycenaen, an early form of Greek.] And India had its Indus script to be studied.
Do the archaeological data help in understanding the seals?
Definitely. Information like where and with what other material a particular seal was discovered can provide us some leads. Let’s say a seal comes from a room where other artifacts point to the practice of a particular craft, for instance bead-making. Then “bead-makerâ€
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Post by satyarthi »

It is good to see that Parpola and Witzel are sparring. But nothing to get too lovey dovey about Parpola. He has studied Indus valley and written books on Jaiminiya Samaveda, but is primarily a euro-centrist. His interest in India is primarily due to the Indo-European angle, with primary emphasis on the european half.

One can almost with certainly classify a western indologist as a person who is laboring to invent his own culture's ancient roots at the cost of India's.
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Post by ramana »

Tilak wrote:
ramana wrote:Re the post on Saha Soneri Panne
Does anybody have links to the full book ?
Please put your zip code into this link and it will tell nearest location of the book. there are copies in all the famous libraries. For example at U Penn etc.

http://worldcat.org/wcpa/top3mset/849473
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Post by SwamyG »

Guru log, we were directed to this thread from Nukkad. This is what had happened so far:
SwamyG wrote:
KarthikSan wrote:Shashi Tharoor on Stephen Colbert's "Colbert Report" on Comedy Central

http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertrep ... oId=156264
Yeah I watched him last night. Some of his answers were ok, but silly goose seems to have drunk the kool aid of India not attacking any other country in the last 5000 years. Come on, he forgot the Cholas. The Cholas (and others) repeatedly attacked Srilanka, and Cholas went as far as the present day South East Asia.
Stan_Savljevic wrote:You seem delusional about India attacking everyone. This is definitely not the first time you are bringing this stuff up. At that point in time, South-east Asia as it is geographically known today was not totally isolated from India proper. Nor were they separate countries. Heck, the concept of a nation state itself (as it is known today) is unknown in history till Simon Bolivar, Giuseppe Garibaldi et al came to the forefront. Maybe you can cite Magna Carta and the Viking warlords for nation states. But that will be like citing Ozzieland for fairness. The "nation" that encompassed Indic civilization had an infinitely larger footprint in the 15th century and before than it is today. We have lost our "land", so to speak.

These attacks you claim were all within the civilizational and cultural spread of Indic and in no small measure, Hindu footprints. Where do you think the name Indonesia came from? While picking a flower, a bird dropped it eh?! How about names like Sri Lanka, Kambuja (Cambodia), Yogyakarta, Java, Sumatra, Bali, Burma etc came from? Please look at Wiki for similar Sanskrit, Prakrit and Tamil words. Your selective reading of history will result in a 1000 own-goals.
SwamyG wrote:Delusional? LOL. You do the selective reading, and accuse me of doing.

Well if you want to cling to the modern nation theory, then Shashi Tharoor should not be talking about 5000 years, he should have commented about Indian not attacking any other country since 1947.

While I agree we lost some parts of the land, but one can not just conclude that our kings from the subcontinent never went after the other lands. The land of Sapta Sindhus is traditionally the land of the subcontinent - from the Indus to the oceans in the south. The lands that are the present Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia were not. Maybe one can consider Srilanka's land as part of the subcontinent, but not others.

Yes we had kingdoms out there in the S.E.Asia that have Indic influences. But it is "influences" because of Trade, trade, trade and then War.

I wish you would do follow some of your own suggestions - i.e. reading.
Saik wrote:uh ho!.. I know where this would lead to.. N-S dialog. N was attacked, but S attacked others. May be, N was a wall for the S to escape bigger attacks. M-vasion, was a large black mark on the history and so is the E-vasion., both of these have even plundered down S, but not as much as N.

Somehow, S has chola to boost to having done something N didn't do., or did with Vajpayeeic way [don't cross the then LoC].
KarthikSan wrote:I think he is right in saying that India did not attack anybody in the last 5000 years. What you are saying about the Cholas or any of the other empires boils down to periodic tussles between neighbors. I have a page from wikipedia which shows all the different empires

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

At no point in time did any of the kings venture out of the Indian subcontinent or contiguous lands. We did not have global ambitions like the Greeks, Romans, Mongols or modern day European nations.
Saik wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajendra_Chola

Interesting he had sanskrit inscriptions on his coins!?!?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... a_coin.png

I see the attack on overseas countries are purely based on business sense.

Don't pay/barter for my goods and services, I shall conquer you.

Another Interesting titbit:-
The commercial intercourse between Cholas and the Chinese were continuous and extensive.
SwamyG wrote: What??? For the love of God, that does not talk much about Cholas (at least to the extent I would like)
Here is little better wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_Dynasty

Cholas' area of influence at its heights of power:
Image

Extent of Chola Empire under Sundara Chola
Image

Extent of Chola Empire under Rajaraja Chola I
Image

Extent of Chola Empire under Rajendira Chola I
Image

Cholas definitely had global/imperial ambitions and they went as far as they could before the dynasty began to fade away.

SaiK: Even the attacks from East India Company started purely from a business sense, we know where it lead the Company and their country eventually. Trade, trade and trade are big factors back then and now for lots of trouble.
SwamyG wrote: Srilanka is not contiguous but Siberia would be contiguous land. The point is the Indic culture rose in certain parts of subcontinent and spread its influence . The Vedas were not written in the Srivijaya Empire lands, was it? And neither did the bird drop our influence into those lands, did it?
KarthikSan wrote: Srilanka can be considered contiguous whereas Siberia may not due to the actual distance.

con·tig·u·ous /kənˈtɪgyuəs/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kuhn-tig-yoo-uhs] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
1. touching; in contact.
2. in close proximity without actually touching; near.
3. adjacent in time: contiguous events.


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/contiguous

Your argument is that Indic culture influenced other nations. That can happen in several peaceful ways and not necessarily through invasion and conquest. Spread of religion and culture is quite different from military conquest is what I'm getting at. Just because Chinese take-outs are the norm in America does not mean that China attacked and conquered the US!
ramana wrote:SwamyG and others please take this to the distortion of History thread. And let nukkad be nukkad.

Thanks, ramana
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Post by Airavat »

KarthikSan wrote:I think he is right in saying that India did not attack anybody in the last 5000 years. What you are saying about the Cholas or any of the other empires boils down to periodic tussles between neighbors.

con·tig·u·ous
1. touching; in contact.
2. in close proximity without actually touching; near.
3. adjacent in time: contiguous events.
Well on these strict grounds, the greater part of European history is full of neighborly tussles.

Hitler's attacks on Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, France, etc were just neighborly tussles.
Stan_Savljevic wrote:Heck, the concept of a nation state itself (as it is known today) is unknown in history till Simon Bolivar, Giuseppe Garibaldi et al came to the forefront.

These attacks you claim were all within the civilizational and cultural spread of Indic and in no small measure, Hindu footprints.
It's quite exaggerated to claim these lands as part of our civilization, and a little irritating to their present inhabitants. Yes Indian civilization did spread to these regions, and also to Central Asia, China, etc., but that was at a certain time in history. These regions did have their own indigenous culture.

We can't define our history by someone else's "concept of nation-state".....all wars, whether inside a "civilizational area" or outside it (Kushans, Cholas, Mughals, Dogras), must be regarded as wars of expansion.

And today the concept of nation-state (one people, one language, one faith) is in the dustbin of history....the future belongs to diverse but united civilizations like India, China, US, etc.
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Post by ramana »

I was recently reading my ccopy of "Vijayanagar" By Vasundhara Filolzat that B Karnad sent me. This book is a recent update (circa 1996 of the travellers accounts and books like Robert Sewell's Forgotten Empire. The author credits her Phd Guide, Dr G.S. Dikshit for reviewing and proof reading the book. Among the things I found lacking were the theme of continuity and change that links the Vijayanagar dynasties to the earlier South Indian dynasties.its covered cursorily - that Harihara Raya did not declare kingship till the Hoyasala queen was no more. This shows her lack of understanding of the duties of a king under the ancient Hindu customs.

And the author is not familiar with the work of Dr. Suryanarain Row's 'Never to be forgotten Empire' even though her guide should aleast be familiar with it.

Kaushal can you contact her now that you are a published author? :)
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Post by Abhijeet »

The claim that India never attacked another country seems to be a badge of honour for some people. Is that true, and if so, why is it?

To me, this claim seems the sign of a culture that was either so weak that it lacked the capability to colonize far-off lands, or too inward looking for its own good. Which is more likely:

1. All the inhabitants of India, through its long history, were such exalted people that there is not a single instance of them using force on another people even if they had the capability to do so.

2. Indians did not have the capability or drive to extend their empire to foreign lands.

To me, the latter sounds far more plausible since it does not require ancient Indians to have been some super-evolved species superior to everyone else on the planet.

Surely we all would have preferred that Indian explorers colonize Europe than the other way around. Why the pride in not having done something that's part of human nature?

This honestly puzzles me.
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Post by shyam »

A highly probable explanation why India did not attack others is, it did have a reason to. It had fertile land, wealth, knowledge and people. What would it gain by attacking others in deserts? Cost of taking war to far off teritory was more than the gains one Indian king would make out of it. One theory, I heard, on why Cholas attacked far east was due to a dispute related to China trade with local kings.

Strategic mistake Indian rulers did was to not understand the significance of taking war to enemy territory.
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Post by Stan_Savljevic »

Abhijeet wrote:The claim that India never attacked another country seems to be a badge of honour for some people. Is that true, and if so, why is it?

Surely we all would have preferred that Indian explorers colonize Europe than the other way around. Why the pride in not having done something that's part of human nature?

This honestly puzzles me.
The problem is not in the question, but in the consequences thereof. Let us say that it is true that "India" attacked some "other country" in the past. And let us say that you accept it ditto. Now an intellectual exchange ends there. However, the way these things are shaped currently, especially in western-sponsored circles, they find that as a justification for "Indian excesses" and how India deserves its wretched colonial past with a "what goes around comes around" yada yada.

Not to mention the fact that oriental societies like China/Japan where the concepts of shame and indictment are far-more sophisticated and nuanced, and are often used as the lowest common denominator in any barter system (like the Japs were forced to pay through their nose for Manchuria 1937), it will definitely be used in any India-China dialogue and used as prima facie evidence that India attacked "other countries". And why Arunachal Pr is a "different country" still under the colonial occupation etc etc. Drivel of the highest order, but a necessary consequence and the direction towards which this intellectual exchange had been driven to with hidden motives from the start, albeit without you aware of it.

Now this is why I am tending to distrust any western thinktank level exchange. Their hands are deep in the mud in reshaping maps. And any pawn thats usable in this barter will be used. They would like to reshape the map between India and China by a give and take with we losing and China gaining that and China losing some territory which will be gained by western thinktanks in the form of a domino. Strategic posturing. They want to create evidence on the floor where "Indian intellectuals" have already accepted the truth in meaningless chitchats before.

SwamyG, now you will understand why my despair at your "Silly me" comment on ShashiT's interview. It is not silly me, it is the games that thinktanks play that are hard to understand for the "dharmic mind." We do not expect people to screw us over, cos we are intellectually metamorphosed into the dharma of life et al and he will suffer if he cheats me complex. While there may be some truth to it in the long run, these exchanges can cause grandiose trouble for our future generations in the shortrun.

Please pay attention as to why this question even came in the first place and who is asking the question next time. We dont have to tell everyone the truth if it can and will be used against us, the adharma of things notwithstanding.
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Post by Abhijeet »

Stan_Savljevic, if I understand then: we should claim that India never attacked any other country, irrespective of the truth or untruth of that statement, because the opposite claim might be used against us by western "thinktanks". Is this an accurate summary?

If that's the case, no argument from me and I won't post on this again - although IMO it would be more believable, and as relevant to reparations or map redrawing, to claim that India never attacked another country within the last 500 years, or some other small number, rather than at any time during its 5000 year (or longer) history, which strains credibility.

Shyam, saying that India did not attack another country because it did not need to is an example of the inward-looking attitude I mentioned before. China, Rome, Greece etc at various times were clearly peers of Indian civilization - it was not that India was so far ahead at all times in the past that it never needed to take anything from others. Choosing to believe otherwise is not supported by facts. That attitude may be why it wasn't Indian explorers who discovered their own "New World".
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Post by Stan_Savljevic »

Abhijeet wrote:Stan_Savljevic, if I understand then: we should claim that India never attacked any other country, irrespective of the truth or untruth of that statement, because the opposite claim might be used against us by western "thinktanks". Is this an accurate summary?
Two questions here. One, how do you define "attack." If contemporary history (the last 300 years) is any cue, an attack could be meant to be political and economic pillage which furthers the division in the social aspects of day-to-day-life. Now, are the ancient Tamil kingdoms or whatever you have in mind to be held accused of societal divisions + political + economic pillage? I have NOT seen evidence to the loot and plunder akin to the Islamic hordes (Ghauri + Ghazni + Tamarlane + Abdali types) have done to India.

We exported dharma, but that seems to have little correlation to wars/conquests. My reading has been that when the Chola kingdom went on an expedition across the eastern side, there was already a Hindu kingdom in place, renditions of Ramayana and Mahabharata were common place, and if not Hindu, then Buddhist thought was rife in decision-making and polity. In this context, an "attack" is probably much less easily digestible than the word "internal dissension" cos then these parts were under the same value system. I see this as a standard process of rise and fall of empires with a common strain in terms of religio-political-philosophical belief systems.

My initial point was that you cant classify current day Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia et al as separate nations in the 1500s given that 1) the concept of nation-states did not exist then, and 2) the commonality of history and shared cultural milieu till the mid-1500s which is probably a much better indicator of nationhood as described today. Now someone raised the question: those guys feel bad that they have an Indic past. So who cares, it is the truth, no?! It is for them to accept and move on. If not, certainly we should not be feeling guilty cos their takleef prevents them from keeping them happy.

My point is that you cant call the Chola expeditions an attack in the same breath as the East India Company or the Islamist hordes. Our attacks, if any, have been more on the philosophical side. The soft underbelly of life. Accusing us of attacks and placing us on the same pedestal with the Han tribes, the Arabic nomads, the European conquistadors, the cultured elite in the Caucasian world etc is the worst self-goal in expressing our civilizational viewpoint.

Two, and most importantly, comes the question of who is asking this question. You can explain things as above and not call it an attack, but if the questioner is hellbent on accusing you and steering the conversation towards reparations for actions from the prehistoric past, then denial is the best option. I am all for the truth but only with those who want to learn, not with those who have a hidden agenda.
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Post by SriKumar »

Stan_Savljevic wrote: Two, and most importantly, comes the question of who is asking this question. You can explain things as above and not call it an attack, but if the questioner is hellbent on accusing you and steering the conversation towards reparations for actions from the prehistoric past, then denial is the best option. I am all for the truth but only with those who want to learn, not with those who have a hidden agenda.
Point taken that the sincerity of the questioner/debater matters. Keeping that in mind, I'd say, your overall position would be more applicable to a situation that involves a personal discussion/debate. When it comes to the larger, public sphere, one can expect spin/psy-ops, including a major distortion of India's history. I don't think one can keep history secret. The better way would be to understand exactly what happened (did the Cholas set off on their expeditions with a shipload of soldiers, philosophers or traders? I think it was the former) and work with that. If the Chola expedition resulted in exactly one killing in Sri Vijaya 1000 years ago, one can expect it to be spun as a massive attack, and not be hailed as a peaceful conquest. One must prepare for that kind of psy-ops.
Last edited by SriKumar on 06 Mar 2008 08:35, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Abhijeet »

I think the word "attack" is pretty well-defined. There are certainly scales of violence, and no one is suggesting that Indian aggression outside India is equal-equal to that propagated by invaders (Islamic/European) within India. Nevertheless, claiming that India never attacked any other country, ever, in its long history, strikes me as something that is so against fundamental human nature as to be incredible.

Similarly, redrawing the borders of India so that all conflict is defined to have happened "internally" seems to me to be just shifting the goalposts.

The reason for my original post was the (IMO misplaced) pride that some people have in this pacifist claim. A history of never having flexed muscle outside of territorial bounds simply does not seem something to take any particular pride in.

Again, as I mentioned before, if the reason for making the claim is to deny others any leverage in map-redrawing, righting of historical wrongs etc, I have no issue with that (although I would still suggest that the claim be toned down from the unbelievable to the merely surprising).
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Post by SwamyG »

I am all for the truth but only with those who want to learn, not with those who have a hidden agenda.
So what hidden agenda do I have?
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Post by SwamyG »

Now, are the ancient Tamil kingdoms or whatever you have in mind to be held accused of societal divisions + political + economic pillage? I have NOT seen evidence to the loot and plunder akin to the Islamic hordes (Ghauri + Ghazni + Tamarlane + Abdali types) have done to India.
Chola soldiers have been accused of looting & raping women in some of its territories captured in its northern borders. I do not know how much of it is true, and certainly don't think it is of the same magnitude as that of the Islamic hordes.
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Post by Stan_Savljevic »

SwamyG wrote:
I am all for the truth but only with those who want to learn, not with those who have a hidden agenda.
So what hidden agenda do I have?


I meant the western thinktanks that "place" ideas in the heads of interviewers to confront visitors with such questions, not you.
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Post by Sridhar K »

From my recollection (very long ago in the 80s) of an article in a Tamil magazine by a famous Tamil scholor/researcher about his experience in Thailand and on how Tamilians were viewed in early Thailand based on his interactions with Thai historians. According to them, the interactions between Tamils and Thais in those days of the Cholas were very minimal and whatever little opinion they had of the Tamils was not good because they were very much influenced by accounts of Sinhala Buddhist refugees's. They had heard from them about the atrocities on Sinhalese Buddhist by the Tamil rulers from the Indian mainland like the Cholas and as such 'Tamin' in Thai, which is close to 'Tamil' means Theif or wicked people

I don't remember the name of the book nor of the researcher nor the authenticity of his works. So, take it for whatever it is worth.
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Post by SwamyG »

Some references from "A History of South India" - From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar by K.A.Nilakanta Sastri.

Page 2-3 {Survey of the Sources}
The rise of HIndu kingdoms in the eastern lands across the Bay of Bengal is but an expansion and continuation of the process by which South India and Ceylon were colonized and aryanized; and beyond doubt the Deccan and the far South formed the advanced bases from which this transmarine movement started in the early centuries before and after the Christian era; in Indonesia and Indo-China emigrants from India met the same problems as in India south of the Vindhyas and solved them in more or less the same manner. A detailed study of the many interesting analogies between the results of these early culture-contacts in these different lands has not yet been attempted and lies beyond the scope of this book; but we should do well to remember that the history of India has been too long studied more or less exclusively in isolatoin and from the continental point of view, little regard being paid to the maritime side of the story. The Satavahanas were described as 'lords of the three oceans' and promoted overseas colonization and trade.
Page 13 {Survey of Sources}
The early Pallava-Grantha script in the stage when it is yet littled differentiated from the ancestor of Telugu-Kannada was carried by Hindu colonists across the seas to west Java, Borneo and Indo-China, the earliest stone inscriptions in this script from these places dating from about A.D.300. The language of these early colonial inscrptions is Sanskrit.
Page 72 {Dawn of History}
As finds of similar glass beads and bangles have recently been made in the Malay Peninusla, in dolmen tombs in Java, and in North Borneo, the inference is inescapable that we have clear evidence of a trade contact between northern Philippines and Southern India running well back into first millennium B.C. The extensive trade and colonization and later conquests of the South Indian kingdoms, in Sumatra and Java as well as in Indi-China in the early centuries of Christian era, are of course well known.
Page 94 {The Satavahanas and Their Successors}
The Salankayana administrative system had much in common with that of the contemporary Pallavas. The village headman was called mutuda, or alderman, a title that does not occur elsewhere. The tutelary diety of the dynasty was the sun-god and they worshipped Siva or Vishnu in addition. Their charters bear a close resemblance in their script to the earliest inscriptions of the Hindu colonies of Indo-China and Malaysia, and there is good reason to hold that the Telugu country took a prominent part in the move of colonization abroad.
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Vijayanagar

Post by Kaushal »

Regarding Dr. Vasundhara Filliozat, Suguna and I had the good fortune to stay at the apartment of Pierre and Vasundhara ji's apartment in Paris and I had the opportunity to glance thru their superb library of Books on the Indic civilization including the book on Vijayanagar. Her expertise is primarily in epigraphy. I am hampered by the fact that i have not met either of them personally, since they were in India during that period and i was able to stay at their apartment because of their absence. If i get an opportunity to discuss these issues with her i will certainly do so ... I am planning to invite them both to the Delhi Seminar.
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Post by Kaushal »

quote I think the word "attack" is pretty well-defined. There are certainly scales of violence, and no one is suggesting that Indian aggression outside India is equal-equal to that propagated by invaders (Islamic/European) within India. Nevertheless, claiming that India never attacked any other country, ever, in its long history, strikes me as something that is so against fundamental human nature as to be incredible."

This is an extremely tightly (and rightly) worded post and entirely apropos. The sway of Indic 'Chakravartis extended far into central asia and western asia at various points in time. The Indic system of governance was always that of a loose confederation under the suzerainty of the chakravarti whose duty it was to maintain the Dharmic way of life in all the lands. That such a control could have happened without some form of military means is not impossible but unlikely.

Finally, I agree that taking pride in not having attacked anyone, is something that can easily be misinterpreted,even if it were true and i would certainly not highlight it as the defining characteristic of the indic civilization.

If anything , I would regard india as the originator of the current view that remains entrenched in Washington and western capitals , namely the realist imperative (john Meerscheimer, Hans Morgenthau). It is clear from reading the BG that sri Krishna , practiced an early version of geopolitics very similar to realism
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Post by Kaushal »

quote One can almost with certainly classify a western indologist as a person who is laboring to invent his own culture's ancient roots at the cost of India's."

This is a very perceptive remarkl. The whole field of indology came about to give the europeans an antiquity for their civilization that they had otherwise no hope of acquiring. So they latched on to Sanskrit and gave themselves the same antiquity as that of sanskrit. so far so good, But where they overstepped and started speculating on the existence of a PIE (Proto Indo european language), the only caveat being that it did not originate in the subcontinent of India , they clearly gave the game away, which was to insist that the indic civilization was an ofshoot of the europeans. they clearly were not thrilled with the idea that the ancient Vedics seeded the Greek civilization , see for instance the ebook by Pokock, which can be accessed at my site ,
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