Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[RajeshA]

A post I made on the RajivMalhotraDiscussion Yahoo Group.

It seems some would like to draw a distinction between Indus Valley Civilization and Vedic Civilization. To be frank, that is not where I want to draw the line.

Both Indus Valley Civilization, or rather the Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization, and the Vedic Civilization are one and the same. The current Marxist and foreign "experts" thinking is to treat IVC as having no literature, with its various seals undecipherable. That is however not what I espouse.

The Indic Historicist view should be to analyze our scriptures for actual dates, actual events, actual players, social organization, customs and scientific knowledge and then to harmonize that with the archaeological findings, for example, in IVC (or rather SSC), present findings and future findings and from all that to build a comprehensive narrative of the Indian history, unburdened by the claims and dating as offered by the AIT-Nazis and their AIT-Sepoys in India. (I use hard terminology for them, because they too tend to use terms like "Hindu fundamentalists" for those who disagree with them, but that is a separate issue). Indic Historicists would be analyzing the scriptures and building interpretation models applicable on them, which stand the test of modern rationality. Also the sensitivities of the Itihaasicists should be considered.

As I said, our scriptures can be understood at many levels and at all levels they have something to contribute, levels like astronomical, socio-dharmic, socio-emotional, consciousness, metaphysical and spiritual, historical, literary, linguistic, scientific, and various other knowledge systems.

Indic Historicists would mine the scriptures for the historical level, and can for example avail of archaeo-astronomy as well in that pursuit.

[RajeshA]

OIT Article on Wikipedia by User Sbhushan.

However other linguists writing specifically about language contact phenomena (Thomason & Kaufman 1988 pp141-144) maintain that while separate internal explanations are indeed possible for all of the innovative traits in Indic early contact influence from Dravidian is the only one explanation that can explain all of the traits at once - it becomes a question of explanatory economy. Thomason & Kaufman likewise conclude that the situation of the Dravidian influence of Indic, namely a wide range of phonological and grammatical contact phenomena but no exchange loanwords is symptomatic for contact situations where large populations shift from one language to the other in this case from Dravidian to Proto-Indo-Aryan.

Publication Date: February 12, 1992
Authors: Sarah Grey Thomason, Terrence Kaufman
Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics

Book Online @a dubious page

Code: Select all

http://ishare.iask.sina.com.cn/f/7799558.html

Needs to be looked at at what they mean!

[shiv]

OIT Article on Wikipedia by User Sbhushan.

Hmm - someone in the 1930s has already said what I proposed on an earlier page of this thread

From the Wiki link above

In 1930, in response to Latham's hypothesis, Lachhmi Dhar provided a different explanation for this greater linguistic diversification in the western Indo-European languages of Europe. Dhar's position is based on a linguistic principle invented by Dhar himself which he called "the conservation principle". This holds that the area of least linguistic change is indicative of a language's point of origin, since that area has been the least affected by substrate interference.

I said
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 8#p1312678

LINGUISTIC SUBSTRATE: - Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics

A substrate language (linguistic substrate or substratum) is particularly evidenced when a language is imposed on a community, as a result of political or economic superiority as can be seen in many varieties of English spoken throughout the world..

The study of linguistic substrates is relatively new and the presence of large percentages of non Euro-Sanskritic (Indo European) words is now being recognized and acknowledged among European languages.

But guess where the maximum study of substrates has been put in? Sanskrit. And they have found a total of 250 odd indisputably pre-Sanskrit substrate words (about 2% of total - see Wiki) in the early Rig Veda. The percentage gets smaller of you take later Sanskrit. 98% of ancient Sanskrit has no substrate suggesting an earlier language over which Sanskrit was imposed.

If substrates are caused by invasions and Sanskrit has virtually no substrate, where was the invasion? There is zero linguistic evidence of invasion of India by PIE or IE speakers. But European languages seem to have plenty of substrates that were suppressed by Sanskrit related language speakers.

Folks. The evidence points more to OIT than AIT.

[Lilo]

If horses were unknown to Indus Valley, then what is this:

http://www.ancientresource.com/images/i ... head1b.jpg

and this:

http://img.carters.com.au/99224.jpg

and this:

http://www.corbisimages.com/images/Corb ... 4aabba9f69

and this:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dxzVSI0zYQE/S ... orse1a.JPG

and this:

http://edgarlowen.com/b3564.jpg

and this definitely looks like a chariot to me:

http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images ... kistan.jpg

The crap people came up with in pre-internet days to delude others is amazing. I don't know about OIT, but rest assured AIT is pure mumbo-jumbo.

Dhiman ji,
Any reason why the last pic was included ?
The humps and the method of yoking using a horizontal bar laid across the humps show them more akin to be bullocks.

Later edit:
Little more digging later, Found another one

6153. AN INDUS VALLEY HORSE PROTOME, c. 3500-1500 BC. The terracotta horse with erect head and neck and one leg remaining. 5 inches.

This one is actually on sale at edgarlowen.com for 250$ !!

Also the horse head in first pic was sold off for 250$ at http://www.ancientresource.com/lots/ind ... imals.html
The second is also on sale at carters.com http://www.carters.com.au/index.cfm/ite ... 8-x-23-cm/

Looking at all this i only wonder how much of Indus art is in private hands and not accessible to present day historians. Another question which begs for an answer is - whether there was a diliberate removal of horse figurines from indus valley digs of 1920's in Mohenjodaro and Harappa to buttress AIT (which was also incidentally the period when various racial supremacist theories were being bitterly argued across europe between the WWs)

[Dhiman]

and this definitely looks like a chariot to me:

http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images ... kistan.jpg

The crap people came up with in pre-internet days to delude others is amazing. I don't know about OIT, but rest assured AIT is pure mumbo-jumbo.

Dhiman ji,
Any reason why the last pic was included ?
The humps and the method of yoking using a horizontal bar laid across the humps show them more akin to be bullocks.

Lilo ji,

Its a picture of a chariot. The AIT claim is that before Aryan invasion India did not know about horses or chariots or chariots built using spoked wheels.

http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifa ... ebate.html

[RajeshA]

I just did the first reading of Nilesh Nilkanth Oak's book "When Did The Mahabharata War Happen? : The Mystery of Arundhati"! I had linked the book here earlier.

All the analysis and conclusions are extremely scientifically put!

His proposed timeline is as follows:

1. Krishna left Upaplavya on Maitri (Anuradha) Muhurta, Revati nakshatra and in the month of Lotuses: 31 August 5561 B.C.

2. Duryodhana ordered his royal friends to leave for Kurukshetra on the day of Pushya: 6-7 September 5561 B.C.

3. Krishna-Karna meeting, 7 days before Jyeshtha Amawasya & before Krishna left for Upaplavya: 9-10 September 5561 B.C.

4. Shakra (Jyeshtha or possibly Vishakha) Amawasya: 16-17 September 5561 B.C.

5. Balarama left the Pandava camp, to proceed on Saraswati Tirthayatra, on Anuradha (Maitri) nakshatra: 17 September 5561 B.C.

6. Balarama began Tirthayatra of Saraswati around 22 September 5561 B.C.

7. Kartika Purnima (Full moon): 30 September – 1 October 5561 B.C.

8. Krishna left along with the Pandavas for Kurukshetra on Pushya: 4-5 October 5561 B.C.

9. Both armies arrived at Kurukshetra on Magha: 6-7 October 5561 B.C.

10. Vyasa met Dhritarashtra: 15 October 5561 B.C.

11. The First day of Mahabharata War: 16 October 5561 B.C.

12. Bhishma fell in the battlefield on the 10th day of War: 25 October 5561 B.C.

13. Abhimanyu was killed on the 13th day of War: 28 October 5561 B.C.

14. Arjuna killed Jayadratha and the fight continued into the night at the end of the 14th day of War: 29 October 5561 B.C.

15. Drona was killed on the 15th day of War: 30th October 5561 B.C.

16. Arjuna killed Karna on the 17th day of War: 1 November 5561 B.C.

17. Shalya was killed by noon and Bhima killed Duryodhana at the end of the day on the 18th day of War: 2 November 5561 B.C.

18. The Pandavas spent a month on the bank of River Ganga: 2-3 November – 30 November 5561 B.C.

19. The Pandavas entered Hastinapur after spending a lunar month on the bank of Ganga: 30 November 5561 B.C.

20. Coronation of Yudhishthir, assignment of offices & palaces, and honoring of Krishna: 30 November-5 December 5561 B.C.

21. Yudhishthir and his brothers, Krishna, Satyaki, Yuyutsu, Kripacharya and Sanjay go to Kurukshetra to visit Bhishma, 56 days before passing away of Bhishma: 5-6 December 5561 B.C.

22. Yudhishthir along with his brothers, Dhritarashtra, Gandhari and ministers visits Bhishma for last but one time, 51 days before passing away of Bhishma: 10-11 December 5561 B.C.

23. Yudhishthir leaves for Kurukshetra, after spending 50 nights at Hastinapur, to meet Bhishma when the Sun turned north: 30-31 January 5560 B.C.

24. Bhishma Nirvana: 30-31 January 5560 B.C.

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

Nilesh has in fact established a few new insights into reading old Indian scriptures. He established the theory about

• Fall of Abhijit
• The Epoch of Arundhati
• Meaning of Vakri
• Meaning of Visakha as an asterism.
• Claims that Bhishma Pitamah died not 58 days but rather 98 days after he fell in the battlefield.
• and many other contributions.

Great insights, indeed!

If anybody wishes to read the book, please refer to this post from me.

[shiv]

Rajesh I have a message for you in the Off Topic thread.

[RajeshA]

Initial Review of Nilesh Nilkanth Oak's "When Did The Mahabharata War Happen? : The Mystery of Arundhati‏"

I have already done a first reading! It is absolutely fantastic!

I loved the way Nilesh presents the cases - as experiments and problems! He did his work a lot of justice by opting for this format. Many writes books and mostly it is all commentary. All very readable and entertaining, but at the same time obfuscating the data and its analysis, and allowing too much of their subjectivity to creep in and too much of entertaining rhetoric to hide the content.

"The Mahabharata War did not take place anytime after 4380 BC" is really one of the biggest achievements of his work! That is the road block that needs to be placed before all those writing anything on history, especially Westerners and their lackeys doing so in India. Anybody from now on opening his mouth to refute Indian Antiquity needs to be asked, "So how do you explain Arundhati walking in front of Vashishta"?" I presume they too would be scratching their heads at least as long as Nilesh did, 15 years, before the solution to the mystery hit him!

"The fall of Abhijit" was a very interesting case and really makes one sweat with the repercussions of astronomical knowledge among Indians dating back to 14602 BCE when they made their correction of the nakshatra system, and even as far back as 22,500 BCE when the nakshatra system could have been established having marked Rohini as the nakshatra for the Summer Solstice and thus the starting of the New Year and perhaps of the Calendar itself!

Basically the need for change in the nakshatra system itself alludes to the antiquity of India's nakshatra system. It is interesting that alone from this insight one can see that India has had a civilization about as long as the precession of the equinoxes - 26000 years. We have gone one whole rotation around the Vishnu Nabhi!

I think the insight about what "Vakri" means can be helpful in deciphering other ancient texts and thus can prove very helpful. The alternate meaning of "Vishakha" can also prove useful.

With "The Epoch of Arundhati" Nilesh answers the question of Mahabharata's antiquity and in fact offers an absolute chronology even, and with the "Fall of Abhijit" he answers the question of the antiquity of Indian Civilization!

Whether the others want to accept Indian antiquity or not, at least until they can give an alternate explanation for the "The Fall of Abhijit", they should openly state that "Archaeo-Astronomical evidence indicates an Indian Civilization with knowledge of astronomy as far back as 24,500 years or more"!

Nilesh Oak's Facebook Stream

[fanne]

RajeshA ji,
I have been chasing this line 'falling off of Abhijit'. Can you do a small write up on what it is, the significance, what it means and why it cannot be dated later than what author like Nilesh have been saying? Just a small background for the uninitiated.
Thanks,
Ravi

[RajeshA]

fanne ji,

I've limited knowledge of Indic Astronomy, so I'll try to explain as best I can, which may not be sufficient. Here goes.

In Indian Astronomy we divide the 360° sky (sky over northern hemisphere) into 27 nakshatras or asterisms, which are a group of stars which appear together in the night sky. We also call these nakshatras as houses each of which the Moon visits once every month.

Earlier astronomy was all visual, and as such one should look at the stars from the viewpoint of an astronomer viewing the skies with his eyes. The focus is on visual astronomy.

The nakshatra system was needed by the Indians to measure time, to know of the seasons, and to keep the calendar up to date.

Now in order to identify the nakshatra house it is helpful if the nakshatra 'inhabiting' it is as much as possible along the ecliptic and is sufficiently bright. In that case, it is a functional nakshatra.

If an asterism moves over time too far towards the celestial pole, then it cannot really play its role as a functional nakshatra. The position of the stars in visible night sky changes with the Earth's wobbling, or precession of the equinoxes.

One can possibly use an analogy. Let's say the Moon is the king, and the nakshatras are the queens. The King has distributed his empire (night sky) into 27 queendoms, each with a reigning queen. Now what if the Queen falls from grace because she starts acting weirdly and does not do her royal duties? Then the King would have to look for a new queen, who would be able to do better justice to her duties in that queendom! If a King had had to change the queen for a certain queendom once too often, then the various coronations of the different queens for the given queendom become legends out of which history can be spun.

This is exactly the case with Abhijit. Abhijit as an asterism was deemed unfit to reign over her house, and as such another it was given to another queen Krittika. Abhijit had declined far too much towards the Celestial North, and couldn't perform her duties, so Abhijit's place was given to Krittika.

Of course our ancient sages were far more reverent of Abhijit, and so they said that Abhijit had gone to vana (Celestial North) to do tapa (became more bright as it moved Northwards).

So the interesting thing is when did this coronation of Krittika as the new queen take place? When was Abhijit deemed unfit to reign as queen?

The change took place when the nakshatra Dhanishta was used as the nakshatra for the New Year, something that was earlier done using Rohini.

Now it is unclear from Mahabharata, what point in the year, did they use for the New Year - vernal equinox, autumnal equinox, summer solstice or winter solstice.

So the only way to find out is to check the various combinations where the annual event happened in the background of Dhanishta and earlier it happened with Rohini as background.

Nilesh is of the opinion that that annual event would be summer solstice. Summer Solstice was the start of the New Year. So on New Year, when the Summer Solstice fell in Dhanishta (14602 BCE), marked earlier by Rohini in (22500 BCE), the Abhijit was replaced by Krittika, as Abhijit had moved far too North to be a functional nakshatra.

Also at the time of coronation of Krittika, Krittika must have shown herself as being worthy as a queen. She should have been very close to the ecliptic as possible. Around 14602, Krittika was just 2° from it.

What we have here are two ancient events, ancient even at the time of Mahabharata, which are being recounted in Vana Parva, then by Sage Markandeya to the Pandavas almost towards the end of their exile.

1) Year 14602 BCE: The change in the nakshatra system during a crisis, when Abhijit was not deemed fit anymore to rule her house. Nakshatra was changed from Abhijit to Krittika. Dhanishta was then to be used for start of New Year at Summer Solstice instead of Rohini.

2) Year 22500 BCE: Rohini was established as the asterism of New Year at Summer Solstice, because then it was noticed that Summer Solstice takes place in Rohini!

These are the two dates that Nilesh establishes, besides the Mahabharata chronology.

[RajeshA]

From email correspondence:

I wrote:

In Vayu Purana it says that the Lunar Dynasty of India was founded by Chandra and Tara/Rohini, and continued by their son Budha who married Ila, the son/daughter of Vaisvasvata Manu. Chandra had abducted the wife of Brihaspati, Tara.

Now I could well imagine that in fact Aryans are named after Ila, whose progeny were called Aila or Arya, as F.E. Pargiter proposes. There is also much confusion about the gender of Ila. Perhaps it was retrofitted later to be female, so that her marriage to a male planet Budha (Mercury) could be allowed, or there can be some other theory for that.

In any case, there is talk of Chandra stealing Tara/Rohini from Brihaspati, and I was wondering if that data point could be considered as the starting point of the Lunar Dynasty, and just in case Aryans, in its earlier meaning of the word, are to be equated with Lunar Dynasty, then it would be interesting to know, when in fact it came about. When did Ila, establish the dynasty? Perhaps the above anecdote could help.

I do not have my notes handy, so what I am writing is from memory.

What you said about Ila (confusion reg. sex) is true. What you will find is that Lunar or Solar dynasties .. as you go back..their orgins becomes foggy. This is when myths are added to fill in the blanks (processs is known as hagiography).

Combining references from Baudhayana Srautasutra, along with Geneology lists from Bhagavat Purana, Padma Purana, Harivamsha, Ramayana, Mahabharta, etc and then combining wtih timing of Mahabharata War (5561 BC) and Ramayana (some time but long time before 5561 BC) allows us to state the timing of King Pururava.

Not exact timing but say.. sometime before 5561 BC (based on Mahabharata)

When the dating of Ramayana is better known, we would able to say that King Pururava was before XXXX BC (time of Ramayana) since he was before Rama.

Once we do that, we can invoke Baudhayana Srautasutra ref. to show westward migration.

Westward migration based on B. S references is already claimed (described very well) by many.. but all of them are stuck with 3000 and 4000 BC for this to happen. It not only makes sense but contradicts with many other chronologies.

Nilesh ji refers here to Chapter 12 in his book

Out-of-India Migrations

On the other hand, King Pururava had two sons from Urvashi, Ayu and Amawasu. Ayu migrated to the east and his descendants were known as Kuru-Panchala and Kashi-Videhas. Amawasu migrated to the west and his descendants were known as Gandharas, Parsu and Arrattas. King Pururava is listed as descendant of Ila and Ila is descendant of Manu.

It is true that genealogy of Kings lists only prominent kings. Still, with limited list of Kings available, the Pandavas are listed after a gap of 55+ descendants of King Pururava, from the line of Ayu (Kuru-Panchalas). As a result one has to search for Amawasu migration, long before the Mahabharata War.

This is an earlier emigration mentioned. There was a later one by the Druhyus, also towards the Northwest!

So we have two emigrations attested to in the scriptures.

[shiv]

RajeshA ji,
I have been chasing this line 'falling off of Abhijit'. Can you do a small write up on what it is, the significance, what it means and why it cannot be dated later than what author like Nilesh have been saying? Just a small background for the uninitiated.
Thanks,
Ravi

Imagine that the people in the image below represent stars in position they were at the time of the Mahabharata. Each has an identity and direction of motion. Over millennia the relative positions of the stars to each other change although you may notice no change in a mere 100 or 500 years.

The Mahabharata has a list of star/planetary movements and positions at the time of the events of the Mahabharata. The exact relative positions of so many stars to each occurs only once in many thousands of years - some positions may repeat only after 10,000 years. What Nilesh has done is to back calculate the position of every star/planet mentioned in the Mahabharata to find a point in time when the relative positions of those planets an stars were exactly like that described in the Mahabharata. He was never sure that he would find such a point in time. He set out to prove or discard. It turns out that he managed to prove. He used the help of modern tech - Voyager images and start position software.

[RajeshA]

Indus Script Decipherment




Publication Date: 2000
Author: Navaratna Srinivasa Rajaram and N. Jha
The deciphered Indus script methodology, readings, interpretations




Publication Date: August 13, 2010
Author: S. Kalyanaraman
Indus Script Cipher: Hieroglyphs of Indian linguistic area [Amazon] [flipkart]




Publication Date: January 10, 2012
Author: S. Kalyanaraman
Indian hieroglyphs: Invention of writing [Amazon] [flipkart]




Publication Date: October 1, 2009
Author: Asko Parpola
Deciphering the Indus Script [Amazon] [flipkart] Don't Buy!!!




Publication Date: 2011
Author: S.M. Sullivan
Indus Script Dictionary

New decipherment based on comparison with Brahmi and Linear Elamite script.

Indus script represents a Sanskrit-Prakrut-Apabhramsha language

I was told by Nilesh Oak, the above mentioned is a good book and the right direction!

----------

Iravatham Mahadevan on Indus Script

Clyde Ahmad Winters on Indus Script [Homepage]

Madhusudan Mishra on Indus Script

[RajeshA]

What we have here are two ancient events, ancient even at the time of Mahabharata, which are being recounted in Vana Parva, then by Sage Markandeya to the Pandavas almost towards the end of their exile.

1) Year 14602 BCE: The change in the nakshatra system during a crisis, when Abhijit was not deemed fit anymore to rule her house. Nakshatra was changed from Abhijit to Krittika. Dhanishta was then to be used for start of New Year at Summer Solstice instead of Rohini.

2) Year 22500 BCE: Rohini was established as the asterism of New Year at Summer Solstice, because then it was noticed that Summer Solstice takes place in Rohini!

These are the two dates that Nilesh establishes, besides the Mahabharata chronology.

One huge problem I see for such very old dates including the dating of Mahabharata in 5561 BCE is that India would be filled with dark ages, not knowing what happened in the meantime. Our knowledge may be too sketchy.

Also even though we have the Indus Valley Civilization, we still have little information on how to fuse the two together - Vedic, Puranic and other scriptural information with the urban centers dug out in Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization area.

Sai Papineni from Bangalore has offered some theories.

Past Forward: Mound of the Dead (Mohenjo-daro) - What was its real name?

But this is really a risky path, especially as much archaeology still needs to be done in India, especially in the Gangetic Valley.

[fanne]

Rajesh A ji, thanks!!
I was under impression that Abhijit constellation (or some star group and may be I am confusing it with something else), was recorded by the ancient text and is no longer visual. Modern science (and space based assets) have proved that they indeed exist and could not have been seen by earthlings for some thousand years. If true, it proves that the text was composed at least at that time (or the oral commentary was from that period).
A small correction - The moon is in each nakshatra for a day approx, cover 27 in 29.5 days. A rashi (12 in number) has 2.5 nakshatra approx. Moon is in a rashi for 2.5 days approx

[RajeshA]

I was under impression that Abhijit constellation (or some star group and may be I am confusing it with something else), was recorded by the ancient text and is no longer visual. Modern science (and space based assets) have proved that they indeed exist and could not have been seen by earthlings for some thousand years. If true, it proves that the text was composed at least at that time (or the oral commentary was from that period).

Actually Abhijit asterism has been visible to Indians (in Northern Hemisphere) all along, at least in the last 25,000 years. However Abhijit was moving towards Celestial North and became the Polar Star around 12,000 BCE. But throughout it was visible, just not useful as a functional nakshatra, and thus had to be taken out of the nakshatra system and replaced by another nakshatra.

At the moment Abhijit has a declination of +39° from the ecliptic!

So in the case of Abhijit, it was a question of finding out when did the situation become a crisis, which required reforms in the nakshatra system.

[Murugan]

Fanne, Rajeshji

Abhijeet is Vega - alpha Lyrae star in the constellaton Lyra.

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


Moon stays in one nakshatra for 27 hours

[RajeshA]

I would wish that in India we had something like this.

• Center for Archaeoastronomy, University of Maryland
• International Society for Archaeoastronomy and Astronomy in Culture (ISAAC)

Together they bring out a journal



Archaeoastronomy: The Journal of Astronomy in Culture

Another publication is from ISAAC:



Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union

If one goes through the journal and the proceedings of their conferences, one would not find a single reference to Indian Archaeoastronomy in their journals all the way from 1979 to 2011, nor in the proceedings publication!

If this isn't a case of India-blindness, then I don't know what is!

[Murugan]

Lamda Aquatius... Shatbhisha
Alpha Aquilae... Shravan
Alpha Arietis... Ashwini
41 Arietis... Bharani
Alpha Aurigae... Brahmahridaya
Delta Aurigae... Prajapati
Alpha Bootes... Swati
Alpha Cancri... Pushya
Alpha Canis Majoris... Vyadh
Alpha Carinae... Agatsya
Beta Geminorum... Punarvasu
Alpha Leonis... Magha
Alpha Orionis... Ardra
Epsilon Pegasi... Purva Bhadrapada
Alpha Piscis Austrini... Yaam Matsya
Delta Sagitta... Purvashadha
Sigma Sagitta... Uttarashadha
Alpha Scorpii... Paarijat
Alpha Tauri... Rohini
Alpha Virginis... Chitra

These are our names for some stars, asterisms and nakshatras.

Indian names of othe constellations later

[Murugan]

Andromeda... Devyani
Auriga... Brahma Mandal or Rath Mandal
Bootes... Haldhar
Canes Venatici... Mrugayashun
Carina.. Naukatal
Cassiopeia... Sharmishtha
Centaurus... Narasva
Cepheus... Vrishaparva
Cetus... Timingal
Columba... Kapot
Coma Berenices... Kesh
Corona Borealis... Mukut
Corvus... Hasti
Crux... Swastik
Cygnus... Hamsa
Delphinus... Dhanishtha
Dorado... Asidamshtra?
Draco... Kaaliy
Eridanus... Yamuna
Fornax... Ashmant
Hercules... Shauri
Hydra... Vaasuki
Lepus... Shashak
Lupus... Vrikk
Lyra... Veena
Monoceros... Ekalshingi
Ophiuchus... Sarpadhari, bhujangdhari
Orion... Mriga shirsh
Pavo... Mayur
Pegasus... Uchaishrava
Perseus... Yayati
Phonix... Jatayu
Pictor... Chitraphalak
Puppis... Aritra
Pyxis... Digdarshak

Some looks like translation of others names, must be incorporated very late

[member_22872]

Wasn't there a controversy surrounding Indus script? Witzel and gang said it can't be deciphered? did Kalyanaraman's attempt at deciphering a success? does Sullivan's dictionary based on this decipherment? anyone who knows kindly comment please.

[Murugan]

Western astronomers divided sky in 88 parts, constellations.

The greek alphabets are assigned according to brightness, brightest star in constellation is given Alpha and so on for reducing magnitudes in a given constellation.

[svinayak]

Lamda Aquatius... Shatbhisha
Alpha Aquilae... Shravan
Alpha Arietis... Ashwini
41 Arietis... Bharani
Alpha Aurigae... Brahmahridaya
Delta Aurigae... Prajapati
Alpha Bootes... Swati
Alpha Cancri... Pushya
Alpha Canis Majoris... Vyadh
Alpha Carinae... Agatsya
Beta Geminorum... Punarvasu
Alpha Leonis... Magha
Alpha Orionis... Ardra
Epsilon Pegasi... Purva Bhadrapada
Alpha Piscis Austrini... Yaam Matsya
Delta Sagitta... Purvashadha
Sigma Sagitta... Uttarashadha
Alpha Scorpii... Paarijat
Alpha Tauri... Rohini
Alpha Virginis... Chitra

These are our names for some stars, asterisms and nakshatras.

Indian names of othe constellations later

They created the greek name to the Indian nakshatras after words. They dont have a system of nakshatra since it is connected to jyotish. Some of these nakshtras cross into 2 Zodiac signs and each nakshatra has 4 divisions called padas. Hence these are not observablle astro physics.

So there is no way Greeks have a nakshatra system which shows the antiquity of the Indian/Hindu civilization.

[svinayak]

I would wish that in India we had something like this.
If one goes through the journal and the proceedings of their conferences, one would not find a single reference to Indian Archaeoastronomy in their journals all the way from 1979 to 2011, nor in the proceedings publication!

If this isn't a case of India-blindness, then I don't know what is!

They have taken astoordinary efforts to completely negate Indian contibutions to astronomy and other sciences!

This is complete negation and there are other countries involved in it too. The money from Islamic and oil lobby shows in the academic institutes of the west.

[Murugan]

Why blame them. How much do we respect our own?

Our langauge and grammar is work of genius
Our mathematics, medicines, alchemy, astronomy, logic, psychology, literature, everything is work of genius and useful. But how much our preceding, current and succeeding generation respect them or try to study them. Why blame west and others. We are rebuying resaling them after looking for approval from... Pizza sellers. Pizza effect is only working

[RajeshA]

Wasn't there a controversy surrounding Indus script? Witzel and gang said it can't be deciphered? did Kalyanaraman's attempt at deciphering a success? does Sullivan's dictionary based on this decipherment? anyone who knows kindly comment please.

Dr. N. Jha, a scholar in Sanskrit, retired as Principal, Kendriya Vidyalaya, at Farakka in West Bengal. He is the author of several books on the Indus script including Vedic Glossary on Indus Seals (1996).

I think N. Jha (and N.S. Rajaram) tried to give a decipherment. That effort was successfully muzzled by Witzel and Mahadevan. The book is in fact not in print anymore. It had to do with a controversy over an allegedly doctored horse seal.

Kalyanraman has recently come out with his new book. Sue Sullivan will probably also be publishing a new book after her Indus Script Dictionary. One Indian writer will be her co-editor and possibly he may be able to say more on this in the future.

Sullivan uses comparisons to the Elamite script, which is understandable since Elamite seems to have some commonalities with South Indian languages and secondly because it was a contemporary civilization next to SSC and would have traded with the Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization.

[RajeshA]

Why blame them. How much do we respect our own?

Our langauge and grammar is work of genius
Our mathematics, medicines, alchemy, astronomy, logic, psychology, literature, everything is work of genius and useful. But how much our preceding, current and succeeding generation respect them or try to study them. Why blame west and others. We are rebuying resaling them after looking for approval from... Pizza sellers. Pizza effect is only working

Murugan ji,

it is not blame. It is a determination based on their behavior.

Apportioning blame is useless, because that assumes they and we share similar interests and codes of behavior. With the 'India-blindness' attitude on their part, I wish to prove (mostly to those Indians, you speak of) that this behavior is deliberate and premeditated!

This was an example in Archaeoastronomy! Earlier I had provided another example in History of Mathematics.

[Murugan]

Irony is...
To find out where Abhijeet is, i have to refer Greek astronomy
To find out meanig of Abhijeet, have to refer Monier Williams dictionary
To know proper posture of yogasan, have to refer yoga journal published by americans
To know about script once used by my ancestors, halfwitz

[RajeshA]

This is complete negation and there are other countries involved in it too. The money from Islamic and oil lobby shows in the academic institutes of the west.

Acharya garu,

It must be quite cost-effective method for Indians or Indian-Americans to sponsor some seat in the Indology departments in the Western educational institutes.

Indians too have money! Indians too have billionaires! Some should come forward!

[RajeshA]

Irony is...
To find out where Abhijeet is, i have to refer Greek astronomy
To find out meanig of Abhijeet, have to refer Monier Williams dictionary
To know proper posture of yogasan, have to refer yoga journal published by americans
To know about script once used by my ancestors, halfwitz

Things will change! Things must change!

[ramana]

Venug and RajeshA, There was a Time magazine article by Shashi Tharoor's son Ishan Tharoor comparing the Indus and Easter Island scripts.

[Murugan]

Irony is...
To find out where Abhijeet is, i have to refer Greek astronomy
To find out meanig of Abhijeet, have to refer Monier Williams dictionary
To know proper posture of yogasan, have to refer yoga journal published by americans
To know about script once used by my ancestors, halfwitz

Things will change! Things must change!

Yes.

It has started with me. Following footsteps of MKG! Be the Change You Want to Bring.

Till thene we have to use Out of India resources to prove ourelves

[member_22872]

ramana garu and Rajesh garu, thank you, here is the link to that article:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ ... 95,00.html

I think someone also posted TED video of the computer modeling used to say that Indus script is indeed a script and thus Indus people are literate.

[Vayutuvan]

I think someone also posted TED video of the computer modeling used to say that
Indus script is indeed a script and thus Indus people are literate.

Perhaps Prof. Rajesh Rao, Univ. of Washington?

[member_22872]

matrim garu, yeah I think so, for a moment I thought its our Rajesh ji

[shiv]

I think someone also posted TED video of the computer modeling used to say that
Indus script is indeed a script and thus Indus people are literate.

Perhaps Prof. Rajesh Rao, Univ. of Washington?

This is his TED talk
http://www.ted.com/talks/rajesh_rao_com ... cript.html

[Murugan]

Indus script is indeed a script and thus Indus people are literate.

Otherwise how can one make standardized brick size, standardized road breadth across large part of geographical area a norm, hundreds of kilometers away from one another.

Very much literate, educated and highly mobile population.

How this mobility and communication was established is another subject for study.

[shiv]

Indus script is indeed a script and thus Indus people are literate.

Otherwise how can one make standardized brick size, standardized road breadth across large part of geographical area a norm, hundreds of kilometers away from one another.

Very much literate, educated and highly mobile population.

How this mobility and communication was established is another subject for study.

I am amazed at two things:

When it is known that large civilizations flourished in the Saraswati-Sindhu area, BMAC region and Mesopotamia 4500 years ago, and that there was trade between these regions (because of goods from one region being found in another), and that the trade routes always followed the same ancient trade routes:

1. How come "scholars" assumed that the 4500 year old city based civilization was replaced by a horse ridin' pastoral Aryan horde later who were so stupid/blind that they missed all the cities along the way?
2. How come we actually ended up believing this preposterous nonsense giving mileage to a AIT?

[Murugan]

We ended up believing this preposterous nonsense giving mileage to a AIT by becoming self-blinded. Political and ideological Invader maaliks were india-blind Dhritrashtra kind, Invaded became Gandhari types.

Jo tumko ho pasand wohi baat karenge...Tum Aryan Invasion kaho to Aryan Invasion Kahenge...

[RajeshA]

In the beginning when I started this thread, I was very very suspicious of suggestions that the antiquity of Indian Civilization goes back more than 10,000 years.

There are still those who claim that it goes back hundreds of thousands of years, and some say it goes back millions of years. They are free to believe as they wish, and I do not wish to denounce such beliefs either. There is so much unknown in history and there is so much that is concocted for political reasons, and so much that is exaggerated, and so much left untold! So with such dicey history, does it matter if some believe in some antiquity which may lie beyond the credulity of others? I don't think so! And even if had any objections, who am I to tell them that? With antiquity much longer than traditionally thought, I don't think there is any damage to India and our civilization.

However there are those who give dates for our civilization which flies in the face of either what Indics think of themselves, or flies against dates we get out of dates which are given in our scriptures. And if their motivation for this behavior is inspired by AIT-Nazi agendas then I have got a serious problem with such dates.

Considering the evidence from some archaeo-astronomical references, today I am prepared to accept Indian history which goes back almost 15,000 years.

After all humans have been living in the Indian Subcontinent continuously since the last 65,000 years, an area which is one of the most hospitable for mankind in the world - plenty of fresh water, sun, vegetation, biodiversity!

So what were all these humans doing in the Indian Subcontinent all this time? In other areas of the world, populations were moving around all the time, simply because their environment provided for them only for a short time, and so they had to move to find better pastures, better climes. But in India, one had everything in whatever place one lived in, so there was less incentive to move and migrate.

Speech was being improved on. Plants and their produce was being observed and used. The skies were being observed. And forces of nature were being anthropomorphed, and these became deities. Humans learned how to meditate and got insights into this world. I can well imagine these humans lived in groups, and these groups had some form of organization, authority instance, etc.

So what is so difficult in imagining that these people learned to organize themselves into kingdoms and created treatises on ruling and organizing society. What is so difficult in imagining Indians to still be carrying memories of long antiquity?

These memories could dissipate if there are wars between people for resources, where the other people are totally decimated! Similarly if one's own religions requiring exclusive dogmas are imposed on others, then too memories would disappear.

But if you have a system, where despite wars, the defeated people are not humiliated because of their practices and the culture of the defeated people is not eliminated, but in fact organically assimilated into a much larger narrative, there memories would persist. If the careers of culture and history of the militarily defeated people continue to be given respect for their knowledge, why would memories disappear completely.

Because there weren't any in India who thought they knew best and all others should follow their lead, that one sees such diversity in India. Perhaps the first such "all-knowing" prophet to appear among Indians was Zarathustra in the West. And then many others followed!

But the Indian Subcontinent remained more or less free from such towering personalities who were so large that their shadows used to darken the whole landscape.

So the point of this post is that the conditions in India were ideal to retain much of our history even though much was laid to waste in the various libraries and centers of learning in India when we were attacked by foreign hordes, who did not know how to appreciate knowledge! But there is still historical knowledge left out there!

And this historical knowledge may reach out very very far into our past, perhaps even as far back as 15,000 years!

I was told by a little birdie that King Pururava, son of Ila, daughter of Vaivasvata Manu, may have lived 15,000 years ago, and there may even be some archaeo-astronomical allusion to that!