Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[shiv]

It is all based on date after 3000BC . What an absurd logic.
Harrappa is left as an orphan since the dates dont match! It is too urban for RgV which can only be after 2000BC. LOL

Acharya the BMAC that had direct contact with the same 'steppes" with domesticated horses was not noticed by the steppe people on their ay to India. They must have been too dumb or too high on Soma. And what is worse - they totally totally missed a whole lot of urban settlements and a thriving civilization along the Indus and Saraswati rivers but kept singing about pastoral lands.

This story is laughably far fetched. The Rig Veda was certainly composed by non agricultural people leading a pastoral life. But it was probably composed before Harappa and before BMAC. That puts Rig Veda composition around 5000 BC.

Why should anyone on earth be bothered about this earlier date? The only people who might worry are the people who insist on matching the Rig veda with existing horse archaeology. But they do not seem to be keen on explaining how and why the composers of the Rig Veda missed the entire Harappan civilization.

The denial of a huge hole in the theory suggests either profound stupidity or an ulterior motive that required the fudged fixing of Rig Veda date because that allows other fake extrapolations - perhaps linguistic ones to match the dates.

After all if Rig Veda is 5000 BC where would that put PIE? It would make PIE maybe 6500 or 7000 BC. That I expect would cause a whole lot of recalculation and taqleef which nobody wants.

[ManishH]

You see one glaring reason why there is no urbanism in the Rig Veda is that it could have been composed before urbanism.

If you now claim ṛgveda is composed before Harappan urbanism, please give the date for when Harappan urbanism begins and show proof for ṛgvedic lifestyle of domesticated horse before that date of Harappan urbanism.

[RajeshA]

ManishH ji,

you speak of horse domestication, etc. but you don't provide any references as to where in Rigveda we find evidence that the horse was domesticated by Vedic Aryans!

Just because something is in Rigveda, it doesn't mean it refers to Vedic Aryans themselves. It can well be a reference to an external power in some way related to them. In the case of Maruts it is that they are allied to Indra.

The Maruts, the horse riders, may be Danava or not, but it doesn't say that they or their followers cohabit the same space as the Vedic Aryans. Can't Vedic Aryans speak of "visitors" from somewhere else?

If ToI had an article on Rakesh Sharma going into space using the Soyuz spacecraft with the help of the Soviets, would you demand that we should reproduce the Soyuz spacecraft, otherwise Indians cannot be from India because something on such a matter is written in an Indian newspaper?

[Atri]

I think he is talking about absolute horse domestication by humans.. not by maruts OR vediks OR harappans.. but in that case, harappans become vedik..

[Lalmohan]

i was thinking of the logic used in the book "guns germs and steel" of how human civilisation came up in and then flourished along a latitudinal axis, and last night when i looked at an atlas, i found that the Nile, the Euphrates/Tigris, the Saraswati/Indus and the Yellow/Pearl/Mekong rivers* are all roughly in the same lattitude band and all have some degree of N-S flow (less relevant). so the near simultaneous development of cultivation and hence urbanisation along this latitudinal band does not seem too far fetched. if one group of hunter/gatherers figured out how to exploit their geography, then so could another. And indeed, we see that all of these river systems are synonymous with the development of civilisations.

pure hunter/gatherers - who were in more marginalised lands (the steppe, or the desert) had to keep moving for water and pasture and to seek out new forests to gather from and hunt in. a mobile culture is less likely to develop surplus and therefore the time or the need to develop written language, science and numerical abilities beyond counting their herds

if you add in the ice-age overlay, then it is more logical for humans to be more concentrated along these axes and therefore accelerate their development. it is therefore less plausible for steppe nomads to make the evolutionary leap that is proposed.

* the missisippi and to a lesser extent the amazon basins are also in a similar latitudinal band, and there is evidence of ancient settlements along these rivers too, that have since dissappeared (but that is another discussion!)

[shiv]

Horses, collected as herds and early domestication goes back as far as 8000 BC depending on what sources you look at.

Source please - where has horse domestication been dated to 8000 BC and published in peer-reviewed archaeological journals.

Sorry No peer review.
http://arabiangazette.com/fresh-finds-i ... n-history/

Horses may first have been tamed as long ago as 7000 BC, new ground-breaking findings in a recently unearthed archaeological site in Saudi Arabia suggest.

“The procured evidence may potentially debunk a previously established theory that the domestication of horses originated 5500 years ago in the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan,” the Vice-President of the Kingdom�s Commission for Tourism and Antiquities announced in a press conference in Jeddah.

�This site shows us clearly, the roots of the domestication of horses 9,000 years ago,” said Ali Al Ghabban, citing human DNA evidence that allowed researchers to date the prehistoric civilization to the New Stone Age.

Incorrect; all genetic data indicates breeding started from few stallions and a diverse variety of mares. From Anthony's book ...

That is exactly what i am saying. Are you disagreeing with yourself?

It's hilarious to imagine ṛgvedic sages calling this onager a "keśina hari" or "aśvam vāravantam" ...

Only as hilarious as it is to imagine that these bards were singing about central asian horses and completely missed the BMAC and Harappan urban settlements which were allegedly contemporaneous.

Wow! And pray, where is the evidence of Bronze in India in 8000 BC.

Strawman. I did not make a claim that bronze existed in India in 8000 BC.

Somehow, human bones survive in humid dense forests of Gangetic valley from 8000 BC (Mahadaha), but the horse bones being so elusive, cannot survive from claimed ṛgveda date of 5000 BC in a region which is claimed to have become arid (due to drying of Sarasvati region). Hard to swallow

And somehow, the proof seems to survive from beginning of 2nd millenium BC.

Sometimes difficult concepts have to be swallowed There is no guarantee that any specific bones will be found by archaeologists. Fitting facts to available evidence is called fudging and that is what has been done consistently by the usual culprits and their cheerleaders

But you asked about horse bones in India. When was the neolithic age? Horse bones have been found in India from the neolithic age.
http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/pdf/en/indo ... Debate.pdf

Our first surprise is that contrary to conventional assertions, quite a few
archaeologists have reported horse remains from India’s prehistoric sites. A.
Ghosh’s respected and authoritative Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology
mentions without fuss:
In India the ... true horse is reported from the Neolithic levels at Kodekal
[dist. Gulbarga of Karnataka] and Hallur [dist. Raichur of Karnataka] and
the late Harappa levels at Mohenjo-daro (Sewell and Guha, 1931) and
Ropar and at Harappa, Lothal and numerous other sites. ... Recently bones
of Equus caballus have also been reported from the proto-Harappa site of
Malvan in Gujarat.1

[ManishH]

I have started reading up on the PIE and language change dogma/sacred "laws" of sound change state-of-the-art [like Gary Miller].

B-ji: small mouth, big talk from me ...

Course on Phonetics and Phonology is a pre-req for studying Historical Linguistics, otherwise many things look like axioms.

[shiv]

You see one glaring reason why there is no urbanism in the Rig Veda is that it could have been composed before urbanism.

If you now claim ṛgveda is composed before Harappan urbanism, please give the date for when Harappan urbanism begins and show proof for ṛgvedic lifestyle of domesticated horse before that date of Harappan urbanism.

Thanks for asking. I will get to that in due course, but the fact is that of all the reasons why there is no mention of urbanism in the Rig Veda - one reason that is never mentioned is that it could have predated urbanism. Whenever urbanism started in Harappa, the Rig Veda was composed before that urbanism, and the people were almost certainly leading a pastoral lifestyle. The horse debate is just a diversion from this glaring logical lacuna in the dating of the Rig Veda.

[shiv]

The huge "hole" in the dating of the Rig veda that magically causes the Rig Veda singers to completely miss out the extensive urban settlements of Harappa is as blatant as the claim that pastoralists from Central Asia literally rode though the Urban settlements of the BMAC culture and completely missed them.

When the Aryan Invasion Theory was first made up this discrepancy was well known but it was very easily explained. It was claimed that the Harapan civilization was the very civilization that the heroic, victorious, horse-riding "Aryans" defeated. And where did those Harappans go? Oh, to the South of course. they became the Dravidians. The Aryans knew fully well whom they defeated, and they did not give a damn about those urban settlements they had just overrun, chasing them pesky dark skinned Dravidians away. They certainly were not going to sing about them. How many songs praising Nazis have you heard from Britain?

But we have a problem now. The "experts" agree that there was no invasion. No people were driven away. There is no evidence of the mythical Dravidians running south and settling there. Fine. Fine.

If that is the case how did the Aryans miss the numerous urban settlements along the Indus, its tributaries and the Saraswati? The only way this can happen is if the Rig Veda pre-dated the Harappan settlements. We have to consider a much older date for the Rig veda and not the convenient date that is stated.

[shiv]

* the missisippi and to a lesser extent the amazon basins are also in a similar latitudinal band, and there is evidence of ancient settlements along these rivers too, that have since dissappeared (but that is another discussion!)

Indeed Lalmohangaru. And IIRC Diamond says that it was nutrient poor corn that stymied North America and the absence of cattle (I think) that stymied South America

[Dan Mazer]

You see one glaring reason why there is no urbanism in the Rig Veda is that it could have been composed before urbanism.

Even if it was composed during a period after urbanism began, why should it necessarily reflect an urban lifestyle? Do we have any reason to presume that Rig Veda is some sort of encyclopaedia of life in those times and that it HAS to reflect the urban lifestyle? Surely pastoral communities and lifestyles still continued to exist after urbanism began.

[shiv]

You see one glaring reason why there is no urbanism in the Rig Veda is that it could have been composed before urbanism.

Even if it was composed during a period after urbanism began, why should it necessarily reflect an urban lifestyle? Do we have any reason to presume that Rig Veda is some sort of encyclopaedia of life in those times and that it HAS to reflect the urban lifestyle? Surely pastoral communities and lifestyles still continued to exist after urbanism began.

Oh of course. By all means add that as an objection or extra data point. But there is absolutely no conclusive proof that stops the Rig Veda from being dated much earlier than 1900 BC. It could well have been composed in 4000 BC or some date prior to Harappan urban settlement. One has to bring up objections like "Show me horse bones. Prove that they were from domesticated horses. Prove that they were caballus. And make all this info appear in a peer reviewed journal that I will accept as proof" to thrash about and complain about an earlier date for the Rig Veda.

In fact the latest 21st century version of teh Aryan Invasion Theory is exactly based on what you are saying. You said:

Surely pastoral communities and lifestyles still continued to exist after urbanism began.

The latest story is that Central Asian pastoralists bypassed the urban settlements of BMAC which were in their own region. They shut their eyes while passing through. They then rode all the way to india singing about rivers and horses. Here in India they closed their eyes again and completely missed over 1500 known Harappan settlements and insisted on singing about a pastoral past and memories of horses since they had no horses in India. This laughable story would not even fit a B-grade Kollywood plot.

[ManishH]

Wow! And pray, where is the evidence of Bronze in India in 8000 BC.

Strawman. I did not make a claim that bronze existed in India in 8000 BC.

You said that RgVeda can be composed "any time between 8000 BC and 1200 BC". But it cannot be as early as 8000 BC because RgVeda mentions bronze and no man-made bronze objects have been found in greater Sindhu region dated 8000 BC

There is no guarantee that any specific bones will be found by archaeologists. Fitting facts to available evidence is called fudging and that is what has been done consistently by the usual culprits and their cheerleaders

Fudging is when claims of such old dates for horse are made without dated evidence.

But you asked about horse bones in India. When was the neolithic age? Horse bones have been found in India from the neolithic age.
http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/pdf/en/indo ... Debate.pdf

Our first surprise is that contrary to conventional assertions, quite a few
archaeologists have reported horse remains from India’s prehistoric sites. A.
Ghosh’s respected and authoritative Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology
mentions without fuss:

In India the ... true horse is reported from the Neolithic levels at Kodekal
[dist. Gulbarga of Karnataka] and Hallur [dist. Raichur of Karnataka] and
the late Harappa levels at Mohenjo-daro (Sewell and Guha, 1931) and
Ropar and at Harappa, Lothal and numerous other sites. ... Recently bones
of Equus caballus have also been reported from the proto-Harappa site of
Malvan in Gujarat.1

Let's examine them one by one ...

Hallur Horse: This is well dated - ~1500 BC

Late-Harappan of Mohenjodaro : this is the phase from 1700 - 1300 BC

Malvan: this is a post-harappan, not "proto-harappan" archaeological site with two periods. Period I, the earliest from 1400-1000 BC. See "Excavations at Malvan", Allchin, Joshi, Sharma

Kodekal: Neolithic "levels", not neolithic "age". And again there are no dates - all it says is "neolithic levels". It just says "have been reported" - no reference to who has reported, what publication it has been reported, how has it been ascertained as different from onager remains etc...

The review paper here summarizes the chronology of neolithic of South India, including Kodekal and Hallur ..

"Dating the Neolithic of South India: new radiometric evidence for key economic, social and ritual transformations."

According to the paper, the earliest evidence of horse in South Indian Neolithic 1400 BC.

[shiv]

Kodekal: Neolithic "levels", not neolithic "age". And again there are no dates - all it says is "neolithic levels". It just says "have been reported" - no reference to who has reported, what publication it has been reported, how has it been ascertained as different from onager remains etc...

Read the pdf sir. I am sure you can find the original reference because the names are there. You just don't want to believe it because it does not fit in with the story you want to believe.

In any case even if horses did not exist at all even when the Rig Veda was "compiled" in Punjab it fails to explain how they missed the urban settlements of Harappa or had no exposure to BMAC on their way to India although they seem to remember horses well.

On the other hand if you have a race of soma intoxicated people babbling, it would be perfectly possible to say that they cooked up stories about horses even as they ignored what they had in front of them - the urban settlements of Harappa.

Either way the horse objections do not add up convincingly to prove that the Rig Veda did not pre-date the Harappan settlements. Horses are the only crutch for dating the Rig Veda as it is now dated. And a weak and unconvincing crutch at that.

[RajeshA]

I guess the question would remain unanswered.

Why are the AIT proponents demanding horse domestication or horse abundance from the Vedic Aryans?

What evidence is there that the horse was not domesticated in 8000 BC?

[Lalmohan]

^^^ a non sinister interpretation is that they are trying to corroborate with known archeological finds/analysis rather than remain at an entirely theoretical level

ofcourse many on BRF will pooh pooh that and insist on dark sinister conspiracy machinations...

[shiv]

I guess the question would remain unanswered.

Why are the AIT proponents demanding horse domestication or horse abundance from the Vedic Aryans?

What evidence is there that the horse was not domesticated in 8000 BC?

Rajesh, I had linked a pdf from Georgia about onagers and chariots which speaks of "Aryans" and innovation from this region
http://www.agt.si.edu/_images/uncover_m ... ge_ENG.pdf

Major changes in chariot manufacture were initiated by the ancient Aryans of India and Afghanistan.
They made chariots from a particularly strong wood, which meant that the chariot was light and a man
could lift it with one hand. This type of a chariot first emerged in Asia.

[member_22872]

Manish ji,
Last time when we discussed Horse cave painting of Bhimbetka, I wasn't sure about the how it was dated etc, this is from UNESCO report, please read it how the dating was done.
excerpts:

On the surface, the most outstanding aspect of this site is the profusion of paintings on the walls and upper areas within the shelters across a discernible long and continuous span of time. There are over 700 shelters distributed over the site. Paintings in the rock shelters at Bhimbetka range from largely Mesolithic {10,000 to 5000 BCE}, through Chalcolithic {atleast 7,000 years BP} and historical to the Mediaeval period, and constitute a rich source of study in various fields.

Chronology of paintings:

The bases of chronology are according to finds of colour in excavations (largely derived from minerals), patina, cultural content, flora and fauna, superimpositions and styles of execution. Nodules and rubbed cakes of mineral colours, mainly of haematite red, are found from the earliest Mesolithic phase{around 8000-7000 BC?}, suggesting their use in painting. In 1975, V.S. Wakankar reported the finding of manganese, yellow ochre and terra verde from his excavation of shelter III A-28 at Bhimbetka, and pieces of colour rubbed on several facets in shelter III F-23. Colour nodules, along with stone querns, rubbers, bone tools and antlers, have also been found as offerings with the dead, buried within the living areas of the shelters.

Please see the image on page 29 Bhonrawali, Cluster II E . It doesn't appear is the animal in the painting is neither onager or an ass. But even then we don't know what species the horse mentioned Rg Veda is Caballus, if anything, it is a horse with 34 ribs, different from caballus.

http://whc.unesco.org/uploads/nominations/925.pdf

[shiv]

^^^ a non sinister interpretation is that they are trying to corroborate with known archeological finds/analysis rather than remain at an entirely theoretical level

But Lalmohan, when it comes to the Rig Veda all we have is speculation about its people. There are no archaeological finds. For that reason they are linking archaeology from 3000 km away to the Rig Veda in an act of unparalleled and unashamed speculation ignoring a whole host of other data points that are inconvenient to this less than credible concoction.

[Lalmohan]

i dont dispute that, however in the absence of evidence - neither side can prove itself to be right
what is required is to not play the game (as you say - but continue to do so with ManishH!) and develop alternate hypotheses further
you and i cannot do this, but we can support those who do it professionaly

[Sanku]

You said that RgVeda can be composed "any time between 8000 BC and 1200 BC". But it cannot be as early as 8000 BC because RgVeda mentions bronze and no man-made bronze objects have been found in greater Sindhu region dated 8000 BC
.

Clearly such statements should not be made since we all agree that absence of proof is not proof of absence.

That statement above is WRONG. A potentially correct restatement would be:

Since we have not discovered archeological proof of bronze at 8000 BCE, using presence of Bronze as evidence to connect Rik Veda to 8000 BCE is currently not possible.

It does not in anyway negate the presence of other proofs (archeo-astronomic and circumstantial evidence)

=============================

Also note the blatant double standards

It is ok with Rik Veda composers have ZERO info of well documented cities in close neighborhood
but
If Rik Veda speaks about X, archeological proof must be provided.

So while ignoring the current existing proof, new proofs are asked for even older because the current ones go against the grain of the belief system?

[Sanku]

i dont dispute that, however in the absence of evidence - neither side can prove itself to be right

That is untrue. There is a difference, note the above post -- the current game is:

So while ignoring the current existing proof, new proofs are asked for even older times because the current ones go against the grain of the belief system?

There is no equal equal.

[RajeshA]

Lalmohan ji,

I'll take the sinister interpretation!

The Aryan Invasion Theory itself makes several assumptions. In fact all it has to offer are assumptions and no evidence, but a narrative which sounds as if there is conclusive evidence.

So if all the archaeological, genetic, astronomical, literary evidence is pointing to an autochthonous origin of Vedic Aryans in India, why are they not willing to accept the assumption that at the time of composition of Rigveda, which preceded the Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization, horses were already domesticated.

[shiv]

i dont dispute that, however in the absence of evidence - neither side can prove itself to be right
what is required is to not play the game (as you say - but continue to do so with ManishH!) and develop alternate hypotheses further
you and i cannot do this, but we can support those who do it professionaly

I have a reason for playing the game as I play it. I want to know what objection there is to an earlier date of the Rig Veda other than horses. The horse date is dependent on current Archaeological finds which really don't prove anything either way. But the ManishH game is only a small illustration of the very same game played by a whole host of other known names, assuming that Manish is not one of those names.

They are clinging on to the horse story like everything depends on it. The only explanation I can think of is that the Rig Veda serves as a meeting point where linguists can build up theories and try and correlate theories with archaeological fact. The intense antagonism to alternate views suggests a deep need to stick to current theories. To me that suggests that a whole body of "work" has already been built up using Rig Veda linguistics (among other languages) and the horse dates fixed by current archaeology. Dating of the Rig Veda as it is seems vital to keep that idea alive. This is my conjecture.

The reason for my persisting with the game is to see how any linguistic theories (that I assume must have been built up) would get upset if the Rig Veda's date is pushed back by say 1500 years? If those theories are not upset in any way, there should be less objection to the re-dating (to an earlier era) of the Rig Veda - seeing as it is only the horse bones factor that ties it to a particular date. There is no other reason why the Rig veda could not have been 2500 or even 4000 BC as far as I can tell.

[Lalmohan]

rajesha-ji
good question. i dont have an answer to that
i can guess that its a bit like pre-renaissance european clergy being told that the earth was round

[member_22872]

Cave paintings of horses is also evidence no? if not domesticated in India, they are available in India. The dating methodology is described too in the report, so no guess work, they are not exactly like finding bones, but the proof is there alright.

[ManishH]

It does not in anyway negate the presence of other proofs (archeo-astronomic and circumstantial evidence)

Sanku-ji: I'm not insisting archaeology as the only valid proof. If archaeo-astronomic data is there, please bring it up.

[Lalmohan]

the dating methodology for cave paintings is not that precise unless any organic materials in the paint can be carbon dated (i.e. any vegetable dyes were used and have survived). from mineral remains one can infer based on other organic remains found at the site. that opens up doubt. cave paintings are quite amazing though, i've seen some at close quarters in the kalahari desert and they are very vivid depictions of the lives of the painters. however in that case, those paintings could be 20,000 years old or 200 years old
i am happy however to accept that horses were around in India (since they were definitely around in many many other places south of the ice caps) and would have continued to be in india - and that the horse would have been domesticated in india. frankly, unless horses were buried in rituals or accidentally submerged in mud - i would not expect to find any remains. most of the remains in europe and north america are either accidental deaths (ice, mud, etc.) or ritual burials. any animals left on the surface after death would be rapidly eaten and the bones dispersed and scattered, leaving no trace. i have seen even a lion carcass dissapear (except for one vertebra) within six months, and an elephant reduced to a couple of tibia's and assorted bits within a year.

[member_22872]

the dating methodology for cave paintings is not that precise unless any organic materials in the paint can be carbon dated

LalMohan ji, it appears artifacts earlier to 40k years cant be carbon dated, the caves it appears are one of the oldest of their kind in the world, may be that is the reason carbon dating wasn't used?

The carbon-14 dating limit lies around 58,000 to 62,000 years.

I think objection to these findings is just to brush aside such proof, if one has no problem believing in PIE and weave a history around it, why cant they even think of this as a possibility and question their own dogmatic beliefs? after all if one is after truth, such questions should be easy to entertain.

i am happy however to accept that horses were around in India (since they were definitely around in many many other places south of the ice caps) and would have continued to be in india - and that the horse would have been domesticated in india. frankly, unless horses were buried in rituals or accidentally submerged in mud - i would not expect to find any remains. most of the remains in europe and north america are either accidental deaths (ice, mud, etc.) or ritual burials. any animals left on the surface after death would be rapidly eaten and the bones dispersed and scattered, leaving no trace. i have seen even a lion carcass dissapear (except for one vertebra) within six months, and an elephant reduced to a couple of tibia's and assorted bits within a year.

That's true. I agree.

[Lalmohan]

venuji, think of how many were tortured to death for challenging the flat earth theory

[Sanku]

It does not in anyway negate the presence of other proofs (archeo-astronomic and circumstantial evidence)

Sanku-ji: I'm not insisting archaeology as the only valid proof. If archaeo-astronomic data is there, please bring it up.

ManishH-ji; Shiv et al have brought it up numerous times already, including on this very page

[A_Gupta]

Elite dominance theory requires the Rg Vedic pastoralists to be the main and dominant people. But the area is vast enough that both urban and pastoralists coexist. And just like Buddhism was more centralized and urban than forest-sage centric Hinduism, when calamity arrived, one virtually vanished from India, the other did not. There is a text fundamentalism here, trying to ascribe everything to the text that survived. When the cities of Harappa collapsed, what survived? The villages and the pastoralists.

[ManishH]

Kodekal: Neolithic "levels", not neolithic "age". And again there are no dates - all it says is "neolithic levels". It just says "have been reported" - no reference to who has reported, what publication it has been reported, how has it been ascertained as different from onager remains etc...

Read the pdf sir. I am sure you can find the original reference because the names are there. You just don't want to believe it because it does not fit in with the story you want to believe.

I've read the PDF and it refers to "Encylopedia of Indian Archaeology", A. Ghosh.

The book is available at books.google.com and shows this ...



So there is no reference at all to which publication details the horse findings of Bagor or Kodekal. Only vague statements like "horse is reported from the Neolithic levels at KODEKAL". It "is reported" but by whom and which publication ?

The only actual reference made is for the late Harappa finds at Mohenjodaro by Sewell, Guha 1931.

Absent any references, Bagor and Kodekal are not credible at all.

In any case even if horses did not exist at all even when the Rig Veda was "compiled" in Punjab it fails to explain how they missed the urban settlements of Harappa or had no exposure to BMAC on their way to India although they seem to remember horses well.

The horse was part of their lifestyle, not urban centres.

On the other hand if you have a race of soma intoxicated people babbling

There is no babbling - soma was for ritual use.

[ManishH]

Sanku-ji: I'm not insisting archaeology as the only valid proof. If archaeo-astronomic data is there, please bring it up.

ManishH-ji; Shiv et al have brought it up numerous times already, including on this very page

Sanku-ji: The only post which I can find is that by matrimc-ji:

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 5#p1299935

Here are the references from Plofker's book - in case somebody wants to chase down the references back to primary sources

1. Kak, Subhash. Vedic astronomy and early Indian chronology. pp 303-340.

2. Hock, Hans Henrich. Philology and the historical interpretation of the Vedic texts. pp 2282-308.

Both in

Bryant, Edwin F., and Patton, Laurie L.,eds. The Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History. London Routledge, 2005

If you read the 2nd reference by H.H. Hock, it actually refutes that Vedic passages are unambiguous. I'll just quote the conclusion in that paper ...

The philological evidence simply does not permit using
our passage(s) as the basis for determining the date of composition of the
Kausitaki Brahmaja, nor does it permit making a rational choice between the
wide variety of different estimates that have been proposed. Determining the age
of our text and thereby establishing a point of departure for estimating the age of
the Vedas, therefore, will have to be based on other evidence or, failing that, will
have to be admitted as not being determinable by sound philological means.

The ambiguity of texts and error probability was earlier discussed on this very thread. Eg:

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 2#p1280862

[member_20317]

ManishH ji,

Hope this helps:
http://tech.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/ ... ssage/3698

Also ManishH ji, Re. "At SURKOTADA bones of Equus caballus occur from Periods IA to IC (2100-1700 B.C.) along with those of Equus asinus and Equus hemtimus (Sharma, 1974)." if all the bones are found in the same place how much is it possible that people treat them as much the same. Say like one being Ashwa, other being Chota Aswa and so on?

[member_22872]

I can't believe a horse is writing Indian history, can you imagine that? Not the accounts of indigenous people, but a horse and people who are sitting thousands of miles who might have never set foot on my nation's soil, they believe in the remains of a horse than a SDRE.

[member_20317]

venug ji,

Dogs, Indians and Onagers not allowed in.

venug ji,

tell me something, if you figure a couple coming to your house (Beautiful women and ugly husband). And if you could get away with keeping the ugly husband out. what would you do?

[Atri]

I can't believe a horse is writing Indian history, can you imagine that? Not the accounts of indigenous people, but a horse and people who are sitting thousands of miles who might have never set foot on my nation's soil, they believe in the remains of a horse than a SDRE.

Truth always comes from Horse's mouth, saar..










ducks for cover

[member_22872]

very true. Ironically I have to agree.

[member_22872]

Ravi ji, run away with the wives on a horse? Or may be a chariot driven by caballus onlee. I will first count the ribs to make sure they indeed have 17 pairs each.