Discussion on Indian Epics, Texts, Treatises & Kathas

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 22 Feb 2012 01:01

ramana ji,
the Buddha's case shows both the prevalence as well as attitudes against animal sacrifice. Both streams of thoiught prevailed - and significantly, the case of animal-slaughter appear more in connection with the "ataviks".

Buddhist lore also use symbolism a lot - so it might have happened, that conjoining "atavik" cultures/persons/hunters [wild/forest] with animal-slaughter was also a device to associate or symboilically connect "anti-civilization" with animal-sacrifice. In this case actual animal sacrifice would be symbolic of the uncivilized - rather than showing any particular popularity of animal sacrifice. It was no doubt carried out - but definitely in connection with food, not necessarily for ritual purposes. Compare the most secular Chanaakya in his magnum opus - most reference to meat consumption is with respect to trade/commerce/markets.

ManishH · Post by **ManishH** » 22 Feb 2012 08:59

Carl wrote:So your quotes still don't prove that the main purport of the Veda is physical slaughter and sacrifice.

I was trying to say that it was one important expression of worship. An expression that in this day sounds almost incredulous. I view it as a strength of Indian culture - it has evolved itself according to social conditions.

Reading all this, it's important not to judge the ancients by modern standards. What they did was the "right thing" for that time.

I'm not disagreeing with you or B ji here, but just trying to look at it from a different viewpoint...

Do you think that like Madhwa put an end to animal sacrifices, there might be some current practices that may be viewed by the future generations to be irrelevant in their times ? Isn't it happening already as opposition to "Made Snana" (rolling on leftovers) in Udupi.

ManishH · Post by **ManishH** » 22 Feb 2012 09:04

brihaspati wrote: Because of any possible loss of continuity of interpretations, it is possible that later on - the verses were interpreted literally, and the rituals re-started in the literal sense.

Yes, the tradition has more value than how we interpret the texts. To balance out the argument, there are verses in Aitreya Br that perhaps show the cake was symbolic of the sacrificial animal:

The grain cake does indeed become a substitute for the animal itself; just as you describe. Referring to the grain-cake it says : it's husk be the hair, the chaff the skin, the flakes it's blood, the pounded grain it's flesh; the hard mass be it's bones.

ABR_2.9.2: tasya yāni kiṃśārūṇi tāni romāṇi, ye tuṣāḥ sā tvag, ye phalīkaraṇās tad asṛg, yat piṣṭaṃ kiknasās tan māṃsaṃ, yat ՚0 kiṃ ՚0 cit ՚0 kaṃsāraṃ tad asthi

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 22 Feb 2012 20:46

ManishH wrote:Do you think that like Madhwa put an end to animal sacrifices, there might be some current practices that may be viewed by the future generations to be irrelevant in their times ?

Of course, I mentioned his sadachara-smrti as a case in point.

My point is this: Meat-eating may certainly have been prevalent in Vedic society, as it is today in India. I think India has always hosted a civilizational continuum in terms of modes of nature (gunas). So there would also have been different modes of religion and culture, ideology and practice. Meat eating and sacrifice would certainly have been prevalent in certain sections, but not across the board. I believe that there would always have been some sections where the purely metaphorical aspect was emphasized.

This division of faith (sattva, rajas, tamas) is found in all subsequent literatures in pursuance of the Veda. The Veda would encompass all 3 of these, too. But there is a hierarchy, a gradation.

So the debate about animal sacrifice should not be reduced to a black-and-white answer. IMHO it should acknowledge the spectrum of understanding and practice, and emphasize the relative truth-values given to these different modes. If some people want to "justify" eating something based on its being "mentioned in the Veda", that's incredibly childish. We are all free to eat what we want, but what needs to be justified is where our inclinations and choices fit on the map of Vedic civilization.

ManishH wrote:Reading all this, it's important not to judge the ancients by modern standards. What they did was the "right thing" for that time.

Again, its not like there was just one practice or understanding at any one time. Also, its not like there wasn't any general understanding of relative truth values of different understandings and practices any any particular time.

If we wanted to assign a 'best practice' for a particular 'time', then we should think rather in terms of 'circumstance' instead of historical time period. After all, desha-kaala-paatra is the formula stated in Vedanta itself, i.e. country/culture, time/circumstance, and maturity of individual recipient. So in this vein I had earlier posted that we can talk of conditions of existence, ranging from emergency to normalcy to afflence, to power shifts, to consolidated power, etc. In that context only we can talk of something as being 'best practice'. I don't think Vedic civilization would have been stuck in just one particular condition of existence for any significant length of time, such that one particular practice (viz. animal slaughter) would have been considered standard procedure across the board. JMT.

ManishH · Post by **ManishH** » 22 Feb 2012 23:13

Point taken about there existing varied practices. Just one final point about best practices:

Yājñavalkya wrote quite unequivocally in the śatapatha brāhmaṇa : "paramannādyaṃ yanmāṃsaṃ" (this meat is the best food). Here's the full quote on the merits of animal sacrifice:

sa yatpaśubandhena yajate ātmānamevaitanniṣkrīṇīte ...
paramannādyaṃ yanmāṃsaṃ sa paramasyaivānnādyasyāttā bhavati taṃ vai saṃvatsaro nānījanamatīyādāyurvai saṃvatsara āyurevaitadamṛtamātmandhatte

"He who thus sacrifices with an animal, redeems himself. This meat is the best food. He becomes the one who eats the best food. Let not a year go without him sacrificing thus - a year of good health. He gives himself immortality and good health."

Now this is from someone who has contributed greatly to logic (neti neti), sciences and philosophy. I'd say his writing in SB (an important exegesis of Yajurveda) is very representative of his time. We can't even presume he'd be poetically vague, and point to something else (what can it be?) while talking about meat - he was a logician after all.

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 22 Feb 2012 23:34

ManishH ji, re: the example of Yajnavalkya from SB -

So again if we take it in terms of logic, we know that Vedic logis is based on adhikAra (qualification). To give a common sense example, is it right to feed this 'best food' (meat) to a 2 month old baby? Of course not, because even his digestive tract is not mature enough to handle it. Taking this analogy further, when one considers the psycho-physical effects of different types of food (yogic regimen), the same applies.

A person with a certain level of yogic adhikAra can partake of all the bounties of nature, because his "ability to appreciate" it is mature and it will not entangle him further. For others, one man's food can be another man's poison, as far as spiritual progress is concerned. What Yajnavalkya meant by 'best' ought to be understood. Its relative. In the 1960's, Leary wrote that his Indian guru ate a whole ball of LSD at one go and nothing happened to him. The same professor's experiments with minuter quantities of LSD did not have a similar ending. Rules are meant to be transcended, not broken.

Each Rishi has a school of thought and a system of ministration that creates a bridge between a certain mode of material nature and the transcendental platform.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 22 Feb 2012 23:39

ManishH wrote:Point taken about there existing varied practices. Just one final point about best practices:

Yājñavalkya wrote quite unequivocally in the śatapatha brāhmaṇa : "paramannādyaṃ yanmāṃsaṃ" (this meat is the best food). Here's the full quote on the merits of animal sacrifice:

sa yatpaśubandhena yajate ātmānamevaitanniṣkrīṇīte ...
paramannādyaṃ yanmāṃsaṃ sa paramasyaivānnādyasyāttā bhavati taṃ vai saṃvatsaro nānījanamatīyādāyurvai saṃvatsara āyurevaitadamṛtamātmandhatte
"He who thus sacrifices with an animal, redeems himself. This meat is the best food. He becomes the one who eats the best food. Let not a year go without him sacrificing thus - a year of good health. He gives himself immortality and good health."

Now this is from someone who has contributed greatly to logic (neti neti), sciences and philosophy. I'd say his writing in SB (an important exegesis of Yajurveda) is very representative of his time. We can't even presume he'd be poetically vague, and point to something else (what can it be?) while talking about meat - he was a logician after all.

As you might be aware of - there is also the criticism that Yajnavalkya might have written up the major portion of the Satapatha, but there were alos possibly others whose works have grown into it. If we look at the overall connection of Yajnavalkya with animals we have an interesting pattern - in Yajnavalkya's life, animals appear often as containers of and messengers of knowledge. For example the legend of the Taittirya, or the Vajasanyia. In one case humans took the form of birds and ate "knowledge", and in the other - animals took the form of - and - revealed knowledge.

Can we really be that sure that he did not talk in metaphors even when he is talking of the concrete - for example his Aditya stuti in obtaining what goes for the Shukla text? He calls it both the object (spherical/ball) source of warmth/light but also at the same time that which surround everything like "akasha", and who in the form of the atman resides in everything!

Given the repeated metaphorical use of overlaid meanings on the animal-food-knowledge-eating-consumption framework, we should explore the possibility - that he might have meant animals as food in a different context where ritual/symbolism was concerned, without at the same time not denying the possibility that he ate meat in daily life.

Sushupti · Post by **Sushupti** » 23 Feb 2012 03:34

Hindu Concept of "Naam"

http://www.ziddu.com/download/18649602/ ... a.mp3.html

Above audio link (in Hindi) is about Goswami Tulsidas stating his own experience of "Naam" as in Ramcharitmanas.
see page 45-50 for original text with English translation.

http://gitapress.org/BOOKS/1318/1318_Sr ... _Roman.pdf

Further, quoting Rajiv Malhotra below from his book "Being Different: An Indian Challenge to the Western Universalism" to make sense of Hindu (Vedic or Brahamanical) concept of "Naam" Japa for spiritual progress. In Kaliyuga there is no option but to taking recourse to "Naam".

"Upon discovering that vibrations manifest as concrete sounds and objects, the rishis explored ways to return to the source. Numerous meditation systems utilizing mantras were developed, tested and propagated to take the practitioner back to the original state of unity Consciousness.

"Sanskrit thus provides an experimental path back to the source. It can be used as a device to reverse the trajectory of manifestation, starting with human sounds and going back to the source of creation. Suppose we could discover that from a primordial vibration, which we may refer to as A, there came a root sound, B, and that led to a subtle sound, C, which became D. Then we could reverse the path: we could start from D(audible sound) to take our consciousness back via C (subtle sound) and B (the root sound) to reach ,A (the promordial sound). This is the principle of many systems of meditations, tantra, and of various rituals"

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 23 Feb 2012 05:37

^ vaikhari, madhyama, pashyanti, para.

ManishH · Post by **ManishH** » 23 Feb 2012 08:54

Carlji: very valid argument there. B-ji: I see you are looking at a much larger picture than I am - I should read up more on his writing style before drawing a conclusion.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 23 Feb 2012 09:02

Or it need not be his writing but that of his school and parampara. But I am sure you will stop and think on the Tattiryia birds eating up the vomited "food" of the corresponding Vedas. Or why an obvious solar disk becomes all encompassing even at the atman level - and takes the form of a horse/sends a horse to teach Vedas.

He or his school [more likely to be a single individual] is obviously a highly mystical person - who brings himself to enlightenment by using the form of the horse and the experience of the horse in its existence as seen by a man. Its a mystical mind only that will use external living or non-living forms in that way.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 23 Feb 2012 09:14

There will be a great hunger for all things spiritual - starting in the next 10 years. There should be material to feed the hungry.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 05 Mar 2012 01:49

brihaspati wrote:There will be a great hunger for all things spiritual - starting in the next 10 years. There should be material to feed the hungry.

Humanity is about to enter into higher consciousness level. The first sign is in the decline of non spiritual religions as they no longer fulfill the needs of spiritualy inquisitive mind. We see more and more of people now becoming aware of food intake, enviorenment, animals etc. Poverty disappearing in Asia and Africa also moving along. By2030, its going to be a whole new world .

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 05 Mar 2012 01:52

The bible also states that Ishmael, son of Hagar, and his descendants lived in India. "...Ishmael breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his kin... They dwelt from Havilah (India), by Shur, which is close to Egypt, all the way to Asshur." (Genesis 25:17-18.) It is an interesting fact that the names of Isaac and Ishmael are derive from Sanskrit: (Hebrew) Ishaak = (Sanskrit) Ishakhu = "Friend of Shiva." (Hebrew) Ishmael = (Sanskrit) Ish-Mahal = "Great Shiva."
A third mini-version of the Abraham story turns him into another "Noah." We know that a flood drove Abraham out of India. "...Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, Even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor; and they served other gods. And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan." (Joshua 24:2-3.)
Genesis 25 mentions some descendants of his concubine Ketura (Note: The Moslems claim that Ketura is another name of Hagar.): Jokshan; Sheba; Dedan; Epher. Some descendants of Noah were Joktan, Sheba, Dedan, and Ophir. These varying versions have caused me to suspect that the writers of the bible were trying to unite several different branches of Judaism.

About 1900 BC, the cult of Brahm was carried to the Middle and Near East by several different Indian groups after a severe rainfall and earthquake tore Northern India apart, even changing the courses of the Indus and Saraisvati rivers. The classical geographer Strabo tells us just how nearly complete the abandonment of Northwestern India was. "Aristobolus says that when he was sent upon a certain mission in India, he saw a country of more than a thousand cities, together with villages, that had been deserted because the Indus had abandoned its proper bed." (Strabo's Geography, XV.I.19.)

"The drying up of the Sarasvati around 1900 BCE, which led to a major relocation of the population centered around in the Sindhu and the Sarasvati valleys, could have been the event that caused a migration westward from India. It is soon after this time that the Indic element begins to appear all over West Asia, Egypt, and Greece." (Indic Ideas in the Graeco-Roman World, by Subhash Kak, taken from IndiaStar online literary magazine; p.14)

http://www.viewzone.com/abraham2.html

Any idea at what point the worship of Brahma ceased in India. Jews also call their place of worship Temple and there is hardly any temple of Brahma in India though he is mentioned from time to time as a secondary sort of figure. .

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » 05 Mar 2012 04:22

^^^ Also need to note that Ghaggar, Saraswati and Ganga were matriarchs, each had warrior sons. Possible pointer could be that Bhishma was also possibly related to Ikshvaku line and Isaac (Ishakhu- son of Saraswati) could be progenitor of the emigrating Sakas, who retained the memory of their original land and their desire to return in oral tradition.

Is there any probability of Ishakhu being a mis-pronounciation/mis-recording of Ikshvaku? The vowels are in the same places and we know that the emigrating peoples had this habit of dropping compound characters (Ghaggar becomes Hagar with the dropping of the 'gh' and they also replaced 'kshv' with a simple 'sh'). While India proper retained the practice with the compound characters (ottakshara).

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 05 Mar 2012 04:22

it was Bhrigu who cursed Brahma to remain without worship on Earth. it will be interesting to possibly plot the timeline which led to this "curse".

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » 05 Mar 2012 04:41

devesh wrote:it was Bhrigu who cursed Brahma to remain without worship on Earth.

Not the entire earth but only in Bhrigu's domain. Parasurama (descendant of Bhrigu) and Dattatreya had extended domains which were greater in area and overlapped their ancestral domains and Brahma worship was possibly present in these locations for a very long time.

Now what we need is a mapping of those locations, if indeed Parasu is Parsha (lateral direction- Persia, Iran).

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 05 Mar 2012 07:24

I am wary of placing Parasurama in Iran/Persia. it kind of lends credence to AIT. once you turn Parasurama into TFTA Persia, you give a serious boost to AIT. if Parasurama from Persia theory becomes common, even the general public might subconsciously start believing in AIT, which hasn't happened till now. the AIT has been confined to Urban dhimmis and "academic intelligentsia/scholars".

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » 05 Mar 2012 07:44

On the contrary, it actually proves that Out of India migration took place starting from the time the water levels in the Sindhu started rising initially. That explains why the descendants of Bhrigu, Kashyapa and Atri had domains that spread-out and possibly overlapped those of their ancestors (who were based in India proper).

There is a lot that is not known about Parasurama, quite possible that a variant of his name stuck to his adopted land.

Of course, the effort will need to be put in to make sure that interpretations on the line of spurious AIT are not drawn up. The best bet would be to introduce these new concepts in a phased manner in the public domain.

ManishH · Post by **ManishH** » 05 Mar 2012 10:10

Klaus wrote:^^^ Also need to note that Ghaggar, Saraswati and Ganga were matriarchs, each had warrior sons. Possible pointer could be that Bhishma was also possibly related to Ikshvaku line and Isaac (Ishakhu- son of Saraswati) could be progenitor of the emigrating Sakas, who retained the memory of their original land and their desire to return in oral tradition.
...
Is there any probability of Ishakhu being a mis-pronounciation/mis-recording of Ikshvaku?

Isaac in Hebrew means "he laughs". Deriving it from "ikshvaku" is simply untenable. I wouldn't be alarmed if this connection was made as a speculative question. But from the sound of your post, you have proceeded to build a fable upon the hypothesis without first doing due diligence to lookup any Hebrew lexicon. Phonetic connections of any kind aren't made by apparent similarity of sounds; they need semantic corroboration.

Everyone gets carried away once in a while, but this is just part of a wider trend which kind of scares me.

Just curious: what is this research intended for ?

Atri · Post by **Atri** » 05 Mar 2012 12:57

ManishH ji,

As long as west-phalian concept of nation-state exists and as long as AIT is used as a weapon to destabilize Indian dharmik core, give it more westphalian character to prop up regional subidentities and eventually break India, OIT is one of the counter-weapons. There are pretty strong evidences against AIT and those which are given in AIT's favor are quite weak and have been rebutted. I am also yet to see a clinching evidence in favor of OIT but there aren't any one's which are against it either.

AI most probably never happened. There is a continuum of language, practices in India-Iran-Europe. if not for OIT then plausible explanation is that the jaatis living in these lands used to send pupils to India to learn things and implement there. OR few people OR jaatis which went out of India got assimilated with jatis living in anatolia greece etc to give a composite culture with influence of ideas they brought from India.There need not be mass migration out of India. few families at the most..

Vedic literature is collection of memories from times before language was invented. we also have the bird songs etc. it is possible that various jaatis migrated to India and added their memories to existing vedic database. This was not at all a problem prior to westphalianization of India. Thereafter, it is a big deal, because our establishment post 1857 have tied it and used it to engineer coalition of minorities and gain and retain power.

When plans to break Indian dharmik "continuum" are rolled back in karma-tarka-vichara by the plotters only then will "satyameva jayate". Unbiased research will happen only then. Until then, I would wait and watch.

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » 05 Mar 2012 17:50

ManishH wrote:
Isaac in Hebrew means "he laughs". Deriving it from "ikshvaku" is simply untenable. I wouldn't be alarmed if this connection was made as a speculative question. But from the sound of your post, you have proceeded to build a fable upon the hypothesis without first doing due diligence to lookup any Hebrew lexicon. Phonetic connections of any kind aren't made by apparent similarity of sounds; they need semantic corroboration.

Everyone gets carried away once in a while, but this is just part of a wider trend which kind of scares me.

It was part-speculation- the portion related to deriving words or dropping compound consonants, I wanted pointers on whether any semantic studies are being done in this regard. I'll even accept the charge of being carried away once in a while, why does it scare you? And there is no trend as such, even today the mainstream is in the process of making movies based on the AIT such as "Shudra".

BTW, are there any pointers to the study of rapid deterioration of language (in terms of total vocabulary) in the aftermath of widespread natural disasters. I'm asking because that is one of my objectives.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 05 Mar 2012 22:50

Klaus ji,
there is an interim possibility : sometimes words/names are adopted in a "native" language out of cultural influence of another. These would take the form of the closest phonetic word in the native to the word culturally significant in the other. This happened a lot with the Abrahamic. Many of their significant names appears to have been heavily influenced by names/words in dominant cultures they faced or were influenced by - including - Mose.

So phonetic similarities may indeed be clues to adoption or external cultural influences, even if later or concurrent issues of pride give different root meanings as origins.

member_20317 · Post by **member_20317** » 05 Mar 2012 23:42

Klaus wrote:
devesh wrote:it was Bhrigu who cursed Brahma to remain without worship on Earth.
Not the entire earth but only in Bhrigu's domain. Parasurama (descendant of Bhrigu) and Dattatreya had extended domains which were greater in area and overlapped their ancestral domains and Brahma worship was possibly present in these locations for a very long time.

Now what we need is a mapping of those locations, if indeed Parasu is Parsha (lateral direction- Persia, Iran).

devesh wrote:I am wary of placing Parasurama in Iran/Persia. it kind of lends credence to AIT. once you turn Parasurama into TFTA Persia, you give a serious boost to AIT. if Parasurama from Persia theory becomes common, even the general public might subconsciously start believing in AIT, which hasn't happened till now. the AIT has been confined to Urban dhimmis and "academic intelligentsia/scholars".

Following is from wiki. I suspect you people have seen this but for some reason are ignoring it.

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

Haihaya-Kshatriya Background
It appears that the Haihayas may have been enemies and at war with several groups including other Kshatriyas. For example the Haihayas sacked Kashi during the reigns of King Haryaswa and King Sudeva ...All these kings were born in the Solar Dynasty and the Haihayas were a Lunar Dynasty.

The hostile Haihaya King Kartavirya Arjuna defeated the Nāga Kshatiryas ... Kartavirya made Mahishmati (present day Maheshwar) the capital of his own kingdom.

According to numerous Puranas, the military corporations of the Shakas, Yavanas, Kambojas, Pahlavas and Paradas, known as five hordes (pānca-ganah), had militarily supported the Haihaya and Talajunga Kshatriyas in depriving Ikshvaku King Bahu (the 7th king in descent from Harishchandra) of his Ayodhya kingdom.

Further on wiki gives the Haihaya Kingdom as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heheya_Kingdom, and mentions one Sage Sumitra (Son of Mithra)

Now I don't know much but seems hard to put Parshuram in Persia.

Would be indebted if some more links or readings are provided.

Also http://www.veda.harekrsna.cz/connection ... ahmins.php has something along the lines that you guys was discussing about Ikshvaku lineage.

member_20317 · Post by **member_20317** » 05 Mar 2012 23:49

Klaus ji, pls excuse having posted the above without having seen your post at 17:50 "It was part-speculation- the portion related to deriving words or dropping compound consonants, I wanted pointers on whether any semantic studies are being done in this regard. I'll even accept the charge of being carried away once in a while".

But I suggest we let my post remain as such. What you speculate upon in jest is actually quite serious for some and my post can bring in new data points into Ikshavaku->Issac.

ManishH · Post by **ManishH** » 06 Mar 2012 09:09

Klaus wrote: It was part-speculation- the portion related to deriving words or dropping compound consonants, I wanted pointers on whether any semantic studies are being done in this regard. I'll even accept the charge of being carried away once in a while, why does it scare you? And there is no trend as such, even today the mainstream is in the process of making movies based on the AIT such as "Shudra".

I'm not saying I'm scared of you personally. More scared of the trend of revisionism - science bent to suit ideology. That includes the "Shudra" movie (in distorted history thread).

If you are interested in semantic and phonological study of the -kṣ- consonant cluster, it has an interesting history. The Sanskrit -kṣ- clusters themselves developed out of older forms called Thorn Clusters. Sanskrit has a particular affinity to these as a lot of sandhi rules use -kṣu to dissimlate eg. the locative plural (-ṣu) case ending. Prakrit and later languages typically convert them into a -kh- or -kk- form.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 06 Mar 2012 09:17

ManishH, Read this:

http://www.hindu.com/2007/06/04/stories ... 170100.htm

Telugu words in Hebrew.

CHENNAI: In a path-breaking revelation, a young research scholar of Potti Sriramulu Telugu University has come out with recorded evidence linking Telugus and Israelis on the basis of Telugu words found in Hebrew literature.

The disclosure was made by Samyuktha Koonaiah in her presentation at a seminar on `Telugu History and Culture' on the concluding day of the three-day All India Telugu Conference here on Sunday. She quoted epigraphic evidence traced from Bahrain in support of her argument.

Ms. Samyuktha, who is doing her research on `Andhra Pradesh - The missing link - Tilmun language and Telugu', said a 1794 BC stone tablet established that the Sumerian-Assyrian culture had its roots in Andhra Pradesh.

Interesting revelations

In fact, an article titled `The Seafaring Merchants of Ur' published in the American Oriental Society in1954 by A. L. Oppenheim contains several Telugu words to prove that Abraham migrated from the `land of darkness', the `Andhaka Desa' as the Andhra region was known in the past, she said.

Research findings suggest that `Barbar' or `Barbaras', a native tribe living in the south of the Vindhyas was a common name in Assyrian culture. An earliest instance of calling children `Bullutu' was similar to that of the Telugu usage Bulli, Bullodu etc, she said. Another `provincial spelling' in Telmun literature and references to Sumero-Akkadian vocabularies contain this sentence `ni imta ha-is' similar to that of `nee intiki vachchi' (come to my home).

Letter on tablet

A stone tablet also contained a letter from a seafarer to a local trader demanding to know why he did not sell a particular commodity at a price agreed upon and why it was not weighed properly too.

Old Babylonian legal documents which were unearthed by archaeologists contain evidence of this letter belonging to one member of the Guild of Dilmun, Ea-Nasir. One of its lines when pronounced in Telugu becomes "ayya adhi annakimmani, tusi (tuchi) immani, maaki antundhi" (something to the effect `I have asked you to give it to my brother after weighing'. It was a deal about copper ingots.

Telling proof

Quoting several such examples Ms. Samyuktha said there was sufficient proof to link those Sumerian cultures with the Telugus. Hebrew, Sumerian and Assyrian records abound in such descriptions and suggest that the present Israelis belonged to Andhra Pradesh.

Ms. Samyuktha argues that Kamakur village in Balayapalli mandal of Nellore district still has 21 Jewish families. Only they are not even aware that they are Jews. She is one among them and her first name Kooniah could be found in Hebrew as Koni, she says.

She has a website. Will try to post it.

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

Added

Telmun language

ManishH · Post by **ManishH** » 06 Mar 2012 10:16

It's not really path breaking - connections between Dravidian languages and Elamite, Sumerian etc. are quite well known - but the article takes a massive leap of faith to Hebrew too. The lone Hebrew connection the article provides is between Hebrew Coney (Heb. shaphan; i.e., "the hider", an animal which inhabits the mountain gorges and the rocky districts of Arabia Petraea) on one hand and Koonaiah (I think -aiah means sir or elder brotherly figure) with no semantic connection provided at all; which I'd expect to be some sort of rodent or the act of hiding itself. Just compare this lose speculation to real rigour - the case of mouse and sanskrit mūṣ.

I don't know about the veracity of her other connections but what flags out as irregular speculation right away is 'barbara'. This word is well understood to have originally meant to refer to outsiders - people who have improper speech.

Any links to peer reviewed research most welcome.

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 06 Mar 2012 10:33

ManishH wrote:I don't know about the veracity of her other connections but what flags out as irregular speculation right away is 'barbara'. This word is well understood to have originally meant to refer to outsiders - people who have improper speech.

ManishH ji, the Andhras seem to have been regularly cursed as uncivilized outsiders to Vedic culture in several Vedic texts upto a certain point in history. They were counted in the same ranks as other fallen races such as Hunas, Turushkas, etc. So perhaps 'barbara' is applicable to Andhra at some point in history.

I wonder why Telugus were considered a fallen race by Vedic society at one time, and what caused the turnaround to make Gults a bastion of Dharma!

ManishH · Post by **ManishH** » 06 Mar 2012 10:44

Exactly - 'barbara' is an exonym - not something they called themselves. This goes against the loose logic being advanced by the quoted article that Assyrians have a proper name that sounds like Barbara and there was a name for people of modern Andhra by same name. Therefore Assyrians and a bunch of others in west asia are out of Andhra.

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 06 Mar 2012 11:41

ManishH wrote:Exactly - 'barbara' is an exonym - not something they called themselves.

What about the Berbers of N. Africa? They were called so by the Greeks/Romans, but they call themselves by the same word. Same case with "Hindu", incidentally. In many cases amongst Turks and Iranians, "Hindu" was used as a racial slur.

ManishH · Post by **ManishH** » 06 Mar 2012 13:44

Exonyms can stick as in case of Berbers. But do we have Telugu literature or oral text calling themselves Barbar ?

ManuT · Post by **ManuT** » 07 Mar 2012 02:51

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Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 07 Mar 2012 09:13

ManishH wrote:Exonyms can stick as in case of Berbers. But do we have Telugu literature or oral text calling themselves Barbar ?

One could say that was way back, before they became Vedicized, so its probably lost.

member_22286 · Post by **member_22286** » 07 Mar 2012 09:20

Carl wrote:
ManishH wrote:I don't know about the veracity of her other connections but what flags out as irregular speculation right away is 'barbara'. This word is well understood to have originally meant to refer to outsiders - people who have improper speech.
ManishH ji, the Andhras seem to have been regularly cursed as uncivilized outsiders to Vedic culture in several Vedic texts upto a certain point in history. They were counted in the same ranks as other fallen races such as Hunas, Turushkas, etc. So perhaps 'barbara' is applicable to Andhra at some point in history.

I wonder why Telugus were considered a fallen race by Vedic society at one time, and what caused the turnaround to make Gults a bastion of Dharma!

Sir ,Majority of Gults barring Brahmins have roots in Dravidian roots and mostly descended from the native tribes of South-India

ManishH · Post by **ManishH** » 07 Mar 2012 10:15

Very very unlikely that 'Barbar' name was before they came into contact with vedic culture. Bharat Muni's Natyashastra mentions the Barbara tribe in modern AP spoke a non-vedic language.

It's very likely a name was coined only after they became proximate to vedic culture. Eg. In Megasthenes' Indika, there is mention of another unrelated tribe near Oxus river which is again named 'Barbar' neighbouring tribes called Tukhara (Tokharians), Palhava etc. One can safely say, this name was variously given to tribes that come into contact with people speaking IE languages.

I speak only Kannada in Dravidian languages; no Telugu; so cannot say with authority. But given that Dravidian is very very rich in its own set of echo words like kala-kala tapa-tapa; it's very very irregular why a hypothetical dravidian word like 'barabara' hasn't survived in Dravidian lexicon today.

ManishH · Post by **ManishH** » 07 Mar 2012 10:49

Ashok Gottipati wrote: Sir ,Majority of Gults barring Brahmins have roots in Dravidian roots and mostly descended from the native tribes of South-India

What do you mean "barring Brahmins" ? It's not like Brahmins of south are non-native. There is no major genetic difference between Brahmins versus others. Whatever minor differences in physical appearance may occur are due to dietary practices, lifestyle and long periods of endogamy. Please do not make a special category for Brahmins unless you have scientific data to back such claims. Once you attribute differences to "origins", road is open to scaremongering like "Brahminism", "Aryan Invasion" etc.

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 07 Mar 2012 10:55

Ashok Gottipati wrote:
Sir ,Majority of Gults barring Brahmins have roots in Dravidian roots and mostly descended from the native tribes of South-India

so the brahmins are "invaders" now? do you have genetic studies to prove that South Indian brahmins (all of them) are "separate" from "non-brahmins"? also, do you have proof that "non-brahmins" are all the same? what if the many non-brahmin castes have similarities with brahmins and dissimilarities with actually forest tribes/adivasis of South? show me a genetic study that has samples from EVERY community of brahmins and EVERY community of non-brahmins and finds that there is "difference". if you can do this conclusively, I will submit that "brahmins" are all "foreign" to south India. one of your first posts, you derisively named "brahmins" "stupid". now the "brahmin" is an "invader". the next time I see this nonsense from you, I'm reporting you. I find your constant casteist drivel offensive. for a while I thought, we all have our emotional backgrounds, but this constant conspiracy mongering and name calling is grating.

I find it offensive on a personal level because I have examined my own family background going back to the late 18th century and there are records with the various family branches proving that our family belonged to the region we currently reside in (Telangana). we suffered the same atrocities in the hands of the Islamics just as all the other non-brahmin Hindus of Nizam territories. the brahmins fates went up and down just as all the other non-brahmin Hindus during the centuries of Islamic rule. the "brahmins" took equal part in the struggle against Razakars as non-brahmins. go to warangal and karimnagar districts and subtly explore how the Razakars had "special love" for brahmins during the bloody struggle. it wasn't just non-brahmin women who were targeted by the Razakars. in the towns and tehsils, where brahmins were concentrated, roving bands were dispatched specially to target "brahmin" women.

until 60 years ago, to get a govt job, applicants of brahmin background in Nizam areas were forced to "profess allegiance to Urdu". the official rule was that every govt employee had to know Urdu. but many didn't and the Nizam officials didn't bother with strict enforcement. but that was not the case with brahmins. they had to pass an Urdu examination and forced to humiliatingly profess "allegiance to Urdu" and "forsaking of sanskrit". go visit some of the older generation brahmins in Telangana and you will see a burning hatred that will come to the surface when such things are reminded. my own grandfather made it a point to never continue that practice. he did not teach his daughter Urdu. and during my 12 years of growing up with him, he made sure to never put me on that path. he used to say, enough humiliation has been served for several generations to come.

one of the reasons why Telangana brahmins never faced any "peoples' movement" against them is because they have developed a very friendly camaraderie with non-brahmins. during the heights of the Naxal movement, they weren't demonizing and rebelling against the "brahmins". instead they were rebelling against their fellow "shudra" cohorts. the Naxals targeted not the brahmins (who had no power of any sort), but those people who have long established traditions from the "shudra" background. in AP, for centuries now, the most powerful classes have been the non-brahmin/non-peasant/non-labor classes. and these classes are not the bastion of "brahmins". on the contrary, they are the bastions of the "shudras". so before you start spewing your nonsense about "stupid invaders", I suggest you take a very good look at the record of "shudras" oppressing their fellow "shudras".

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 07 Mar 2012 11:32

ManishH wrote:Very very unlikely that 'Barbar' name was before they came into contact with vedic culture. Bharat Muni's Natyashastra mentions the Barbara tribe in modern AP spoke a non-vedic language.

So then there was a tribe called Barbara at one time in the Andhra area. So then why is it implausible that they took that with them if they went elsewhere such as the Middle East? Later on, when they became Vedicized, they dropped the "Barbara" label. E.g., the area and tribes of Kafiristan in Afghanistan are now called Nooristanis after they were converted and became enthusiastic Islamists. But before that they would have called themselves Kafirs and Kafiristanis if they were to travel outside their province. Inculturation-> name change.

rahulm · Post by **rahulm** » 07 Mar 2012 11:56

I think Stephen Oppenheimer proved there was no AIT in The peopling of the world