Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[partha]

Tocharian alphabet. What is "European" about this extinct "indo-European" language.

Some of the letters resemble their Kannada counterparts don't you think?

[Virupaksha]

many of the letters resemble either telugu/kannada script or in some cases the devnagari.

[brihaspati]

ManishH ji,
its getting interesting, but unfortunately you can readily pick material from pre-existing - while I have to analyze and cross check. Moreover, early summer is the busiest time for us.

But it strikes me that you went into Greek to find a supposed counter-example. Pel/s - if you meant mud/earth/soil/dirt sense - need not be derived from "carati" if they already had loaned the word directly with little or no change in interpretation from Sanskrit version. The pre-existing word would block overloading of the same word with "motion/drive".

However there is a Latin one - "peliere" which seems to fit the bill perfectly - including the potential shift of terminal "t". Greek word for motion - kineo - with a possible original barebones k-n, is not entirely removed in phonetic movement from ch-r

[ManishH]

Some of the letters resemble their Kannada counterparts don't you think?

Tocharian was written in a brahmi-derived alphabet. The writing system of a language often doesn't point to it's origins.

Eg. first inscriptions of Latin are found in Etruscan alphabet; the alphabet was developed by original inhabitants who spoke a non-IE language.

[ManishH]

Sorry, cannot put up with this junk!

tyrone, I bear you no ill-will, because some of your invective is due to genuine anger or maybe Griffith's mistranslation. I'll explain below using independently verifiable means ...

Again, we will use non-Indians (Griffith) to tell us what is truth:

Rig Veda - 1.174.3

अजा वर्त इन्द्र शूरपत्नीर्द्यां च येभिः पुरुहूत नूनम |
रक्षो अग्निमशुषं तूर्वयाणं सिंहो न दमे अपांसि वस्तोः ||

With whom thou drivest troops whose lords are heroes, and bringest daylight now, much worshipped Indra,
With them guard lion-like wasting active Agni to dwell in our tilled fields and in our homestead.

When translating RV, always use padapāṭha.
aja | vṛtaḥ | indra | śūra-patnīḥ | dyām | ca | yebhiḥ | puru-hūta | nūnam
rakṣaḥ | agnim | aśuṣam | tūrvayāṇam | siṃhaḥ | na | dame | apāṃsi | vastoḥ

Griffith has wrongly translated 'apāṃsi' as tilled fields.

apāṃsi is nominative plural of root अपस् which means working or active
See dictionary meaning
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philol ... :2822.apte
and declension
http://sanskrit.inria.fr/cgi-bin/SKT/sk ... %232;g=Neu

'dame' is locative singular of 'dam' (home) related to latin domus.

Griffith does translate 'vastoḥ' correctly to dwell. So the correct translation of the 2nd pāda should be:

"Save our rapid and consuming fire like a lion and dwell in our home doing your works"

rapid = tūrvayāṇam
consuming = aśuṣam (http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philol ... 1:361.apte)

I'm also including excerpt from a scanned book of a hindi translation by a qualified pandit which does not mention "tilled fields". If you do not read hindi, let me know or ask anyone you trust ....



Regarding homestead etc, the word used in original is 'दम्' or 'गृह' both of which are dwellings, not necessarily perennially or sedentarily inhabited. A perennial inhabitation of that sort would automatically result in names of kingdoms, cities or states. All of which is very scarce in RgVeda.

[member_20317]

In that period, large-scale cattle rearing required one to be on the move - searching from one grassland to another. A large herd of cattle will erode a grassland in no time. A mobile lifestyle gives an edge in terms of survivability against adverse weather.

Horse domestication is said to have aided the 'scaling up'. One or two mounted riders with the aid of guard dogs can herd even 100s of cattle. Without a mount, the same will need a handful of herders.

tyroneshoes ji is already on fire . But Manish ji I too find something is wrong. You are using the western methodologies of animal husbandry to Indian settings. Pray tell me where in India have you seen our cow herders taking cows for grazing on grass lands? how many grass lands do we have that one needs to be on the move even if one accepts your arguments that herding on grass lands needs one to be on the move?

secondly, guard dogs? no idea when domestication of dogs started but, even if we assume for a second that dog domestication was in full swing, how many Indian cow herders have you seen with guard dogs?

if you are looking for grasslands and guard dogs in Indian context you wont find any in India.

Minor technical correction here. Gives the impression that Indian don’t use guard dogs at all. But that is not what should be understood.

Even today we have goat & sheep herders from Rajasthan coming as far as the outskirts of NOIDA and they don’t have guard dogs.

But in the Himalayas herders did use a guard dog. They called it Bhotia. Apparently there are more then one variety with that designation and though I have never seen one myself but my friend who has confirms that the link below provides the right details about these dogs.

http://www.himalayandog.com/BreedStandards.htm

Anyhow you still need to understand that grazing grounds are not exactly == grazing grouds in plains.

Herders in mountains require many times the effort for much less nutrition for their animals.

Also equally importantly a much larger number of cattle are not moved around in herds with basically every house owning a small number of cattle but the village owning much bigger numbers. These cattle are just let out to graze in the areas near the villages with the the nutrition of the cattle supplemented by the women folk going out to the forest to collect fodder. Pretty much the same scene all across the Himalayan region and even in the plains it is the same, suggesting that animal husbandry traditions of the Himalayan belt is in sync with the ones in the plains of India and nothing to do with Uropains.

[ManishH]

Some facts regarding guard dogs in RgVeda, it is good to read the RgVedic legend of
पणि (hoarders) who capture cows, and indra uses सरमा (a bitch) to recover the cows. Then सरमा's two offspring later also guard the netherworld (यमा's abode).

The whole story is using similies to give a spiritual message, but similies come from real life episodes.

Dogs have been always considered useful and good creatures in veda (as well as other IE cultures). Names like śūnaḥśepa, śaunaka etc point to that.

See an old and useful paper "The Dog in the Rig-Veda" Edward Washburn Hopkins
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/288140

[Sanku]

A stray reference to a guard dog in divine circumstances does not imply any sort "public or secular" behavior w.r.t. guard dogs. Let alone any indication of "horse men with guard dogs and large bodies of cattle"

There is too much of making up happening here. To much of creative reinterpretation and too much extrapolation.

The only reason this is allowed to exist is because this is in interest of those how hold power, not because of any inherent correctness of logical or scholarly value.

[ManishH]

These cattle are just let out to graze in the areas near the villages with the the nutrition of the cattle supplemented by the women folk going out to the forest to collect fodder.

But we need to read RgVeda to figure out how cows were fed. I searched for any instance of "womenfolk feeding cows"; but couldn't find any. However if you search for these synonyms of grasslands and pasture : गव्यूति or सुयवस, you'll find plenty ...

A blessing wishing for good pastures for cows :
RV_01.164.40.1{21} sūyavasād bhagavatī hi bhūyā atho vayaṃ bhagavantaḥ syāma
RV_01.164.40.2{21} addhi tṛṇamaghnye viśvadānīṃ piba śuddhamudakamācarantī

A prayer to indra seeking his help like a cow and calf seek help of the pasture :
RV_02.016.08.1{18} purā sambādhādabhyā vavṛtsva no dhenurna vatsaṃ yavasasya pipyuṣī<BR>
RV_02.016.08.2{18} sakṛt su te sumatibhiḥ śatakrato saṃ patnībhirna vṛṣaṇo nasīmahi<BR>

A prayer to indra-varuna to reward our prayers like cows who have fed on a pasture reward us with milk ...
RV_04.041.05.2 sā no duhīyad yavaseva gatvī sahasradhārā payasā mahī gauḥ<BR>
RV_04.041.06.1 toke hite tanaya urvarāsu sūro dṛśīke vṛṣaṇaś ca pauṃsye<BR>

For now, just included three out of scores of instances.

[tyroneshoes]

ManishH,

Saar I mean no ill will to you either, just your ideas
Welcome to debating in the Dharma framework - there are consequences!

You still have not answered how one ranches large numbers of cattle heads,
while migrating across the grass plains....
Free ranging works only with support (stealing) from other sedentary ranchers.

If you make the assumption that Rig Veda is a "poem or ballad" then you get
the conclusions you are making. If you see it as a ritual, a sacrifice, etc. then you realize that one cannot keep moving and maintaining the family fire, etc.

I chose Griffith, exactly for what you immediately picked on...
Neither you nor the aforementioned seemed to understand context.
Much less the Hindi Pandit - that verse is talking about saving household fire!
अपांसि वस्तोः -> Sacrificial Work House

You seem to be reciting Linguistics and Grammar as the world (Aryan/Dravidian madness) collapses all around you....

Even with the corrected (incorrect context): "Save our rapid and consuming fire like a lion and dwell in our home doing your works"

Yenak Hindi nallave terium - your Pandit needs some help:

Perhaps, I am not reading the hindi due to resoluton and old age, but -
Why the heck is Indra going to the cities (nagariyo in your hindi text?) of rakshashas? Why is he going to Swarga (Heaven)? Where did the Pandit get this translation from the verse in the Rig Veda? Was it because he understood (or misunderstood) context? Also, if there are cities - which you mentioned there are not, then what does that mean?

Gruha (is house where I live) and Dama (is house where I live)...
I guess then Grishtaya means "Dwelling life" not "Householder life" and nomadic roaming....

Kingdoms and states are not mentioned as they are not concepts in the framework of the Rig Vedic life. Pura is a city and occurs multiple times in the Rig. Now, Purandara is one who breaks them cities, so I guess that worked out as well.

[member_20317]

So graha requires a proof of its regular usage, when graha is what one lives in even today.

But

sarama (a bitch) is the normal part of herders life of RV people, even when it is not actually done.

RV people require a poetic license from a linguist.


Also

ManishHji from the link you provided, only the second page.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/288140?seq=2

A lullaby from Rig-Veda which shows on how familiar a footing stood the dog:

Sleep the mother, sleep the father,
Sleep the dog and sleep the master,
Sleep may all the blood-relations,
Sleep the people round about!1

I wonder why the dog in herd duty was not included but the dog that finds mention was the one that lives around the place that looks like at least a village or could even be a large hamlet?

[tyroneshoes]

But we need to read RgVeda to figure out how cows were fed. I searched for any instance of "womenfolk feeding cows"; but couldn't find any. However if you search for these synonyms of grasslands and pasture : गव्यूति or सुयवस, you'll find plenty ...

Show us proof that there were not Graha and Damas where one lived and sent cows out to pastures....? Where is the proof that they were nomadic?

I can see ranchers and conflict with cattle stealer who were free grazers....

Also, is not suyavasad - an adj "eating good grass" when did it become a noun?
I could be wrong on this, will need to check this one out....

[tyroneshoes]

पणि (hoarders) who capture cows, and indra uses सरमा (a bitch) to recover the cows. Then सरमा's two offspring later also guard the netherworld (यमा's abode).

Sarama and Pani are important in the Rig Veda. For all we know Sarama was a mercenary that refused to be tempted by the Panis and therefore Devashuni (bitch of the Gods). Could be even worse, but I will not indulge in sexual innuendo a la Doniger. The Panis were traders (not hoarders) from what I gather. The Panis did not perform Yagnas and they were considered arrogant and haughty. They are called Dasyus as well from what I remember. My humble opinion - this indicates a conflict between settled ranchers and traders who brought in goods from abroad. The Panis were also money lenders and made the relationship all the more testy!

If I am rancher performing my sacrifices and am harassed by free grazers through merchants who are confiscating or stealing my cattle, who I need to defend against, and hate the money lender (Panis) who bring me goods from abroad and make me even more indebted... I sing songs of my hero Indra's valor in kicking the Panis and Ashuras *ss and drinking soma - heck is this not Asterix/Obelix (celts with magic potions - soma) versus Romans

This is a much simpler explanation than the complex migration, brownian motion, etc. race, skin color theories I have read so far!

[ManishH]

I see nothing 'dharmic' in invective, however it's your choice ...

You still have not answered how one ranches large numbers of cattle heads,
while migrating across the grass plains....

You are demolishing strawmen - migration is not a word that I used in this context. This thread of thought started when someone claimed that "creativity of RgVeda requires a sedentary lifestyle". Which I'm rebutting saying that RgVeda lifestyle is more mobile than sedentary. Please see the original context by browsing past pages.

Perhaps, I am not reading the hindi due to resoluton and old age, but -
Why the heck is Indra going to the cities (nagariyo in your hindi text?)

The learned paṇḍit has mistranslated 'puru-hūta' to 'nagariyon', believing it to come from 'pur'. Whereas it means 'much-worshipped' (here Griffith is right).

'puru' = many (http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philol ... :4537.apte)
'hūta' = past-participle of 'hu' (to offer oblation) - same root as noun 'havi' (offering).

If you are interested to probe deeper, I can point you to many examples of prefix 'puru' + participle.

Kingdoms and states are not mentioned as they are not concepts in the framework of the Rig Vedic life.

Plenty of "kings" (राजन्) are mentioned but no place names. If the society is truly sedentary, they'd have names for places they delve in. A truly sedentary people will have some name for their village/hamlet however small it is. It strikes me that they name rivers, but not their hamlets.

Pura is a city and occurs multiple times in the Rig. Now, Purandara is one who breaks them cities, so I guess that worked out as well.

A translation of vedic 'pur' to city, is redux to colonial era people like M. Wheeler to somehow allege that Harrappan cities were destroyed by invading aryans. This interpretation has been discredited is no longer considered true.

A 'pur' implies rampart or stronghold in RgVeda. See:
chap 13 "The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective" By Gregory L. Possehl
and Erdosy, George. 1994. “The meaning of Rgvedic pur :Notes on the Vedic landscape"

Please, you yourself are using invasionist terminology which is long discredited in modern scholarship. Neither do I believe that 'aryans' were a marauding 'city-destroying' people.

[member_20317]

ManishH ji, RV is a collection of hymns.

How many hymns whether in India or outside, after RV mention any name for whatever village. Bethleham, Nazareth perhaps but come on hardly a benchmark.

What proportion of movie songs, a much much bigger body of work, mention any name for any village or city.

Sir ji, point is orbiter dicta cannot replace the ratio. Village names etc are orbiter dicta the ratio remains the one who is worshiped. RV may at best provide a generalist view of what could have been not a particular view of what was, or in the case of your arguments what was not.

[RajeshA]

How many hymns whether in India or outside, after RV mention any name for whatever village. Bethleham, Nazareth perhaps but come on hardly a benchmark.

OT ..
Actually there is no mention of Nazareth anywhere in the Bible. The city today known as Nazareth came into being a full 4 centuries after Jesus.

The translation was wrong, it is not "Jesus of Nazareth", rather "Jesus of the Nazarenes", Nazarenes being an early Christian sect, some say a sect of Jews, which had an extremely Buddhist inclination.

Anyway ...

[Sanku]

Plenty of "kings" (राजन्) are mentioned but no place names. If the society is truly sedentary, they'd have names for places they delve in. A truly sedentary people will have some name for their village/hamlet however small it is. It strikes me that they name rivers, but not their hamlets.
.

These are major assumptions. Till today, our family is sung about (over a period of 700 years) with their family name, what are mentioned are regions which they conquered, or settled. Rarely even the village name or house name or what ever name.

Sure they had migrated around over last 700 years, but they were not Nomadic, the migrations were due to winning or moving to a newly constructed stronghold in a region.

Such assumptions are completely arbitrary and totally at variance with observed Indian practices.

[shiv]

Some of the letters resemble their Kannada counterparts don't you think?

Tocharian was written in a brahmi-derived alphabet. The writing system of a language often doesn't point to it's origins.

The area had Buddhism as a religion. They used the Brahmi script. The only translated script that has been found is the Tocharian language translated to Turkish via Sanskrit.

However one single grave with the remains of a fair haired human was enough to create the missing link between Europe and India. And there seems to be great certainty about how Tocharians pronounced their words and whether the tongue used to touch the back of the palate or the front while making certain sounds. In a language whose phonetics have been surmised via second-hand double translated information centuries after the last speaker died. For all these reasons any conclusions reached about phonetics is as much GIGO as conclusions about origins of the language.

The standards that have been applied are less than rigorous.

But if innuendo is used in science how about "Brahmi script", Dravidian like SOV language, Buddhist religion - guess where these people got their cultural connections from? Oh of course it's not proof. It's merely innuendo. But the lack of proof is no worse than the available proof for the "phonetics" that are bandied about. There is not even any proof that the people called themselves "Tocharian".

[shiv]

Plenty of "kings" (राजन्) are mentioned but no place names. If the society is truly sedentary, they'd have names for places they delve in. A truly sedentary people will have some name for their village/hamlet however small it is. It strikes me that they name rivers, but not their hamlets.

Manishji, I studied in an avowedly Anglican "Public school" in which we sang the following hymns on various days of the week all year round. These and many more hymns were mostly composed in England in the last 200 years by a pastoral people who sing the praises of their Lord. No place names are mentioned just like the Rig Veda. Clearly life in the British Isles 200 years ago was pastoral. Poets/bards are indeed good a maintaining a true picture of their environment.

1.Through all the changing scenes of life
2.Oh God our help in ages past
3.Praise My soul the King of heaven
4.All things bright and beautiful
5.The old rugged cross

[shiv]

You are demolishing strawmen - migration is not a word that I used in this context. This thread of thought started when someone claimed that "creativity of RgVeda requires a sedentary lifestyle". Which I'm rebutting saying that RgVeda lifestyle is more mobile than sedentary. Please see the original context by browsing past pages.

Sorry sir. You are creating a strawman. No one claimed that the creativity of the Rig Veda demanded a sedentary lifestyle. However I claimed that carpentry to make chariot demanded settlements rather than a pastoral, constantly migrating lifestyle.

[Gus]

In that period, large-scale cattle rearing required one to be on the move - searching from one grassland to another. A large herd of cattle will erode a grassland in no time. A mobile lifestyle gives an edge in terms of survivability against adverse weather.
...

Not really. I have personally observed about a 100 cattle herded by one teenager. He was a 'oorali' (a 'tribal' in the area of Sathyamangalam, Kallipatti etc). I went with him to the mountains one day and he easily managed the herd. The herd also had a 'head bull' and the rest followed this guy who lead them out and back into the pen ('patti' in Tamil). The cattle grazed in areas that are a couple of hours walk and never needed to go anywhere else (that is 'migrate' to entirely new lands).

[ManishH]

Sorry sir. You are creating a strawman. No one claimed that the creativity of the Rig Veda demanded a sedentary lifestyle. However I claimed that carpentry to make chariot demanded settlements rather than a pastoral, constantly migrating lifestyle.

Shiv: I was referring to this post of yours ...
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 7#p1286447

[ManishH]

ManishH ji, RV is a collection of hymns.

How many hymns whether in India or outside, after RV mention any name for whatever village. Bethleham, Nazareth perhaps but come on hardly a benchmark.

A purely religious hymn may not mention place names. But as you are aware, many hymns are also addressed to kings like Sudās, Divodāsa, Bhavya, Mandhatar, Rnancaya, Daivavat, Prastoka etc. And none mention the name of their domain.

Whereas later works like Brhadarnyaka Upanishad, Satapatha Brahmana and Chandogya upanishad mention place names like Mithila, Videha, Panchala etc. Because by the time of latters' composition, people had started living a more settled life and naming their places, not only natural features, like the Vedas do.

[ManishH]

Manishji, I studied in an avowedly Anglican "Public school" in which we sang the following hymns on various days of the week all year round.

shivji: a fairer comparison will be to take a secular hymn from another culture; esp. one that mentions kings. I think domains are often mentioned.

I believe kings like Sudās and Divodāsa and the 10-kings battle is a significant civilizational importance. It strikes me that names of their domains are not mentioned in RgVeda.

Since you have picked hymns from a totally different era from RgVeda, I too have freedom to pick a hymn from different era to illustrate my point.

Eg take the saga of Beowulf - which mention place names.

[shiv]

Whereas later works like Brhadarnyaka Upanishad, Satapatha Brahmana and Chandogya upanishad mention place names like Mithila, Videha, Panchala etc. Because by the time of latters' composition, people had started living a more settled life and naming their places, not only natural features, like the Vedas do.

The people who composed those hymns were also different so the conclusion is not valid.

[Sanku]

ManishH ji, RV is a collection of hymns.

How many hymns whether in India or outside, after RV mention any name for whatever village. Bethleham, Nazareth perhaps but come on hardly a benchmark.

A purely religious hymn may not mention place names. But as you are aware, many hymns are also addressed to kings like Sudās, Divodāsa, Bhavya, Mandhatar, Rnancaya, Daivavat, Prastoka etc. And none mention the name of their domain.

Whereas later works like Brhadarnyaka Upanishad, Satapatha Brahmana and Chandogya upanishad mention place names like Mithila, Videha, Panchala etc. Because by the time of latters' composition, people had started living a more settled life and naming their places, not only natural features, like the Vedas do.

ManishH ji, with all due respect, this is called making things up.

0) What is "more settled life" ? This is a inexact statement. A huge hole in which anything can be slipped through.
1) No one can show that the Rik Veda (let alone all the vedas) were composed by people who had less settled life (what ever less means)
2) No one has the dating of the Veda's; no one knows if all the Veda's were composed strictly before the Upanishads, or was some in parallel development going on.
3) No one can show the absence of place names has any remote bearing on settled life (in fact counter examples have been given even today)
4) No one can show that purposes of Rik Veda and other texts were same originally (or even now) so same type of texts show names in one but not the other. On the contrary that the Vedas and the other texts are DIFFERENT TYPE of texts are well attested. In that case any expectation to see similar patter w.r.t. place names is FUTILE.
5) Even assuming 1-4 is not valid, why for Soma's sake would a people who can name a region, a area and a geography not name their "grazing fields?" have they talked about grazing fields? No they dont. Have they talked of migration or routes around which they perambulate for fodder? No they dont? What kind of idiots do you take them to be? That they can name the entire geography of North India but dont mention their own routes?

Given the mass of open and contrary logical arguments --> it is making up the past to claim "Because by the time of latters' composition, people had started living a more settled life and naming their places,"

I know you mean well, but seriously this is truly into la la land now.

[Sanku]

Whereas later works like Brhadarnyaka Upanishad, Satapatha Brahmana and Chandogya upanishad mention place names like Mithila, Videha, Panchala etc. Because by the time of latters' composition, people had started living a more settled life and naming their places, not only natural features, like the Vedas do.

The people who composed those hymns were also different so the conclusion is not valid.

Not just people

1) The nature of the texts are different -- they are different texts because they serve different purposes. These are not random rambling of demented minds. They have been created with different designs.

[ManishH]

The area had Buddhism as a religion. They used the Brahmi script. The only translated script that has been found is the Tocharian language translated to Turkish via Sanskrit.

Shiv: I believe you may be hasty arriving at the conclusion by looking at religion and script used for the two languages called Tocharian A and B.

Even if you suspect phonetics, then morphology is very important to placing a language in the IE tree. This language is part of the centum group and has a lot more archaic features than languages like Greek/Latin/Vedic. Please do look at this:

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ ... l-0-X.html

We do not make a classification of the Filipino language based on only two facts:
- Philipinos write their language in Latin script.
- Many Philipinos practice christian religion.

[member_20317]

Sorry sir. You are creating a strawman. No one claimed that the creativity of the Rig Veda demanded a sedentary lifestyle. However I claimed that carpentry to make chariot demanded settlements rather than a pastoral, constantly migrating lifestyle.

Shiv: I was referring to this post of yours ...
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 7#p1286447

On a more lighter note

Kazanas wrote (Bji quoted):
An oral tradition of this kind cannot be maintained by a people on the move for decades if not centuries over many thousands of miles, as the AIT proposes. Such a tradition could be preserved only by a sedentary people where the older generation would have the necessary leisure to pass the communal lore to the younger one7.
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... &start=320


ManishH wrote :
Sedentarism is not the only social condition that creates leisure. Occupational specialization is another factor.
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 7#p1286447


Shiv wrote :
What leisure creating occupational specialization occurs in the absence of sedentarism?
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 7#p1286447


ManishH wrote :
This thread of thought started when someone claimed that "creativity of RgVeda requires a sedentary lifestyle".


ManishH ji, you got it right. But it was not Shiv ji it was Kazana ji.


Also Shiv ji asked something else in a rather rhetorical manner. To my understanding what he wants to know and also I do want to know the same thing is how many professions can you think of that require an occupational specialization but not sedentarism. I can think of only two such profession hunting & herding. Herders are good with some time pass activities like Bansuri vaadan, though that is not a profession. On top of all this poetry may be asking too much of a herder or a hunter though certainly not impossible. Again RV as you say is composed over a long long time. To that extent the old time movers and shakers finding a lot of poets may be one too many cow on another. It appears to me he never said that RV absolutely demands a sedentary lifestyle. Instead he appears to be concurring with you that RV requires either a sedentary lifestyle or occupational specialization and further that occupational specialization also requires mostly a sedentary lifestyle.


Basically, Obection My Lord. Mere kabil dost mere muakil ke munh me lafz dal rahen hein.

[RajeshA]

Passing on oral traditions really require discipline and concentration on the part of the students especially as it involves reciting hundreds or thousands of stanzas of various hymns and with high fidelity and exact enunciation.

If the students were on the move with their families, their days would have been spent, getting acclimatized to the new surroundings, setting up tent, looking for resources in the unknown neighborhood, setting up perimeter defenses along with the general urge to explore their new surroundings.

With all that on their minds, it is simply impossible that a student can find the peace in him to learn the text. Mind you, this is not just some arbitrary songs, one can sing at leasure. This is a civilization's treasure that needs to be propagated to the next generation keeping all of its exactitude.

A population on the move really has a lot of different challenges which cannot be harmonized with redaction of the Veda.

[member_22872]

Dogs have been always considered useful and good creatures in veda (as well as other IE cultures). Names like śūnaḥśepa, śaunaka etc point to that.

Manish ji, finding references to dogs in Vedas is one thing and attributing the dogs used for herding is another, are there references to dogs as guard dogs in the Vedic period?

Imagining the use of guard dogs running and Herding cows grazing on grasslands while our warrior aryan sits on his horse sounds very much a present day idea of western herding doesn't sound something Vedic Indians might have done in the past. It also sounds more like a awsterners interpretation of herding, that's what I was driving at.

Secondly, I was able to read only the first page of the paper you quoted, right now my feeling is that the western Vedic experts interpretation could be very like the 1000+ cows heaped on one another to touch the sky. Not that I don't believe domestication of dogs by Vedic Indians but I don't want to trust a westerner's interpretation unless I check it out myself.

[member_22872]

I think the argument that Vedic Indians were migratory in nature is one of the basic requirements for AMT and presupposes it, else this importance of depicting them as migratory people who use horses and gaurd dogs for herding wouldn't be necessary. The Vedic people were being modeled as some gypsies here. Passing on some folk songs is different from passing on a tradition. A tradition of yagna, a tradition which is at the very heart of Vedic period, hence also the name. Calling them as bards too presupposes non serious way of composing 'Vedic songs' to kill their time or to praise a king like western bards do and pass on their compositions to the next generation.

Only the western Vedic scholar can make a mistake of thinking the Vedic people are migratory in nature.

[shiv]

Also Shiv ji asked something else in a rather rhetorical manner. To my understanding what he wants to know and also I do want to know the same thing is how many professions can you think of that require an occupational specialization but not sedentarism. I can think of only two such profession hunting & herding. Herders are good with some time pass activities like Bansuri vaadan, though that is not a profession. On top of all this poetry may be asking too much of a herder or a hunter though certainly not impossible. Again RV as you say is composed over a long long time. To that extent the old time movers and shakers finding a lot of poets may be one too many cow on another. It appears to me he never said that RV absolutely demands a sedentary lifestyle. Instead he appears to be concurring with you that RV requires either a sedentary lifestyle or occupational specialization and further that occupational specialization also requires mostly a sedentary lifestyle.

I think you expressed what I had in my mind better than I would have done.

Let me just add. One of the poems discussed earlier was about one Kaksivan singing the praises of one "Sindhuvasi" Bhavyavya

The Griffith translation suggests that Kaksivan got 100 "necklets" among other things. the Hindi translation is posted below and it says 100 "abharan" or Nishk" or "swarnmaap


Necklaces made of gold? (Nishk, swarnmap). How do 100 gold necklaces suggest a non sedentary lifestyle for either giver or taker.

The giver must have access to gold mines and workmen in workshops to smelt the gold and shape it into necklaces. Or he must have looted it from some non sedentary people. In India people measure necklaces in grams of gold. Lets' say a finely made "cheap" 10 gram necklace. Multiply that by 100 - you get 1 Kg. Does the "bard" Kaksivan move from place to place composing poems and lugging around kilograms of gold and other gifts taken each time from some itiinerant pastoral king? How does he stop himself from being looted, sans protection?

There are no answers to logical questions. But there are illogical assumptions made. the lack of answers in the Rig veda itself is seen as licence to reach conclusions. Towns/villages not mentioned. So no settlements. Babies not mentioned. So no babies. The movement of necklaces and jewels not mentioned either. If they were not moved, they must have been kept in one place no?

The other big argument I have seen about the Rig Veda is whether the wheels mentioned are potters wheels or chariot wheels. Excuse me? Ever seen a potter roaming around carrying his wheel? A potter's wheel is physics in practice. It is a flywheel. Flywheels are heavy and not easily portable by nature because they need to have the inertia to keep spinning, once spun, so that the potter can mould clay with his hands while the wheel spins. So potters indicate a pastoral lifestyle? They lug their wheel around? Or maybe they throw them, move on and conjure up a new wheel as easy as a velar consonant?

There is just too many unexplained illogical assumptions here.

[shiv]

Passing on oral traditions really require discipline and concentration on the part of the students especially as it involves reciting hundreds or thousands of stanzas of various hymns and with high fidelity and exact enunciation.

If the students were on the move with their families, their days would have been spent, getting acclimatized to the new surroundings, setting up tent, looking for resources in the unknown neighborhood, setting up perimeter defenses along with the general urge to explore their new surroundings.

With all that on their minds, it is simply impossible that a student can find the peace in him to learn the text. Mind you, this is not just some arbitrary songs, one can sing at leasure. This is a civilization's treasure that needs to be propagated to the next generation keeping all of its exactitude.

A population on the move really has a lot of different challenges which cannot be harmonized with redaction of the Veda.

Rajeshji. The demand to keep the composers moving has only one justification. You need to say that the composers were outside India and moved in. They could not have been in India. The language is too well developed for the blackies of desh. So Europeans must have composed on the fly and moved to India. This used to be "Aryan". Now it's "Indo-European". Quod erat demonstrandum

[ManishH]

ManishH ji,
Moreover, early summer is the busiest time for us.

No issues sir. Will wait for your reply.

But it strikes me that you went into Greek to find a supposed counter-example. Pel/s -

ok, let me see a better cognate to demonstrate "labial proclivity":

Skt goćara > Grk boupolos (cowherd)
Skt saćate > Grk hepomai (to follow)

versus "pharyngeal proclivity"
Whereas Skt daśa > Grk deka (ten)

The more parsimonious explanation is that in the former, there was a labiovelar sound, which could become a pure labial 'p' in Greek. But became a velar, then palatalized in Sanskrit. In Latin and Lithuanian, a pure velar remained.

[ManishH]

Necklaces made of gold? (Nishk, swarnmap). How do 100 gold necklaces suggest a non sedentary lifestyle for either giver or taker.

Shiv: you are again using Griffith's translation without verifying it.

The original uses the word 'निष्क्'' which does not mean necklace. It means a 'measure'. It comes from the root verb 'निष्यति' (to measure). Now no way of knowing how small or big the measure is.

Even there, a 100 measures of gold is certainly a hyperbole, like the enormous number of cattle.

Please, I request people to use dictionaries for word meanings and Sanskrit/Vedic grammar books for inflections, before jumping to conclusions. I don't want to keep pointing to dictionaries all my life ...

http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.d ... ezvara.jpg

Griffith's translation is made ~120 years ago with limited research. One can't fully rely on this.

[RajeshA]

shiv ji,

it seems the AIT proponents wish to make the Rig Veda into some sort of marching music for the Aryans, which the Aryans sang all the way from Central Asia while riding horseback! They only saw rivers on the way, so they sang only about rivers. A song for the river was composed on the fly, right after they felt the cool waters flowing down their throats to quench their thirst. And the thirst of their horses!

The Dravidians heard this marching music from hundreds of kilometers away, got scared and ran off to Madras leaving Harappa to the Aryans.

Being nomads, the Aryans did not know what to do with a city, so they spurned it, and went on their merry way to domesticate the Zebu. After drinking only water on the way, they were now thirsty for milk. Of course, they all got diarrhea because they were not lactose tolerant. That is where the custom of open defecating on the streets comes from. Harappan streets were the first which got defecated in the history of mankind. Give it a few years, and Witzels and Romila Thapars would be able to find some hymns in the Rigveda dedicated solely to defecating in the streets.

Much of the people of Harappa, who did not leave out of fear for the Rigvedic marching music, left because of Aryans defiling their streets. Carbon dating on some samples from the Harappan streets would prove that.

But hard headed as the Aryans were, they were adamant they wanted to enjoy milk, considering that this liquid was white like them, and hence superior, so their bards advised them to intermarry with the Dravidians, so that their children can become lactose tolerant.

This they did, but to enjoy white milk the Aryans ended up losing their white skin. This makes Europeans more superior because they got to enjoy milk even as they retained their pristine white skins and moonshine bottoms.

So next time you see somebody in India defecating on the streets, you know that it is an old Indo-Aryan tradition. Go to him and tell him, "Oh Arya-putra, drink less milk!"

We need to change our text books to teach our children the truth how the Aryan Invasion began and how its consequences are felt even now.

[Sanku]

Even there, a 100 measures of gold is certainly a hyperbole, like the enormous number of cattle..

Well if there can be one hyperbole, then everything can be hyperbole.

There is no way of checking 7000+ years after its first composition what of the original matter is "accurate" picture of what they did.

Trying to cherry pick one event as characteristic while other as not, is time pass, its not scholarship.

[shiv]

Please, I request people to use dictionaries for word meanings and Sanskrit/Vedic grammar books for inflections, before jumping to conclusions. I don't want to keep pointing to dictionaries all my life ...

http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.d ... ezvara.jpg

Manishji, I have a request for you too. Please do not assume that I do not use dictionaries. The dictionaries that I use seem to come up with meanings that you don't agree with. I actually consulted three different dictionaries. What is swarnamap? What is aabharan? Please don't tell me they are "unmeasurable bits". You can of course claim that the Hindi translation you originally posted is also wrong. Only you are right. Of course. But that is a game two can play.

The little statement about pointing dictionaries "all your life" is actually unnecessary - it is merely a cheap barb to act as if your referencing is superior. In fact your words become less valuable when you have to resort to rhetoric to support what is essentially not fully supportable.

I also wish you would attempt honesty when you are faced with questioning of what seems to be obvious nonsense. The man Kaksivan accepted 100 "measures" you say? You don't know 100 measures of what. Griffith says "necklets". the Hindi translation mentions gold. Why are you trying to evade the fact that kaksivan acknowledges expensive gifts.

You say it is "hyperbole". But there is absolutely no proof of it's being hyperbole. If you agree to show some honesty, you will see that if the cattle and gifts bits are lies and hyperbole, even the existence of the king could be a lie. The whole thing could be a big pack of lies. Why accept anything as accurate you can randomly attribute lies, truth, sounds, lifestyle to suit your existing beliefs? All this makes your theory pretty similar to 1000 cows sitting one on top of the other. Anything goes so long as your own pet beliefs are not shaken. I can see why you need to resort to useless rhetoric about dictionaries to score a point.

[ManishH]

The people who composed those hymns were also different so the conclusion is not valid.

Indeed they were different - they were sedentary enough to start naming their places

The only veda I know that mentions place names is Atharvaveda, which by Indian tradition came after the 3 other vedas.

Here it mentions some place names - Gandhar, Mujavan, Anga and Magadha ...

(AVŚ_5,22.14a) gandhāribhyo mūjavadbhyo 'ṅgebhyo magadhebhyaḥ |
(AVŚ_5,22.14c) praiṣyan janam iva śevadhiṃ takmānaṃ pari dadmasi ||14||

One sees place names only increase from then onwards. This correlates well with increasing urbanism leading upto the Mahājanapada's in 1st millenium BC.

Another thing I realized is that OIT needs to date Mahabharata, RgVeda, Brahmanas, Puranas all before 3000 BC.

See one example of the OIT chronology here:

http://books.google.co.in/books?id=-BVn ... BC&f=false

All of them before early Harappan phase. Then weren't there at least some Indian texts that were written later and mention the Harappan cities ?