Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

member_22872 · Post by **member_22872** » 15 Jun 2012 18:28

Another connection between Dravidian languages and Japanese:
Most of the Telugu words and Japanese words end in vowels. Even the structure of sentence formation has similarities.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 15 Jun 2012 19:34

ravi_g wrote:Sanskrit is not a language that can be designed without a huge degree of effort by a good many number of capable brains. These people in turn will require cues from the natural world.

Exactly!

So why have the Europeans chosen to establish links with Sanskrit which is the more refined, formalized language? If they are studying natural evolution of languages, they should have chosen the natural languages of India for the purpose for their comparisons.

I think we in India would have to establish our own linguistics studies in our academic system, not based on European linguistics models.

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 15 Jun 2012 19:36

But we should make the connection between Classical Tamil and Vedic Sanskrit much stronger, strong enough to encompass even those words which are considered purely Indo-European.

Rajesh Ji, whats your motive in this? Is it Truth? The Truth can and should emerge whatever. What matters is the Truth is Sacrosanct. The Truth is God. It is Truth we should seek. Irrespective of what we look at in retrospect. The motivation of respective parties is immaterial to the Truth of the matter. And should be.

Personally i think i believe Sanskrit was a highly developed work known to a few. The fact that Panini developed/ laid down such an advanced Grammar (the Mathematics of Language one may say) 2500 years ago....could only be done by the West some 200 years ago. The speakers of IE languages in Europe were just speaking. They didn't understand what was the meaning of the words spoken, what significance.

One can go to Indonesia or Thailand and keep seeing words that i know the root meaning off but the local does not. I saw that in Iceland too. So many words the locals could not connect. But i with a very elementary Sanskrit background could.

It's important we let the Truth stand on it's own, and demolish falsity that colonial historians may have swept into texts. By making the statement as you do above..puts the whole debate down to motive and not Truth.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 15 Jun 2012 19:54

harbans ji,

I understand your sentiments. But you know me.

That's just the way I think - the How!

The Truth is I feel that for well around 70,000 years man has been in India, according to "expert" opinion. This is a long time where the people here fragmented, traveled, migrated, settled and developed their own languages. These languages flourished and became more sophisticated.

At some point in time, some intellectuals decided that so many languages were not very helpful for spiritual and scientific research, knowledge dissemination or intellectual discussion across the geographical board.

After a lot of Sangams and many crates of Soma, they were able to develop Vedic Sanskrit, taking input from the many languages which were present at the time in the Subcontinent. A few thousand years later, Panini went a step further and formalized it completely.

However during all this time there were migrations of Indians taking place to places outside India, and they took whatever was their native tongue plus some of that Sanskrit, depending on if there were learned men among the émigrés.

The question is which languages formed the natural input for Sanskrit. That knowledge may not be available to us today considering that natural languages too have changed very much over the many thousand of years.

And that is where the issue of Truth comes in. The evidence is not readily available to establish the Truth for all. Truth today simply means what the majority are willing to believe, what the European academicians say and how many peer-reviewed papers they have to fall back on.

Under these circumstances one has to devise methods how to make the world believe what one considers the Truth, but the means of convincing others would have to be pragmatic, for otherwise the Truth would remain confined to the hearts of a few of us.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 15 Jun 2012 19:56

Would be very interested to know occurrences/meanings of two joined sounds [not necessarily fused into "labiovelars"

but could be in sequence] in Tamil :

(1) "kn" [we already have a list]
(2) "tr" [very very interested in this sequence]

vishvak · Post by **vishvak** » 15 Jun 2012 19:58

RajeshA wrote:I think we in India would have to establish our own linguistics studies in our academic system, not based on European linguistics models.

The Europeans may confuse others while planning for own future.

Tomorrow some Oiropeans may just add together 99% Sanskrit + 1% Oiropean(say words from industries such as machines/finance/refining/biology etc) and register that as completely independent entity as originating from Indo-Oirope-old-meta-generic-unprovable-language- which is then needed for everyone else including Indians too. It could be presented as a language with better structure etc and as Oirope's own invention/compilation.

While proving OIT, one should not overlook plans of whitewash from theory-tellers.

2 paisa onlee.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 15 Jun 2012 20:15

Talked with a linguist friend from Germany yesternight : confirms that
(1) Minoan/Lin A still undeciphered, says no practical hope of using any insight from Myc/B in solving it at all. Records - epigraphic - too few, and what exists is still not sufficient. So am puzzled about how the two could have been studied together by experts with expertise in one being relevant for expertise in the other.

(2) Disruption in culture and archeology acknowledged in the Aegean and Italy in the pre-classical phase. In fact she was more or less adamant that the PIE derivation -connection - remains a mystery, given the current combined cross-subject understanding. There seems to be no clear mechanism by which PIE in its supposed location/period could have reached the zone. Moreover Greek is more problematic than Latin [which was my understanding too] to show clear cut PIE progression.

The latest daal in the khichri is a hypothesis that Bou/Gouo/Dheus are all possibly independent mimicing/interpretation of animal sounds - and need not be derived from PIE.

I think we should open our minds a bit more.

I personally have several options open for diffusion: one of which is a sea-route connection between India and east Mediterranean. This would mean quick movements by rather skilled but small groups : navigators/traders/ritual-priestly groups. This would be a professional pressure to develop mathematics/counting and linguistics. The criticism that why is not there a tremendous amount of records of sea-and-shipping related terms in RV/Sanskrit [Tamil has more] and most importantly - descriptions of foreign geography, can be addressed.

We know from other ancient maritime cultures - that they were high on secrecy of such knowledge. Parts of such knowledge were deliberately made oral and institutional and restricted from general use. Phoenicians, for example were extremely paranoid about knowledge being leaked out.

Those with greater knowledge of Tamil, perhaps may be able to contribute.

member_20317 · Post by **member_20317** » 15 Jun 2012 20:30

harbans ji you are obstructing your own batting style by being so defensive.

If you remember the graph plot of genetics released in 2009 which showed a huge dispersal for Indics but well away from the Uropains, you will realise there was 'n' times more interaction within India than outside India. To me its only natural that people would begin to share parts of linguistic structure.

In any case what idiot of a budhijeevi will try to make a language that is not usable in the here & now but is usable for people of Uropee. Sanskrit got made here it got made for the people of India and its base could hardly have been, the language of a bunch, more interested in hunting and herding.

Murugan · Post by **Murugan** » 15 Jun 2012 20:33

Cholas had flourishing trade with roman empire.

http://www.indianetzone.com/22/kaveripa ... _india.htm

http://www.indiaheritage.org/history/hi ... _south.htm

http://tourism.pondicherry.gov.in/arikamenu.html

It is natural to get mutually influenced by languges. especially when u hv trading relations

member_22872 · Post by **member_22872** » 15 Jun 2012 20:58

deleted. Seems like it was a worthless post

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 15 Jun 2012 21:37

conventional dating for chera, chola, pandyan kingdoms is much more recent. however there are plenty of 'whispered tales' and suggestive archeological evidence of civilisations much older than the known ones that may have been drowned under rising sea levels

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 15 Jun 2012 21:39

Kanson, THanks for the serious reply.
I want you and Bji to look at my next idea.

There are 491 glyphs in existing Harappa seals. Of them the most interesting is the forest god sitting 'padma asana'.
We all know the forest god figure of the Harappa seal. As Hindus we can identify it as Shiv as Vanraj or forest king. Can we fit the names of shiva to the seal glyphs and thus decode at least that seals?

Next may be the horned bull claimed to be unicorn may be its a representation of Nandi?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 15 Jun 2012 21:41

Folks - please don't bring in Lemuria. It is bullshit. First the Aryan myth was created and the Dravidians were backward inferior people. Then the Church got to work on the "downtrodden" Dravidians who had been screwed by the Aryans. Lemuria is in the category of Dravidstan/Dalitstan etc. Recommended reading: Rajiv Malhotra "Breaking India"

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 15 Jun 2012 21:42

^^ bull ==nandi has long been posited, as has shiva worship (for IVC)

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 15 Jun 2012 22:39

shiv wrote:.. and read this from the same link above

Yet, Western scholars seem to have no difficulty in clubbing Sanskrit with English and French even though the manner in which Sanskrit developed and was formalized was entirely unknown and alien to the Europeans. On the other hand, structurally speaking (notwithstanding some differences), Sanskrit and Tamil are like sisters, yet many Westerners persist with placing them in entirely different language families.

Since the written form of any language represents it in its most advanced form, it is curious how Western linguists and their Indian apologists have strangely ignored this important facet in classifying the langauges of the world. Nor have they analyzed the important cultural and sociological implications of this shared heritage.
This link sums up the irritation I see in this brainless PIE quest which , like a pestilence, has infested all language links.

This is pure colonial racist narrative and has been accepted as truth.
But there could something deeper in these kinds of narrative,. It could be subtle social engineering of the northern Indians to accept the western euroepans as one of their own and be accepted into the inner circle and reveal all the secrets of Indians. Similarity of languages are used to bring many nations together and the British had a 100 years history inside India to make sure that this is permanent.
This global plan was executed to perfection for more than 200 years to show the Indian ruling elite that they similar and that they are OK to obey the orders of their 'brothers' and 'kinsmen'.

This awareness of social engineering has to be done for all Indians.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 15 Jun 2012 22:49

the western model comes from latin as the mother language of europe being the analogue of sanskrit being the mother language of india, therefore they tried to map/assume/alledge similarities that they understood or were familiar with

member_22872 · Post by **member_22872** » 15 Jun 2012 22:51

^^^ In everything one can find patterns if one searches with an intention to find patterns. But is the pattern really a pattern? or is it forced or imagined? in linking Sanskrit and European languages, I guess it was forced. They could have better connected Sanskrit and any of the South Indian languages or any other Indian language family better.

vishvak · Post by **vishvak** » 16 Jun 2012 00:11

In AIT, pagans are made to look invading others to hide not just who destroyed pagans but also to invade others in the name of invading pagans. I think pagans, who are accused of invading others, have had no such exclusive strong exclusive attitudes but the invasion theories make it looks like that was how it was always and nothing strange/deviating in invading/massacring. So the invaders can wear garb of being 'normal' invaders even after being bloodthirsty warmongers themselves.

If a country is divided into supposedly mutually exclusive groups by race, where
1) groups have been made to look suppressing each other
2) groups have been made to have little affinity for each other
3) made to look disjoint/discontinuous and any contact co-incidental/geographical alone

then

1) Are strengths and plus points of each group celebrated by all
2) Are attacks on each group defended by all
3) The barbarians who scheme all this dark plans - are they suddenly as normal barbarians as people here apparently always have been?

2 khota sikka only

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 16 Jun 2012 01:07

AIT=EIT= European Illegtimate Theory
PIE=Pure Incestuous Enterprise /Entity

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 16 Jun 2012 01:11

Lalmohan wrote:^^ bull ==nandi has long been posited, as has shiva worship (for IVC)

I am asking to interpret the seals knowing this.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 16 Jun 2012 05:48

venug wrote:^^^ In everything one can find patterns if one searches with an intention to find patterns. But is the pattern really a pattern? or is it forced or imagined? in linking Sanskrit and European languages, I guess it was forced. They could have better connected Sanskrit and any of the South Indian languages or any other Indian language family better.

Venug I am certain there are links and patterns between European languages and Sanskrit, But there are deep links between the Sanskrit and South Indian languages leading on to links with south east Asian languages as well.

What the cooked up and fake Aryan Invasion Theory did was to break all links between Sanskrit and the South and create and excessively important link between Sanskrit and European languages. It's not as if there is no link between India and Europe - but the so called "scholars" who went apeshit looking for Sanskrit-European links artificially split off Tamil and other South Indian languages and completely ignored the links that Sanskrit has with them creating an eastward out of India as well.

One of the things one notes about Sanskrit is the large number of synonyms for many words as one would expect from a greatly developed language with rich literature. The funny thing I find about the Sanskrit to Europe links is that some less frequently used Sanskrit word is touted as the main word linking Sanskrit to Europe, ignoring well known words. And in some cases the European etymology itself is suspect and Sanskrit is added on just to bolster the link - like that stupid placing of the Sanskrit word for "hot" along with European words for "frozen". Sounds like a trick from a B grade western movie. Dead men tell no tales so you cook up the story that they meant cold when they said hot.

lakshmikanth · Post by **lakshmikanth** » 16 Jun 2012 06:09

shiv wrote: What the cooked up and fake Aryan Invasion Theory did was to break all links between Sanskrit and the South and create and excessively important link between Sanskrit and European languages. It's not as if there is no link between India and Europe - but the so called "scholars" who went apeshit looking for Sanskrit-European links artificially split off Tamil and other South Indian languages and completely ignored the links that Sanskrit has with them creating an eastward out of India as well.

I had an interaction with a friend a couple of weeks ago and realized that there needs to be a campaign that should spread the info that AIT/AMT is a hoax.

My friend is a lapsed christian from Kerala, who considers himself Dravidian. Since I am a lapsed Brahmin, it makes me Aryan according to him. We both are fairly agnostic (he is infact an atheist), and we both have our roots in Indic tradition.

We were discussing about the renaming of Indian city names from Bombay to Mumbai, Trivandrum to Thiruvanathapuram etc. and I mentioned how it would slowly erase colonial nature of those names. He got all sly and defensive and said: "Ohh, that is not a valid reason to do that!!! Because before the Aryans invaded us, the name might have been something else".

I had to tell him that there is an equivalent theory of OIT, which I chose to believe in and said I dont believe in AIT/AMT, and also that since we have biased vested interests who invented AIT with scant evidence to support it, the best you can do is believe

and I am not going to be a slave of what other people with vested interest want me to believe.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 16 Jun 2012 07:32

Folks, here is a graphical illustration of my objection to PIE

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 16 Jun 2012 07:39

lakshmikanth wrote: My friend is a lapsed christian from Kerala,

It is the churches of the west, the very churches with white people who despised the "stupid, black Dravidians" who are now working in south India perpetuating the fake Aryan Dravidian split. Read Rajiv Malhotra's "Breaking India"

People like your friend should know that around 1900, European scholars felt that "fair skinned Aryans" were monotheistic kinsmen of their own kind while the black Dravidians were degenerate "gross corruptions" . These same people are now suddenly feeling sorry for the corrupt blacks and are telling them that they were playing for them all the time.

It is Indians who are stupid actually. It is the mixing of "your superior kind" with your lapsed Christian friend's "inferior kind" (masses of black heathendom) that, according to these early 20 century scholars resulted in the degeneration of India

Here is a scan from a 1910 book "The Living Races of Man"

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 16 Jun 2012 08:48

I want to try an experiment. Does anyone know both Hindi and Bengali or Bengali and Gujarati?

I want a list of common Sanskrit derived words in two or more "Sanskrit derived languages". I think a list of 100 words (or 50 will do maybe) with the same meaning and Sanskrit origin will do. The idea is to see if you can "reconstruct" proto-Bengali, proto-Hindi or proto Gujarati (in all cases it is Sanskrit) from those 200 words.

You could probably starts with words for body parts, walk, talk, eat, love, etc as long as they are similar sounding or have a Sanskrit origin.

kshatriya · Post by **kshatriya** » 16 Jun 2012 09:05

Too much EJ propaganda being pushed these days on the Tamil Forums on FB.... Not even funny that foolish tamils are believing this and sharing

https://www.facebook.com/pages/%E0%AE%A ... 1482842472
This forum has 250k members and originally when it started it was all nice and dandy...But not major proganda about Tamil older than Hinduism is being pushed

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 16 Jun 2012 12:02

Reply from experts

The following is the problem. There is one school of thought where there are words and literature in a concept called Manipravalam where special characters and words in hinduism and sanskrit like "Om" , "Ha", "Sha" , "Sri" etc were added by Tamil Pandits in Tamil Literature. These Pandits are Hindu Tamil Pandits but when printing and paper was introduced that industry was completely owned by british and church, hence people like Coldwell started creating problems taking off religeous words from Tamil, Now that Hindutva has grown we should regularise language press and media and put rules on publishing.

Last week I had an arguement with Kausalya Hart madam where she was saying Tamil printing was done by missionaries. I objected with a big arguement that it is a myth "British ruled India and developed infrastructure" , they were just "Traders with more autonomy but not rulers of Bharat".

Anybody not authorized by Swamijis are not rulers including Mughals, British.

British we just like Wipro,Infosys,TCS these days, they were paid fees by kings.

ksmahesh · Post by **ksmahesh** » 16 Jun 2012 15:40

Some years ago I and my friend tried to trace out overlapping vocabulary (Tamil and Sanskrit) We identified around 200 words. I remember only the following on top of my head (seems like age is catching up):
Nagam
Devam
Bhutam
Papam
Ratri
Rajan
Kaalam

Wish I had preserved the list.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 16 Jun 2012 15:43

Defining the Trap

Whenever we feel that we are at a disadvantage with certain other people or feel the others have a superior position, the first thing we really need to do is find out the outlines of this mental trap in which we seem to be confined and contained.

The Aryan Invasion/Migration Theory is just such a mental trap for us Indians.

In fact even our most outspoken scholars and experts and ideologues are in one way or another still in the Matrix. We have to find the red pill. There are so many layers of lies, it is difficult to know when one is truly out, but one has to keep on trying - the red pill.

I say the above about our scholars, not in any malice or to discredit the much needed work they are doing in the service of our civilization. I am saying that we need to expose the psychology with which the other side subdues us.

Koenraad Elst goes into this debate on linguistics.

1.2. Down with the linguistic evidence

A common reaction among Indians against this state of affairs is to dismiss linguistics altogether, calling it a "pseudo-science". Thus, Prof. N.S. Rajaram describes 19th-century comparative and historical linguistics, which generated the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT), as "a scholarly discipline that had none of the checks and balances of a real science", in which "a conjecture is turned into a hypothesis to be later treated as a fact in support of a new theory".

Likewise, N.R. Waradpande questions the very existence of an Indo-European language family and rejects the genetic kinship model, arguing very briefly that similarities between Greek and Sanskrit must be due to very early borrowing. He argues that "the linguists have not been able to establish that the similarities in the Aryan or Indo-European languages are genetic, i.e. due to their having a common ancestry". He alleges that "the view that the South-Indian languages have an origin different from that of the North-Indian languages is based on irresponsible, ignorant and motivated utterances of a missionary". The "missionary" meant is the 19th-century prioneer of Dravidology, Bishop Robert Caldwell.

This rejection of linguistics by critics of the AIT creates the impression that their own pet theory, which makes the Aryans into natives of India rather than invaders, is not resistent to the test of linguistics. However, the fact that people fail to challenge the linguistic evidence, preferring simply to excommunicate it from the debate, does not by itself validate this body of evidence. Prof. Rajaram's remark that hypotheses are treated by scholars as facts, as arguments capable of overruling other hypotheses, is definitely valid for much of the humanities, including linguistics. To be sure, it doesn't follow that linguistics is a pseudo-science, merely that linguists in their reasoning have often fallen short of the scientific standard.

So one position on this debate on linguistics is to simply deny that linguistics matter to explain Indian history. The other reaction of Indigenist Indians is to indulge the Europeans in this debate and find out that they are at the receiving end of a framework of language studies which is completely built to further the position of the Europeans. If the Indians do not enter a dialogue, the Western Sanskritists continue on their own, further building their own hypothesis, turning them into theories, and establishing them as the generally accepted truth.

In either case, the Indians have it difficult to win.

If we cannot win then either they are right or it is a trap. In fact continuously losing a debate on their terms itself creates the perception that they are right, so the thought that they are right itself is part of the trap. Are they right because they are right, or are they right because we cannot argue well, or are they right because we lose the debate set up on their terms, or are they right because we cannot see the debate trap to get us into a debate in the first place, or are they right because we walk away from the debate?

I am not saying that there is an abundance of evidence and arguments in our favor, carefully compiled and argued by many Indigenist Indian experts with a few Westerners like Koenraad Elst, David Frawley, Michel Danino, Nicholas Kazanas, etc. also helping out.

I am saying that using Indo-European Linguistics, PIE Theory, and Horse Domestication Criteria, etc. the AIT proponents have placed a crowbar in our narrative of history. Using comparative linguistics as a fishing line they have hooked Sanskrit. As long it is there, they will use the confusion to further their variant of history.

So what is the trap in this academic debate?

N.R. Waradpande has it right to some extent.

The trap is that they have convinced us that the European languages and Sanskrit are language sisters with a hypothetical mythical long lost mother (PIE), and that is Sanskrit's ONLY family.

In any charts of Indo-European languages hierarchy one would see that Sanskrit is always shown as the mother of all North Indian languages. The hierarchy is wrong.

There are two reason why we lose the debate:
a) Those who wave off at the whole concept of linguistics in contempt, are so pissed off at linguistics that they do not make the effort to show the rest of Sanskrit's family. It is like many nationalists who are so pissed off at JNU humanities depts. that they start hating humanities as an academic discipline in general.
b) Those indigenist Indians who know linguistics who indulge in linguistics discussion with AIT proponents, do so in their framework of Indo-European languages and the whole hierarchy they base it upon.

So what we need to show is really the Sanskrit language as part of language tree FROM THE INDIC PERSPECTIVE with alternative Indic linguistics supporting the theory.

Then the terms of discussion change with the AIT proponents.

If they say that Sanskrit is a Indo-European language belonging to the Satem branch, blah blah, we respond differently. We say, "well Sanskrit is a refined formalized language based on many proto-Prakrits, proto-Tamil being one of the more prominent among them. So actually Sanskrit and classical Tamil are sisters. If you are fine with Tamil also being part of the Indo-European language family, then okay we can be family."

So if a Euro says to a North Indic, hey mate we are brothers, North Indic should tell him, he has already got a brother, so if Euro wants to be brother with North Indic, he also has to be a brother with South Indic.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 16 Jun 2012 16:11

Defining the Trap

The division that the Europeans have created in Indian languages, with South Indian languages put in a Dravidian language category completely isolated from the Indo-European family in which Sanskrit and other North Indian languages have been placed has in fact created a very deep division in our political-social-cultural ecosystem. Once the ball got rolling, the chasm between Tamils and North Indians have only increased and several forces have consistently tried to widen it, with Dravidian Chauvinism, Christianist activism, Anti-Brahminism, all being new movements contributing to the chasm. North Indian willingness for Co-option with European Narratives of North Indian History for the purpose of some cheap ego-boost in the backdrop of an Islam and Macaulayism imposed inferiority complex has also not helped.

On the other hand, even in the North, it seems the Indo-European narrative has also pushed the Dalit to develop their own narratives of cultural victimhood and history, as they too have been excluded from the Indo-European historical narrative. If the white Aryans came from outside India and gave India Sanskrit, from which all North Indian languages ultimately were formed, and they went on to form the Upper Castes, then what is really left of culture and language from the Dalits and for the Dalits as well. Where should they go and look for their origins?

By denying the contribution of the many proto-Prakrits in the formation of Sanskrit, and then suggesting the opposite process of Sanskrit being the mother of all the current Prakrits, Sanskrit herself being a foreigner, we have in fact allowed all our people to become rootless, for we don't know what our languages were before Sanskrit came to India nor have we Sanskrit left because even Sanskrit is "dead".

So it is not just the Elite that allowed itself to become rootless, by distorting and denying India's history we have also allowed the vast mass of common North Indians (Dalits) to become rootless, and the Tamils isolated, who are also denied having contributed to the language which became the bearer of India's medium of civilization - Sanskrit.

Unless the history of Sanskrit is not repaired, one would see more such movements sprouting from a sense of rootlessness and victimhood, overtake India's politics.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 16 Jun 2012 16:48

Defining the Trap

So how we break the Chakravyuh?

One way would be if the formal "Hindu Nationalist Front" (FHNF) - the RSS, the VHP, the BJP would come out clearly on this issue and press the message of how Sanskrit came about -

that it is a language refined and formalized by exceptional ancient Indic intellectuals utilizing the contributions of many proto-Prakrits prevalent before it, proto-Tamil being a major component.

What is so revolutionary about this?

First we have to understand the difference between
a) Distancing oneself from a particular thinking, and
b) Embracing an alternative thinking.

As long as RSS & co. simply deny AIT, that Brahmins & Kshatriyas aka Aryans did not really come from outside India, it doesn't really mean a thing. For the Tamil Chauvinists this would simply appear as a sign of verbal trickery - taqiyya if you will. They would think of it as simply a means to temper the Tamil urges, to stop them from forcefully presenting their narrative. They would continue to feel that in reality, the "Brahmins" of the North still feel in their hearts that they are Aryans from outside India and thus "superior" to them - something the Christianist media in the South have drilled into them.

So the RSS & Co. would really have to offer an alternate vision and belief in history - that (proto-)Tamil is indeed one of the mothers of Sanskrit. Neither the Tamils nor the Dalits need to fight to establish their narratives of identity and historical importance. It is accepted by one and all, and there is no secret desire to feel related to the "superior" white man through the AIT.

However I can imagine that for us, Hindus it may seem awkward to take such a position. After all, the Vedas is Śruti which are eternal, divine and were given by Brahma to Man. If the Vedas are in Sanskrit, a "Deva Bhasha" how can Sanskrit have been created by Indics - it is a "Deva Bhasha". It was always there!

That is a known problem where Indics have to present to the AIT proponents an alternative model which stands up to archaeological and historical scrutiny and still is in compliance with our scriptural beliefs.

In this case, perhaps we Hindus can use an alternative formulation. Sanskrit was indeed created by Indic rishis using the various proto-Prakrits a long time ago, under divine guidance, and only when Sanskrit finally was ready, did the Indics have the necessary receiver for the transmission of Vedas by the Cosmos, for now the constructed Indic-Sanskrit was in sync with the Deva-Bhasha Vedic Sanskrit, and only then we could hear the Vedas.

Perhaps explain why only Indics were privileged to hear the Vedas and access the message of Dharma!

So I think some way can be found for Hindutva-vadis to advocate both the proto-Prakrit origin of Sanskrit as well as "Deva Bhasha" status of Sanskrit.

Murugan · Post by **Murugan** » 16 Jun 2012 17:26

"The ethos of the ancient Indian Civilization is shaped during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods" - P A Eltsov

Michel Danino in his book "The Lost River - On the Trail of the Saraswati" quotes many like Eltsov, along with his own research in a lucid SDRE and convincing way that there is nothing like Aryan Invasion that can be proved.

Danino is at his best in two chapters - 9 and 10, The Tangible Heritage and The Intengible Heritage respectively that there is nothing like Vedic Nights as propounded by many historians.

Harappan (if we take it as a hub of civilization) life styles, weight and measures, traditions, architects were not unique to Indus valley only and were not in isolation with vedic thoughts, Danino claims with various evidence. Indirectly predating veds before Harappan civilization.

Quoting Shaffer, who says that the end of Harappan urbanism might itself be something of an illusion:

The often stated disappearance of urban centres noted for the late Harappan (Phase) is an assumption... There is no conclusive archaeological evidence to indicate that large 'urban' settlements disappeared

"In fact, evidence that has been growing by leaps and bounds during the last few decades has been painting a very different picture. Some archaeologits now speak of 'transformation' rather than 'end' of Indus-Sarasvati civilization.

Common traditions, lifestyle, etc are found from Harappa to Kalibangan - to lothal and Dholavira - 800 to 1000 kms apart in same time period. shows no outside influence

With many evidence and research papers quotes, Danino puts to rest the debate that Gangetic and Harappan civilization were class apart and later one is influenced by aryan invasion...There is no discontinuity in many of the pointers in Harappan ang Gangetic period (or civilization), evidence suggests aloud. Harappan cultural traditions of northwestern India were never interrupted by the arrival of new people from west. Period.

with limited excavation data available on gangetic region (as most of the cities are standing on old cities), Archaeologists and researches have established that there are more parallels.

E.g., Both the civilizations have internal planning based on a grid plan; both had monumental public architecture, both had enclosing fortification, moats girdling fortification, street layouts, structures of temples and public houses.

Jim Schaffer says "a continuous series of cultural developments links the so-called two major phases of urbanization in South Asia", the harappan and the historical. Conclusion "The essential of Harappan identity persisted'.

***

In the chapter The Tangible Heritage, mystery of frequent usage of No 108 in vedic/dharmic rituals and traditions is solved.

Men's average height = 6 feet = 108 anguls

6 feet is height of Dhanus = 108 Anguls

108 happens to be the distance betwen the sun and the earth in terms of the sun's diameter...

Also in moon's case.

***

view a standing stick at a distance equal to 108 time its length and you will see it exactly as large as the sun or the moon (in mathematical langage: its apparent height will be the exact apparent diameter of the sun or the moon)

***

The survival of Harappan tradition is geographically widespread as also in timeline.

From Harappa to Dholavira to Kampilya to Pataliputra to Kathmandu to Southern states of India

from 3rd millennium BC to present date

In weights and mesures, urbanism and architecture, technology and caft, Indus script to symbols in punch marked coins to Brahmi with some changes in continuity but persisting throughout.

***

The Intangible Heritage

Continuity in Symbols, viz., swastik, Endless Knot (kolam or lord krishna's feet), Peepul Tree, art and iconography, Pashupati (proto shiva), nandi, shivlings, fire worship, yoga, burial, cremation, vedic values of dharma, artha, kama and moksha etc.

10 pages are dedicated to understand the concept of Pashupati (ramana-ji mentioned above as forest king), the seal, the humped bull or Nandi, proto-shiv, buffalo and unicorn.

***
***
***

Michel Danino in his book The Lost River

We marvelled at the garbage bins along the street of Indus cities, and find them again at Taxila's Bhir mound...

Tom Holland in Rubicon

Rome 2 millenniums after 'disappearance' of Harappa, Harappan cities with garbage bins and a well built drainage system

In truth, nothing better illustrated the ambiguities of Rome than the fact that she was at once both the cleanest and the filthiest. Ordure as well as water flowed through her street. ... Citizens who dropped out of the obstacle race that was every Roman's life risked having shit - literally - dumped on their heads. plebs sordida, they were called - 'the great unwashed'

In death, the poor would be subsumed in waste. Not for them the dignity of a tomb beside the Appian Way. Instead their carcasses would be tossed with all the other refuse into giant pits beyond the easternmost city gate, the Esquiline. Travellers approaching rome by this route would see bones littering the sides of the road. It was a cursed and dreadful spot, the haunt of witches, who were said to strip flesh from the corpses and summon the naked spectres of the dead from their mass graves. In rome the indignities of failure could outlive life itself

Unwashed - chale aaye hai PIE ko le kar.

Kahan raja bhoj aur kahan gangu tailee

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 16 Jun 2012 17:27

Defining the Trap

Once Europeans convinced Indians that European languages and North Indian languages are related, they entered into a certain dialogue with us, where we were intrigued and they were eager explorers.

Soon they convinced us that as better intellectuals they could define this relationship much better, where we became a sort of a cheering party, or cheer leaders if you like, while they adopted the role of the players, they started defining the model of relationship between European and North Indian languages.

Soon they had developed models of Indo-European languages and PIE Tree, which included Sanskrit, and developed linguistic theories to support that, that we found ourselves completely outclassed and at a loss of words to even comprehend what they were doing. Without having much of a foundation in these comparative and evolutionary linguistics, we were confused and in this confusion we ended up writing off the custodianship of Sanskritham to these Western Sanskritists. They convinced us that they would be better custodians of Sanskrit in their various departments in Western universities.

Now Witzel goes around telling Indian scholars that they don't have any foundation in Sanskrit, so they are not qualified to judge anything, tries to destroy their credibility.

Whereas in India, the children in our education courses are encouraged to take up other European languages as second/third language to study because that would bring them more rewards in their future, and to forget Sanskrit.

The Europeans needed Sanskrit to develop their models of their own history, so they took our Sanskrit, and now they are ensuring that there are no Sanskritists left who could challenge them or take back Sanskrit from them.

So one part of the trap is that they have convinced us that they are better custodians of Sanskrit then us and we need not worry about Sanskrit. Even if Sanskrit dies in India, they would still keep it alive. That is why they don't hesitate to keep calling Sanskrit a dead language at every opportunity.

All the Śrauta that we exercise, is considered uncool mumbo-jumbo, where the Europeans contend that we don't even know what we are chanting and it is all arcane useless practices - nothing compared to the printed word. After all they have superior books - they are people of The Book! So Śrauta by itself is not considered Sanskrit scholarship. Scholarship is only that which one gets in academic institutes which run on curricula designed by Western standards. Places where we give more importance to the message of the Vedas, those ashrams are all humming with Western visitors and interested parties, who in a generation manage to snatch the organizational leadership of these ashrams.

So one way to recover the custodianship of Sanskrit is

- reinsert it into our academic life, make it a medium of education, study Sanskrit a la Pāṇini. We need to plant Sanskrit again in Indian academic, cultural and political fabric.

- try to recreate the linguistic creation process of Sanskrit from the various proto-Prakrits and proto-Tamil ages ago, thus creating deep roots of Sanskrit in the Indic lingual landscape.

We need to be able to offer a separate different historical narrative of how the Sanskrit language came about than what is currently offered by AIT proponents.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 16 Jun 2012 17:48

Defining the Trap

Speaking of Europeans taking something from us and claiming that they can be better custodians of it, it reminds me of a recent incident.

The Norwegian Child Protection Service (CPS) in Stavangar had forcibly taken away two children, a boy Abhighyan 2½ years old and a girl Aishwarya 4 months old from their parents, the Bhattacharyas, and put them in foster care in May, 2011. They did not want to return the children to their parents citing all sort of BS reasons. Ultimately GoI had to intervene and give many assurances in writing.

That is the kind of Western arrogance I talk about, where they can take away someone or something that means so much to us and not bat an eyelid, and say they know better how to take care of it and are better custodians than us SDRE backward Indians.

When Witzel talks down an Indian Sanskrit scholar for not being qualified to judge matters of Sanskrit, then it is the same arrogance - that they know it better and are better custodians of Sanskrit than us Indians.

member_22872 · Post by **member_22872** » 16 Jun 2012 17:54

Shiv ji and Rajesh ji,
I should acknowledge that to me linguistics as Rajesh ji mentioned is a field I didn't want to understand because it just didn't fit the bill for the reason that, I didn't understand it much, I couldn't connect Sanskrit and PIE with the root analysis that linguists presented, because I was ignorant. I just brushed it off than try to understand and try countering it as Shiv ji did. So like Ravi ji ? said it this thread has made me aware of the pit falls. So thank you all for the gyan.

Countering is not going to be easy and it is going to be very very difficult, how can one counter subversion of history? Rajesh ji, if one goes through the route of taking sides with RSS co, I don't think people will take us seriously. Even if the intentions are right, already people who merely counter AIT/AMT are being branded Hindu apologists and extremists.

But I do think the trap Rajesh ji mentioned is true. I think start of problem solving begins with identification of the problem, acknowledge that a problem exists. If our society thinks that our history is not hijacked, we then have a problem. As long as our history books present AIT, we are in a way are telling indirectly to others that "our official stand is with AIT/AMT, you are free to educate our masses on these lines". No wonder, there are so many working to further the divide between the north and the south on the lines of Aryans and dravidians aided by propagation of the misconception that Sanskrit belongs to PIE and is different from Dravidian languages.

Murugan · Post by **Murugan** » 16 Jun 2012 18:00

Does anyone know both Hindi and Bengali or Bengali and Gujarati?

Starting with Pranav
Sanskrit Bengali Gujarati Marathi Meaning
Pranav Pronob Pranav Pranav Om-kar
Mamatva Momta Mamta Mamta
Suprabhat Suprobhat suprabhat Shubha Prabhat
Bandhav Bondhu Bandhu Bandhav -brother, friend

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 16 Jun 2012 18:02

venug wrote:Countering is not going to be easy and it is going to be very very difficult, how can one counter subversion of history? Rajesh ji, if one goes through the route of taking sides with RSS co, I don't think people will take us seriously. Even if the intentions are right, already people who merely counter AIT/AMT are being branded Hindu apologists and extremists.

venug ji,

what I wrote earlier on the position that RSS & Co. should take is a suggestion, which I think would do much good, especially if they push that stance. It would kill the Dravidian Chauvinist movement.

That however is a suggestion for RSS & Co. in India's national interest.

It has nothing to do with advocating that you or I or some other BRFite needs to jump on their bandwagon. That is a different issue and everybody should do as one pleases.

Neither is the defense of the Indigenist Sanskrit solely the responsibility or preserve of RSS & Co. Many can do that in parallel.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 16 Jun 2012 18:17

Kanson ji,

thanks for your post a few pages earlier.

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If somebody has the time, please go through the link I had posted earlier, and copy just like Kanson ji did, everything that is relevant to Tamil roots of Sanskrit, as posted by the guy "F.S.Gandhi vandayar" and post it here or in 'Link Language for India' Thread. The link points to a 22 page long forum thread. I don't know where he has his information from.

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It could be possible to establish Tamil as the root of Sanskrit if one could map Sanskrit Dhatus to Tamil words, that too would be great.

member_22872 · Post by **member_22872** » 16 Jun 2012 18:37

Rajesh ji, for some reason I am of the view that educating people and make them understand why AIT/AMT is fiction is akin to religious realignment. In fact I would say that AIT/AMT has taken a religious tone in India. When religion steps in, topics like AIT/AMT can take religious color, and people who dont want it to be debunked can make it a messy business. But there is also no alternative but educate, we need teachers, teachers who can spawn more educators, it would also greatly help if gov atleast rescinds mentioning AIT or takes an ambivalent stance in history books.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 16 Jun 2012 19:20

venug ji,

there is indeed a religious component to AIT/AMT.

Koenraad Elst has written an Article on "The Politics of the Aryan Invasion Debate".

Koenraad Elst wrote:(4) Christian mission. The single biggest promoter of the AIT as the bedrock of new political group identities has undeniably been the Christian mission, incidentally also the biggest operator of elite educational institutions in India and a major media owner, hence a powerful moulder of public opinion. Christian missionary authors in the 19th century such as Sir Monier Monier-Williams, Friedrich Max Müller, Bishop Robert Caldwell and Rev. G.U. Pope laid the intellectual groundwork for Dravidian, Tribal and Dalit political movements and for a new fragmented self-perception of Hinduism. Quite deliberately, Hindu self-esteem was undermined by breaking the Hindu pantheon into a set of native gods like Shiva and a set of Aryan-invader gods like Indra; by redefining reform movements like Buddhism and Bhakti as "revolts of the natives against Aryan-Brahminical impositions"; and by reinterpreting the Dharma-Shâstras as nothing but an elaborate apartheid legislation for preserving the race and dominance of the Aryan invader castes.

(5) Indian Islam. In recent years, militant Muslims such as Muslim India monthly's editor Syed Shahabuddin have tried to integrate the AIT in their anti-Hindu polemics. The thrust of their argument is that if Hindus see Muslims as foreigners, they should be told that they themselves, at least the Aryan elite among them, once were foreign intruders. And that not Muslims but Aryan Hindus were the trail-blazers of destructive invasions pillaging and destroying native centres of civilization. Further, building on the erroneous but by now widespread belief that most Indian Muslims were low-caste Hindus who sought equality by converting to Islam, it is argued that they are largely part of the native stock, hence more Indian than Hindu nationalists, who are (equally erroneously) identified as upper-caste and hence as Aryan invaders.

So there is a religious-political aspect to that debate.

That is why I talked about difference between "distancing from a thinking" which may be considered a tactical posture by one's detractors and "embracing an alternative thinking", which could well unbalance on one's detractors.

If I just say, "I did not kill shiv", people would say, "oh no no, you're wrong, you did it, you just don't want to admit it" but if I say, "I did not kill shiv, because I was together with Angelina Jolie at the time of his death, and you can ask her", then the situation changes.

That is why I am trying to advocate that RSS & Co. should not just deny or reject AIT/AMT but should rather give an alternate position, an alibi, why they are of that opinion, that is "Sanskrit is (partly) a child of Tamil". Now the Dravidian Chauvinists have been claiming something like that since ages, and if one were to one day, agree with their stand, then they are not going to say, "No no, now we have changed our mind"!

So actually Sanskrit needs the embrace of Tamil, accepting Sanskrit as its child, so that Islamists and Christianists who are making above arguments, to push their own narratives, cannot do so.

Besides, such a stand that Tamil is a mother to Sanskrit, would be considered as a stance in favor of "National Integration", so how can people simply start condemning that stance.