Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[Anand K]

I have stayed off the forum for a few years but this thread is too interesting to not put in a 0.02$.

The AMT and the whole dating business stands on certain "legs", some of which are as follows:-
1. The theory that a confluence of tribes/cultures at a strategic location is the prime reason a civilization pops up in the first place.
2. The linguistic link theories (which have been the focus of this thread)
3. Lack of clinching archaeological evidence of a more developed economic system that is indicated by the epics and the later (w.r.t RV) Indian texts. (This is important for the Age of Indian Civilization question...)

There are a few more, some already touched on in this thread but I think I'll focus on #1 now:-

"A link can be made between the Mehrgarh III period and the Later Neolithic settlements in BMC and Afghanistan based on archaeological discoveries. The evidences of long distance trade (Turkmenistan to Iran) from 4500 BC-3300 BC led to the postulate that small communities sprang up along the SE. Afghanistan-Baluchistan-West Punjab-NWFP-Turkmenistan region. The resources here were able to sustain the communities and the barter trade made things more worthwhile. Eventually these settlements were abandoned and the major communities slowly moved east towards the rivers of W. Punjab and Sindh which could support larger populations and social structures developed which developed over the past few centuries.
(And how did these new structures develop in the meantime? Advances in food storage, organized foraging and gathering and baby-steps in domestication of flora and fauna simply made it possible that you don't die when you are 33 and one in two newborns die in the first few months. Now you have more people freed from subsistence hunting/foraging and able to do other tasks..... or work on this brand new thing called "entertainment". Interactions with other tribes/peoples also broadened horizons and benefits of trade were apparent. You need dedicated brains and muscle to make sure these new changes work... You also need some people to see to it that the shining guy in the sky and the faces in the fire and the things that go bump in the night and your dead ancestors get their share.)

These cities matured, burgeoned, evolved (or devolved if a newly chosen site ran out of whatever made it tick) and around 2700 BC you had a whole Indus Valley Civilization spread over an area the size of France. Dispersed communities also did their bit by supporting the larger sites but think of them as trading posts/watering holes/food gathering camps and not a part of the mainstream. BTW, this IVC thingie people were not literate, had no coinage (NO! The seals are not currency! The pots with notches and markings do not represent standardized units) and was purely business-"Paisa Bhek, Tamasha Dekh". No advanced culture, just an ordered society of drones and bean counters run by chiefs and priests all revolving around business. By the way, the horned guy near the bull in that seal.... he ain't no god. He was just a vain Gujarati Seth who supplied of bulls from yonder. He wanted his own brand and seal you know.
All this fell when TFTA warriors swooped down from Europe and put them little shopkeepers to the sword. See those skeletons with obvious cuts made by axes? But some heathens digress and say it was droughts and earthquakes and all which ended the party but hey, isn't the existing theory more comfortable? You know what, let's call it even and call this a massive migration down a few centuries.... deal?!

In the above kahaani that is in vogue, putting aside the dogmatic assertions and invading blonde warrior-poets there are the logical points that explain WHY the civilization blossomed right there. There are those socio-economic and geographical links down the Neolithic-later Neolithic-Eneolithic time periods and the explanation of the shift towards better water sources and cities with supporting zones which nicely seals their pet theory. If a similar explanation (with archaeological evidences) can be made for the OIT and 8000 year-Indic-Civ theories that are being offered, then no Witzel or Parpola or local commie historipolitician can deny it.

Has this been done by someone? I mean, like link the neolithic sites of Madhya Pradesh and UP with intensive links which led to birth of a small township that later grew into Pratisthana? It is quite possible.... given that RakhiGarhi slightly NW of Delhi is about as big and old as Harappa.... and who knows what other lost cities the sands hide and what lies beneath the ancient cities like Allahabad and Delhi? IMHO most of the effort is spent piskoanalyzing white devils, playing THEIR game of shifting goalposts, mud wrestling with ideologically fossilized/biased academicia and stressing on Ithihaas.

JMTC.
Diving deep now.....

PS: Long time back in the Non Western World View thread there was a discussion on the AMT; I remember Rye, myself and a couple of others discussing the Indigenous "Aryans" vs the AMT. I think I made the same point then, but without the elaboration.

[ManishH]

For example, by your logic - what happens to the verses that do not mention "bronze"? Since they do not mention bronze, they need not be constricted to have been composed after "bronze"? Could not they have been originally framed before "bronze"?

Bronze needn't be directly reference by a verse - eg. a horse-driven chariot's construction requires a sturdy metal at points of stress - eg the lynch pin. So if verses mention swift horse driven chariots, they can be assumed to be bronze age or later.

And mention of Bronze/Chariots is found sprinkled all over layers of ṛgveda, Even those dated relatively early eg. by Talageri's book.

[Dipanker]

IMO this is one of the more authentic science based argument compared to the rest which are PIE in the sky, so why is this evidence not being stressed enough?

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

Sarasvati River
Main article: Sarasvati river
Many hymns in all ten Books of the Rigveda (except the 4th) extol or mention a divine and very large river named the Sarasvati,[39] which flows mightily "from the mountains to the [Indian] Ocean”.[35][40][41] Talageri states that "the references to the Sarasvati far outnumber the references to the Indus" and "The Sarasvati is so important in the whole of the Rigveda that it is worshipped as one of the Three Great Goddesses".[42][43]
According to palaeoenvironmental scientists the desiccation of Sarasvati came about as a result of the diversion of at least two rivers that fed it, the Satluj and theYamuna. "The chain of tectonic events ... diverted the Satluj westward (into the Indus) and the Palaeo Yamuna eastward (into the Ganges) ... This explains the ‘death’ of such a mighty river (the Sarasvati) ... because its main feeders, the Satluj and Palaeo Yamuna were weaned away from it by the Indus and the Gangaa respectively”.[44][45] This ended at c 1750, but it started much earlier, perhaps with the upheavals and the large flood of 1900, or more probably 2100.[46][47] P H Francfort, utilizing images from the French satellite SPOT, finds[48] that the large river Sarasvati is pre-Harappan altogether and started drying up in the middle of the4th millennium BC; during Harappan times only a complex irrigation-canal network was being used in the southern region of the Indus Valley. With this the date should be pushed back to c 3800 BC.
The Nadistuti hymn (RV 10.75) gives a list of names of rivers where Sarasvati is merely mentioned while Sindhu receives all the praise. This may well indicate thatRV 10 could be dated to a period after the first drying up of Sarasvati when the river lost its preeminence.[35] It is agreed that the tenth Book of the Rigveda is later than the others.[49]
The 414 archeological sites along the bed of Saraswati dwarf the number of sites so far recorded along the entire stretch of the Indus River, which number only about three dozen. About 80 percent of the sites are datable to the fourth or third millennium BCE, suggesting that the river was in its prime during this period.[50] If this date were used for the composition of the hymns about Sarasvati, then the Indo-Aryans would necessarily have been in India in the 4th millennium BC.

[ManishH]

I would ask - militaristic yes, but compared to what.

What is your view on this? I have personally never related to the Rig Veda as something militaristic because Rig Vedic hymns are part of my identity and form part of day to day ritual in my life and I would like to know what is meant by "militarism" in the Rig Veda?

It's all relative - there are no mass armies, looting, territorial expansion or aggression mentioned in ṛgveda. So If I compare to militarism of Egypt, it's nothing compared to that. Also notable is absence of dirges in ṛgvedic hymns - which are typical of suicidally-militaristic societies like the Hittites, or perhaps even the Spartans.

In ṛgveda, whatever battles are described are by individual heroes or a tribal group. Yes, there is bravery, heroism and battle against enemies - no, there is no ahiṃsa. So I would not call it a docile, only-spiritual society, but one that is more than capable to defend against enemies.

For militarism, some relevant sūkta's to study are 1-32 (indrasya vīryāṇi) 7-33,83 (daśa-rājana battle) 6-75 (dhanva ghoṣa : a stirring battle hymn).

[member_20317]

A_Gupta ji,

I also agree with you, Itihaas is certainly more important than History. Itihaas enabled Indians to spread out and share their own lives with others around and that is what will bring more people together in future too. We should be careful not to hand over the History to our kids before we hand over the Itihaas to them. Our kids should be helped in understanding the ‘natural lives’ before they begin to quibble over and try to prove their smartness over others using History. The lives and times of a select band of kings and quislings should not be allowed to take over the lives of the ‘Purush/Manushya’. Past will in any case produce its own History. History will only produce a muddled up mind looking for ‘fertility rites’ in the lives of the Mango Abdul and ‘fame’ in the lives of Rajahs.

As Shivji says the ancient people were doing a lot more than just ‘fertility rites’. An explanation that looks ‘fertility rites’ everywhere is a stupid explanation and speaks more of the ‘Budhijeebi’ than of those Ancient people.

Man, I have been told has been as modern as he is today, since last about 1-2 lac years. That to me implies that people in such hoary past were just as capable/incapable of understanding their link with the world around as we are/are not. What we say about those Pitrs reflects our own understanding about ourselves and our kids.

[brihaspati]

For example, by your logic - what happens to the verses that do not mention "bronze"? Since they do not mention bronze, they need not be constricted to have been composed after "bronze"? Could not they have been originally framed before "bronze"?

Bronze needn't be directly reference by a verse - eg. a horse-driven chariot's construction requires a sturdy metal at points of stress - eg the lynch pin. So if verses mention swift horse driven chariots, they can be assumed to be bronze age or later.

And mention of Bronze/Chariots is found sprinkled all over layers of ṛgveda, Even those dated relatively early eg. by Talageri's book.

This is funny. So now we have "bronze" sprinkled in "layers" all over rgveda - subject to of course the final demand that the word(s) for bronze as declared by linguists was really used for "bronze"!

I guess you have realized what specific verse instances being used to push all the verses into an instantaneous timeframe poses as a danger to the very linguistic project itself. If the presence of "bronze" implies they were composed in a specific period, then their absence no longer constrains a verse to be of the same period as "bronze" ones, and could be even of an earlier period or describes events of earlier periods.

If "absence" does not mean earlier, then so many things are absent in non-Sanskritic so-called sisters of Sanskrit or Vedic - which would rule out so many other items of PIE/IE theory and culture elsewhere as of the claimed time sequences.

So now you want to bronz-ify whole of RV, putting it in "layers" even if it cannot be seen? Isn't this a bit extreme? On the other hand - if bronze can exist in layers which are not directly seen in RV, would you allow other items too such privilege? Talageri suddenly gains your confidence if he can be used to bronzify RV while his whole work onlee had value for you if it could be used to demolish OIT!

You claim that linguists have updated things with new findings. Not really - the essential political drive remains the same - and those on which concepts of imperial "civilizing" mission are based on, have been carefully kept out of compromise.

You yourself continue to make statements as "final". "Horses" == "aswa" == a claimed sequence of AIT dispersal into India. You don't yourself cast your statements as hypothesis, but simply as final words. This is how most linguists write and pontificate.

Posters can read up on any random linguist "stalwart"'s texts - and will be surprised to see the the casually dismissive and political undertone in almost every commentary. I have read Hock before, but not so completely as I did recently after your pointer. Finished Miller's two volumes in a 4-day setting. Every now and then, the underlying arrogance and politics comes through - even if the attempt to cover it as much as possible through jargon is quite conscious.

Oh, and yes - they are axioms actually - based on empirical observations of modern language use in communities and groups. There are plenty of open problems even in such theorizing within phonetics - as ongoing observations constantly problematize the white-haired "laws" of sound change. I am increasingly coming across the acknowledgment that "sound change" theory has been "most fruitful" for "PIE" reconstruction and IE propagation - which tells a lot.

It was devised to fit the hypothesis - based on a very flimsy and small set of epigraphic records - that imperialism needed. Being a over-fit model to a hypothesis - with almost no real chance of ever being verified properly - it of course fitted "beautifully".

[ManishH]

According to palaeoenvironmental scientists the desiccation of Sarasvati came about as a result of the diversion of at least two rivers that fed it, the Satluj and theYamuna. "The chain of tectonic events ... diverted the Satluj westward (into the Indus) and the Palaeo Yamuna eastward (into the Ganges) ... This explains the ‘death’ of such a mighty river (the Sarasvati) ... because its main feeders, the Satluj and Palaeo Yamuna were weaned away from it by the Indus and the Gangaa respectively”.[44][45] This ended at c 1750, but it started much earlier, perhaps with the upheavals and the large flood of 1900, or more probably 2100.[46][47

Dipankerji: the problem here is that there are equally scientific studies which conflict the above dates. Eg. See Clift et al, "U-Pb zircon dating evidence for a Pleistocene Sarasvati River and capture of the Yamuna River". This paper says that capture of the Yamuna to the east was between 49ka - 10ka, much much before Harappan civilization.

ABSTRACT
The Harappan Culture, one of the oldest known urban civiliza-
tions, thrived on the northwest edge of the Thar Desert (India and
Pakistan) between 3200 and 1900 BCE. Its demise has been linked to
rapid weakening of the summer monsoon at this time, yet reorganiza-
tion of rivers may also have played a role. We sampled subsurface
channel sand bodies predating ca. 4.0 ka and used U-Pb dating of
zircon sand grains to constrain their provenance through comparison
with the established character of modern river sands. Samples from
close to archaeological sites to the north of the desert show little affin-
ity with the Ghaggar-Hakra, the presumed source of the channels.
Instead, we see at least two groups of sediments, showing similari-
ties both to the Beas River in the west and to the Yamuna and Sutlej
Rivers in the east. The channels were active until after 4.5 ka and
were covered by dunes before 1.4 ka, although loss of the Yamuna
from the Indus likely occurred as early as 49 ka and no later than
10 ka. Capture of the Yamuna to the east and the Sutlej to the north
rerouted water away from the area of the Harappan centers, but this
change significantly predated their final collapse.

From Conclusions section, they are proposing that even the redirection of Beas and Sutlej is prior to 10ka (much before Harappan civilization)

While drainage from the Yamuna may have been lost from the Ghaggar-Hakra
well before development of the Harappan Civilization, flow from the Beas
and Sutlej may have been more recent in Cholistan, if still prior to 10 ka.

For a geologically ignorant individual like me, it looks like there is consensus that tectonic events redirected the flow, but no agreement for the dates when it happened.

[ManishH]

This is funny. So now we have "bronze" sprinkled in "layers" all over rgveda - subject to of course the final demand that the word(s) for bronze as declared by linguists was really used for "bronze"!

B-ji : 'āyasa' is not a stone because the word 'aśma' is used for latter. The former has to be some some sturdy alloy - to hold the lynch pin of the chariot and join it's draft pole to the carriage - it cannot be plain copper. I'm not even insisting on bronze. Any man-made strong alloy objects will do. AFAIK, nothing of this sort is found in 10,000 BC or 8,000 BC in India.

I guess you have realized what specific verse instances being used to push all the verses into an instantaneous timeframe poses as a danger to the very linguistic project itself.

In ṛgveda, there is no mention of neolithic stone arrow heads either. So if you have some evidence of it being neolithic, please bring up.

You don't yourself cast your statements as hypothesis, but simply as final words. This is how most linguists write and pontificate.

Everything I wrote is what I think. No one prefixes "I think ..." for every statement.

[shiv]

It's all relative - there are no mass armies, looting, territorial expansion or aggression mentioned in ṛgveda. So If I compare to militarism of Egypt, it's nothing compared to that. Also notable is absence of dirges in ṛgvedic hymns - which are typical of suicidally-militaristic societies like the Hittites, or perhaps even the Spartans.

In ṛgveda, whatever battles are described are by individual heroes or a tribal group. Yes, there is bravery, heroism and battle against enemies - no, there is no ahiṃsa. So I would not call it a docile, only-spiritual society, but one that is more than capable to defend against enemies.

This is what I thought. There is a name for the sort of argument which seeks to give validity to a false or incredible assertion by associating it with something that is known and credible. I cannot recall the name, but if Anthony is guilty of any fudging, or white lies it is in using this sort of argument when he says

-Imperial Hittite, Mycenaean Greek, and the
most ancient form of Sanskrit, or Old Indic-were spoken by militaristic
societies

In one sentence he equates all of them under the term "militaristic". If you know about one of those societies, you know them all. Mycenaean and Vedic? My mind boggles at the suggested similarity.

[Arjun]

We have to accept that our ancestors (who could invent something like Panini's grammar) did not think that history was necessary for human flourishing. Or else they would have written and preserved histories.

This is a very important point.

It is no accident that history is probably the only area among all academic disciplines, which is not associated with any known authorities from ancient or classical India. Leave aside the well-known Indian heritage of leadership in hard sciences such as mathematics, logic, medicine & metallurgy - India produced among the earliest known authoritative works in practically all humanities areas: economics, politics, linguistics, philosophy.

The ONLY white space was history. When a civilization known for its pursuit of knowledge in all spheres ignores one particular area - it is surprising that even respected analysts continue to regard this factoid as some kind of historical accident. RC Majumdar is quoted as saying, ‘One of the gravest defects of Indian culture, which defies rational explanation, is the aversion of Indians to writing history. They applied themselves to all conceivable branches of literature and excelled in many of them, but they never seriously took to the writing of history.'

Which defies rational explanation? This is tired analysis. There is indeed a very rational explanation - historiography, as defined in the West, was consciously regarded by Indian intellectuals as not being a 'knowledge' pursuit in the same league as other academic disciplines. History was regarded as inherently political - there is no such thing as an 'unbiased' historical truth. It is always the version of the winner of history. Pursuit of historical 'truth' is not only a chimera - it invariably promotes divisiveness and 'exclusivist' tendencies in society. The beneficial aspects of learning history (in terms of learning from past mistakes) can just as well be achieved through the Indian tradition of Itihaasa.

It is no wonder that history is of utmost importance to the exclusivist Abrahamic creeds. These are history-centric societies. History is as much an intellectual weapon for their battles, as the gun and the bomb is in physical warfare. India's ahistorical path, on the other hand, was a conscious decision....Hinduism IS anti history-centrism. The Vedas were deliberately termed by rishis as 'Apaurusheya'. The intent was clear - forget who wrote the Vedas. The messenger does not matter, what matters is the message. This is absolutely flabbergasting to most Abrahamics - why would any writer of something as grand as the Vedas not announce him/herself or themselves as The Prophets of God - to be always venerated by history? But there was meaning to it....The Vedas were not for and by any 'chosen people', they were not to be identified as the work of any particular region or class of people - they were meant for all those who were interested in the pursuit of spiritual truth.

Having said all of this- in a scenario where history has been refined into an intellectual 'nuclear weapon' in the hands of the West, Indians need to develop the same capabilities - prior to calling for any 'non-proliferation treaty' on the issue.

[member_20317]

http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.ca/2012/ ... l-dan.html

Though OT here in strict literal sense but the Colonel Dan Syndrome is actually very relevant in explaining the AIT/AMT drama.

And that is why I am a strong votary of keeping the History of India out of the formal education system. The formal education system is already owned by Malechas and their chamchas. Lucky thing for us are:

1) Even an ill trained individual requires a sense of his past. And OIT is based on much more rational thought unlike AIT/AMT.
2) The formal education system teaches such bunkum history that most people forget most of what is taught within half an year.
3) We can do a reverse swing to every swing they put upto us. Lets just do that outside the Government controlled education system.

[Lalmohan]

I would ask - militaristic yes, but compared to what.

What is your view on this? I have personally never related to the Rig Veda as something militaristic because Rig Vedic hymns are part of my identity and form part of day to day ritual in my life and I would like to know what is meant by "militarism" in the Rig Veda?

"sing the battle hymn of indra varuna..." i believe is the start of one of the verses
i agree on the relativist argument, a purely militartistic society eventually ends up as a pile of corpses
athens defeated sparta not only by learning how to fight in a phalanx, but more so because of the wealth of her citizens

[Sanku]

Having said all of this- in a scenario where history has been refined into an intellectual 'nuclear weapon' in the hands of the West, Indians need to develop the same capabilities - prior to calling for any 'non-proliferation treaty' on the issue.

A brilliant exposition. This thread is indeed bringing out the best in a lot of us.

[ManishH]

I cannot recall the name, but if Anthony is guilty of any fudging, or white lies it is in using this sort of argument when he says

-Imperial Hittite, Mycenaean Greek, and the
most ancient form of Sanskrit, or Old Indic-were spoken by militaristic
societies

In one sentence he equates all of them under the term "militaristic". If you know about one of those societies, you know them all. Mycenaean and Vedic? My mind boggles at the suggested similarity.

I think by "Old Indic", Anthony means the language of Mitanni kings; because at page 49, it also says ...

the deities, moral concepts, and Old Indic language of the Rig Veda first appeared in written documents not in India but in northern Syria

If so, I agree with him - Mitanni warriors were indeed militaristic.

Of course I know you won't accept that language of Mitanni treaty can be older than Sanskrit.

[Sanku]

If so, I agree with him - Mitanni warriors were indeed militaristic.

.

Saar, warriors are known to be militaristic. That I am sorry to say is obvious.

The question is was Mittani society a fully militarized society?

Clearly this is a huge and completely unfounded assumption?

Of course I know you won't accept that language of Mitanni treaty can be older than Sanskrit.

If there is a shred of evidence or any remote logical backing, accepting it will not be difficult. However without any evidence, throw away statements which work at level of insinuation (forget exactness or proof) should not end up as scholarship.

[shiv]

Of course I know you won't accept that language of Mitanni treaty can be older than Sanskrit.

In this aspect I am your humble shishya. I won't accept anything that has no evidence credible to me.

I can also pick up an attempt at a bluff when I see one. That is what makes it so much fun to discuss this subject - because even the experts have to resort to rhetoric, given the paucity of facts and plentitude of previous cooking up of convenient dates and data points on the flimsiest of grounds.

All languages are older than their scripts, so the record of a treaty in a particular script says nothing about the age of the language or of any other languages, similar or different.

The phonetics of this decoded Mitanni language are themselves suspect because the Mitanni letters (of one Mitanni king to an Egyptian Pharaoh) were in Hurrian cuneiform and cuneiform was first decoded via Persian in a chance find of a lifetime for some linguist. The phonetics of the Mitanni language is a "best guess" of the self designated "experts". Creating an entire language out of this sort of evidence, deducing sister languages and mother languages and then attributing a date for it may be all part of a day's work in the kitchen of linguistics. But it does not appear like robust science to me.

It is possible that the Mitanni warriors spoke Sanskrit. They could well be an example of language out of India. No proof either way. But if Mitanni warriors spoke Sanskrit it does not make Vedic society a militaristic society as alleged by Shri Anthony.

[shiv]

Subash Kak has plenty to say about the Indic origins of the Mitannis in this pdf, but he belongs to the wrong ethnicity for "accepted, peer reviewable scholarship"

Akhenaten, Surya, and the Rgveda
Subhash Kak
July 17, 2003
http://www.bahaistudies.net/asma/atenism9.pdf

[shiv]

I think by "Old Indic", Anthony means the language of Mitanni kings; because at page 49, it also says ...

the deities, moral concepts, and Old Indic language of the Rig Veda first appeared in written documents not in India but in northern Syria

No saar. He means Sanskrit of the Rig Veda. You really should get yourself the pdf, which makes word search easy. But page 49 is the best. You just missed the very first words of the paragraph on page 49.

From Anthony's "Horse, Wheel and Language"
Page 18

the most ancient form of Sanskrit, or Old Indic-were spoken by militaristic
societies

Page 22

Most normal spoken languages over the course of a thousand years un-
dergo enough change that speakers at either end of the millennium, at-
tempting a conversation, would have difficulty understanding each other.
Languages like Church Latin or Old Indic (the oldest form of Sanskrit),

Page 49

Old Indic, the language of the Rig Veda, was recorded in inscriptions
not long after 1500 BCE but in a puzzling place. Most Vedic specialists
agree that the 1,028 hymns of the Rig Veda were compiled into what be-
came the sacred form in the Punjab, in northwestern India and Pakistan,
probably between about 1500 and 1300 BCE. But the deities, moral con-
cepts, and Old Indic language of the Rig Veda first appeared in written
documents not in India but in northern Syria. 14

Anthony says that the Rig Veda was "compiled" in India. Why? Are the Mitanni language and old Sanskrit the same? I think Anthony has fallen a bit in my eyes.

[shiv]

Dipankerji: the problem here is that there are equally scientific studies which conflict the above dates. Eg. See Clift et al, "U-Pb zircon dating evidence for a Pleistocene Sarasvati River and capture of the Yamuna River". This paper says that capture of the Yamuna to the east was between 49ka - 10ka, much much before Harappan civilization.

The conflict is only about when the rivers changed course. There is no denial of the fact that the Saraswati existed, no matter what caused its disappearance.

[shiv]

In the above kahaani that is in vogue, putting aside the dogmatic assertions and invading blonde warrior-poets there are the logical points that explain WHY the civilization blossomed right there. There are those socio-economic and geographical links down the Neolithic-later Neolithic-Eneolithic time periods and the explanation of the shift towards better water sources and cities with supporting zones which nicely seals their pet theory. If a similar explanation (with archaeological evidences) can be made for the OIT and 8000 year-Indic-Civ theories that are being offered, then no Witzel or Parpola or local commie historipolitician can deny it.

Has this been done by someone? I mean, like link the neolithic sites of Madhya Pradesh <snip>

Has this been done? Good question.

As i see it the linking of anything older than the "Aryan Invasion" with anything south and east of the Indus valley as a possible part of a continuum of subcontinental history as you rightly (in my view) surmise was nipped in the bud right at the outset. The Aryans came and brought civilization. They pushed the stinking black Dravidians South. There was no need after this to look for any continuum in Indian history. It was all explained. the line was drawn about origins and any history worth talking about.

If anyone has to look for such connection it is us, the post 1947 Indians. And as you can see from this thread we are still reeling from the hangover of that old story.


I post again the summary of Indian history from Aryans to Mughals, from a 1910 book

[Sanku]

I think Anthony has fallen a bit in my eyes.

I suspect Anthony is not the only one falling here.

[RajeshA]

History vs Past

One should also keep this in mind:
http://xyz4000.wordpress.com/2012/02/16 ... angadhara/

What do Indians Need: A History or the Past

In order to destroy the past of a people, all you need to do is to give them history.

A_Gupta ji has already written some on how we should look at the issue.

I think any argument of determining either past or history needs a scientific basis now. For that matter, AIT can be asked to prove scientifically correct., to be re-certified part of history.

I don't understand that logic. Could someone please explain what is this "OR" condition, and what is the message I am missing here?

The issue is I believe one of inspiration. What inspires us more - a proud history or a sense of the past?

Mahabharat & Ramayana are our past. We derive inspiration from it. But it is not really history as such. It becomes history when we start doing historical analysis of it; when we start fixing dates to various events; we we start merging our past with known history, not just of the region but also in respect of the regions connections to the rest of the world.

Past is a mystery we would rather leave as mystery and try to derive other lessons and inspiration from it, than simply the knowledge that okay that happened.

As soon as we make our past into history it would come under attack, because then it would stand in relation to the achievements of others as well as challenge the claim to antiquity of the others.

Of course, our itihaas, the stories, the mythology hides a whole treasure of clues of how our history really looked like, and one can dig for them, but we do that, we fear we may spoil the integrity of the scripture, bring down its claim to divinity by thrusting reality into it.

The mythology is there to uplift our minds and souls. Putting it on the ground of reality would we fear debase the scripture, because nothing we despise more is reality. If one brings it down to reality, instead of looking for inspiration there we would ourselves start judging it and passing judgments on that age allowing people to throw aspersions of violations of human rights, etc. on it.

But if don't mine our mythology, basically we are left with no history, and this too allows external agents to mock us and to convert the weak minded.

So we need both undemystified Dharmic scriptures as well as solid history.

That can be accomplished if we build two poles in our society and divide our society accordingly. One pole or extreme can say that the Vedas is the song of the Cosmos and existed from before its creation, while others can say Rigveda were composed by 4000 BCE by a few houses of priests - Angirasas, Bhrgus, etc.

In any society, debate takes place between poles of ideology and thought. Usually only two poles is the norm. For example today the two poles in India are Secularism and Hindutva ABC and XYZ per Sanku ji's recommendation . In America it is between liberal post-modernists and conservatives. In the West in general, the debate is between Greek Rationality and Christian Dogma. Before Independence it was between the British and the INC.

The best situation is when the debate within a country is between two poles who are both loyal to the nation and not subject to external influence and power. Thus all ideological positions anybody can take is between these two poles. Most would just say that both positions are correct, as one can read Hindu scriptures at multiple levels.

So the two poles in India should be Itihaasists and Historicists - ones who believe in cyclic time and divine origins on the one side and others who believe in proven antiquity and achievements of the Indic Civilization.

Perhaps then ideologically speaking, it is indeed a good idea to leave the two - Vedic Civilization and Indus Valley Civilization separate.

Historicists are needed, so that the rest of the world does not take away our historical treasures, whereas Itihaasists are needed, so that we don't lose a sense of ourselves in our pursuit of history.

[Sanku]

For example today the two poles in India are XYZ and ABC.

Excellent post RajeshA ji, though you may want to edit the above part, we do not have secularism in India.

The debate is between An external interpretation of India vs a nationalist interpretation of India; the debate is between keeping the natives in their place and allowing non Indians memes as first priority or giving equal or higher weight age to people and thoughts who are Indian in origin.

[RajeshA]

It is no wonder that history is of utmost importance to the exclusivist Abrahamic creeds. These are history-centric societies. History is as much an intellectual weapon for their battles, as the gun and the bomb is in physical warfare. India's ahistorical path, on the other hand, was a conscious decision....Hinduism IS anti history-centrism. The Vedas were deliberately termed by rishis as 'Apaurusheya'. The intent was clear - forget who wrote the Vedas. The messenger does not matter, what matters is the message.

Arjun ji,

even Rajiv Malhotra makes a very valid differentiation between historicity and history-centricity.

As we see in this thread, if a people do not have historicity and the elite doesn't value it, and thus does not keep records; other more dominant players would come and write one's history and twist one's past.

One can see for example how Dravidian Chauvinism and Dravidian Christianism is a direct outgrowth of a missing historicity, which the Brits and Christians have exploited.

Lack of historicity facilitates deracination under foreign domination. There is ideology or faith and then there is one's rootedness in a civilization. Under foreign domination, ideology, faith and value systems can weaken and degenerate in a society, so an individual's identity becomes detached, unless his rootedness is assured through a second anchor - genealogical anchor, which is far less easy to break.

Historicity provides the second anchor - tribal affiliation. If one notices, most Arabs carry the name of many of their forefathers in their own names. In fact this strengthens Islam as well there. Also Islamists often try to wipe out all records of converted people, by burning down libraries and archives, by breaking all temples and statues.

For the converted people of the Indian Subcontinent, a large population of Hindus is still a threat, because it reminds them of their historical roots which were un-Islamic. As such some parts of Punjab and Bengal coming to India was very important.

History-Centrism on the other hand is not really a threat to Indics. Truth in Dharma is omnipresent and eternal and one can have access to it anytime one is able to open one's consciousness to it. It is not based on any historic event. Even if the text books revise their content and start talking about the dates when Rig Veda was composed and Mahabharata took place, the Dharmics can always reject those dates, and keep Hindu avatars real but ahistorical.

[RajeshA]

Sanku ji,

thanks. corrected!

[member_22872]

Manjish ji said:
Dipankerji: the problem here is that there are equally scientific studies which conflict the above dates. Eg. See Clift et al, "U-Pb zircon dating evidence for a Pleistocene Sarasvati River and capture of the Yamuna River". This paper says that capture of the Yamuna to the east was between 49ka - 10ka, much much before Harappan civilization.

Manish ji, actually it is a silent acceptance that Sarasvati is in India, how it ended can be a matter of debate, people started studying the river course just now, but this puts Rg Vedic composition in India around the time of Sarasvati river's prominence not by nomadic Aryans. Kochars and Thapars have been proven wrong. There is a lot about this that is not being said. Now if sarasvati was such a prominent river which died by 1900 BC, what does that say about age of Rg Veda? and Aswa is mentioned in it even a 5 year old knows by now, so now what happens to PIE now?

[SaiK]

the question from past to history as done in the past, and not as done in the history is what perplexes me. evidence based history erases the past into history. by any means, a challenge and disapproval by counter evidences should push the history back to past.

so, everyone is back to no-history past, and a level playing field to define history now. now, i am thinking that is what is required if AIT is challenged.

[Sanku]

evidence based history erases the past into history. by any means, a challenge and disapproval by counter evidences should push the history back to past.

This is a fantastic formulation and probably the first time I understood anything in SaiK's post as well.

[RajeshA]

So when they talk about horses and gods, horses and sacrifices, horses as gifts it means they had horses. Unless they were bluffing, the lack of horse bones is not proof that they did not have horses.

The horse case is being used, like I said, as a crutch to hold up more than one theory. It is not just the Aryan invasion theory but I suspect the more recently cooked up history and origins of "Indo-European" languages depends heavily on the dating of the Rig Veda to about 1200 BC. That is why the community of experts are willing to "give ground" on the absence of an invasion, but need to cling on to the horse excuse. The horse is tied up too closely with theories of language origins.

Actually in the Military Forum, BRFites have also discussed F22s F35s etc in considerable length. We don't have any of them.

We may be building an aircraft carrier, but we haven't constructed one as yet. So if INS Vikraant and INS Vikramaditya were to just sink (though they will not ), nobody would be able to say we had aircraft carriers, if they don't find those two carriers, and still we would have had them.

The point is simple.

AIT-wallas tell us, we need to show evidence of "pre-migration" horse remains, if we wish to upturn the Aryan Migration Theory. But we never challenge them why?

They just give us a AIT black box which says: show horse bones, disprove it! But we don't ask why should we show horse-bones. There were too few horses in a tropical climate to have left any bones in the few places where we have looked for them till date.

Somehow the AIT-Nazis are expecting us to show huge horse graveyards and remains of chariot-factories in every second corner in India. It is like saying either you show me the staff of Moses or accept that he didn't exist.

We don't deny that there were horses, but the climatic conditions are not conducive to finding too many remains of the few horses which were there.

----------

The question is set up very much like "Have you stopped beating your wife?".

"Have you found the remains of horses that proto-Rig Vedic people brought with them from Central Asia?"

Regardless of how you answer the question, you are accepting

1. that the ancestors of Rig Veda composers were in Central Asia, and
2. that they brought the horse to the Indian Subcontinent;

though you may think you are accepting only

1. that the Rigvedic people used to use the horse.

Even if we were to find horse-bones prior to some proposed date of arrival, they would then say, "Oh, did the proto-Rig-vedic Aryans, then reach the Subcontinent earlier that initially expected, or was it just a scouting party of Aryans in India who forgot to tie up their horse. Some small group of Aryans could have come earlier to India!!!!

So we should stop this search for horse-bones and confront the AIT-Nazis by posing to them the question, "Why don't Rigvedic Indians and their descendants drink mare's milk?"

[Dipanker]

According to palaeoenvironmental scientists the desiccation of Sarasvati came about as a result of the diversion of at least two rivers that fed it, the Satluj and theYamuna. "The chain of tectonic events ... diverted the Satluj westward (into the Indus) and the Palaeo Yamuna eastward (into the Ganges) ... This explains the ‘death’ of such a mighty river (the Sarasvati) ... because its main feeders, the Satluj and Palaeo Yamuna were weaned away from it by the Indus and the Gangaa respectively”.[44][45] This ended at c 1750, but it started much earlier, perhaps with the upheavals and the large flood of 1900, or more probably 2100.[46][47

Dipankerji: the problem here is that there are equally scientific studies which conflict the above dates. Eg. See Clift et al, "U-Pb zircon dating evidence for a Pleistocene Sarasvati River and capture of the Yamuna River". This paper says that capture of the Yamuna to the east was between 49ka - 10ka, much much before Harappan civilization.

ABSTRACT
The Harappan Culture, one of the oldest known urban civiliza-
tions, thrived on the northwest edge of the Thar Desert (India and
Pakistan) between 3200 and 1900 BCE. Its demise has been linked to
rapid weakening of the summer monsoon at this time, yet reorganiza-
tion of rivers may also have played a role. We sampled subsurface
channel sand bodies predating ca. 4.0 ka and used U-Pb dating of
zircon sand grains to constrain their provenance through comparison
with the established character of modern river sands. Samples from
close to archaeological sites to the north of the desert show little affin-
ity with the Ghaggar-Hakra, the presumed source of the channels.
Instead, we see at least two groups of sediments, showing similari-
ties both to the Beas River in the west and to the Yamuna and Sutlej
Rivers in the east. The channels were active until after 4.5 ka and
were covered by dunes before 1.4 ka, although loss of the Yamuna
from the Indus likely occurred as early as 49 ka and no later than
10 ka. Capture of the Yamuna to the east and the Sutlej to the north
rerouted water away from the area of the Harappan centers, but this
change significantly predated their final collapse.

From Conclusions section, they are proposing that even the redirection of Beas and Sutlej is prior to 10ka (much before Harappan civilization)

While drainage from the Yamuna may have been lost from the Ghaggar-Hakra
well before development of the Harappan Civilization, flow from the Beas
and Sutlej may have been more recent in Cholistan, if still prior to 10 ka.

For a geologically ignorant individual like me, it looks like there is consensus that tectonic events redirected the flow, but no agreement for the dates when it happened.

When exactly Yamuna river changed it's course does not seem very relevant to me, notice also the paper you are referring to talks about Yamuna flowing into Indus, not Saraswati. In any case Yamuna was not the only river feeding into Saraswati.

The point here is existence of Saraswati at it's due location and it's subsequent demise have been established scientifically, and as a scientist to me that is much more important than some PIE in the sky nonsense.

Point here is if Saraswati stopped flowing around 4000 years ago, the Rigveda has to be older than 1200CE. Case closed?

[RajeshA]

the question from past to history as done in the past, and not as done in the history is what perplexes me. evidence based history erases the past into history. by any means, a challenge and disapproval by counter evidences should push the history back to past.

Some would say such a process of challenge and disapproval by counter evidences pushes the history into fiction and lies.

[member_22872]

I think if we can do one more thing about proving AIT/AMT wrong. Follow mathe way, take what is known and build from there. It appears Sarasvati's presence in India and later it's demise around 1900 BC can be taken as what is proved. Now if Sarasvati's geography is fixed, time of Demise is fixed, Sarasvati's prominence as mentioned in Rg Veda only makes it older but yes how old will still remains to be proved, but astronomical dates can again be taken as something one can vouch their left and right testicles (shiv ji aplogies for stealing from you). Why depend on horses, everytime a new dig finds which predate the previous finds, we have to revise our own chronology, I think relative horse dates should be left alone to linguistic guys, it suits them well. linguistics stories are just fairy tales about knights in shining armour on their magnificent mighty 18 paired rib horses galloping away to nowhere forgetting everything they see on their way to nowhere.

[Lalmohan]

look at the horse issue another way.

when the early vedic people crossed the mountains and entered the steppes - they found a range of familiar and new species of fauna. one of them happened to be the horse, that they had known well back in the saraswati basin - but here there were many more, more fierce, and in vast herds. one day, an enterprising young warrior ambushed a wild steppe horse and grabbing his mane, leaped astride him. by days end, the horse had submitted to his master. the grandson of that warrior inherited a herd of 100 domesticated horses, unlike his ancestors, who perhaps had 2-3 at most.

the grandson began to call himself Maru and soon his people came to be known as the Marut, and their fame as horsemen spread far and wide... back south east to their ancestral lands and out westward into the open steppe into the lands of the barbarians...

[member_22872]

It's my opinion hence I can be wrong, but I think sometimes I feel it's better to be ignorant than know truth. I would rather pursue and be a better person in my morals of being selfless like Karna than delve into history, then come to know that he was a simple tribesman(for better lack of another term) whose generosity is nothing but hyperbole and thus lose my moral Datum plane to build myself or my unborn kids moral values.
JMT

[RajeshA]

The Maruts used to bring horses in herds from Afghanistan to the Sapta-Sindhu, where the Bharatas had established their hold, and thus provide bountiful horses (though still few) to the armies of Indra.

Of course we could speculate on the route they used to take. There are some references on the rivers in Afghanistan they needed to cross to arrive to the land of the Bharatas.

So what is more likely - to find remains of horses on that route which was much used, which is a line on the map, or to find the remains of horses in the tropical climate in India once those horses had reached there, and one would not know where to look for them in the huge landmass.

But to my unexpected pleasure, another AIT-Nazi, Asko Porpola, confirms my theory in this paper: THE GANDHÂRA GRAVE CULTURE, ITS BMAC BACKGROUND, AND THE HORSE.

Situated in and around the Swât Valley in northern Pakistan, on the route that leads from Afghanistan to South Asia, the Gandhâra Grave culture (c 1600-600 BC) occupies a strategic location at one of the principal entrances from Central Asia. This entrance was undoubtedly used by the Rigvedic Aryans {Maruts}, as the Kabul River, the Swât River and other waterways of this region are mentioned in the Rigveda. The horse and the horse-drawn chariot occupy a position of central importance in the culture of the Rigveda. It is therefore very significant that the Gandhâra Grave culture has produced the earliest known evidence of the domesticated horse from this part of South Asia. (Around the same time, the domesticated horse appears at Pirak near the Bolan Pass that connects the highlands of Baluchistan with the plains of the southern Indus Valley.)

The Gandhâra Grave culture first appears during the late part of the Ghâlegay IV Period, between c 1600 and 1400 BC. At this phase it is represented by ‘the black-grey, burnished ware … widespread throughout all the occupation phases of all the valley’s settlements excavated so far’, which is comparable to the BMAC ceramics at Dashly, Shah Tepe, Tepe Hissar and

Late Ghâlegay IV Period levels of this same settlement have produced bones of the domestic horse and donkey.

[Arjun]

even Rajiv Malhotra makes a very valid differentiation between historicity and history-centricity.

He does. But the two ideas are linked.

History-centrism has a very precise definition (& we need to thank Rajiv Malhotra for bringing in this degree of precision)....It refers to the role played by a particular version of history in the core objective of a religion.

The core objective for Christianity is Salvation. Salvation requires belief in a particular version of history (ie Jesus, Resurrection etc) without which it would be impossible to achieve.

The core objective of Dharmic religions is Moksha. Moksha is a process of self-actualization and does not require belief in any specific history or Prophet.

This core attitude of the respective religions, based on history-centrism - has also carried over to their outlook and attitudes towards historicism. So Abrahamic scholars, based on their upbringing that places utmost importance on history - carry the same attitude towards the detailed recording and minutea of all historical events. Dharmic cultures on the other hand - developed Itihaas which is a fluid combination of history and myth. Ram and Krishna can be revered in the Itihaas, even if their historicity is unproven. In general the Dharmic culture did not attach importance to the recording of minutae in history, especially in areas where the benefits of such recording are unclear or overwhelmed by possible negative repercussions.

As we see in this thread, if a people do not have historicity and the elite doesn't value it, and thus does not keep records; other more dominant players would come and write one's history and twist one's past.

I agree. But this historicity, as I mentioned in the end of my previous post, is only required to counter the historicity from the other side. In a more idyllic world, is it really required? What if some type of historicity and records lead to divisiveness which would be counterproductive to current society? Would you still insist on recording the 'truth' out there ?

I suspect it is Christian historicity that has kept Europe broken up into several nations, while it is Itihaas that has kept a much more populous and diverse India united today.

Historicity provides the second anchor - tribal affiliation.

Tribal affiliation can also be through values and customs - not necessarily through history. Tribal affiliations are strongest in India - they go by the name of castes.

History-Centrism on the other hand is not really a threat to Indics. Truth in Dharma is omnipresent and eternal and one can have access to it anytime one is able to open one's consciousness to it.

My personal belief is that the 'non history-centrism' of Dharmic religions is more than just a distinguishing attribute as compared to Judeo-Christianity - it is actually a core value for Dharmics. The Dharmic value system may be ambivalent on the benefits of historicity, but in my mind it is definitely ANTI history-centrism.

[Sanku]

It's my opinion hence I can be wrong, but I think sometimes I feel it's better to be ignorant than know truth. I would rather pursue and be a better person in my morals of being selfless like Karna than delve into history, then come to know that he was a simple tribesman(for better lack of another term) whose generosity is nothing but hyperbole and thus lose my moral Datum plane to build myself or my unborn kids moral values.
JMT

IMVHO the moral story of Karna, is not related to his either being a son of sun, or being a king vs tribal head.

The morality of Karna is in the Karma -- which are captured in texts -- that is constant -- the grandness of his Karma are NOT scaled by material value, but by inherent heart feelings. To give all up.

A Harischandra asking his wife for a share of clothes for his suns funeral since he is dharma bound is as great as Harsh giving up all and as Karna giving up what a seeker would ask.

Those actions were so profound that they have been captured by Risi's (or bards or town singer or a kauwa) and survive till this day.

No discovery of historicity can dim the grandness of the narrative, of the emotional scope, of the sheer poetry to capture it, of the beauty of the mind that envisages such concepts.

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

Personally I think the discovery of historicity will only add and not subtract, I don't know how much people follow archeological digs, but each and every dig attests to a MASSIVE sophisticated and urban setting -- even for minor settlements.

Mohanjodaro is minor settlement (other major ones are found and many can not even be excavated since they are too big) -- a the grandness of the baths and the town planning is amazing.

A Janmbhoomi dig refers to 2000 years of intricate buildings -- multiple Islamic chronicles (including B-ji's fav, Tarikh Yamini) attest to buildings which the kafirs claimed to be 40,000 years old being torn down.

No I dont think there is any danger of us having being dimmed by historicity, even in the material sense.

[RajeshA]

Going a bit OT here

It's my opinion hence I can be wrong,

You're wrong, but not because it is your opinion.

but I think sometimes I feel it's better to be ignorant than know truth. I would rather pursue and be a better person in my morals of being selfless like Karna than delve into history, then come to know that he was a simple tribesman(for better lack of another term) whose generosity is nothing but hyperbole and thus lose my moral Datum plane to build myself or my unborn kids moral values.
JMT

You may like to read here a bit.


By Usha Choudhuri
Vedic Ritual and its Symbolism

There are many co-ordinates to different levels of time, space and life.
The vedic yajna is the paradigmical construct. It is the instrumentality
of relating the cosmic, the terrestrial and the individual.

The Brahmana literature, in the process of interpreting the Vedic poetry and ritual and unfolding the archetypal symbols, presents various approaches. It must be re-asserted that it is due to the archetypal element that these could be understood at various levels. The Brahmanas give the three-fold meaning of a ritual. First is the cosmological one, the second refers to an individual's relationship with others in the family, the society or the political set-up, while the third points to the individual's physiological, psychological, intellectual and spiritual levels of existence.

venug ji,

the psychic, the social and the cosmic, all are in sync. One finds the patterns of interplay in one's thoughts in society as well, and what you find there, one can observe it in the cosmos!

Karna may be a simple tribesman but his behavior in that context paralleled the dynamic of the cosmos, which is deemed exemplary.

[member_22872]

guru jis,
I do understand what you are saying. But what I am afraid is truth that deconstructs Karna like characters. I want to have that, even if he is a mythological character, I don't want it to be lost because of newly discovered truth which throws him off the high pedestal he enjoyed. When the hero dies, the legend dies, all that one looks up to too dies. Sure I could be wrong, may be I am not looking at it right. I am not saying we shouldn't go and find the truth about our past, all I am saying is truth can have consequences which sometimes could hit hard on our psyche. Okay I am derailing the thread, I will stop.

[RajeshA]

Now there is a website on Indo-Aryans.

They too parrot the same "We are from Central Asia" line.