Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Aug 2012 19:45

brihaspati wrote:Why is it that archeo-astronomy has to be dubbed "juvenile" ? Becuase it fills up the gap between known unknowns and unknown unknowns by a fit of imagination just as historical linguists do? Both have their paradigmatic peer groups, both have their "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns", both are trying to interpret scarce data, and both are hamstrung by lack of independently verifiable contemporary sources.

By that same argument, historical linguistics becomes juvenile too.

IMHO historical linguistics becomes juvenile a lot faster than archaeo-astronomy!

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Aug 2012 19:48

Nilesh Oak wrote:The Jury is out on Zodiac (Rasshi). We know that Greeks are not the originators. Definitley Egyptians has them (however)and if they developed on their own, borrowed from someone else (or even a joing collaborative effort with other culture).

Koenraad Elst has written a bit about it and its origins.

By Koenraad Elst
Astronomical data and the Aryan question

Section 4.4 deals with it.

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 10 Aug 2012 19:53

Talking of Ramayana text, Romila Thapar says, "Oh, WE have not understood it yet. WE need to clean it up first, separate old from new, and WE don't know clearly how to do that. So WE are stuck and thus no point trying to figure out when Ramayan occured".

Who the F is WE? Yes, pseduoscientist are stuck, conveniently. But WE does not include intelligent, rational, daring indviduals who are willling to be take risks and equally happe when they are wrong.

Thank God, Newton did not listen to these naysayers, when they questioned "how can a force act at a distance without something-thread-to pull". He went ahead nevertheless (he just said "Hypothesis non fingo', translated for pseudoscientist as 'Just shut up") and went on with his work. He was aware of his ignorance. Key word is 'AWARE'.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 10 Aug 2012 19:54

RajeshA garu,
I have also noted before that many of RV's verses makes sense only in astronomical coding, but that the concepts of constellation-shapes could be more related to a proto form that has been manifested more in Greek and early European astronomy rather than later Indian "astrology". This is not necessarily a twisted supporting evidence for AIT, but could also be the same process that took proto-Sanskrit into CAR.

I think we should note that Indians did distinguish between astrology - which they logically related more to the solar system, in the variation inducing part - and used the ecliptic based zodiac divisions more as parallax free fixed place holders to relate the positional planetary influences - and the astronomy, which included the entire galactic grid. This is part of the reason, that early Indian maths stressed so much on spherical geometry and trigonometry. If they were onlee concerned with applied atsrology and the solar system, they would only practically need consider a rough ring/circular geometry.

We should not rule out the possibility that entire galactic grid, including the galactic plane movements were part of their study for long period events - which they were obviously trying to model, and remains in encoded hints in yuga and other concepts. Anyone observing the galactic plane geomtery over the last 100,000 years or so - would notice that it also has roughly a zodicacl character - with specific constellation groups - like that of the Canis-es, playing the role of zodiacal nakshatras. But such long period events were less useful in trying to predict human-lifetime events and hence were less popular and less widely disseminated.

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 10 Aug 2012 20:19

Rajesh ji,

I suggest we ask/encourage all existing and future members of this forum (may be other forums too) to watch this short clip (I posted it before, but don't know how to link it) of Richard Feynman (less than 9 min).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw

It covers many key points....

(1) Science begins with guess (wild guess, speculation is fine). Many of the ideas indeed have beend derived from Mythology, religious scriptures, religious dogma, history. It does not matter where the idea comes from. What matters is how we test it and to what extent observations agree with computed consequences. More critical, which key observations it contradicts with.

(2) We all are capable of suggesting various things for others to do (this should be encouraged), however, mere suggestion is not enough but one should actively work on problems. To truly understand a problem is to try solving it and fail, many times.

(3) Vague theories are hard to disprove. It is not their strength, it is their weakness. Irrefutability of a theory is not its strength, it is its weakness.

(4) Criticism is life-blood of a new theory. But it should always be in the context of Computed consequences of a theory vs. actual evidence. There are 'संवाद', 'वाद', 'विवाद' and वितंडवाद. First three are desired, last one is inevitable in some circumstances, but adds little (there are exceptions) to growth of knowledge.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Aug 2012 21:00

Books for the Library

Dating of Ramayana

Publication Date: January 8, 2004
Author: Pushkar Bhatnagar (1962 - 20.08.2010)
Dating The Era of Lord Ram [@Vedic Books] [@IndiaPlaza] [@Amazon]

Abstract of "Dating The Era of Lord Ram"

Verdict: January 10, 5114 BCE

Publication Date: First Edition (June 12, 1999)
Author Dr P.V. Vartak: [Google Site]
The Scientific Dating of Ramayana and the Vedas [Download]

From Vastav Ramayan
By Dr.P.V.Vartak
Astronomical Dating of the Ramayan

Verdict: 4th December 7323 B.C

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Aug 2012 21:12

Nilesh Oak ji,

The video of Richard Feynman is indeed enlightening, and I do hope we start using a similar format to present our theories.

However as things stand right now, AIT has been made the defacto narrative even though since 200 years no shred of evidence has been found. So there is still a lot of power even in vague theories and suggestions. I see propaganda and I don't mind counter-propaganda, and if it is based on truth and proof, then all the better!

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Aug 2012 21:23

Published on Sep 16, 2007
By Gurudev
Birth date of Rama: Blog HitXP
Human Intelligence to Solve Xtreme Problems

It refers to Pushkar Bhatnagar's calculation.

from the blog, a comment

B.V.Audinarayana wrote:I would like to bring to your notice that almost all software packages limit the year to four digits, as there is no necessity for the year to exceed four digits. When the allotted space is 4 digits, the computer processor would truncate the bigger figure to 4 digits eliminating the digits from left side. For example, if the date is 17,55,114 BC, it will cut off the first 3 digits 175 and will display only 5114 BC. (This is in some ways similar to the Y2K problem in 1999AD, which required changing digits from 2 to 4 for year.) This may be verified with the USA software company Fogware Publishing about “Planetarium Gold.”

I find this amusing!

Nilesh Oak ji,
here is another critique by AK Kaul on the blog, the AIT-Sepoy I mentioned earlier.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 10 Aug 2012 21:26

mmm... I think dating of Ramayan does not corresponds to ice-age melt theory.. in the sense, the end of ice-age melt was about 10-13K years ago.. and had started 20K years ago. So, during that period, at a time it was conducive to cross to lanka to fight against ravans.. considering water was shallower than now, and the bridge laying by throwing stones was to just fill up gaps.. and few feet down [5-6ft below the current sea level].

member_22872 · Post by **member_22872** » 10 Aug 2012 21:56

OT more to do with philosophy thread perhaps:
just wanted to add, I read somewhere that one can't explain Schrodinger's paradox without taking into consideration the consciousness of those who are involved in the experiment. There is also another documentary which talks about the importance of consciousness in understanding physics and limitations one faces when consciousness is absent from observations.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 10 Aug 2012 21:59

ManishH wrote:Please pick a specific inscription, a specific sound and demonstrate why it is incorrect. It's easy to flay your hands calling anything that is inconvenient as fake.

No sir. You have said so yourself. That is really convenient.

This is what you wrote:

ManishH wrote: Who claims to know the exact phonology. There are known knowns and known unknowns.

If you don't know the exact phonology any assumption or extrapolation back in time about sound change that you make about what the sound used to be in the past will be fake. And if that is fake the older cooked up proto language is fake. That is why it is fakeology.

ManishH wrote:Have you tried picking up a book on Hittite decipherment and check what claims are actually made. Eg. take the book by Dr. Craig Melchert - one of the experts on Anatolian and Hittite cuneiform texts, titled "Hittite Historical Phonology". One of the first unknowns it mentions is the lack of contrast between voiced and unvoiced consonants. One of the very good knowns are the vowels in Hittite - chiefly due to Greek inscriptions mentioning Anatolian proper names.

The rest of the knowns came from Sanskrit. Why don't you point that out? Hittite was translated from Akkadian Cuneiform which was deciphered from Old Persian which was deciphered primarily because of its similarity to Sanskrit.

When alphabets do not necessarily reflect accurate phonology, how does the phonology of Hittite become so accurate as to constitute solid proof, especially after this circuitous route of decipherment? At best it can be a working hypothesis on what it might have sounded like. Having said that can you point me to one single example sound file that I can listen to where someone is speaking Hittite, with all those reconstructed sounds? You did call it phonology didn't you? Where's the audio?

Can you please answer one more question? What are the languages used to figure out what "proto-Indo-Iranian" sounded like?

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 10 Aug 2012 22:13

RajeshA wrote:Nilesh Oak ji,

However as things stand right now, AIT has been made the defacto narrative even though since 200 years no shred of evidence has been found. So there is still a lot of power even in vague theories and suggestions. I see propaganda and I don't mind counter-propaganda, and if it is based on truth and proof, then all the better!

Ok.

Do we have anyone here (resident AIT believer) on this forum who believes in AIT? If we do, we can ask him/her/them to state AIT in clear terms.. "What is it? who? where from? where to? How? Why? When?".

It is true, they may not able to answer 'why'. But then one never knows, and thus I included it in the list'.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Aug 2012 22:18

Nilesh Oak ji,

there is a reference that King Shalya of Madra who fought in the Mahabharata War was 50th generation from Luv & Kush. King Shalya is supposed to have taken charge of the Kaurava Army after the death of Karna.

So if one allows for a 25 year reign per monarch, 50 generations would be 1250 years before Mahabharata (5561 BCE) => 6811 BCE!

I don't know how reliable the information is.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Aug 2012 22:21

Nilesh Oak ji,

I doubt any AIT proponent here would be able to express AIT better than how it already has been expressed in many many books and contexts by many AIT stalwarts.

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 10 Aug 2012 22:33

RajeshA wrote:Nilesh Oak ji,

there is a reference that King Shalya of Madra who fought in the Mahabharata War was 50th generation from Luv & Kush. King Shalya is supposed to have taken charge of the Kaurava Army after the death of Karna.

So if one allows for a 25 year reign per monarch, 50 generations would be 1250 years before Mahabharata (5561 BCE) => 6811 BCE!

I don't know how reliable the information is.

Your excitment and enthusiasm is contagious. Stay tuned. You won't be disappointed.

(Do you happen to know where above reference occurs? i.e. King Shalya of Madras 50 generations from Luv and Kush?). Lists of genealogies are important evidence. I do not use them for estimating years (all efforts are doomed, in the absence of precise data). However this data is useful as it allows us to point to the 'Arrow of Time' (Let's call it 'Arrow of Rama' in the context of Ramayana.)

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 10 Aug 2012 22:39

RajeshA wrote:Published on Sep 16, 2007
By Gurudev
Birth date of Rama: Blog HitXP
Human Intelligence to Solve Xtreme Problems

It refers to Pushkar Bhatnagar's calculation.

from the blog, a comment
B.V.Audinarayana wrote:I would like to bring to your notice that almost all software packages limit the year to four digits, as there is no necessity for the year to exceed four digits. When the allotted space is 4 digits, the computer processor would truncate the bigger figure to 4 digits eliminating the digits from left side. For example, if the date is 17,55,114 BC, it will cut off the first 3 digits 175 and will display only 5114 BC. (This is in some ways similar to the Y2K problem in 1999AD, which required changing digits from 2 to 4 for year.) This may be verified with the USA software company Fogware Publishing about “Planetarium Gold.”
I find this amusing!

Nilesh Oak ji,
here is another critique by AK Kaul on the blog, the AIT-Sepoy I mentioned earlier.

That is it. I came across that 'unknown source' date of 10000 BC on 'Gurudev' blog.

BV Audinyranya is amusing. Also hard to miss the innocence.

In AK Kaul's criticism of Pushkar, much is valuable, but in the end of little importance in pushing the debate forward, because of his (AK Paul) attitude.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Aug 2012 22:45

Nilesh Oak ji,

from Gurudev's blog, here is an entry of Pushkar Bhatnagar speaking on P.V. Vartak and his proposal for Date of Birth of Lord Rama

Pushkar Bhatnagar wrote:You have drawn my attention to the two articles of Dr. Vartak on dating of Ramayana and Mahabharata and wanted me to respond.

To be honest and candid, I must admit that these articles are at the very foundation of my entire work of dating the era of Lord Ram.

In 1996, when for the first time I got free access to the net and started to search for the material on Ramayana and software on astronmy, I came across these articles. I vividly remember having taken out the prints of these articles and read out the same to my family members telling them that look what were the dates of Lord Ram's time.

From these articles I got the necessary que. I had read Valimiki Ramayana several times earlier but after reading these articles, my way of reading changed. I began to look at the astronomical clues / references more carefully in Ramayana. In fact I jotted down each and every refernce to astronomical body / planetary position in my note book, which formed the basis of my work. Simultaneously, during one of my visits to US, I picked up the software because it was not available in India. (Even today also, the registered versions of these software are not available in India.) And finally after putting in honest efforts for next 2-3 years I came to these conclusions which are being discussed here.

What are my views about the dates Mr. Vartak have found? The first thing that I did, after buying the software was to see what were the position of planets in the sky on the dates worked out by Dr. Vartak. And with all my humility, I have to say that they were not correct. On the dates worked out by Dr. Vartak, the planets were actually in entirely different places. So there was no point in discussing anything further. But, I have highest regards for Mr. Vartak, who is now in his nineties, perhaps.

He did work out these dates on the basis of tedious manual calculations. Therefore there were bound to be differenes in his compuataion and actual position of planets in the sky, particularly because it was for a period almost 7000 - 9000 years ago.

While writing this I had Dr. Vartak's case in mind. So coming back to his dates and work, though the dates he has worked out do not stand the scrutiny by a software so far as the poistion of planets in the sky is concerned, yet no one can take away the credit from him for showing the path of astronomical dating to all of us.

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 10 Aug 2012 22:46

Talking of BV Audinaranya comment, recalled an instance when I was doing research using 'Lazer Dopler Animometry', I had a virus on my external disk/hardrive which used to be around the experimental setup. One well respected gentlman commented that "virus must have been created by accidental exposure to Lazer beam".

(On a side bar, I always happen to work on things with long names, Lazer Dopler Animometry, Transmission Electron Microscopy, Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy, Cyro-Ultramicrotomy, Differential Scanning Calorimetry and now....Archeo-Astronomy).

Frankly the correct designation is Scripturo-Itihasiko-ArcheoAstronomy.

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 10 Aug 2012 22:54

Pushkar Bhatnagar

He did make an effort (as opposed to dry speculation). Those who may not be aware, he passed away more than year ago. I wrote an email to him (sometime in last 2 years) related to his work on Ramayana and his daughter responded with the inevitable news. He was a cancer patient and somewhere refers to his illness on Gurudev blog.

He has also commented somewhere about Saroj Bala, how she is running with his research pretending it to be hers. In any case I don't want to get into that debate. I am going to show that the timing is wrong. As such if someone accepts my 5561 BC for Mahabharata, 5114 BC for Ramayana is out by default. But this does not need to be the only reason.

Let's celebrate work of Pushkar Bhatangar. We stand on shoulders of those gone before us, and with luck, see much farther than they could.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 10 Aug 2012 22:56

Thank you for this superb thread guys... A pleasure reading it.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Aug 2012 23:12

Nilesh Oak wrote:Pushkar Bhatnagar

He did make an effort (as opposed to dry speculation). Those who may not be aware, he passed away more than year ago. I wrote an email to him (sometime in last 2 years) related to his work on Ramayana and his daughter responded with the inevitable news. He was a cancer patient and somewhere refers to his illness on Gurudev blog.

That is why I chose extra to note down the date of his departure, which I normally don't do when I link resources. I got it from this note from his dept. Indian Revenue Service.

I too thought he was still alive!

Here is a photo from National Seminar on “Scientific Dating of Ancient Events Before 2000 BC” held on 30th & 31st July, 2011.

I believe it is his family with President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam!

member_22872 · Post by **member_22872** » 11 Aug 2012 00:10

shiv ji and Rajesh ji:
Not sure if you have observed, I updated the links with files I uploaded to after running the perl script, just thought of mentioning in case you didn't observe.

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 11 Aug 2012 00:16

RajeshA wrote:
Here is a photo from National Seminar on “Scientific Dating of Ancient Events Before 2000 BC” held on 30th & 31st July, 2011.

RajeshA ji,

Reg. National seminar, an interesting story...

Saroj Bala was thinking of inviting me to speak at this seminar, but took a 180 turn (I won't blame her) when she realized my proposed date of 5561 BC for Mahabharata War!

Since I had conflict with the dates (due to business travel), I had someone in Delhi, all set to present my findings. Fortunately the need did not occur.

Another well known Indologist (but of anti-wit-mer camp and also a non-Indian) invited me to write a paper (that would have been very useful as peer reviewed paper

) in the peer-reviewed journal he was initiating. He was excited (at least it appeared) about my work, until it so occured that he had chosen Prof. B N Achar as one of his Editorial Board member. My paranormal intuition had told me that something like this would happen, so before I sat down to write my paper, I sent a note to this indologist, and not to be surprised, he sent me a note asking me not to bother writing my paper.

I thought of this because of some similarity of Saroj Bala/Pushkar Bhtangar axis with that of BNN Achar/Srinvas Raghavan. S Raghavan proposed 22 Nov 3067 BC as first day of Mahabharata War in 1969. BNN Achar has claimed to have arrived at the same date in ~2000.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 11 Aug 2012 01:28

venug ji,

Thank you for your effort and trouble. I was, as you know, not in any need of them. Since shiv saar had earlier mentioned of his difficulty in downloading from scribd, I had made a suggestion for an alternative hosting.

Again thank you!

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 11 Aug 2012 01:30

Nilesh Oak ji,

perhaps you should start a peer-reviewed journal for "amateur" historians, where one's academic credentials are not a requirement.

It would have less politics!

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 11 Aug 2012 06:26

venug wrote:shiv ji and Rajesh ji:
Not sure if you have observed, I updated the links with files I uploaded to after running the perl script, just thought of mentioning in case you didn't observe.

Many thanks. It is the IE distance file that has interesting data on which I have some comments. Will get back after further study.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 11 Aug 2012 07:58

Nilesh Oak wrote:
RajeshA wrote:Nilesh Oak ji,

However as things stand right now, AIT has been made the defacto narrative even though since 200 years no shred of evidence has been found. So there is still a lot of power even in vague theories and suggestions. I see propaganda and I don't mind counter-propaganda, and if it is based on truth and proof, then all the better!
Ok.

Do we have anyone here (resident AIT believer) on this forum who believes in AIT? If we do, we can ask him/her/them to state AIT in clear terms.. "What is it? who? where from? where to? How? Why? When?".

It is true, they may not able to answer 'why'. But then one never knows, and thus I included it in the list'.

Nilesh ji I would like to take a stab at this question. ManishH ji has posted, from the inception of this thread, a large number of references from people who are commonly called as "scholars" by virtue of their association with institutions who have made the following points that support an Aryan migration theory, though not an Aryan invasion. The gist of the points that have been made are as follows (using my words and my understanding)

It is axiomatic that language and culture are related. If the language is the same the culture is the same
Ancient tribal societies had certain customs and beliefs that can be deduced from archaeological and textual remains. Animal and human sacrifices were common, and kings believed in the power of the spoken word coming from a bard or poet who would be asked to sing the praises of the king
Ancient pre-agricultural, pastoral societies were characterized by lack of settlement in any particular area and lack of large towns, cities or monuments.
The earliest evidence of domestication of the horse is in Central Asia around 3-4000 BC (discounting the more recent Saudi Arabia 9000 BC horse finding and other genetic pointers including some from India). Evidence of domestication in cenral Asia comes from finding horse jawbones with wear and tear of certain teeth that are evidence of a "bit" that the domesticated horse is made to hold in its mouth. A circle of holes that may have had now rotten wooden posts with evidence of the remains of horse manure in the middle suggests an ancient corral for horses in central Asia. Remains of pots that show evidence of mare's milk in them are added proof, all from central Asia. The findings of horse bones neatly arranged in graves attests the importance of the horse to the central Asian culture. Horse meat formed 20 to 40% of the diet (Isotope studies of human remains).
The first archaeological evidence of chariots is in central Asia in those graves with horse heads
Horse domestication made man mobile and proved to be a superior weapon in war, and that is what enabled horse riding people to spread very quickly, conquering as they went. Since the first proof of domestication and chariots is in Central Asia, it must have been these people who spread around Europe and Asia conquering as they went.
2000 BC models of horse and chariot from the Indus valley civilization do not count because there are very few horse remains, no tooth evidence of bit wear; very little bone evidence; no bone evidence suggesting that it was the "true horse" (Equus caballus) accepted by "scholars".
Proof for all these theories is available 3000 km away from the Rig Veda in India. India is assumed to have been colonized by speakers of an Indo-European tongue at some time in the past. No proof is offered for this. It is an axiomatic thing that is accepted on the lines of "same language=same culture"
The Rig Veda is undated but can be dated by several internally consistent observations by scholars of the right caste pedigree. Horses feature prominently in the Rig Veda. The society that composed the Rig Veda must have been a pastoral society. The society is pre-iron age. Poets sing the praises of kings. Horse sacrifice is mentioned in Rig Veda 1.162
Since Rig Veda composers valued the horse and sacrificed horses, and since Central Asia graves have shown the importance of horses and domestication of horses, horse sacrifice in graves and since language=culture (and therefore culture==language) we can assume that the Rig Veda people (Aryans) and the Central Asia people who had the same horse and chariot culture also had the same language.
We scholars have already decided decades ago that Indus valley civilization has nothing to do with Rig Veda and we can understand horse sacrifice, but we do not understand astronomy, which is therefore mumbo jumbo
Since the archaeological finds of central Asia have been dated, and since we assume that they are the first to domesticate the horse and make chariots, and since we assume that they spread around Asia and Europe conquering, and since we assume that this is the same culture as the Rig Veda we say that the Rig Veda can be dated after Central Asian graves but before Iron age in India
Central Asia graves have no proof of any language, and Rig Veda has no currently accepted (by us) datable proof. We have now given Rig Veda dates and archeology in Central Asia, but we have not given Central Asia any Sanskrit in exchange. We give them a language that we call PIE, that we cook up using a mix of European languages and Sanskrit. QED. Thank you.
We have decided to work out the phonology of non existent languages and create a non existing proto language to gift to various people including Indians and Central Asians. You had better accept it as true because we have been hard at work cooking up stuff based on earlier theories for 150 years.

This, off the top of my head, is current state of the art in AIT. Clearly there are a lot of things that can be trashed, but like archaic Victorian traditions in exclusive ye olde clubs in India, the community of linguists who are the most keen to push this are an "established" bunch who claim that only their scholarship is acceptable and they are crapping all over the internet spreading this stuff. I predict they will be shamed and shamed miserably in due course.

Arjun · Post by **Arjun** » 11 Aug 2012 10:26

AMT basically rests on the supposed evidence pillars of missing domesticated horse, spoked wheel chariot, PIE & other sundry comparative linguistics nonsense. I am not sure there is much merit in this forum rehashing in this day and age the same set of points that were debated with much heat and acrimony as far as two decades back.

This whole debate dates back to at least the early nineties if not earlier - and even as far back as 1998 one had this excellent article by Edwin Bryant debunking the merits of each of these supposed arguments: The Logic of the Response. Clearly, dispassionate observers, whether Western or Indian, could see that none of the old AMT arguments could prove / disprove any case one way or the other.

What this forum should be looking at is new research and findings that have come by over the last decade or so....most of which have pretty much nailed AMT. The fields that have generated interesting new evidence include archeology, archeoastronomy, archeogenetics, archeoclimatology (shifting monsoons), archeo-geology (Dwarka submerging etc) and others. Epigraphy (decipering IVC script) will be key for the future. Historical linguistics shot its load with its dubious case many decades ago, and I doubt it has had anything new to add over the last decade.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 11 Aug 2012 10:45

Arjun wrote:AMT basically rests on the supposed evidence pillars of missing domesticated horse, spoked wheel chariot, PIE & other sundry comparative linguistics nonsense. I am not sure there is much merit in this forum rehashing in this day and age the same set of points that were debated with much heat and acrimony as far back as two decades back.

Strangely enough, it also rests on a prior assumption that the language came to India from outside. No models of the language going out of India in any form are accepted.

As far as I am concerned, among the most laughable things that I have seen so far is that the theory of building up older languages from newer ones was developed by Morris Swadesh for American Indian langauges. It was conveniently applied to European languages that happened to have attested old and new versions like old English-new English, old German-new German etc. The existence of these made it relatively easy to play around with European languages and create Proto-European

But why did they include Sanskrit? Simply because until Mr William Jones "discovered" Sanskrit in the 1700s people in Europe had a vague idea that Greek and Latin were connected and had felt that there may be some vague connection with Slavic languages etc. After Sanskrit was "found" - it was realised that Sanskrit had cognates with all these languages and suddenly made the connections between European languages obvious. So languages became "Indo-Aryan" or "Indo-European"

But they discarded Sanskrit as a mother language and decided that it was a sister. So they had to look for a proto-Sanskrit in the way they had made up proto European. Guess what languages they used to make up proto-Indo-European? Sanskrit, Persian and Avestan (and a couple of others). Why do I mention Old Persian and Avestan? Simply because the words and sounds of both those languages were figured out by knowledge of Sanskrit, and by circular self-referring logic a "proto-Indo-European" (PII) was created by the "phonology" of these two languages (initially derived from Sanskrit) and this PII was mated with proto European to make Proto Indo European.

Still, they needed dates and geography for this and those dates had to fit in with the dates they had already decided on for the European side of things. That is where Rig Veda horse verses and central Asia horse graves came in handy. Central Asia has horse but no language. Rig Veda had language but no horse. A vivaah was therefore conducted to mate the two. What a ludicrous series of manipulations. This is an edifice that is going to come down. It has too many inconsistencies and open bluffs - especially in the way they have bluffed themselves into connecting central Asia horse graves with Rig Veda ceremonies

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 11 Aug 2012 12:05

Bits and Bites

Perhaps one of the most incomprehensible requirements the AIT-Nazis burdened Indians with was the one to prove domestication of Horse in India, if Indians wish to claim indigenous origins Rig Vedic Aryans and thus Sanskrit.

The amusing part is that the requirement was imposed to discover horse remains with teeth with bit.

But was that really what the requirement should have been?

1) Basic working assumption is that in India there were no native horses, and that is why the Horse needed to be somewhere else.

Now if this assumption is accepted, then it suffices to show Horse remains in India prior to any Aryan Invasion Theory date. If the Horses were not native to India, then the only Horse remains would be of domesticated horses brought from elsewhere. So why the need for bit?

2) If however the working assumption is that horses were native to India, but the Rig Vedic Aryans did not domesticate them here but brought them from elsewhere with them, then the requirement does indeed become that Indians have to show horse remains with bit prior to the alleged arrival of alleged Central Asian Aryans.

However this position becomes so absurd in the absence of any other evidence. If the horses were available in India and Sanskrit is found in India, why would its speakers have to come from outside bringing both the language and horses?!

In India, bit should be a non-issue!

As such any requirement, or so much as mention of bit in this connection, is really absurd, and I wonder why Indians were running helter-skelter trying to show horse remains with bit.

So when do we look for bit traces on horse teeth remains?

When we look for domestication of horse in an environment considered natural habitat of wild horses!

When don't we look for bit traces on horse teeth remains?

When horse availability needs to be proven in an environment where the horse would be found only as a consequence of introduction from elsewhere through man!

It really suffices to show horse bones in India from a time prior to the alleged Aryan Invasion. Besides due to the weather in India, imposing a requirement of horse bones from far in the past is also not tenable, because of general decay.

Obviously Indian archaeologists have shown horse remains from a date before supposed Aryan Invasion date, and thus the requirement is fulfilled. The only requirement should have been the availability of the Horse and not its domestication.

The bit requirement is really idiotic.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 11 Aug 2012 15:54

Rig Veda and Central Asia: Marriage Annulled

In fact AIT-Nazis need to show why there is no talk of Horse domestication in the Rig Veda if the ancestors of Rig Vedic Aryans came from Central Asia.

Why is there no mention of migration?
Why is there no mention of herds of wild horses running freely in the steppes?
Why is there no mention of Rig Vedic Aryans living in such an environment?
Why is there no mention of Rig Vedic Aryans singing about a life of cohabitation with these horses, partly wild and partly domesticated?
Why is there no mention of Rig Vedic Aryans hunting these wild horses for meat?
Why is there no mention of Rig Vedic Aryans catching these wild horses for domestication?
Why is there no mention of Rig Vedic Aryans breaking these wild horses and making them accustomed to human society and for various purposes?
Why is there no mention of Horses playing an integral part in the lives of proto-Rig Vedic Aryans - pulling carts, riding, milking, breeding for meat?
Why is there no praise for Mare's Milk and its virtues and recipes based on this milk, something which shows intimacy with the horse, rather than mere reverence?
Why is there hardly any mention of sporting events revolving around the horse?
Why is horse basically limited to elite use? Why is it not abundant? Why is it not an every-man's animal?

All the AIT-Nazis can point out to is reverence for the Horse in the Rig-Veda. From reverence, they make a direct connection to Central Asian origins and domestication, which is not tenable.

So before AIT-Nazis again mention Horse, one has to ask them that they should show in Rig Veda some evidence of the above before they make a connection to Central Asia.

Secondly they should show why they insist on Central Asian horse. It could just as well have been the Arabian Horse Rig Vedic Aryans were talking about.

Based on the Horse issue, there is no connection between India and Central Asia!

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 11 Aug 2012 15:56

Raja Wears Prada

I could imagine that Caballus Sivelensis may have been in India in the distant past, certainly before the monsoons became strong, because the monsoons would have in general increased forest cover in India and horses need wide pastures. As India became heavily forested, the environment was not really conducive to horses, and sivelensis may have died out. I can't say whether early Indians had a brush with Caballus Sivelensis.

But dense forest cover in ancient India speaks against native Indian horses, so I would imagine they were imported from elsewhere. The 34-rib mention in Rig Veda does point to the Arabian horse rather than the Central Asian horse.

The issue is why do we talk of horse being introduced in India only as a consequence of migration of people into India. Why don't we talk of trade among people.

Here somehow the working assumption is that ancient people did not use to travel to other places just like that. Their journeys were somehow one-way trips. It is like talking about crossing huge oceans in small boats, or crossing huge desert on foot, or crossing some icy landscape in an underwear, or for that matter crossing the vastness of space and traveling to some other planet with a pre-warp engine.

However distances between Central Asia, Middle East and Indian Subcontinent are fairly short. Historians talk about how the horse gave man the ability to cover long distances over land in a short time, and then they go ahead and say, it allowed easier and quicker migration, say from Central Asia to India, but somehow they don't say that it allowed quicker trade.

A man from a tribe in Arabian Peninsula which has domesticated horses comes trotting towards the Subcontinent on his horse, making use of his freedom. In India he sees a huge civilization prospering, something he had heard only in hear-say legends. He is riding along the streets of a township, when the soldiers notice him. They take him and his horse to the Rajah. The Rajah is so amused at this animal, which he had never seen earlier. He of course knew of the Indian Khur which were extensively used for pulling carts, but the Horse looked fabulous. He tells the man, he would like to have it. The Arab says, he needs the horse to get back home. The Raja says, he is willing to give any amount of gold for it. The Arab says that if that is the case, he can bring a lot more of such horses to him, in his country many herds of horses roam around wild and some have been domesticated. The Rajah orders a hundred of such horses. The Arab promises to bring back more and departs. In six months time, he comes over with 50 men from his tribe, who bring over another 100 horses. They have been long time on the road. They receive valuable gifts and wealth and then they return home rich.

The Raja's prestige receives a fillip. He can boast of his horses in front of other Rajas. The Raja tells the Arab band to bring more horses. Soon this becomes an annual event. Every year the Arab tribesmen bring horses to India. They start their journey from Arabia early in the Spring. Their plan is to be in India before the break of monsoon.

The Raja is so happy, he asks his priests to compose hymns in praise of the Arabs. This the Brahmins do and call them Maruts! They are given high praise and they are called the bringers of monsoons. Just as the monsoons ensure good crops, similarly the "Maruts" ensure horses for the King!

The origin of the word Marut seems to be the same as Mahout, the rider of the elephants. Similarly Marut are the riders of horses.

Arjun · Post by **Arjun** » 11 Aug 2012 16:48

There's been signficant research over the last few years that's dug up the existence of widespread trade networks in Central and South West Asia connecting Bronze Age rural and urban Asian centers with goods and commodities. Harappa, Mesopatamia, Egypt were then (~5000 to 3000BC) the prime urban civilizations of the world - & the pastoral communities of Central Asia acted as traders and go-between to these sophisticated (by the standards of those times) urban centers. It is therefore highly unlikely that Harappa would have been unaware of the new technology of the domesticated horse - and in fact would have had traders queuing up to supply the latest and greatest breeds to them.

Here's one such piece of research on the trade networks of early Bronze age Asia:Rethinking the Thundering Hordes

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 11 Aug 2012 17:45

Arjun ji,

the article Rethinking the Thundering Hordes speaks of sites like Begash, whose earliest layers date to at least 2,500 BCE. That is quite promising. I am sure there would be dates coming out which may take us even further into the past. Basically he will be searching in places which form the Northern reaches of the urban Sarasvati-Sindhu Civilization, i.e. late Vedic Civilization.

Kudos to Michael Frachetti, for his insight and looking for new ways to approach the issue.

Michael Frachetti
Associate Professor
Archaeology, Department of Anthropology,
Washington University in St. Louis

Michael Frachetti specializes in the archaeology and ethnography of mobile pastoralist societies of Eurasia and Inner Asia. His research focusses on pastoralist's social and ecological adaptations to extreme environments of Central Asia, such as deserts and high moutains of Kazakhstan. He has also done considerable research on arctic reindeer herders of Scandanavia and transhumant pastoralists of the Alps. His current work addresses issues of regional interaction among mobile socieities (and others) throughout the Inner Asian mountains (Pamir Mts, Tian Shan, Dzhungar Mts, and Altai Mts.) and how pastoralists have strategically generated cultural landscapes with deep historical roots in these regions. He uses methods such as GIS and spatial analysis to model how Eurasian pastoralism has changed and evolved throughout prehistory and how this plays a role in political and economic organization of Eurasian civilizations at the broadest theoretical levels. He is currently directing projects in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

I think Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) needs to expand as well with cooperation projects with their colleagues in these Central Asian States.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 11 Aug 2012 18:15

Arabian Horse

On 24th August, 2011 Saudi Arabia called a press-conference and made their discovery public. In al-Maqar, they had found evidence of horse domestication around 9000 YBP.

Ali al-Ghabban, Vice-President of Antiquities and Museums at the Saudi Commission for Tourism & Antiquities wrote:The discovery of the civilization, named al-Maqar after the site's location, will challenge the theory that the domestication of animals took place 5,500 years ago in Central Asia.

This discovery will change our knowledge concerning the domestication of horses and the evolution of culture in the late Neolithic period," Ghabban told a news conference in the Red Sea port of Jeddah.

The Maqar Civilization is a very advanced civilization of the Neolithic period. This site shows us clearly, the roots of the domestication of horses 9,000 years ago.

The site also includes remains of mummified skeletons, arrowheads, scrapers, grain grinders, tools for spinning and weaving, and other tools that are evidence of a civilization that is skilled in handicrafts.

Some articles connected to the news.

The large statue of a horse, around one metre in length.

Harness can also be seen on another of the statues.

A statue in which the horse’s neck and head’s lower details are clearly seen.

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 11 Aug 2012 23:39

RajeshA wrote:
Whatever date you pronounce, you might as well used to the kind of criticism you'll be subjected to by the AIT-Sepoys. Check a gentleman called A.K. Kaul. You may also like to get in touch with Sunil K. Bhattacharjya to get input for your book.

RajeshA ji,

Thank you for your efforts in accumulating references on Ramayana. I knew most of them and have links saved, but there were few new ones.

Reg. your point of getting used to the criticism, I am used to this kind of criticism (you mention above). No worries there. I am concerned about quality criticism which rarely occurs. By quality criticism I don't mean that criticism that agrees with me or lauds my effort (that is very much welcome and fortunately I do get it a lot), but that criticims that points to evidence (consistent with my theme) that goes contrary to my proposal.

I know Sunil Bhattacharjya VERY WELL. I will summarize our acquaintance by stating that "to spend more than one min of time trying to understand what Sunil B tries to say, or time discussing anything with him, or responding to his 'humble sounding queries' is time wasted TOO LONG."

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 12 Aug 2012 01:45

Religion of the Nazis

Try to read to understand the roots of Nazi and neo Nazi ideology.

Essentially create Indo-European with out the Indian.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 12 Aug 2012 07:11

RajeshA wrote:
The issue is why do we talk of horse being introduced in India only as a consequence of migration of people into India. Why don't we talk of trade among people.

Here somehow the working assumption is that ancient people did not use to travel to other places just like that. Their journeys were somehow one-way trips. It is like talking about crossing huge oceans in small boats, or crossing huge desert on foot, or crossing some icy landscape in an underwear, or for that matter crossing the vastness of space and traveling to some other planet with a pre-warp engine.

However distances between Central Asia, Middle East and Indian Subcontinent are fairly short. Historians talk about how the horse gave man the ability to cover long distances over land in a short time, and then they go ahead and say, it allowed easier and quicker migration, say from Central Asia to India, but somehow they don't say that it allowed quicker trade.

I have an explanation for why these idiotic assumptions exist. Early (18th to early 20th century) scholarship was done under the aegis of a European white Christian ethos in which man stood ahead of all animals as the pinnacle of God's creations and white man of the day led the pack. All ancient people were primitive savages with a half human half animal mind. The idea that people of ancient times could have modern minds did not occur naturally to western scholarship and the same ideas still exist among lay people in the west. When I was a boy in the 60s it was common to read in popular science articles about "Primitive people who were savages, ate raw meat, performed human sacrifice at the slightest provocation, shrank heads, were cannibals and conducted (wtf?) fertility rites. Western scholarship about ancient people has been marked by bias which will be denied. And because of denial it still exists

If you are Indian and you hear stories of the Ramayana and Mahabharata you are also aware of their great antiquity but are equally aware of the intelligence and sensitivity of the humans in the story whose behavior is so like modern man that you do not for a minute doubt that people of ancient times were people and not savages with half brains where archaeologists and anthropologists and anatomists had to look at brain box volume and then say "My brain has more volume. That guy is a savage" Animal intelligence and language is only now being recognized in western science but it was always taken as a given in Indian traditional beliefs. And such beliefs were dismissed as those of primitive savages.

Let me give you an example of the behavior of primitive savages and their inhuman beliefs. Einstein's brain was removed and preserved with the mistaken belief that the half rotten-non functional meat from the inside of a dead man's head would somehow give future generations some great power of prescience and knowledge. What a stupid notion. Einstein's dead brain has told us nothing. But this was "science". See the irony here? Guess who the primitive savages are?

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 12 Aug 2012 08:33

Changing faces of Indologoist (towards truth- for a change -this time).

"Sanskrit has contributed to Indus civilization' Says Parpola.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/790 ... ation.html

First he may say he was misquoted. If he sticks to what he said, then other Indologists would blame his new utternace on his old age, not realising that they themselves are old in age while still with intellect of a 6 month old. My apologies in advance. Apologies to all 6 months old.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 12 Aug 2012 13:36

Nilesh Oak wrote:Changing faces of Indologoist (towards truth- for a change -this time).

"Sanskrit has contributed to Indus civilization' Says Parpola.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/790 ... ation.html

First he may say he was misquoted. If he sticks to what he said, then other Indologists would blame his new utternace on his old age, not realising that they themselves are old in age while still with intellect of a 6 month old. My apologies in advance. Apologies to all 6 months old.

Nilesh Oak ji,

I see zero change in his attitude. When he says "Sanskrit has contributed to Indus Civilization", he means something different

Asko Parpola wrote:Your solution to the Indus Script riddle - that the underlying s a syncretism rather than a collusive view of Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian family of languages. Your comments please?

Yes, I think these two language families have been in contact with each other ever since the Indo-Aryan speakers entered South Asia. It is impossible to leave Indo-Aryan sources out of account. They have preserved very important information of Harappan heritage.

Asko Propola wrote:But these linguistic identities, when politicised, could lead to all kinds of disastrous consequences. So how is a harmonious understanding of world languages possible?

Yes. Besides Tamil, there are other Dravidian languages that have descended from the proto-Dravidian. But Tamil has preserved the language structure in a very archaic form. And also it has very ancient sources that are very precious. But at the same time, we must say that ‘Sanskrit’ has also preserved a very important part of the Indus heritage. So, it is impossible to say that there is something like ‘pure Dravidian’ or ‘pure Aryan’. They should not be pitted against each other. I mean, there has been mixture from the beginning. And even if you look at the history of Tamil Nadu, the ‘Brahmins’ were here
already in ‘Sangam’ times. So, they have also contributed hugely to the Tamil civilisation. So you have at least these two main language groups in India from very early times, side by side.

I think, he is saying that when the Indo-Aryans started "migrating" into the Indus Valley, they recorded life which was part of Indus Valley social life, and thus Sanskrit scriptures have certain Indus Valley Civilization aspects! Vedic scriptures were written in India, and allegedly only partly reproduce the values and thinking of the alleged Central Asian Aryans. Another way to understand that is that the "white supremacist Aryans" need not look at Hindu scriptures as a reflection of Aryan values!

Also he has reiterated that Tamil Brahmins are outsiders, even if they contributed much to Tamil culture.

Just as George W. Bush promoted the slogan "compassionate conservatism", this is the AIT-Nazi way of promoting "compassionate Aryan Invasion Theory"!

The academics would hammer in that there was indeed Aryan Migration from outside India, but we should not create internal social fissures upon understanding this "truth". That would be left to other forces in West and their Sepoys in India to do! In the mean time this is a well-rehearsed dynamic.

As long as they support the AIT/AMT, these AIT-Nazi academics would not contribute anything worthwhile to India or to understanding IVC or Vedas.

I hope somebody is able to decipher the Indus Valley Script and send all these AIT-Nazis into retirement.

Nilesh Oak ji,

your colleague, Wim Borsboom, does refer to PIE language in his work at one place. Perhaps you could let him know that that is really very manufactured and doubtful, created out of prejudices, and if possible he should make his point differently.