Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[RajeshA]

adam (I am) Dârayavauš (Darius) xšâyathiya (king) vazraka (great?) xšâyatha xšâyathiyânâm (king of kings)

The interesting bit here is xšâyatha xšâyathiyânâm - king of kings

Wiki says (and I am unable to find a source)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shah

The full title of the Achaemenid rulers was Kshatriya Kshatriyanamah, "King of Kings"

I suspected that xsayathiya may be some kind of derivation or corrupt from of "kshatriya". But hey what else can you expect, writing Sanskrit in cuneiform?

in humor:
xšâyatha sounds a lot like Kayastha! That would make Darius of course the "Scribe of Scribes"! Or Darius may be the name of the Scribe, who wrote the Behistun inscription! "I am Darius, the Writer of Writers and I write today about my King"!

Perhaps the Indics would have to decipher the syllabograms in Behistun inscription anew, giving it the right pronunciation!

[RajeshA]

Commentary by a blogger

R1a1 and it's Indian origin

[shiv]

I don't know who the hell the guy who made the following quote might be. I would not know him from Adam (aham would not know him from Adam), but I like what he writes. His name is SK Ganji (did he visit this thread?)

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost. ... stcount=49

Westward migration of some groups of people into Iran and Central Asia and their influence on European languages. Even though Professor Witzel tries to distorts it, there is literary evidence in BSS 18.44 ( Bhaudayana Srautasutra) which says that one son of King Puru and his followers went westwards to Gandhari, Parsu and Aratta.
You can see some Sanskrit influence even in Suppililiuma-Shattiwaza treaty ( Mitanni-Hittite treaty). Atleast incase of Avestan language, you see heavy influence of Sanskrit. Infact you can translate any Avestan inscription to Sanskrit very easily. You can't ignore some similarities between Zend Avesta and Rig Veda. Avesta clearly talks about Saptha-Sindhu as one of their holy lands.

təm amavantəm yazatəm ( Avestan)
tam amavantam yajatam ( Sanskrit )

surəm damohu scvistəm ( Avestan)
suram dhamasu savistham ( Sanskrit)

miθrəm yazai zaoθrabyo ( Avestan)
mitram yajai hotrabhyah ( Sanskrit)


Some sanskritized names in Kassites.

In the centuries before the Mitanni texts, there was a Kassite dynasty in Mesopotamia, from the 18th to the 16th century BC. Linguistically assimilated, they preserved some purely Vedic names:
Shuriash - ( Sanskrit - सूर्य )
Maruttah - ( Sanskrit - मरुत)
Inda-Bugash ( Sansrkit Indra-Bhaga) (Bhaga meaning effectively “god”, cfr. Bhag-wAn, Slavic Bog).

Sanskrit Avesta Cognates
Skt Satam -Av Satəm ( Hundred)
Skt Vajra - Av vazra ( thunder bolt)
Skt Hima - Av Zima ( Snow)

Sanskrit Words in Mitanni Kingdom

The first one is a treaty in which the king of Mitanni swears by a series of gods with Hurrian names and concludes with the Indic Mi-it-ra, Aru-na, In-da-ra, and Na-sa-at-tita (Mitra, Varuna, Indra, Nasatya).
The second text is a manual on chariotry by a Mitannian named Kikkuli, who uses Indic numerals and words like assussanni (Sanskrit asvasani, "horse trainer").
Finally, there is a document in which Indic words are used to describe the colors of horses

Kikkuli, the Horse Trainer's text

“Thus speaks Kikkuli, master horse trainer of the land of Mitanni” (UM.MA Ki-ik-ku-li LÚA-AŠ-ŠU-UŠ-ŠA-AN-NI ŠA KUR URUMI-IT-TA-AN-NI Thus begins the Kikkuli's text. The text contains a complete prescription for conditioning (exercise and feeding) Hittite war horses over 214 days.

The numeral compounds aiga-, tera-, panza-, satta-, nāwa-wartanna ("one, three, five, seven, nine intervals", virtually Sanskrit eka-, tri-, pañca- sapta-, nava-vartana.

Mt - Sutaran ( Vedic Sutarman)
Mt Indarota - Skt ( Indrota , RV) , Meaning - Helped by Indra.
Mt babru - Skt babhru ( Brown color)
Mt parita - Skt Palita ( Grey Color)
Mt Pinkara - Skt Pingala ( Red Color)

Sumerian word for Cotton is Kapazam. The only word for cotton in Sanskrit is Karpasa. You can see the use of this word in Sutra literature and is not found in Brahmanas or Rigveda.
Sumerian word for cow is Gu. The corresponding word in Skt is Go.

Is Mitanni more archaic than Vedic ?.

Mitanni is claimed to be more archaic than Vedic based on the fact that the language uses ‘ai/au’ unlike ‘e/o’ in Vedic. The presence of ‘z’ (lost by Vedic) is shown as another evidence for the claim that Mitanni is older than RV.

Mitanni does have certain Prakritizations which are not found in Sanskrit. For example, ‘sapta’ becomes ‘satta’ in Mitanni. Witzel claims that this has occurred due to the influence of Hurrite ‘sinti’. Are we supposed to believe that the Hurrite word ‘influenced’ Prakritization of ‘sapta’? Can anyone derive the evolution of ‘sapta’ into ‘satta’ due to the influence of ‘sinti’? One AIT proponent, stated that Hurrian does not have any word with the sound ‘-pt-‘ and hence, it had led to the term becoming ‘satta’. While it does look like a better explanation, it is not much better than that of Witzel. Hurrian does not have the ‘-dr-’ sound either. But we find that the Mitanni have written ‘indra’ as ‘indara’. ‘Indra’ did not become ‘Inara’ (as in Anatolian). Similar change could be expected in ‘sapta’ as well (into ‘sapata’). But what we see here is a case of Prakritization (of ‘sapta’ evolving into ‘satta’). This shows that Mitanni cannot be called as ‘completely pre-RV’ without any reservations.

Moreover, there is the problem of comparing a written language of mid second millennium BCE with RV (whose final redaction and standardization occured around 700 BCE). It is well known that some changes in pronunciation did occur in RV prior to its final redaction. It is very much possible that the changes like ‘ai>e’, ‘au>o’, ‘azdh’>’edh’ etc. could have occurred before the final redaction of RV.

One more observation about the -pt- becoming -tt in seven ( sapta becoming satta in Mitanni). - Credits Shiv Kokhra.
Seals that Brentjes identified peacocks on (first published by Edith Porada) were found in the house of Tehiptilla. Notice the stop -pt- in this name. Mitanni has satta for seven even though they had stops such as -pt- thus a clear case of assimilation. Sanksrit Sapta became Satta in Middle Indo Aryan due to assimilation. This means Mitanni language was post vedic.


"Linguisting evidence points to Mittanni being a Middle Indo aryan language and thus came after Rig Veda. For those who think that Vedic corpus did not contain the vowel "ai" and thus erroneously assume aika is more archaic then eka should study Rg Veda Pratisakhya and Yajur Veda Pratisakhya where it is amply demonstrated that the sound "ai" was very much in vogue in Vedic times." - credits Shiv Kokhra.


Why Naastyah are invoked in Mitanni treaty ?. - Credits B.B.Lal and Shiv Kokhra

Nasatyas together with Mitra,Varun and Indra are the oath deities sworn by in the Mitanni treaty of 1380 BCE. In RV 8.35.12 and 1.120.8, the Asvins are invoked to guard against the breach of a treaty. Yaska in Nirukta 6.13 shows that they were regarded as protectors of the truth: "they are (na-asatya) i.e they are true and not false". Without RV and Yaska we cannot understand why these Gods of India would be used on the treaties by the Mitanni as these Indian Gods were not gods in Iran or any other country.

[member_22872]

Murugan garu, there is a controversy raging in Havard about Witzel wanting to teach Devanagari to PhD students, not sure if this course is being introduced to silence those critics or is a part of it. And notice the course fee 5400$ onlee. If one goes to local sanskrita Bharathi chapter, they can learn it for free, that too from Authentic source than this hate mongerer and pseudo scholar.

[Arjun]

Arjun ji, sent two papers. .

Thanks ! Just finished with Anil Narayanan's paper on pulsating epicycles. That one needs to be circulated widely...less from a 'dating' perspective and more to reverse the long-standing opinion that the Greeks were the source of astronomical knowledge for Indians. Having researched this topic - it is apparent to me that starting with Pingree - this is yet another AIT-like dogma that was used to preserve the carefully-created construct of a superior Greco-Christian 'Western' civilization responsible for all modern science.

Hopefully others will build on top of this paper and cross-reference - so we have a pyramid to take on the 'pir reviewed' mechanism of the West.

[RajeshA]

Re-posting earlier post and adding link to full paper

From Journal of Human Genetics 54, 47-55 (January 2009)

Authors: Swarkar Sharma, Ekta Rai, Prithviraj Sharma, Mamata Jena, Shweta Singh, Katayoon Darvishi, Audesh K Bhat, A J S Bhanwer, Pramod Kumar Tiwari and Rameshwar N K Bamezai
National Centre of Applied Human Genetics: School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University

The Indian origin of paternal haplogroup R1a1* substantiates the autochthonous origin of Brahmins and the caste system [Full Paper]

Abstract: Many major rival models of the origin of the Hindu caste system co-exist despite extensive studies, each with associated genetic evidences. One of the major factors that has still kept the origin of the Indian caste system obscure is the unresolved question of the origin of Y-haplogroup R1a1*, at times associated with a male-mediated major genetic influx from Central Asia or Eurasia, which has contributed to the higher castes in India. Y-haplogroup R1a1* has a widespread distribution and high frequency across Eurasia, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, with scanty reports of its ancestral (R*, R1* and R1a*) and derived lineages (R1a1a, R1a1b and R1a1c). To resolve these issues, we screened 621 Y-chromosomes (of Brahmins occupying the upper-most caste position and schedule castes/tribals occupying the lower-most positions) with 55 Y-chromosomal binary markers and seven Y-microsatellite markers and compiled an extensive dataset of 2809 Y-chromosomes (681 Brahmins, and 2128 tribals and schedule castes) for conclusions. A peculiar observation of the highest frequency (up to 72.22%) of Y-haplogroup R1a1* in Brahmins hinted at its presence as a founder lineage for this caste group. Further, observation of R1a1* in different tribal population groups, existence of Y-haplogroup R1a* in ancestors and extended phylogenetic analyses of the pooled dataset of 530 Indians, 224 Pakistanis and 276 Central Asians and Eurasians bearing the R1a1* haplogroup supported the autochthonous origin of R1a1 lineage in India and a tribal link to Indian Brahmins. However, it is important to discover novel Y-chromosomal binary marker(s) for a higher resolution of R1a1* and confirm the present conclusions.

[member_22872]

Nilesh ji, Arjun ji:
Would you be kind enough to email me too please any papers relating to cosmology and/or archeo-astronomy which you think is not private and can be read by others?
My email is ngc1729 at gmale dot com

[Arjun]

Authors: Swarkar Sharma, Ekta Rai, Prithviraj Sharma, Mamata Jena, Shweta Singh, Katayoon Darvishi, Audesh K Bhat, A J S Bhanwer, Pramod Kumar Tiwari and Rameshwar N K Bamezai
National Centre of Applied Human Genetics: School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University

The Indian origin of paternal haplogroup R1a1* substantiates the autochthonous origin of Brahmins and the caste system [Full Paper]

When the bastion of the Reds comes out with an anti-AMT finding - you know its got to be true !

[Nilesh Oak]

Arjun ji, sent two papers. .

Thanks ! Just finished with Anil Narayanan's paper on pulsating epicycles. That one needs to be circulated widely...less from a 'dating' perspective and more to reverse the long-standing opinion that the Greeks were the source of astronomical knowledge for Indians. Having researched this topic - it is apparent to me that starting with Pingree - this is yet another AIT-like dogma that was used to preserve the carefully-created construct of a superior Greco-Christian 'Western' civilization responsible for all modern science.

Hopefully others will build on top of this paper and cross-reference - so we have a pyramid to take on the 'pir reviewed' mechanism of the West.

It may look like a pyramid of 'pir reviewed' mechanism to take over, but then remember,

When one enters a deep cave, that only 'saw' darkness for thousands of years, with a lit candle in hand, it instantaneously brightens the whole cave....

Of course 'blind people' will be unaffected, before and after.

[Nilesh Oak]

Yes. But only if the original observation of winter solstice is w.r.t a star. But in this case, it was w.r.t a calendar month and that too the 13th intercalary month. That's where the exact duration of intercalary month becomes the important, missing piece, without which we have the error factor.

Nilesh Oak ji, Kaushal ji,
if you would be so kind, could you comment on the above!
Thanks

RajeshA Ji,
When I read this quote, quoted by ManisH ji, I knew I had read it before, but could not recall where I read it. Thanks to Manishji for providing the reference. Kaushal ji is free to comment but I will tell you my strategy.

Since it comes from Hock, let me see if I can get in touch with him. And if he is willing to see the light, I will share with him rationale for this 'pulsating length of Adhika masa - intercalary month' and the beauty/accuracy/innovativeness/ingenuity that Indian astronomers showed in this - when realized - would make one sweat with repurcussions. I will share the outcome with this forum.

For the benefits of many like-minded individuals I will write a short white paper (may be first paper of BRF-OIT peers..... reviewed).

Please be patient, as I am busy on my 'become a millionnaire' book project - mind you - Book #2 on 'When did the Ramayana Happen? Full Moon of Ashwin and Flag of Indra' (tentative title). Many more books in the pipeline and I take this opportunity to welcome any willing (hardworking/not just suggestion givers) collaborators to participate, write, edit, draw, distribute, be joint authors. Let's do our bit in restoring the respect that Bharatiya culture deserves and if in the process we make ourselves fat cats, who is going to complain sans miserables and thin cats.

[Nilesh Oak]

And while on the subject, Let me mention that, being a lazy person that I am ---I am a Leo (astrologically speaking and Leos spend most of their time rolling in the grass until they are hungry)---I gave up my 'become a millionaire' plan too soon and have made my book available (PDF format) for 'FREE' to whoever is interested in reading. I did this precisely more than a year ago (with error of +/-3 months). No probability. I did not have to toss a coin or roll a dice. Being decisive, I made that decision without the aid of probability. My lazy nature is the cause of error.

If you are interested to get your own PDF copy, send me email at - my first name my last name at the rate gmale dot com.

And there is surprising bonus for those who request PDF copy of my book, not available elsewhere. But this is a limited time offer - valid only on the day you read this, and/or on the day you send me email. Now there, finally, salesman and marketing genius within me getting his acts together.

[Rahul M]

The Rig Veda has 10,000 shlokas - each with perhaps 10 words. Out of 100,000 (probably more) words, horse is mentioned about 200 times. A huge big deal has been made out of that. Ass holes.

there is another very important indication from the way horses were used that shows that the vedic people are not the same as horse riders from the steppe.

the evolution of horse riding and horse breeds is a particular interest of mine due to its connection with military history. there I found this little fact that has far reaching implications IMO.

x-posting
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 0#p1182160

4. Very few modern Indians understand the centrality of ashva in vedic culture. I am not talking about complex ashvamedha here - the fundamental and simple ritual of agnyAdhAna requires a horse - (actually the hoof print to setup the AhavanIya). Horse is one animal poorly attested if not altogether absent in India *in the time frame* I am interested. Steppes yield full skeletons - well preserved butchering patterns and what not. Our guys have what - a tooth here and a bone there?

the horse was not domesticated in India, neither was it found naturally in the plains of India. all modern horses originate from a wild horse species related to the przewalski's horse first domesticated somewhere in the steppes. we can agree on that.

however, that says nothing about AIT. the first example of domestication of horse occurs in ukraine's dereivka dated to around 4,000 BC. there is clear evidence of the horse having been 'tacked'. this however was before the earliest known examples of the wheel, indicating that the steppe tribes rode their horses. this is confirmed from historical records from assyria of the first encounter they had with the horse, in the form of invasion by horse riding steppe tribes via the mountain passes between black sea and caspian sea. hence the mesopotamian name for the horse -- "ass of the mountains" even though the invaders were from the steppe as were their mounts.
here's the rub, the assyrians already had wheels by this point and in warfare used the horses to drive chariots and not as horse cavalry, riding in battle without saddles (which were invented later and let to an explosion of horse riding) was a difficult skill to master for a people not born on horses.
the documents of the vedic tribes, like the assyrians and unlike the steppe tribes, describe warfare only from chariots and not from horseback.
this indicates that a) they knew the wheel before they knew the horse & b) they did not originate from the steppe tribes.

coming to the paucity of horse remains, that is not surprising for a variety of reasons, the important ones being 'where have we looked' and climatic conditions. most of the possible regions fall in thickly populated parts of pakistan where there has been continuous human habitation since eternity. neither is the humid climate ideal for preservation of bone remains.

even the steppes with its sparse population and dry climate ideal for preserving bones have yielded only a handful of sites after much investigation. forget the much older and controversial vedic era, where are the remains of the dozens if not hundreds of ashwamedhs described in the more modern texts which without any doubt happened inside India ? where are the remains of the horse sacrifices conducted by the PGW culture or even those by pushyamitra sunga or samudragupta, to name a few ? if none of these have been discovered, why should we hang our conclusions on the non discovery of horse remains in the very narrow space and time associated with vedic Indians ?

coming to the non occurrence of horses in artwork of harappan and similar sites, even if we assume the harappan people were same as the vedic people, the horse arrived to these parts after the earlier phases of harappan civilization. my view is that the horse arrived in those parts via trade links through iran and the vedic tribes readily adopted the horse much as the mesopotamians did.
the vedic era might correspond to a migratory phase of the tribes eastward after abandoning the harappan sites in the west. or the vedic tribes might be a parallel civilization altogether, who, while related to the harappan people were not the same. after all, it's no anti-AITwalla's contention that the vedic culture arose all over India at the same instant one fine morning. the culture spread with time, imbibing local hues with the earlier mixes having more widespread adoption. which might explain the sacredness associated with bulls (coming from harappan culture) throughout India, although that is not a feature of the vedas.

[RajeshA]

Those particularly interested in looking at genetic evidence and with a strong scientific bend should study the following suggesting "alternate" theories!

Journal of Genetic Genealogy Volume 5, Number 2, Fall 2009

Author: Anatole A. Klyosov
DNA Genealogy, Mutation Rates, And Some Historical Evidence Written in Y-Chromosome, Part I: Basic Principles and the Method [@scribd]

DNA Genealogy, Mutation Rates, and Some Historical Evidence Written in Y-Chromosome, Part II: Walking the Map [@scribd]

There is also some Preceedings from Nature, which probably did not get published (Received 29 December 2008):

DNA Genealogy, Mutation Rates, and Some Historical Evidences Written in Y-Chromosome

There is also a forum discussion on the findings of Anatole Klyosov and the participants seem quite agitated!

Perhaps it is worth checking it out!

[Arjun]

x-posting
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 0#p1182160

Good arguments !

[shiv]

all modern horses originate from a wild horse species related to the przewalski's horse

I think this has now been shown to be untrue.
http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/3/1096.full

From our phylogenetic analysis (see above), we concluded that domestic horse is neither derived from Przewalski's horse nor the opposite. We propose a model according to which Przewalski's horse and domestic horse are descendents of two lineages that diverged potentially as early as ∼0.150 Ma.

[RajeshA]

European Anthropology

Bild der Wissenschaft, Culture & Society, Issue 2/2011

Author: Thorwald Ewe
Invasion of the Steppes

[Rahul M]

all modern horses originate from a wild horse species related to the przewalski's horse

I think this has now been shown to be untrue.
http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/3/1096.full

From our phylogenetic analysis (see above), we concluded that domestic horse is neither derived from Przewalski's horse nor the opposite. We propose a model according to which Przewalski's horse and domestic horse are descendents of two lineages that diverged potentially as early as ∼0.150 Ma.

thx for the paper. it also seems that the earliest date for domestication has been pushed back to 5500 BC in a 2009 paper (it was 4000 BC per what I read at the time).

neither fact however contradicts my arguments above, that the vedic people display a usage of horses that is more akin to settled people with pre-knowledge of wheels encountering horses rather than that of horse riding nomads.

[RajeshA]

AIT-Nazi Paper: Linguistics

Publication Date: February 13, 2012
Author: Jaakko Häkkinen,
Uralic evidence for the Indo-European homeland

More Linguistic acrobatics!

[RajeshA]

I was looking at forum biodiversity and it seems to be heavily tilted against "Out-of-India" Proponents. Even Indians there are basically AIT-Sepoys!

Every effort is made to confuse the issue, and when somebody makes an "Out-of-India" suggestion which would bring the data in harmony, then one is simply shouted down as some "Out-of-India" nationalist blah blah! If arguments about genetic markers found in India go counter to their ideas about Central Asian or European origin for migrations then absurdity-rhetoric or blindness is used as a tactic!

It is so entrenched into the minds of Europeans that Indian Subcontinent cannot be the source of Aryan Migrations!

However the forum is a good place to get acquainted with the issues of migrations!

As far as I am concerned, I think one should better explore the model I summarized earlier!

[RajeshA]

it also seems that the earliest date for domestication has been pushed back to 5500 BC in a 2009 paper (it was 4000 BC per what I read at the time).

neither fact however contradicts my arguments above, that the vedic people display a usage of horses that is more akin to settled people with pre-knowledge of wheels encountering horses rather than that of horse riding nomads.

There are reports that the Horse was domesticated in Arabia much earlier around 7000 BCE.

[Nilesh Oak]

8 x 72 = 576

All the fun resulting from exact mathematical formula above can not be discussed on this forum - it is purely OT + Explanation would certainly fill a book (or one journal issue of peer reviewed journal).

But briefly: Hans Hock has confused the issue to the hilt.... his only conclusion is "there is lot of confusion and we (Indologists, Linguists) are incapable of doing anything about it. It suits many of us (linguists/indologists) just fine since that remains our objective - to cloud the issue when convenient.

While ManishH ji has kindly quoted the SB references, Hock simply refers to 'Vedic range of 27 to35 days' and leaves it at that. Be it as it may....Here is something from his paper (part of Indo-Aryan Controversey, edited by Edwin Bryant and Professor from one of my alma maters - Laurie Patton). Pages 295-298

But on a lighter vein.. here is Hock... (emphasis mine)

"Unfortunately, the results of early attempts to use this passage for establishing the
date of our text, surveyed in Macdonell and Keith 1912: 1: 422–5, are far from
straightforward. Estimates range from 2350 BC (Tilak for the related Taittiriya-
Sayhita passage), to 1391 BC (Davis and Colebrook for our text), to as late as
1181 BC (Jones and Pratt), or even 800–600 BC (Macdonell and Keith’s conclusion).
A recent publication by Rajaram (1995: 41–3) fixes the date even earlier
than Tilak, to around 3000 BC.
The question we need to ask ourselves is, “Why this wide range of interpretations?”
Clearly, it cannot be a question of the mathematics, which given the
precession rate of 1roughly 72 years, is simple and straightforward; and
scholarly or ideological bias or national origin is not sufficient either to explain,
say the difference between Tilak’s and Rajaram’s conclusions, or between
those of, say, Davis and Colebrook versus Macdonell and Keith. The problem,
I submit, lies in inherent uncertainties of how to interpret our passage.

Really? No room to explain difference of 1000-2400 years (range, no need of probability here) using ideological bias? And I thought scholarly bias could explain anything. All the fun. Unfortunately OT.

Indian crowd - 2300 BC -3000 BC

Non-Indian crowd - 600 bC - 1391 BC

Food for thought.

[Arjun]

DNA Tribes Digest - April 2012

In summary, results are consistent with emerging alternative models of South Asian prehistory, in which the Vedic cultures were descended from indigenous Harappans already resident in South Asia.

[shiv]

neither fact however contradicts my arguments above, that the vedic people display a usage of horses that is more akin to settled people with pre-knowledge of wheels encountering horses rather than that of horse riding nomads.

No it does not alter the arguments you made. But the excuse used for declaring Przewalski's horse as a progenitor was similar to AIT reasoning. An assumption with no hint of anyone actually trying to look for any logic or likelihood of its being false. That horse was the last remaining wild species, hence it must be the progenitor of domesticated horse, No wild species are now found in India. Therefore there were no horses in India.

[member_23700]

DNA Tribes Digest - April 2012

In summary, results are consistent with emerging alternative models of South Asian prehistory, in which the Vedic cultures were descended from indigenous Harappans already resident in South Asia.

In conclusion of this report, it refers to 6000 - 4500 BCE timeframe when there seems to be population growth (not clear where) and then the author suggest it was (came from?) due to Central Asia, middle east/near east. However rest of the article is silent on 'timing' so found it curious suddenly author referriing to 6000-4500 BCE timeframe.

[Murugan]

Nileshji and Arjunji

Pl send me your pdf or shareable papers to

muruganbhai at gmile dwat kom

[ManishH]

Would you be able to say how "adam darayavaus" was translated to "I am Darius"? How does "adam" become "I am". "adam" could be a title - like "Shri" or "Mr" or "His highness". I put it to you that it was translated to "I am" by a person who saw the similarity with Sanskrit "aham".

The translation adam = "I" can be independently construed from surviving Avestan corpus where "I" = azə̄m. Sanskrit 'aham' corroborates it. With the comparative method, a wide variety of input is taken for due diligence. Sanskrit is just one of it.

In fact the three cognates illustrate one of the sound laws that govern PIE > Proto-IIr. The original PIE sound was a voiced palatal *eĝhom which became

1. dz in common iranian; turning to d in Old Persian (Behistun inscription), but z in Avestan
2. h in Sanskrit

See Fortson, "Indo European Language and Culture" pp 204. This is not an isolated instance; but a regular one. You'll see many examples that obey this sound change.

Please deny or confirm this if you know. How would phonetic change theory explain two sister languages having "aham" and "adam". How does aham become adam or vice versa?

The key is : none of them are original sounds. The human phonetic tract cannot turn an original fricative like Sanskrit 'aham' into a voiced dental of Old Persian like 'adam'. Neither can the reverse happen.

So does that mean Sanskrit has no original sounds ? Nope. One example of where Sanskrit preserves an original sound is 'soma' which became 'hauma' in Iranian. Both are fricatives - called 'uṣma' in the prātiśākhya texts. The phenomenon of debuccalization turns s>h. It's the same phonetic sound change that causes the original अंगिरस् to appear as अंगिरः in some ṛgveda mantra-s.

How was "xšâyathiya vazraka xšâyatha xšâyathiyânâm " translated as " great king, king of kings"

Again it can be independently derived from the Avestan religious corpus which has xśayati (to rule). Sanskrit kṣatriya provides a corroboration.

On what basis was "Vištâspahyâ puça" translated as "son of Vistashpa" if the similarity to Sanskrit was unknown?

Similarity to Sanskrit is known, as well as similarity to Avestan. The key is that the phonetics doesn't allow any one to be the parent.

Some words are so similar to Sanskrit that I wonder if the original cuneiform symbols themselves were inadequate to convey the actual phonetics.

As you can clearly see in the case of 'अहम्/adam', there is no inadequacy. The Old Persian cuneiform definitely had a syllabogram for 'ह' sound (Harauvati) so it is not an inadequate syllabary. Another poster surmised that this syllabogram could stand for 'श' sound. But that cannot be so, as they already have a syllabogram for that sound as used in 'xšâyatha'

The guiding principle is : if my syllabary is inadequate to represent a foreign phoneme P1, I'll consistently use a syllabogram S1 to represent it. It cannot be that some places, the sanskrit sound is easily represented by my syllabary, but when I see a mismatch with sanskrit, I just claim - "oh this syllabary is inadequate". For an example, the 'z' sound is not native to Kannada script, but the alphabet for 'ja' is modified with two dots below to represent all foreign words like 'pizza hut'.

If you want to show inadequacy, you'll have to specifically mention which Sanskrit phoneme and which cuneiform syllabogram is the approximation.

A very good website for the behistun inscription is this one ...
http://www.elamit.net/ctml/ctml_display ... b-p1-6.xml

Hover over a syllabogram and it will highlight all instances of the syllabogram.

How was "Dârayavauš xšâthiya avahyarâdiy vayam Haxâmanišiyâ thahyâmahy hacâ paruviyata âmâtâ ama" translated as "King Darius says: That is why we are called Achaemenids; from antiquity we have been noble; from antiquity has our dynasty been royal.". Particularly the words "says" , "noble", "antiquity" and "royal"?

For "says" the Old Persian quotative is thâtiy, which you haven't quoted above. For "antiquity", it is 'paruviyata' avestan has 'paurva' for prior. It isn't really "royal", it's more like "kings" - xshâyathiyâ. I'm not very sure at the moment which word stands for "noble" .

[ManishH]

neither fact however contradicts my arguments above, that the vedic people display a usage of horses that is more akin to settled people with pre-knowledge of wheels encountering horses rather than that of horse riding nomads.

There is one fact in the ṛgveda - the "settled" vedic people never seem to name their "settlements". They name the rivers; they even name at least one mountain. But no names for their own "settlements".

Even the venerable Indian practice of adding the name of the place as a kind of surname is absent.

[ManishH]

The 5-700 year error affects the Buddha dating because that is actually the quantum of difference between the two competing claims but what do you do with such a 500-700 year 'error probability' when the other side is mentioning 'periods' instead of 'dates'

The net 'error probability' is a sum of individual 'error probabilities' caused by individual 'ambiguity factors'.

The system of intercalation was just one of those 'ambiguity factors' that resulted in 576 year error probability. If you read Hock's article, he mentions more such factors which add up to ~2000 year error probability.

A superficial calculation ignores all such factors and tries to fit dates as convenient. So while it sounds very scientific to be using rates of precession, positions of asterism, equinoxes etc. all this while totally brushing aside the nitty gritty of the evolution of Indian intercalation, the timekeeping system and the exact meaning of the original Sanskrit text.

But pragmatically, there is a big audience for such fantasy dates - megabucks to be made in the short term. And economics is a big factor in shaping popular perception. But this will all be temporary; the innate Indian instinct is to search for truth. Historically too, Indian knowledge systems have shunned excessive reliance on monetary factors.

[ManishH]

One more observation about the -pt- becoming -tt in seven ( sapta becoming satta in Mitanni). - Credits Shiv Kokhra.

Appropriating credit seems to be a hallmark of the revisionist source from which this quote is taken. This observation was originally made by Late Dr. S S Mishra who taught linguistics at BHU.

Of course the observation is right but the conclusion is wrong. Hittite cuneiform is a syllabic script and had no way of writing two distinct consonants without an intermediate vowel. Therefore -pt- > -tt-

[JE Menon]

Just wondering: have any substantial traces of chariot wheels or parts or their metal accoutrements been discovered on the supposed path that the Central Asians took towards India? I'm wondering because (not knowing how many people on BRF have been to that part of the world) it's not easy to traverse with a bloody loaded SUV. I'm supposing there should have been a considerable amount of damage and discard en route... no matter how slow they were progressing... It should have been even more considerable if they were settling for periods along the route.

[Virendra]

You mean BMAC etc? AFAIK the no. of horse remains found in BMAC (very less) aren't even comparable to IVC/SSC.

[JE Menon]

Not horse remains, I'm curious about the Chariot remains... Chariots have all sort of metal bits and pieces, bolts and stuff like that, should be identifiable to present day experts on Central Asian charioteering 3,500-4,000 years ago - I can't imagine they were travelling on all-wood chariots...

[Virupaksha]

Not horse remains, I'm curious about the Chariot remains... Chariots have all sort of metal bits and pieces, bolts and stuff like that, should be identifiable to present day experts on Central Asian charioteering 3,500-4,000 years ago - I can't imagine they were travelling on all-wood chariots...

Would they be much different from remains of say, bullock carts?

[Virupaksha]

Would you be able to say how "adam darayavaus" was translated to "I am Darius"? How does "adam" become "I am". "adam" could be a title - like "Shri" or "Mr" or "His highness". I put it to you that it was translated to "I am" by a person who saw the similarity with Sanskrit "aham".

The translation adam = "I" can be independently construed from surviving Avestan corpus where "I" = azə̄m. Sanskrit 'aham' corroborates it. With the comparative method, a wide variety of input is taken for due diligence. Sanskrit is just one of it.

In fact the three cognates illustrate one of the sound laws that govern PIE > Proto-IIr. The original PIE sound was a voiced palatal *eĝhom which became

1. dz in common iranian; turning to d in Old Persian (Behistun inscription), but z in Avestan
2. h in Sanskrit

See Fortson, "Indo European Language and Culture" pp 204. This is not an isolated instance; but a regular one. You'll see many examples that obey this sound change.

http://books.google.com/books?id=bSxHge ... &q&f=false

is that book you are talking about. It starts with an assumption that by magic, a PIE exists - a magical language, which gives to another magic language - proto Indo Iranian and "vedic sanskrit", sanskrit, avestan, nuristani are its direct descendants. When one starts with that assumption, oh well it is pretty easy to construct all these "laws".

It is a straight regurgitation of the AIT paradigm.

[Arjun]

Cuneiform was always syllabic + logographic and not syllabic alone

The following two documents provide an excellent insight into the problems associated with both transliteration and transcription (phonetic reconstruction) of Cuneiform:

Gelb Memorandum 1

Gelb Memorandum 2

[RajeshA]

See Fortson, "Indo European Language and Culture" pp 204. This is not an isolated instance; but a regular one. You'll see many examples that obey this sound change.

"Indo European Language and Culture"

is that book you are talking about. It starts with an assumption that by magic, a PIE exists - a magical language, which gives to another magic language - proto Indo Iranian and "vedic sanskrit", sanskrit, avestan, nuristani are its direct descendants. When one starts with that assumption, oh well it is pretty easy to construct all these "laws".

It is a straight regurgitation of the AIT paradigm.

This Book of another PIE-Charlatan was linked earlier.

[Arjun]

From here: The Logic and Etymology of Cuneiform Ideograms

Nonetheless, certain problems ought to be apparent when ancient languages are taught and written about almost exclusively in terms of putative transliterations. First, no matter how good a transliteration may be, it is still not the original language. For instance, many Westerners who fancy themselves to have some knowledge of Chinese deal almost exclusively with latinized transliterations, but cannot read or understand anything of substance actually written in the Chinese script. Latinized transliterations have no meaning whatever to the Chinese, any more than they would have had to the ancient Sumerians or Akkadians. The fact that the latter are not living languages does not justify abandoning the need to deal with documents in their original script.

Second, latinized transliterations are often only crude approximations of original sounds, the qualities of which are often matters of controversy. Although the basic sounds are generally fairly well-established, especially for the later Assyrian and Babylonian languages, there are still significant questions about rules of sound changes or sound shifting as documented in their descendent languages. Some rules are well known; others may remain to be discovered. The continual process of refinement of our knowledge of this sounds and meanings of the early cuneiform characters over the past several decades raises serious concerns about the near exclusive use of transliterations.

Third, transliteration schemes tend to erroneously imply that ostensible transliterations are more certain than they actually are, and in many cases belie the reality that a single character can often have multiple different sounds depending on context, such as DAS, TAS, DASH, or TASH, and that the voicing or unvoicing of a consonant is often not innate to the character itself but dependent upon the surrounding phonemes. Assyrologists acknowledge that most cuneiform characters have multiple sounds; that distinct sounds such as ab and ap are represented by the same cuneiform character. Ib and ip are also represented with just one character, as are many other distinct sounds. There is thus no way to consistently arrive at a consistent single phonetic rendering of a single character, as the character may have different sounds depending on context; only the application of context and grammatical rules can lead to a reliable transliteration. The transliteration process, unlike that from Chinese or Russian where a single character has a single sound, is a complex one relying upon multiple factors which introduce significant additional risk of error. Simplistic transliteration schemes definitively representing a single phonetic transliteration for a cuneiform character fall short by definition and fail to capture the complexity and nuance of the cuneiform original.

When scholars agree over even minor changes, such as the voicing of a character once taken as a 't' to a 'd', or unvoicing from a 'b' to a 'p', or from a 'k' to a 'g', the entire system of transliteration is thrown off. Old dictionaries that listed a character as GUR must be thrown out when its sound is deemed to be KUR, and yesterday's transliterations become meaningless and void in the absence of the cuneiform originals

[RajeshA]

Not horse remains, I'm curious about the Chariot remains... Chariots have all sort of metal bits and pieces, bolts and stuff like that, should be identifiable to present day experts on Central Asian charioteering 3,500-4,000 years ago - I can't imagine they were travelling on all-wood chariots...

I think Witzel was drunk when he spoke of Vedic Tanks rolling down through Northwestern Indian and scaring the IVC people out of their Wits!

[RajeshA]

Blog

By Dr. Subhash C. Sharma
On the origins of the Vedas and Sanskrit

[ManishH]

is that book you are talking about. It starts with an assumption that by magic, a PIE exists

It's not "magic" - it follows from phonology and phonetics - the study of how sounds are articulated in the human tract and what phenomena cause change in sounds.

Sound changes only appear to be "magic" if one starts reading the Fortson book without the pre-requisite which is a textbook on phonology and phonetics.

A sound change like PIE *ĝ > PIr dz sounds like magic. But if you read literature on Clinical Speech Therapy, you'll find that this is also a well recognized articulatory disorder - nothing but depalatalization or palatal fronting. See:

"Clinical Management of Articulatory and Phonologic Disorders", Weiss & Gordon-Brannan, pp 53

This book is on Google books.

Perhaps speech therapists are also hand in glove with the whole AIT thing