Dear Nilesh Oak,
Nilesh Oak wrote:KLP ji, Have you read work of Talageri? I have read one of 3 (as far as I know , ie. total number of books by Talageri) books. The book passed rational and logical tests. Which portion of his book or argument DOES NOT pass test of rationality?
To answer your first question, I have read Talageri's first book, and also I have read Witzel's critques of his books. All these books are based upon the false assumption that the RV is a historical document and contains information on the history, geography, and culture of ancient India.
Perhaps you have not been reading the posts I am making in the thread. Please read the posts again. Rather than open the entire "spigot of knowledge" as it were, I am taking pains to stick to just one point in the hope it will get across.
To reiterate: *absolutely none* of the sounds of the RV can be consistently or reliably assigned to any earthly object (or even any celestial object visible from earth). This has conclusively shown time and again over 2500+ years of Indian inquiry. There is no rational or logical ground upon which chronological dating of the RV can take place. Period. I will take up at RV 5.53 example one more time at the end of this post.
Furthermore, my question to you: what "rational and logical tests" did *you* apply to Talageri's works and declare it a "Pass"? I am curious to know. Furthermore, since you have applied reason and logic, I am sure then that you have an epistemological basis for doing so. Could you tell me what your epistemic basis is ? What do you consider to be the valid sources of knowledge in this matter?
What process do you suggest to do this? Recognize that Talageri has different assumptions about what Rigveda is, different from what you hold to be true. Thus while you may not agree with his assumptions, if you are going to analyze his work, you have to do it consistent with his assumptions, not yours.
I am getting the feeling that you are asking "who is Sita" after reading the whole Ramayana.
Analysis based upon the other party's assumptions is exactly what I did in the previous post and other posts. Did you not take a look?
I started exactly from Talageri's (as well as that of Witzel, Kazanas, Elst, ManishH etc) preconceived assumption that the word "sindhu" found in the RV actually refers to the Indus river found in India. All of them assume that, but derive different historical claims from the same assumption. I am *not even interested* in the differences in their historical claims. I showed clearly that the fundamental assumption made by all of them is false in the first place, so all of these people are arguing about absolutely nothing. There is absolutely no rational route towards any chronological dating of the RV.
Do try and understand that you are playing a dangerous game based upon a shaky foundation. If you want to do any serious research in this matter, it will be quite important to avoid arbitrariness and stick closely to the dictates of reason and logic.
This statement has logical flaw. So now Kazanas is an authority and you use it to suspect capability of Talageri. You may be right, or not. But you should base it on illustrations from Talageri's wrok, not someone's (in this case Kazanas) opinion.
You picked the wrong statement to criticize. I was not basing any of my other statements upon the above statement. I just mentioned in passing that according to Kazanas (and his personal interaction with Talageri) he has mentioned that Talageri knows no Sanskrit. You can read that on his webpage. There was nothing more to the statement.
I am surprised that since you are an applier of reason and logic, you deleted my *real* statements about RV 5.53 and its analysis and do not have any response to it.
Let me try it again.
RV 5.53 has about 1000 sounds arranged into about 250 words. Out of these, Talageri (or similar disputant like Elst, Witzel, ManishH etc: the identity of the disputant does not even matter) has chosen one word (two sounds) in 5.53.9 called "sindhu" and assumed it refers to the Indus river. In other words they think it is an actual river found on earth. Four things:
(1) It is obvious upon looking at the entire sukta that the mention of "sindhu" at that location is not a proper noun in the first place. Indeed 5.53 refers to "sindhavah" (plural) so unless you are willing to make the next assumption (also nonsensical) that there were multiple rivers called Sindhu at that point, you are already stuck. That mention of "sindhu" quite simply CANNOT be assigned by any ethical analyst to mean the Indus river.
(2) If you read the entire RV, you find that the word "sindhu" can NEVER be interpreted successfully in a consistent manner by assuming that it is an earthly river. The same is true for every single noun in the RV. Pick any noun you want (that appears more than once in the RV) and I will show you.
(3) What about the other 250 words in RV 5.53 ? If the word "sindhu" is being confidently declared to be a reliable earthly object, then the same assumption MUST be made about all the other words. There is no rational way out of that. You cannot pick and choose which word-meanings you consider to be reliable and which you do not, unless there is an *independent and reliable testimony* regarding the method/basis upon which to make the distinction. As I already pointed out in earlier posts, there is no method available. The nighantu and nirukta are ONLY catalogs, and do not contain the testimony about the time, location, and context under which the associations of RV words with earthly objects was made.
(4) Now if you still insist on assuming "sindhu = Indus river" in 5.53, we will take the only rational route available to us as mentioned in (3), and go ahead with the assumption that all the words in 5.53 describe objects/entities found on earth at the time of "composition/hearing/whatever" of the sukta. In that case, you will find yourself having to explain (see 5.53.1-8) the existence on earth of Maruts on chariots pulled by spotted deer, diving in from heaven, mid-air, and other places, releasing multiple Indus rivers, etc etc etc.
This same set of reasons is played out for every noun in the RV. You cannot escape it. At the end of the day, any knowledgeable person will tell you that there is absolutely no internally consistent set of humanly-assigned meanings for the words in the RV. And that fact, dear Nilesh Oak, makes it entirely impossible to perform any sort of chronological dating based upon RV sounds or words.
Perhaps you think about this over a period of months and years, you may realize that these fundamental facts presented above offer a far more powerful - and indeed actually *rational and logical* - way to counter the claims of AIT/AMT etc. The current approach of OIT, i.e. trying to claim a "better dating" of the RV, is entirely without rational merit. It is another irrational endeavor. Now if the program is simply to defeat the AIT with whatever is available, then it is OK. I would much rather the "OIT quack" wins than the "AIT quack".
But do think about the ethical consequences of such an action. It is tantamount to the folly of dynamiting the foundation of your own house in an attempt to shake and drive away some unwanted tenants/squatters who are refusing to leave.
Namaskar,
KL
PS: if you like, you can send me a message at the address I indicated in response to the poster Virendra. We can meet and discuss further in person.
) during religious fuctions. In 'marathi' it is called 'Van'. Atri ji might able to translate it.
