Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[Satya_anveshi]

The initial "z" is more likely a corruption of Sanskrit "h", not of "s" or "S". E.g., "zasta" (Skt. "hasta" = hand), "zaotR (Skt. "hotR" = a type of Yajna official).

Dubey ji, Thanks for the correction. This is consistent with other examples that have been noted earlier e.g., saptasindhu and haptahandu. Think I lost context there.

BTW: "Hiranya varnam".. (opening line of Srisuktam) suggests that hirayna refers to an object/substance of whose color is refered. That object is associated with Gold but interestingly "suvarna" is also used closely following the previous word.

[member_20317]

Dwarka research is of course not on solid grounds - its underwater mud after all. Moreover, because it could claim a much earlier date than assigned to IVC because of sea-level rise arguments, it cannot be allowed to be on solid grounds.

This is in Modi's backyard. This excuse is not good enough.

Who says it is an excuse? Moreover why should Modi be brought in everything irrelevant as congrez or its foreign patrons do?

Peter ji, it is all about the preservation of the chain of evidence. No archeological finding will be accepted if it comes from anybody other then ASI/NIOT and other like government bodies or by people authorized by ASI et al. I am very sure that more then enough Indians would be willing to donate for such explorations/excavations if the ASI et al are used only as certifying authorities. Right now these governement bodies are the executing authority.

TIFR scientists also have written in multiple reports/paper that skymap pro is the most accurate. They concur, independently, with Achar.

At some point you have to defer to people who know more than you. If TIFR scientists and Achar claim skymap pro is the best I see no reason to doubt them.

Unfortunately this is an area not subject to linguist or historian dogma - that their interpretation is the only true one. I have access to TIFR scientists. If you kindly mention the exact personages, I can very well ask them. I am sure you are aware that software needs to be tested on benchmarking data or problems before you can declare one to be more accurate than others. If the TIFR scientists have done this, the results will be available.

peter ji and brihaspati ji, this would be great if it can be done. the software versions keep changing and should ideally be reassessed after every upgradation.



@jujharji, that Sarkanda bit was hilarious. For those who do not know Sarkanda = = Munj grass. The long grass that looks like a cross between Sugar Cane and Bamboo cane with sharp leaf edges.

[shiv]

Below is an image of the Aihole inscription bearing a date for the Mahabharata war
Click this link for a literal translation of that inscription
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aihole_inscriptions

Excerpt from the translation

(V. 33.) (Now) when thirty (and) three thousand and five years besides, joined with seven hundred years, have passed since the Bharata war;

(V. 34.) And when fifty (and) six and five hundred years of the Saka kings also have gone by in the Kali age;

(V. 35.) This stone mansion of Jinendra, a mansion of every kind of greatness, has been caused to be built by the wise Ravikirti, who has obtained the highest favour of that Satyashraya whose rule is bounded by the three oceans.

[A_Gupta]

Test of linguists' methods:

In India we have the unique situation, that the parent, Sanskrit, and the descendant languages are known. In the case of Europe, the parent Latin, phonologically speaking, is patched up with guesses; and Greek likewise, if less so.

Any "universal law" of sound change, should therefore be validated against the Indian languages; if it holds, we can accept that law with confidence. All other "universal laws" should be relegated to a second tier.

Likewise, without using any knowledge of Sanskrit, using only the descendant languages, the parent should be reconstructed, and then open the box and have the answer checked against Sanskrit. This will tell us how confident we can be in reconstructions of unattested languages.

This, perhaps could be the first leg of an Indian research program in linguistics.

[member_22872]

Arun ji, they don't want to apply such validation quoting large amount of admixture among language and people and also any other exception to the rule will be explained away as adstrate or substrate effect.

Added later:

The theory that every theory has an exception also has an exception, hence linguistic theory and theory of phonetic change is true.

[shiv]

Test of linguists' methods:

In India we have the unique situation, that the parent, Sanskrit, and the descendant languages are known. In the case of Europe, the parent Latin, phonologically speaking, is patched up with guesses; and Greek likewise, if less so.

Any "universal law" of sound change, should therefore be validated against the Indian languages; if it holds, we can accept that law with confidence. All other "universal laws" should be relegated to a second tier.

Likewise, without using any knowledge of Sanskrit, using only the descendant languages, the parent should be reconstructed, and then open the box and have the answer checked against Sanskrit. This will tell us how confident we can be in reconstructions of unattested languages.

This, perhaps could be the first leg of an Indian research program in linguistics.

Arun, I believe you are making it too fair. This is the sort of sense of fair play that is normal among educated Indians nowadays.

As far as my reading goes many of these "universal laws" are like saying "He is world famous in Lahore", The "universality" stretches as far as a few words in a few specific languages in a few specific conditions. Defending Universal sound change laws saying that they are documented in neuromuscular physiological studies of the vocal tract is not such a big deal because it only means that "tongue twisters are difficult to recite".

Take any set of good tongue twisters and you will be able to mimic all sorts of universal sound laws.

For example:
"The sixth sheikh's sixth sheep's sick"
or
"Peggy Babcock"

These can mimic the limitations of the vocal tract that lead to consistent sound changes. There are so many variables and so many confounding features that absolute certainty that a particular sound change did occur can be proven only with attested languages, old and new. Taking cognates from three or four existing languages and saying that "%^$" was the original word and these are the sound changes that "must have taken place" in some remote proto language can at best be part of an interesting guessing game. I believe that the community of linguists have gone too far. Far to far by a long margin. I get the feeling that many students of linguistics are themselves not convinced by the proto-words cooked up.

I cannot dictate what the community of linguists ought to do, but they need to get themselves off their addiction to Sanskrit. Sanskrit is a different ball game that breaks the most fundamental laws of sound change by lacking sound change for many millennia. Since they have gone right ahead and divided the Indo-European language group into satem and centum, they could stick to European languages and work out what came earlier. But they have to desperately refer back to Sanskrit presumably because Sanskrit gives the cognate link to languages that were otherwise not even considered as having links. And from this stems the deep desire to find something "older that Sanskrit" (PIE). But linguists have made the double error of making a hash of trying to date Sanskrit by fake and demonstrably wrong methods, and they have doubled that error by cooking up a fake and untenable link with central Asia horses and chariots, again taking selective passages from an old and invalid translation of the Rig Veda and allowing absurd and ludicrous links from those translations to archaeological finds. All of these things cannot be defended and have all been trashed on this thread and off it.

Whichever way you cut the pie (pun unintended) Sanskrit is an old language that can be dated only from astronomical and geographical references within Sanskrit literature and those dates put Sanskrit the language as having existed prior to 3000 BC. If modern linguists theories fail to match these dates, faulting the texts is only a feeble excuse. There can be credible explanations about ancient languages. But linguistics has taken the wrong route and has bitten off more than it can chew. I don't think any amount of playing with sound change laws can actually arrive at any explanation when the founding hypotheses are flawed. You cannot compare 5 languages of which one is 5000 years old, two are 2000 years old and two are 1000 years old and try to conjure up a 8000 year old proto language without having any clue about the many unrecorded iterations and sound changes that the newer languages have undergone without leaving a trace. The problem is made much worse if the oldest language happens to have come down unchanged but all the other languages have undergone unknown changes.

I am getting tired of saying this. I have been saying the same thing for 3 months on this thread, using new and innovative language each time. We need to ignore AIT and PIE and move on. We are fighting a strawman. Many others including NS Rajaram and Kak and Talageri have already fought that strawman and wrestled it to the ground. I believe that we can make no progress by simply fighting the AIT/PIE strawman. We need to move ahead by looking at what is dateable in Sanskrit and then coming up with an alternative theory of Indo European language spread, even if it is a 5000 BC version of AIT

[Arjun]

Informative link on Sri Lanka's equivalent of AIT: Imagined communal hostilities and historiography

A persistent myth, which has helped create disharmony in Sri Lanka, is that the Sinhalese and Tamils have had a continuous history of mutual antagonism from the earliest past. In fact, ethnic enmity in Sri Lanka has modern roots, based in the divisive race politics of the British colonial power. Historically, ethnicity was not really a cause of dissension.

The colonialists promoted a picture of ‘Aryan’ Sinhalese at odds with ‘Dravidian’ Tamils, so that they could adopt an analogous position: ‘Aryan’ British liberating ‘Aryan’ Kandyans from ‘Dravidian’ Nayakkar domination.

However, to the dismay of the British Raj, the nascent Sinhalese bourgeoisie turned these ‘Aryan’ arguments against the British themselves. Unfortunately, the dichotomy between Sinhalese and Tamils was exacerbated - as intended by the colonial power. In the early 20th century the Tamil elite, reacting against ‘Aryanism’, began asserting the superiority of the ‘pure’ Dravidian races over the ‘hybrid mongrel’ Sinhalese.

In the middle of the 1st Millennium BC, a group of people calling themselves ‘Sinhala’, arrived from North India. Both the Dipawamsa and the Mahawamsa mention that the legendary King Vijaya came from Sinhapura in the Lala country (Gujarat), tarrying at Broach (Bharukkaccha) and/or Sopara (Supparaka) on the way.

This indicates that the settlers came from Gujarat rather than from Bengal, which accords with the linguistic evidence - Sinhala and Dhivehi are closer to Gujarati and Marathi than to Bengali and Gujarat, but not Bengal, was a habitat for lions, associated with Sinhalas in legend. The Kathiawar city of Sihor has been identified with Sinhapura.

Recent genetic evidence has also suggested that Gujarat may have been the place of origin of at least a section of the Sinhalese; a small admixture of Punjabi genes accords with the chronicles’ legends of brides being brought from ‘Madda’ and from ‘beyond the Ganges’.

[RajeshA]

Perhaps someday when all the humans of Earth have been DNA-fingerprinted, and the supercomputers of the future are brought to bear on the problem, one would be able to generate the complete phylogenetic tree of the human species based on autosomal DNA analysis, and one may be able to find some patterns of migration and movement, going back all the way into the past.

I don't know, whether even that would bring us closer to the answers.

[brihaspati]

^^
Actually that piece from Sinhala side has lot sof assumptions too: who knows the structure of Bengali and Gujarati in 1000 BCE? All indications are that they were probably much more similar to each other based on regional drifts of a possibly common Prakrit that ran parallel/co-influencing/derived-from-each-other to Sanskrit.

Gujarati traders dominated the western coast all along down to Sinhala right up to the Islamic takeover of Arabian sea, and this was only the western leg of the coastal trade that circumnavigated the entire peninsula both along the west as well as the east coast and connected to Bengal and further along the myanmar and Thai coasts.

Genetically, as far as we can see - the deeper ancestry would be linked closer to Kerala, and Kerala deeper inland mountain clans now. Ancient external mariners/geographers are quite confused about Sinhala and Bengal delta.

I think we should leave the question open as part of a trans subcontinental coastal-maritime trade connected culture, of which Sinhala was a part.

[A_Gupta]

Shiv,
The observed relationships between languages will still need to be explained. Therefore there needs to be a reexamination of comparative historical linguistics, I don't think that it can be finessed. It is not to figh PIE or AIT, it is to put the field on a sounder basis, based on what is actually known, and not on speculation. The linguists don't know reliably what ancient Latin or Greek sounded like, yet they have all these reconstructions!

[Nilesh Oak]

I am getting tired of saying this. I have been saying the same thing for 3 months on this thread, using new and innovative language each time. We need to ignore AIT and PIE and move on. We are fighting a strawman. Many others including NS Rajaram and Kak and Talageri have already fought that strawman and wrestled it to the ground. I believe that we can make no progress by simply fighting the AIT/PIE strawman. We need to move ahead by looking at what is dateable in Sanskrit and then coming up with an alternative theory of Indo European language spread, even if it is a 5000 BC version of AIT

Om, Aam (eastern orthodox churches), Amen (western Europe), Amin.

I am saying.. I agree completely. May be above progression of Om to Amin is the direction of language spread , i.e. Beginning in India, going to North, NW (steppe, ) then West and then turning around and ending in Antolia area.. ready for Saudi's to pick it up.

Ignore AIT and PIE, at least until one has theory for non-AIT and non-PIE (note.. I did not say anti-AIT and anti-PIE).

KL ji,

I do recognize your views on work of Talageri. However, here is a request if you are amneable to it. I don't know if you have read Talageri's work... if you have, ignore rest of my message here. If you have not, I would encourage you to read it (Rigveda -Historical analysis). Since you are familiar/knowledgeble about Rigveda and also have stronger views of any work that professes to do aboslute (or in case of Talageri.. relative chronology) based on Rigveda, your critique of his work would be immensely beneficial.

This morning I was shuffling through his book, and I realized my main limitation is unfamiliarity with Rigveda, thus instead of being in a position of finding holes in his arguments (I have no dumb agenda to find holes so that I can plug them!), I simply end up soakign information from his work as an information guide.... information about sages, families, Kings and Gods of Rigveda. In short, due to my unfamiliarity with Rigveda, information overwhelms me.. similar to my experience when someone familiar with world mythology begins talking about mythical characters ... with assumption that listerner knows who these charcaters are are or what these characters did. Or my colleagues talking to me about most of professional sports, players in them, their affairs, drug issues and then asking for opinion... you get the point.

Disclaimer - I do find his (Talageri) methodology rational, it is just that I am not in position to find exceptions to his assertions and/or come up with alternate model that would explain the same stuff.

[Nilesh Oak]

Which brings me to my favourite speculation. What if all the ancient greats or at least most of them (Panini types) were not the original thinkers/researchers/scientists. What if they were only a normal teacher of their times. Only a bit more committed. Committed to the extent that they began to consolidate what was already known. Did these people claim original thought for themselves? Did they claim copyright?

Far from speculation, much factual and closer to reality.

Panini, Vyasa, Patanajali, Sushruta, all writers of Astronomy siddhanta (Pitamaha, Surya, and many others) none of them claim to be original thinkers (although they are to me, original thinkers.. par excellence)

The sense you get reading their works is that they are compilling it (either in efficient form.. e.g. Sutras, or in as much detail as possible --e..g. Puranas) for posterity. In some cases, reference to 'compiling'aspect is obvious. In other cases the point is not discussed at all. However no where we get the sense that these authors are claiming something to be their creation.. for the first time.

[A_Gupta]

On the astronomical reconstructions - some years ago I conceived of the ambition of open source software instead of relying on the planetarium software, but like most ideas, I didn't take it anywhere.

But i did learn that the biggest uncertainty is induced by the uneven unknown rate of slowing down of the earth's spin. So eg you can establish that a solar and lunar eclipse occurred at consecutive new,full moons on such-and-such date, but that these were visible in a particular area of earth, say North India, is difficult. If you assume that it was visible, then you are actually establishing a new data point to establish the average rate of the earth's spin down. Further, once you have made that assumption, all the other measurements have to be consistent with that assumption. If the planetary software enables you to plug in an assumption about earth' spin down rate, then it is an adequate tool for this research, but I didn't see that, which is why I thought we might have to do this from first principles.

[shiv]

Disclaimer - I do find his (Talageri) methodology rational, it is just that I am not in position to find exceptions to his assertions and/or come up with alternate model that would explain the same stuff.

Oh absolutely. I read Talageri's book linked by Rajesh fairly early on in this thread. As I see it, if you are a person who is going to believe stories like "Rig veda describes pastoral society", "Rig veda is bard writing praise songs for immortality of leaders" or "Rig Veda graves are blah blah blah", then you have no business not reading or accepting what Talageri says. It is a different matter if your view, like Dubeyjis eschews all such literal translations of the Rig veda as pointless blather - in which case you will neither read Talageri nor any other claimed bullshit about the Rig Veda. My personal tendency is to follow Frawley who says that the Rig Veda can be interpreted with three main viewpoints

1. From the Geography it represents
2. From its astronomy, astrology and calendar
3. Its spirituality, and I quote I quote: "The vedic seers not only had spiritual knowledge but they named and interpreted their spatio-temporal environment according to its symbolism"

If you choose to fight pigs in their territory, you have to be willing to sink to their terms. Talageri does that well and comes out, in my view, on top, as proved by the benchmark of extreme irritation caused to Witzel. I would suggest that your own work will come of age when Witzel gets angry with one Nilesh Oak and passes scathing and insulting comments

[A_Gupta]

Eclipses, upto 700BC, have helped parametrize the earth's variable spin.
http://hbar.phys.msu.ru/gorm/atext/steph2003.pdf

A reliable observation from 3000BC would be a very important contribution to this field.

[shiv]

Shiv,
The observed relationships between languages will still need to be explained. Therefore there needs to be a reexamination of comparative historical linguistics, I don't think that it can be finessed. It is not to figh PIE or AIT, it is to put the field on a sounder basis, based on what is actually known, and not on speculation. The linguists don't know reliably what ancient Latin or Greek sounded like, yet they have all these reconstructions!

The way I see it is as follows

1. Yes, there is a related bunch of languages. Indo-European is a good enough name
2. The antiquity of this family has to be older than the oldest attested language in this family
3. Linguists have been dishonest in not looking at all the data that is available in dating Sanskrit
4. Linguists have been essentially going on a wild goose chase doing reconstructions of languages of widely varying antiquity with no insight into changes that may have occurred over millennia.
5. I think that reconstruction as a method can only have value if you use related languages of similar antiquity. Ignoring that is the same as ignoring the fundamental rule of sound change that is said to keep on occurring.

[RajeshA]

Eclipses, upto 700BC, have helped parametrize the earth's variable spin.
http://hbar.phys.msu.ru/gorm/atext/steph2003.pdf

A reliable observation from 3000BC would be a very important contribution to this field.

Publication Date: 2006
Authors: Fred Espenak and Jean Meeus
Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000

It doesn't really cover the time frame which are of more importance to us!

[KLP Dubey]

However, here is a request if you are amneable to it. I don't know if you have read Talageri's work... if you have, ignore rest of my message here. If you have not, I would encourage you to read it (Rigveda -Historical analysis). Since you are familiar/knowledgeble about Rigveda and also have stronger views of any work that professes to do aboslute (or in case of Talageri.. relative chronology) based on Rigveda, your critique of his work would be immensely beneficial.

As I mentioned to RajeshA in an earlier post, yes indeed I have read the entire work several years ago, as well as Witzel's critiques of it, and Talageri's later responses. In particular, I was going to start by refuting in detail Talageri's Chapter 4, where he has a number of claims regarding "rivers" in the RV. Then I decided not to post it, since the thread started to move away from trying to use the RV for historical/chronological claims. I can still do it if there is a desire among the thread participants.

Namaskar,

KL

[Agnimitra]

I was going to start by refuting in detail Talageri's Chapter 4, where he has a number of claims regarding "rivers" in the RV. Then I decided not to post it, since the thread started to move away from trying to use the RV for historical/chronological claims. I can still do it if there is a desire among the thread participants.

Please do so Dubey ji. I think, inter alia, there will be a lot of points you will cover that we can absorb or discuss. Thanks.

[ramana]

Dubeyji, We are here to learn. So please do post.
Thanks, ramana

[brihaspati]

Volks - try out Stellarium. I use it on Mac, so don't know how it performs on other OS. Its free. You can try and track what Nilesh ji is saying. Also its open source. If there is interest, it can be adapted. Algorithms used are standard, the same that are used in commercial ones.

[shiv]

Look at these data points folks:

• Internal evidence from Sanskrit texts and the Aihole inscription clearly points to the existence of Sanskrit as a language (as proved by being post Vedic) about 5000 years ago or earlier (3000 BC or earlier)
• Sanskrit and Slovenian share a whole range of cognate words - 20% of a list of 1600 words are common. But there is no common word for metal, suggesting that the split occurred between the populations speaking a common language more than 5000 years ago (3000 BC or earlier)
• The geography of old Sanskrit texts is consistent with Indian paleo-geography from an era more than 4000 years old

These data points suggest that a common Indo-European language existed in an era much earlier than 3000 BC. Sanskrit itself was established in India by 3000 BC. Any search for a proto language should look for one in the era prior to 4000 or 5000 BC.

Unfortunately very little data is available about languages in that remote era. If you ignore Sanskrit, the vast mass of data about languages comes after 500 BC. All reconstructions and assumptions of sound change can only have a degree of direct proof in the era after 500 BC.

One way forward might be to look for all languages that have significant records after 500 BC - not just fragmentary evidence.

[ramana]

Volks - try out Stellarium. I use it on Mac, so don't know how it performs on other OS. Its free. You can try and track what Nilesh ji is saying. Also its open source. If there is interest, it can be adapted. Algorithms used are standard, the same that are used in commercial ones.

I request a group of volunteers to be led by Bji to do more.
Please report in GDF nukkad.
dekhainge kitna josh hain! Is it all altu faltu or pakka?

[Prem Kumar]

Ramana, Rajesh: is it possible to reach out to Koenraad Elst, Talageri et al to make them aware of this forum and invite them to it? It would also be fantastic to have them in BRF meets

[Prem Kumar]

When ManishH claims the presence of Labiovelars in Hittite, how do linguists know how a Hittite word is pronounced with just a text available to them in a tablet? What are the techniques used to determine the sound - given that texts like the Pratishakhya dont exist for these languages?

Pinging ManishH by the way - he is missed

[peter]

In the entire period 11000-4800 Arundhati is ahead of Vashistha. Ask yourself what is unique about this event on the eve of Mahabharat?

Peter ji, indeed this is a very relevant question.
You see in the night sky there are quite a few field stars that appear exceedingly close when in fact they are not binaries.
In fact I am intrigued that AV system was not treated as such and are actually tied up together in mythology. The mythology of the AV system is intimately tied up in turn with the mythology of the other stars in the Big dipper.

That took me to the speculation that probably in ancient times AV system had something to do with marriage rituals.

Sighting Dhruva is the vedic tradition and hence older. Do you have a reference for when AV sighting became the ritual?

Peter ji, I am surprised you cannot see the link between the Epoch of Arundhati and the story of Draupadi which is what the colloquial understanding of MBH has been since forever.

Please enlighten us. I do not know.

[peter]

Regarding Saraswati river. To exactly ascertain when it flows one needs to dig all along its supposed bed, collect samples, and determine its age. I don't know of any comprehensive study that has taken place. But a date 3067 BC for MbH war is not incompatible with the flow of Saraswati. The Dwarka research is still not on solid ground.

TIFR scientists also have written in multiple reports/paper that skymap pro is the most accurate. They concur, independently, with Achar.

I think Sarasvati has been accepted as real even by the Govt. now, after its own agencies confirmed the same via research.

Yes Saraswati has been accepted as real but people still do not know how many course(s) it flowed in.

[shiv]

However, here is a request if you are amneable to it. I don't know if you have read Talageri's work... if you have, ignore rest of my message here. If you have not, I would encourage you to read it (Rigveda -Historical analysis). Since you are familiar/knowledgeble about Rigveda and also have stronger views of any work that professes to do aboslute (or in case of Talageri.. relative chronology) based on Rigveda, your critique of his work would be immensely beneficial.

As I mentioned to RajeshA in an earlier post, yes indeed I have read the entire work several years ago, as well as Witzel's critiques of it, and Talageri's later responses. In particular, I was going to start by refuting in detail Talageri's Chapter 4, where he has a number of claims regarding "rivers" in the RV. Then I decided not to post it, since the thread started to move away from trying to use the RV for historical/chronological claims. I can still do it if there is a desire among the thread participants.

Namaskar,

KL

Dubeyji. what you do will ultimately be your decision, but I would personally not be interested in seing your refutation of Talageri. Your word on the matter is good enough for me. Howevere I would like to see your refutation or support of the rape of the Veda by a multitude of western linguits and archaeologists whose references I will show to you.

Here is an except from a paper about some central Asian graves It is entitled "Nomads and the shaping of Central Asia: From the Early Iron age to the Kushan period" by one Shri Claude Rapin, The entire language story has been built up on representations of the Vedas in this manner. I will post more as time goes by and would like to see your views on these rather than about Talagei whom I see as having a common cause with me.

Here is an excerpt from the paper:

[peter]

[..]
I would encourage members to ignore the dumb question of 'Pole star'. The question is so dumb, I would not even acknowledge it. I am writing about it because I see so many members attempting to respond to it.

Be assured that I have interpreted the MBH refernces and have corroborated in multiple ways. The references that is alleged to have something to do with 'pole star' has NOTHING to do with pole star. It has everything to do with 'Mars'. And Achar has simply ignored that references completely, whether the reference referred to pole star or Mars.
[..]

References have everything to do with the polestar.
Here is Bhishma Parva 3.17
ऐन्द्रं तेजस्वि नक्षत्रं ज्येष्ठामाक्रम्य तिष्ठति ।। 6.3.16
ध्रुवं प्रज्वलितो घोरमपसव्यं प्रवर्तते । 6.3.17

KM Ganguli translates them at http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m06/m06003.htm

The white planet (Ketu), blazing up like fire mixed with smoke, stayeth, having attacked the bright constellation Jeshtha that is sacred to Indra. The constellation Dhruva, blazing fiercely, wheeleth towards the right.

RN Iyengar in his paper: "Some celestial observations associated with Krsna Lore" on page 4 translates 6.3.17 as " Dhruva the pole star blazing and fierce is moving anticlockwise".

[Nilesh Oak]

Ramana Garu,

I will write outline of Project #4. I searched through my external hard drive and did find a Mind map for the project. However it is at very detail level, only 50% complete and still when I transferred to PDF/JPEG, one can not read it at all since it already has 300+ points I have jotted down.

Project # 3 is - Year of Mahabharata War: Additional evidence from Geology, Anthropology and Astronomy. This is based on non-MBH text evidence.. in fact evidence from field of Geology and anthropology is not even remotely related to Indian texts and thus of very high corrboration value. Astronomy evidence is from Indian texts but non-MBH. I plan on also including evidence from archeology, SSVC script decipherment aka Sullivan code and genetic....however the plan to include evidence from this latter list is tentative. In addition I may elaborate/corrborate some of the predictions of mine from last chapter of my book.

[shiv]

Dubeyji, I quote below a post made by me on page 100 of this thread. would you be able to throw some light on the reference to the Vedas here?

Let me quote from David Anthony's "Horse Wheel and Language"

From Horse wheel and language pg 409
Similarities between the rituals excavated at Sintashta and Arkaim and
those described later in the RV have solved, for many, the problem of
Indo-Iranian origins 46 The parallels include a reference in RV 10.18 to a
kurgan ("let them ... bury death in this hill"), a roofed burial chamber
supported with posts ("let the fathers hold up this pillar for you"), and
with shored walls ("I shore up the earth all around you; let me not injure
you as I lay down this clod of earth"). This is a precise description of
Sintashta and Potapovka-Filatovka grave pits, which had wooden plank
roofs supported by timber posts and plank shoring walls. The horse sacri-
fice at a royal funeral is described in RV 1.162: "Keep the limbs undam-
aged and place them in the proper pattern. Cut them apart, calling out
piece by piece." The horse sacrifices in Sintashta, Potapovka, and Ftlatovka
graves match this description, with the lower legs of horses carefully cut
apart at the joints and placed in and over the grave. The preference for
horses as sacrificial animals in Sintashta funeral rituals, a species choice
setting Sintashta apart from earlier steppe cultures, was again paralleled
in the RV.

Here is another reference about burial rites in the Rig veda. Click on the Thumbnail to see a screen grab of a book called "Origin of the Indo-Iranians" that clearly states how carefully the Rig Veda describes India's horse culture Rig Vedic burials:

[peter]

I guess what you are saying is in 13000 BC (or whenever) someone saw Arundhati get ahead of Vashishta. They knew that Vashishta in ~8000 years will be again ahead of arundhati. Thus in the period 13000 BC to 4500 BC each astronomer needs to be taught that eventhough Arundhati is ahead now but eventually Vashishtha will overtake her.

Please tell me how is this a unique event which the Mahabharata scribe should mention at the date Nilesh has dated MBh at. Remember she was ahead for the last 8000 years!

Exactly, because you have not searched for significant events before 3000 BCE, you cannot imagine as to why this might be important. I will give you a few cues, look for significant events - climatic, or otherwise, connected to the Indian subcontinent, around 19kya, 17kya, 13 kya, and of course 5.5-6 kya.

Please educate about these events and the connection to our current discussion.

Pole star in 5500 BC or 4500 BC is relevant because MbH mentions it moving left. So if a pole star does not exist or is not visible or is not unique enough for the naked eye to see it does oppose the arundhati theory.

How many years do you estimate is needed to register the fact that "polestar has moved to the left"?

Thuban approached the pole around 3200 BC and got into its overhead position in ~2700 BC.

I asked you the question to show you that you are yourself automatically assuming that people carried on past astronomical observation/records over long periods of time. By your own estimate this implied at least in your example, 500 years of observations.

Come on now. Onus is on you to show that Indians were capable of astronomy in 11000 BC and had a "system" of recording these memories for next 8000 years.

Do you think scientists even know the actual course or courses of Saraswati well?

Do you think scientists know the course or courses of ancient Rhine well?

Why is course of rhine relevant to saraswati? Is there a controversy about rhine whether it reached the ocean from the mountain?

Dwarka research is of course not on solid grounds - its underwater mud after all. Moreover, because it could claim a much earlier date than assigned to IVC because of sea-level rise arguments, it cannot be allowed to be on solid grounds.

This is in Modi's backyard. This excuse is not good enough.

Who says it is an excuse? Moreover why should Modi be brought in everything irrelevant as congrez or its foreign patrons do?

Dear how long will we keep complaining. Why does'nt someone who believes strongly in this area petition Modi to start getting these sites excavated.

TIFR scientists also have written in multiple reports/paper that skymap pro is the most accurate. They concur, independently, with Achar.

At some point you have to defer to people who know more than you. If TIFR scientists and Achar claim skymap pro is the best I see no reason to doubt them.

Unfortunately this is an area not subject to linguist or historian dogma - that their interpretation is the only true one. I have access to TIFR scientists. If you kindly mention the exact personages, I can very well ask them. I am sure you are aware that software needs to be tested on benchmarking data or problems before you can declare one to be more accurate than others. If the TIFR scientists have done this, the results will be available.

Sure. Look at the paper: "period of Nakstras" by MN Vahia. Here is a quote:

The software programme Sky Map Pro (2001) includes these corrections and we have used it to generate the sky pattern for a given time.

[Nilesh Oak]

Rajiv Malhotra, author of 'Being Different' wrote the following in another context and referring to someone who either refuses to read 'Being Different' or fails to comprehend the content of the book.

What he wrote is very relevant as it relates to maintaining the quality of debate on this thread/forum.

This is what Rajiv wrote... (emphasis mine)

BD was written after serious inquiry into the sameness syndrome and not as a restatement of some standard opinion of either side. I consider it a waste of time for this forum (and frankly an insult to my research) if we allow opinions that simply ignore BD's position. Therefore, I would like to know whether he has read BD or or not.BD explains that we can always come up with any number of our interpretations of some old Christian texts, and supply our framework to make them look the same as our faith. But that would be called Ramakrishna-Christianity, or Sarada Devi-Christianty, or Tarkananandaji-Christianity. How does that reconcile with the Christianity as understood by the vast majority of Christians for the past 1600 years since the Council of Nicea?

Is he familiar with BD's explanation of history centrism? if so, can he reconcile that with his views? if not, then he is wasting our time with scripted positions that are dealt with in BD - hence taking the discussion backward. I want intelligent debate on my work, which is not the same thing as ignoring it as if it never existed.

Is he familiar with Nicene Crees as discussed in BD and if so, how does he reconcile it with his position? if not, I request him to not waste more time here.

Lets use serious scholarship to educate and go deeper than the prevailing discourse. Not as a forum to restate old positions that we went through many times. Those who think that no new scholarship is needed because they know it all, or that everything worthwhile has been written already, are basically saying that my past 20 years and those of the few others who produce original output is a total waste. That opinion is their prerogative. By the same token my prerogative is to remove them as diversions, Fair enough? I am glad to note that we have a small but growing umber of good scholars here.

Samarth Ramadas Swami, one of the brilliant and practical minds of 17th century and also spritual advisor to King Shivaji, wrote..



I will translate and leave it to likes of Atri ji to improvise.

without reading the WHOLE book,
One who despises/blames/criticizes a viewpoint/POV/thesis of the book,
and one who focuses on immaterial when critical aspect is being described,
is a LEARNED fool.

[peter]

Ok, folks. Here it is.

Here is proof that the entire concept of PIE was created to disprove the idea that Sanskrit could have been a mother language to any European language. This is a Pakistanic quest of "Not Indian" and suffers from the same problem - i.e if there is anything Indian, it will be covered up because the aim is to be "Not Indian"

This is fine. But the key problem is that we have to dislodge the mainstream. And that can only be done by
i) assuming PIE is true
ii) show counter examples which go against PIE.

Evidence is what should kill PIE.

We need not do anything to kill PIE. All we need to show is that there is plenty of evidence that Sanskrit itself dates back to anywhere between 3000 BC (Achar) and 7000 BC (Oak). I would welcome seeing PIE and AIT pre dated to an earlier era. There should be no for linguists problem in doing that no?

Well so long PIE stands on its feet and being a fiction it can "be shown" to be older then Sanskrit then AIT will never get dismantled.

Also depends on who your target audience is.

If AIT needs to be defeated PIE has to be falsified. Take the law of palatalization which is a cornerstone of PIE. But this law IMHO fails in Sanskrit (well we have not see ManishH get back in the debate on this yet so perhaps he will give a counter example).

If we just keep saying PIE is a racist concoction, or Sanskrit is the word of Gods and hence precedes all humanity etc are not scientific arguments.

Since PIE is fiction and is speculative it should be possible to drill holes in it so that the structure crumbles.

[peter]

[..]
I will translate and leave it to likes of Atri ji to improvise.

without reading the WHOLE book,
One who despises/blames/criticizes a viewpoint/POV/thesis of the book,
and one who focuses on immaterial when critical aspect is being described,
is a LEARNED fool.

I am sure you are directing these "gems" at me. Why don't you calm down. We all need your help here.

[Arjun]

If AIT needs to be defeated PIE has to be falsified.

Not true at all. I suspect too many folks on this forum believe this to be true - which is the reason for the excessive focus on linguistics.

[shiv]

Well so long PIE stands on its feet and being a fiction it can "be shown" to be older then Sanskrit then AIT will never get dismantled.

<snip>

Since PIE is fiction and is speculative it should be possible to drill holes in it so that the structure crumbles.

It is absolutely certain that some common language led to the related language families that includes European and Indian languages. To that extent a "PIE" will always be true and cannot be made to crumble except by denial. Denying that in the belief that only that will kill AIT is a mistake in my viewpoint. However you and I are allowed to have different beliefs and different goals. It you believe that killing PIE is necessary to kill AIT you have to believe the current definition of PIE.

However I believe that PIE as a concept can be allowed to live on, except that it might have existed in 10,000 BC, and not 2,500 BC as alleged. I am eagerly on the lookout for proof of AIT in 8000 BC.

[shiv]

If AIT needs to be defeated PIE has to be falsified.

Not true at all. I suspect too many folks on this forum believe this to be true - which is the reason for the excessive focus on linguistics.

+1

[Prem Kumar]

AIT-Sepoy Rajesh Kochhar in his book made the case that Afghanistan-Eastern Iran is better suited to be the area where Rig Veda was written.

One reason he offered was that the Soma plant which some have identified with the Ephedra plant does not grow in Punjab or India generally, but it grows in Afghanistan and Iran region.

Haoma (Soma) I Botany: Encyclopedia Iranica
Haoma (Soma) II Rituals: Encyclopedia Iranica

However Shrikant Talageri in his book "The Rigveda - A Historical Analysis"! sends Rajesh Kochhar for a six!

1. The actual Soma-growing areas were distant and unknown to the Vedic Aryans in the early parts of the Rigveda, and became known to them only later after they expanded westwards.
2. The Soma plant and its ritual were not originally known to the Vedic Aryans and their priests, but were introduced to them in very early times by priests from the Soma-growing areas.
3. The expansion of the Vedic Aryans (and, by a chain of events, the dispersion of the Indo-Europeans, as we shall see in later chapters) into the west and northwest was a direct consequence of their quest for Soma.

RajeshA: I read this fascinating post from Talageri but it raises a couple of questions, regarding the conclusions drawn:

a) If the original Soma preparers - the Brigus - were pre-Rig-Vedic, doesnt it point to a NorthWestern influence on the Vedic people?

b) The lack of Soma references in the early Mandalas doesnt automatically imply that the Vedic people couldnt have come from the Northwest. Isnt it possible that the early Vedic people were from the Northwest and Soma was very important for them, which is why its mentioned in the early Mandalas? And since the plant is so remote and not readily available, it doesnt find a mention in much of the early Mandalas - the Vedic settlers got busy with other day-to-day stuff. However, its memory is preserved by the 14 hymns mentioned. And its importance drove the late Vedic Northwest expansion. This is much like the Indian emigrants to the U.S - they have their daily stuff to worry about but still retain cultural memory and want the homeland linkage

[peter]

Well so long PIE stands on its feet and being a fiction it can "be shown" to be older then Sanskrit then AIT will never get dismantled.

<snip>

Since PIE is fiction and is speculative it should be possible to drill holes in it so that the structure crumbles.

It is absolutely certain that some common language led to the related language families that includes European and Indian languages.

Yes it was Sanskrit and not PIE.

To that extent a "PIE" will always be true and cannot be made to crumble except by denial.

Nope. In my view if Indians were blonde and blue eyed Europeans would have no problem in accepting Sanskrit as the "mother language".

However I believe that PIE as a concept can be allowed to live on, except that it might have existed in 10,000 BC, and not 2,500 BC as alleged. I am eagerly on the lookout for proof of AIT in 8000 BC.

Sure. Just look for arcaheology reports which talks about "peopling" of Mehrgarh (~7500 BC) by "people from the west".