Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[Murugan]

Just heard Baba Ramdev addressing his hundreds of Karyakartas about non-sense spread about the Aryan Invasion Theory.

"Apne desh ke aryo ko hi foreigners bana diya"!
"Galat Itihas padha rahe hai"

etc etc

[ramana]

Murugan,

The first claim in the epics for swaraja is by Sahadeva in the Rayabhara episode. He says categorically its our land and vacate it to the Kauravas.
I think we have a clear ennuciation of the idea of nation-state here.
Tilak again took up that claim to the Brits.

[disha]

Mehrgarh female figurine with what appears to be sindhoor

Shivji, please read B. Lal's book "The Sarasvati flows on". It is replete with examples that shows the continuation of SIVC.

[ramana]

Bji, Maybe the submergence of Dwaraka was due to tsunamis from Somali plate stress relief?

[member_22872]

ramana ji, what is the time line of this plate break up? interesting if the date correlates with MB times.

[ramana]

I dont know. But Bji knows all sorts of things or knows how to locate them.

[KLP Dubey]

Now you have the entire body of the Vedas. Built up over 300 to 500 years years according to people like Witzel, and over 1000 years acc to Talageri. The number of composers who have contributed is large. Please tell me why there are no sound changes between composers and between Mandalas of the sort that people are suddenly becoming aware of nowadays, according to ManishH. Just because a 1937 author said that Pratishakya are not perfect does not mean much. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Show me some sound changes between books and composers within the huge corpus of the Rig Veda and then talk about sound change.

There are some tall claims of one Mandala being supposedly younger or older than the other based upon some flimsy examples of "sound changes". I am waiting to see if ManishH mentions some of these. I have to say though, that the most hilarious/embarrassing stuff on "relative age of the Mandalas" is from Talageri. He thinks the Anukramani of Katyayana in fact contains reliable lists of "human composers" of the Suktas. The names in there are entirely fictitious, conjured up by people in various Vedic shakhas.

Will start posting on "Rigveda - A Historical Analysis" soon, as per time constraints.

Namaskar,

KL

[disha]

Bji, Maybe the submergence of Dwaraka was due to tsunamis from Somali plate stress relief?

List of observed tsunamis in the arabian sea : http://tsunamisociety.org/271Jordan.pdf

Tsunamis are one time event causing death and destruction., but not permanent submersion and definitely not of a wide area. Permanent submersion is caused by sea level rise and that correlates well with submersion of wide regions (incl. possibly dwarka).

Remember, severall cultures across the world have the deluge story., infact Vishnu's first avtar is a matsya avtar, saving the saptarishis and the animal species.

In reality, a huge chunk of civilized bharatvarsha was submerged and the saptarishis ran for new shores to save their lives - which was the interior of bharatvarsha. The first task of the saptarishis when they meet the interior culture is to enunciate the vedas, hence for the reciever the vedas are the divine sounds which have codified the spoken language for them. While on the boat, saptarishis also codify the pratiyakshas, so that this knowledge is not lost. All instruments to write can be destroyed, however as long as there is one single human who can recite vedas, vedas will propagate unmodified.

Again, the above could be a plausible scenario.

[disha]

The reality is that sound change is a sub-conscious process that is increasingly getting better understood. ...

The new wave linguists would have discovered the prayakshas then!

So next gen kids will go to Harvard, learn pratyaksha in english from suited/booted professors and come back and criticize the dhoti wearing sanskrit based pratyaksha students - in clipped english. Oh the joy of learning new things.

[ShauryaT]

Will start posting on "Rigveda - A Historical Analysis" soon, as per time constraints.

Namaskar,

KL

Again Dubey ji. There are folks like me who are reading with keen interest. Please do post your views as time permits. Thanks.

[Nilesh Oak]

Bji, Maybe the submergence of Dwaraka was due to tsunamis from Somali plate stress relief?

We will see what B ji has to say. My thought woudl be that somlali plate/or breaking of somali plate, may add to submergence of Dwarka, if timing happens to be right, however, as someone else already pointed out, Tsunami can cause one time destruction but land would be recovered, unless accompanied by net rise in sea levels.

Movement of plates is a much slower process. Besides drastic increase in sea level around 5525 BC is/was a global phenomena. I have evidence to that effect. It is just that I have taken kind advice of ravi_g seriously and to keep some evidence for the book.

[RajeshA]

Nilesh Oak ji,

Please take advice from ravi_g ji, and edit your post!

[A_Gupta]

There are some tall claims of one Mandala being supposedly younger or older than the other based upon some flimsy examples of "sound changes". I am waiting to see if ManishH mentions some of these. I have to say though, that the most hilarious/embarrassing stuff on "relative age of the Mandalas" is from Talageri. He thinks the Anukramani of Katyayana in fact contains reliable lists of "human composers" of the Suktas. The names in there are entirely fictitious, conjured up by people in various Vedic shakhas.

Will start posting on "Rigveda - A Historical Analysis" soon, as per time constraints.

Namaskar,

KL

1. My request is that while Talageri may be wrong, his assumptions are clearly stated, and his conclusions follow from his assumptions. In this sense he is an honest man, not constructing the layers of assumptions upon assumptions that we see in other cases. So please be kind with him.

2. Accepting the Rg Veda Samhita as having no origin and no human composer and consisting of sounds that do not map consistently to any human language, there are nevertheless questions that can be asked.

a. The simplest one is that in the current yuga cycle, who, when, where were the first humans to utter Rg Vedic sounds?

b. Did the entire Samhita deposit itself in the brains of these humans in one split second, or was there a process by which they got it? If there was a process over time, it is legitimate to ask, which hymn did they receive first? Second, third, etc.? Does the current order of mandalas and hymns in the mandalas reflect the order in which they received the Samhita or did they rearrange it?

3. There is a another kind of question. Since the sounds in the Rg Veda Samhita are eternal, it must follow that humans borrowed these sounds in order to e.g., name the rivers in north India. (Them choosing the names independently and it miraculously matching a set of sounds in the Samhita is too improbable). Rivers, however, are not eternal things, and so it turns out one river, Saraswati, is missing today. It is therefore legitimate to ask, when did that river exist, and then roughly when did that naming event occur?

There is a whole series of questions possible here, but this is enough for now.

These are all questions that are answerable in principle given your main axioms about the Rg Veda Samhita. Do you see any possible way of answering them in practice?

[A_Gupta]

From "Comparative Indo-European Linguistics - An Introduction" by Robert S.P. Beekes, Second Edition:

The reconstruction of a proto-language and its proto-forms is thus a basic and necessary tool for the comparative linguist.

There is a difference of opinion as to the status of such proto-forms. Some consider them to be realities, whereas others view them only as handy formulae for making the nature of the relationship between cognate languages clear. In my opinion, there is no real problem here: the proto-forms are intended to represent realities, that is to represent linguistic forms which were once actually spoken; but our insight is limited and the reality might have been different from what we imagine.

[RajeshA]

Will start posting on "Rigveda - A Historical Analysis" soon, as per time constraints.

KLP Dubey ji,

I cannot stop you from posting this nor would I want to. There are some who have even requested you to go ahead.

Here is my take on the consequences. I'll try to explain using some analogies.

Why is it a naivety of the highest kind?

a) Has anybody ever seen a Christian Theologian or the Church debating "Immaculate Birth" or "Jesus as Son of God" openly in public forums against those who don't believe in it? If somebody has, then he has a richer experience in life, than me. But I say that such debates have not taken place, and the reason it is so is because it is stupid to put the cornerstone of one's faith up for discussion and allow it to be attacked in public, and to legitimize such an attack with one's own presence in such a debate.

The cornerstone of wisdom on debates is one doesn't put one's crown jewels on the gambling table!

And a debate is a gambling table. It is not even necessary that the one with the best arguments wins a public debate, but often it is the one who sounds more rational and who provides the best sound-bites, the best quips, who wins over the public. Often the debates are also not decided in favor of one or the other person's position. They remain open-ended and each side claims they won. The public decides simply by popularity and sympathy.

It is really fine to go into the debate on some issue on the fringe of the faith, say some custom on what kind of tilak one should wear or something like that! But one doesn't take the crown jewels to the casino! That is simply the rule!

So if one starts a debate on the nature of the Vedas, you can be sure that there would be others who would bring or conjure up various arguments against! And mind you even ridicule would be used as a tool and would be considered fair game.

Let's not even try to compare the current environment to that of the old, where a debate was held between two scholars and he who lost was supposed to take over the philosophy of the other. The debates may also have been heated but there was a codex to these debates. Don't expect that today. And no side would accept any defeat. It will always be a draw.

So what would one have achieved? Nothing! One would have simply raised the interest of the others to focus on the issue! One would have invited attacks on the centrality of one's belief system! Is that what one would want? Nobody walks from this debate a winner! It is unjustified arrogance to think one can win a debate. One never does that. One just splits the audience. And one should not expect that if one starts a debate, the other side would not respond. They will.

Motto: Don't gamble with the crown jewels!

b) Also what we are seeing here is you choosing a very specific opponent - Shri Shrikant G. Talageri! And then referencing his works.

Now it is one thing to put forth one's views on an issue, say the nature of the Vedas, i.e. without making a specific reference to any work one wishes to criticize. That way you are not challenging any one in particular. That is understood as purely your opinion, and people say, well you have a right to have an opinion and to express it. Nobody feels challenged, nobody feels called upon to respond to it.

However if one names one's opponent or references his works, one marks one's "enemy", then that is a challenge. And then one should expect a fierce response.

So again one should be cognizant of the difference between expressing one's viewpoint and challenging someone.

Moral: Better to speak without marking the enemy!

c) Who is Shri Shrikant Talageri today? In a small community of those fed up with AIT and those better read, he is a star who made Witzel speechless! But beyond that? Does anybody know him? Is he a popular star? Does the whole of India know him? Hardly!

So what exactly are you going to do to him? The only thing I can see that would happen is that a public no-holds barred debate on the very interesting and juicy topic of the nature of Vedas, would only end up making the little known Shri Shrikant Talageri into a more popular icon!

One doesn't know how far the debate would roll on, and how much it would contribute to Shrikant Talageri's popularity! As of now, he may remain an unsung Indian hero, with emphasis on 'unsung'!

Moral: Don't do publicity for your enemy!

d) At the moment, there are many Indians, Indian like me. We don't know the philosophical details of the two positions. We think both can be aligned into a single narrative. We don't want to choose! We don't want to choose between faith and the human disposition to curiosity and apparent 'reasonableness'! We want to keep our faith! We want to be able to feel the divinity of the Vedas and its chants! We also want to support the concept of unfettered inquiry and support those who wish to know more about the Vedas, those who speculate on its possible origins and don't want to be satisfied with 'You cannot speculate because we have no data!' I am satisfied with the position of ambivalence.

An Indic like me, doesn't want to asked to choose! An Indic like me, doesn't want to hear, "You are with us, or you are against us." Anybody who puts somebody like me in a situation, will only heap scorn for making us choose, and just for the reason of coercing me to choose, the reaction would be one of anger, an anger which could push people like me into the opposite camp, something that could have been avoided through ambiguity.

Moral: Don't force a decision onto unwilling people!

e) So how is this going to play out among the public?

If there is any sure way of making a man into a Copernicus or even a Galileo, then this must be one! This debate would be pitted as a fight of a scientific researcher against the Hindu orthodoxy and dogma. It would also be posited that the Hindu Orthodoxy does not wish to embrace science and logic.

Once the fight gets reformulated as a "struggle" of this nature, then one can be sure that Shrikant Talageri would be considered a "martyr" in the cause of science and against superstition.

This is not about whether the "Veda is eternal and authorless" position is right or wrong. It is just the instinctive reaction of the public today (at least the elite) to accept all the claims of scientists and reject those of the religious authorities, and in a debate consider the scientist as oppressed by the "evil" Brahmins or so!

Motto: Don't make your enemy into a hero!

f) So who is going to come to Shrikant Talageri's support and rescue?

Actually even though he has created a good corpus of work which is there to negate the many historical frauds perpetuated on the Indian public, I expect the same public to come out of the woodwork and give open support to Talageri. Now Talageri may even loathe to get support from the various Marxist and AIT-Sepoy quarters, he will still be getting unqualified support, so one can expect a stream of secular riffraff coming forward to show support!

Motto: Don't push your enemies closer together!

g) And what are these new "friends" of Talageri going to be doing?

Yes, they are going to be taking cover of Talageri's fight with you, but they will proceed with their agenda. They will in his name try to malign Hindu faith, throwing ridicule at it, and showing it as in opposition to science. Even if Talageri would want to shut them up, they will not do so, and they will continue to exploit the rift.

One only needs to see how Bolsheviks exploited the Mensheviks in uprooting the Kaiser family, and when the work was done they let go of them. Similarly in Iran, during the Revolution, the Shi'a clergy were more than happy to join up with Marxists and Democrats, in fact with all non-Monarchists to get rid of the monarch, but once there was a regime change the Shi'a clergy eliminated them all. One must also notice how a few mischief-makers, can really hijack the a street demonstration and make it violent.

Motto: Don't give your real enemies a platform or high ground to attack you!

h) And what about the public?

They are going to be split right through the middle. No such split was necessary. After the right chronology for India is accepted by the GoI or world, as such there would be no more need for Anukramani-based Rigvedic history research. So the views of the people would have remained vague, ambiguous. After the re-establishment of the Indic narrative, they would have accepted the Vedic narrative.

But if this issue is made into an affair, people would be forced to take a stand. Each would have to choose right away, what they are going to be believe in. Each would be coerced to make a choice. The more one raises the issue, the higher is going to be the polarization.

Motto: Don't make the nature of Vedas into a controversial issue, for that simply increases polarization in Hindu society.!

_____________


I was hoping that the schism among Indians would develop based on some less important issue- say Yugas, or cyclic time, etc. But it is a pity that the schism is going to be created based on the core of Hinduism - the Vedas themselves.

Of course, the match would be a nice death-match to watch, but if this issue snowballs on the national level, and I fear some of those sickulars would love just such an issue, then this could have some grave repercussions.

How do I feel about it? I have mixed feelings! I think it would be positive for the This-world-origin-of-Vedas people, as those who have kept their distance due to secularism would return to the fold of Indics, even for the wrong reasons, but the fact that Hindu Orthodoxy is being opposed would give them a reason to join the camp.

I have negative feelings because through this challenge to Shrikant Talageri, one would make this ideological schism permanent, by removing all ambiguity! In the long run, Hinduism would suffer because the Mimamsa ideologues through a challenge would have legitimized a second Hindu pole, to which the Hindus could jump to, but this Hindu pole may lack the strength that comes from the Vedas, and thus may be susceptible, and I talk of it not necessarily from orthodox Hinduism but various other faiths.

[Prem Kumar]

Brilliant post RajeshA ji!

I would add 1 more: Talageri is one of us - the OIT group. What benefit do we gain by fratricide?

Dubey ji: if you wish to use your knowledge of Vedas & Pratishakyas to attack someone, pick the AIT gang. Tear up their theories - but with precision. Don't dismiss them with contempt while focusing your precision on Talageri. Instead, indulge his ignorance and attack your opponents. If I wish to discipline my son, I do it in my room, not on the street in front of his classmates.

Focus your energies on what is vital: I think Shiv was trying to do this by asking your opinion on some text a few pages ago.

Mottos: "Point the gun outwards" & "dont create mindspace for the unnecessary". "Focus your energies on what's vital"

[KLP Dubey]

RajeshA and A_Gupta,

Thanks for your detailed posts. But I am puzzled as to why you are making them. What does this have to do with theology, the church, etc ?

We have been through this before, and the Moderators have also intervened, and I have already said that one can debunk all claims of history, geography, botany, and zoology in the Veda without any recourse to the "eternal Veda" concept.

This is purely based on a genuine analysis of their content (not by selective pick-up of random words with no reference to context, like most AITers and even OITers are prone to do). It is not based on any philosophical grounds.

To be sure, ultimately the absence of history etc in the RV sounds is indeed a consequence of their being eternal (a "duh!" moment), but as I said before,

1) it is not necessary for you to accept the "eternal veda".

2) this is not about the philosophical nature of the Vedas but about their content.

Somebody else asked me if I read Talageri's work (in which he has also criticized Witzel etc). Witzel has in return criticized Talageri. I think both of them are purveying false information. Now if I debunk Witzel, then automatically Talageri is also debunked. And vice versa. We all know of the poor quality of Witzel's work, but is anyone here really serious that Talageri's Anukramani-based analysis (without any consideration of what is actually in the Rgveda) is reliable? Some folks in the Vedic shakhas made up lists of fictitious names to attach to the Rgveda suktas (many of the names taken from the RV text itself), and that should now become a grounds for historical interpretation of the RV? When there are no rivers mentioned in the RV at all, what use in writing a chapter on Rgveda rivers ?

Please!

KL

[A_Gupta]

^^^
As my questions show, I think, the absence of history in the RV sounds, nevertheless does not exempt us from some legitimate historical questions - unless there is absence of history in humans also - namely, they always existed, and they always knew the RV sounds.

PS: (quote from Wiki)

The Vishnu Purana (Book 3, Ch 3) says:

In every third world age (Dvapara), Vishnu, in the person of Vyasa, in order to promote the good of mankind, divides the Veda, which is properly but one, into many portions. Observing the limited perseverance, energy, and application of mortals, he makes the Veda fourfold, to adapt it to their capacities; and the bodily form which he assumes, in order to effect that classification, is known by the name of Veda-vyasa. Of the different Vyasas in the present Manvantara and the branches which they have taught, you shall have an account. Twenty-eight times have the Vedas been arranged by the great Rishis in the Vaivasvata Manvantara... and consequently eight and twenty Vyasas have passed away; by whom, in the respective periods, the Veda has been divided into four. The first... distribution was made by Svayambhu (Brahma) himself; in the second, the arranger of the Veda (Vyasa) was Prajapati... (and so on up to twenty-eight).

So the eternal sounds have a puranic history.

[A_Gupta]

Just received Stephen A. Daitz's recordings on what ancient Greek might have sounded like. Listening even a little to it, I think we (generically) are greatly handicapped approaching ancient Greek through English. We need to approach the study of ancient Greek through Sanskrit (i.e., through works that don't yet exist, but ought to be created.)

[KLP Dubey]

Brilliant post RajeshA ji!

I would add 1 more: Talageri is one of us - the OIT group. What benefit do we gain by fratricide?

You are getting it all wrong. If the RV is seen, correctly, to have no historical bearing on deciding the AIT/OIT/PIE question, then the AIT loses immediately.

KL

[ramana]

Can you do that without attacking people and personalities?

[RajeshA]

What does this have to do with theology, the church, etc?

KLP Dubey ji,

those are analogies, and I hope you see them as limited analogies only! I am simply talking about the politics of attacking Talageri directly.

this is not about the philosophical nature of the Vedas but about their content.

This is my take on it. If one asserts that Rig Veda came first and Sanskrit was developed from it by assigning geographical and other meanings to proper nouns in the Rig Veda, then people will not buy that the philosophical nature of the Vedas is being ignored. They will think, that usually non-human things of intelligence just don't drop out of thin air into one's lap, and then one starts analyzing it, but rather that it is of human origin and like everything of human origin the Rig Veda too developed in a geographical and cultural context. So if you are not resorting to this, then yes, you will be talking only about the content.

I just wanted to have put two things in writing.

1) Why any derecognition of geography in Rig Veda only hurts OIT and not AIT

2) Why any direct attacks on Talageri or his works ultimately hurts Vedic authority?

I wanted to have this written down, just so that nobody can say later that we didn't know the consequences of this. The rest is up to you!

[Agnimitra]

Will start posting on "Rigveda - A Historical Analysis" soon, as per time constraints.

Dubey ji, we are looking forward to it!

A_Gupta ji, my 2 cents:

2. Accepting the Rg Veda Samhita as having no origin and no human composer and consisting of sounds that do not map consistently to any human language, there are nevertheless questions that can be asked.

a. The simplest one is that in the current yuga cycle, who, when, where were the first humans to utter Rg Vedic sounds?

The simple answer to that is that this is irrelevant. The assertion that the Samhita has no origin is epistemological in its scope, not physical or biological. The sound and their semantics always existed, and different species including Man discovers them according to their own meta-cognitive apparatus.

E.g. Suppose I have a file on my computer called "song.mp3". Consider 2 or 3 cases:

(i) I open it with a media player, and the MP3 codec a priori interprets it as music, and then proceeds to parse it through a mathematical psycho-acoustic de-compression algorithm, and produced an output in a form that must be received via speakers (not screen).

(ii) Instead, if I were to force-open that same file via, say, a word processor program, that program will a priori interpret it as written text, and proceed to parse it according to a human-created character standard like Unicode, and produce an output in a form that must be seen on your screen or sent to the printer. In this second case, due to the "intrinsic nature" of the file's contents, most of this output may be in the form of junk characters. Only a little bit of it, such as the song_name, artist_name, genre, and other header information may appear in the word processor output file. Also, some of the other bit-sequences in the file may randomly generate native alphabets that a reader may understand, while most of the other bit-sequences may just generate special_characters or alternative_alphabets from other supported character sets of foreign languages, etc. An example of such a file opened with Notepad:

ftypqt qt wide J¢mdat Ø@ ê›þøšäHI$€ ó@—7ùê
$ÿ“ ïªÀf$‡Ë •“ßÅ }¡3H-‰åº.Þ ãB°¾eEð½’ »[™÷õ÷;Ã@ <1nç‚x­Éý¦Ù¼\WþfÂxø ò"ÆÉŽ£Y¹ã©gFmo
š€ jðøšþËìžáã?û?ÃùÒÿWé¿„õà
.wðž'ìýßì¿,õ΋»~¹þ»ã>ûóWö«ú¾^Ñý( Wä¾yÆùçOë|ïŒü_Ðñ:?7å?-Ýö9Ñõ/#ñP ¶|Ϧê|ÞŸ„ê}Û¾é=[Äjöÿ<ñÞí^³¡ùÞδ ð\âyŒrÇo‚îšþ•Êì;—èûüÝ9œ¿ÑñüŸE©ñL2 ÐÝÖu{¬æî5†În³Fù¡²öjíЗ×(0Ö"4^RJ†óÕ% $AÙLÐFD\´o¨ñ¾Ã3§ÎŒË

(iii) Now a third person may interject at this point that it just depends on which hermeneutic is used to open this file. He may then suggest the dangerous and spurious conclusion that the file is, after all, only a series of binary 0's and 1's. But this is also erroneous, because that binary representation is only the electronic machine-recognizable representation of the file's contents.

(iv) The sane and balanced mind will have no hesitation in saying that the file's contents is actually music, because that interpretation lends the greatest information entropy (link1, link2) to its contents.

This information clearly has no physical representation. And yet, one of the physical representations produced (via the MP3 player) was correctly considered the only valid representation, all others are to be considered spurious.

Similarly, using the above example as an analogy, we can say that the Vedas also have no physical representation, and even their epistemological evaluation via sensory apparatus (as was the case in the above analogy) is relative -- relative to its correct evaluation using a deeper faculty, deeper than the senses. Yet, one particular set of human-recognizable neuro-linguistic sounds is to be considered the highest fidelity representation of eternal Veda.

The different interpreters of Veda, from historical Indians to phoren linguist-archaeologists are all making a priori assumptions based on their psycho-physical and spiritual limitations.

b. Did the entire Samhita deposit itself in the brains of these humans in one split second, or was there a process by which they got it? If there was a process over time, it is legitimate to ask, which hymn did they receive first? Second, third, etc.? Does the current order of mandalas and hymns in the mandalas reflect the order in which they received the Samhita or did they rearrange it?

There is a process by which to discover it. This process is independent of time -- meaning that it is not bound by time, but it is not unaware of time either. Rather, it is well situated on the time-track, and can move along it freely without obstacles. Without this ability w.r.t. time, the process cannot work. Therefore, there are sub-processes to re-gain this human ability too. Etc. When we speak of reality, we mean the ability of communication a Man has between his "I", his memory, his senses, other humans, and his environment in general. This communication and perceptics need to be regained as part of the process. By this definition, the process itself is also, both, internal and external.

Having discovered the elements of reality, their relative relationships and order is important. That ordinality is part of their intrinsic reality itself. It is cognized as such.

As for your last question, the claim, of course, is that this was not "re-arranged" but represents the original shabda-brahman.

3. There is a another kind of question. Since the sounds in the Rg Veda Samhita are eternal, it must follow that humans borrowed these sounds in order to e.g., name the rivers in north India. (Them choosing the names independently and it miraculously matching a set of sounds in the Samhita is too improbable). Rivers, however, are not eternal things, and so it turns out one river, Saraswati, is missing today. It is therefore legitimate to ask, when did that river exist, and then roughly when did that naming event occur?

That's a legitimate question, but given the scope of the claims of the Veda, it is again irrelevant or impossible due to the scope of this history-archaeology-linguistics debate. Because in year X someone could have named a river Saraswati, and it dried up. In year X+2000 another set of people could have named a river far away as Saraswati and that could have disappeared with the shifting sands of time... Etc. So to ask "when was the first time a river was called Saraswati" is a tough question to answer within the scope of the Veda, because from that elevation it is an almost invisible and irrelevant detail, IMHO.

Culturally, my position is that the Veda is there, anyone can lay claim to it as one's birthright as a human being, period. But laying that claim should entail that one serves that tradition wherever one finds it, rather than exploit it for egotistical self-definition, or even to steal or b@stardize it while harming its honest adherents.

The Western Nazis are trying to do the latter, while some Indians may do the former. I think this problem won't be solved unless the first point is established -- that any person can lay claim and be given an opportunity to serve the tradition based on the best of his natural abilities, which themselves are given full opportunity to develop. But we don't have this fundamental point in place right now. Vedic tradition has been an elitist, incestuous, cabbalistic affair for far too long, while its keepers wielded power out of proportion with their actual positive impact on the all-round welfare of societies under their influence, or societies that could have come under their influence. Rules and limits are important when they are set for a system of instruction. But when they are used more for control than for education, and when that balance between control-and-learning is lost, then it really needs to be corrected.

[A_Gupta]

On the mysterious laryngeals (from the Beekes book mentioned before):

The proto-language would have had, then, three phonemes, E,A,O. De Saussure called the three phonemes 'coefficients sonantiques' (sonantic elements), because he compared them with (the sonants) i,u,r etc. in ei/oi/i etc. Later on they were called laryngeals, because it was suspected that they had once been laryngeal (and/or pharyngeal) consonants. There are now mostly reconstructed as *h1, *h2 and *h3, h being a cover symbol for 'consonant of unknown phonetic nature but probably of velar, pharyngeal or glottal articulation place'.

......
......
The theory was launched in 1878 when de Saussure was only 21 years old! It took, however, until after the Second World War before the theory began to acquire general acceptance. Its consequences have been very far-reaching. It is certainly the most important single discovery in the whole history of Indo-European linguistics.

[KLP Dubey]

Can you do that without attacking people and personalities?

Why is there an assumption that I must be "attacking" someone ? I am critiquing/refuting certain ideas, and in that course I should refer to the works of people who are propagating those ideas.

If you like, I can completely ignore all works of previous authors and simply tell you why:

1) The Anukramani is not a reliable source of any historical, or even nominal, information and hence is of no use in any historical arguments.

2) The names attached to the Suktas, as well as the "Rshis" are not human personalities at all. The so-called "lineages" and "families" descending from certain "rishis" are not at all biologically true, but simply part of the "consolidation" and "identity development" of Vedic shakhas.

3) There are no rivers in the RV. Just like names of real people, real places, etc which are borrowed even today from the Veda (we have many thousands of people named Inder and Varun and Aditi across the length and breadth of India today), historically words like Sarasvati have been used as names for real rivers in history.

Not mentioning any other authors will actually make the posts easier for now, since I will not need to cut-and-paste quotes from various works. But please do not then reply to my posts with arguments like "Haven't you read X or Y author who has made very rational arguments..." !!

Will that do ?

KL

[A_Gupta]

Just to draw your attention in case you missed it, the Puranas have speculations on the Vedas:

(quote from Wiki)

The Vishnu Purana (Book 3, Ch 3) says:

In every third world age (Dvapara), Vishnu, in the person of Vyasa, in order to promote the good of mankind, divides the Veda, which is properly but one, into many portions. Observing the limited perseverance, energy, and application of mortals, he makes the Veda fourfold, to adapt it to their capacities; and the bodily form which he assumes, in order to effect that classification, is known by the name of Veda-vyasa. Of the different Vyasas in the present Manvantara and the branches which they have taught, you shall have an account. Twenty-eight times have the Vedas been arranged by the great Rishis in the Vaivasvata Manvantara... and consequently eight and twenty Vyasas have passed away; by whom, in the respective periods, the Veda has been divided into four. The first... distribution was made by Svayambhu (Brahma) himself; in the second, the arranger of the Veda (Vyasa) was Prajapati... (and so on up to twenty-eight).

So the eternal sounds have a puranic history.

[Agnimitra]

Just to draw your attention in case you missed it, the Puranas have speculations on the Vedas:

(quote from Wiki)

The Vishnu Purana (Book 3, Ch 3) says:

In every third world age (Dvapara), Vishnu, in the person of Vyasa, in order to promote the good of mankind, divides the Veda, which is properly but one, into many portions. Observing the limited perseverance, energy, and application of mortals, he makes the Veda fourfold, to adapt it to their capacities; and the bodily form which he assumes, in order to effect that classification, is known by the name of Veda-vyasa. Of the different Vyasas in the present Manvantara and the branches which they have taught, you shall have an account. Twenty-eight times have the Vedas been arranged by the great Rishis in the Vaivasvata Manvantara... and consequently eight and twenty Vyasas have passed away; by whom, in the respective periods, the Veda has been divided into four. The first... distribution was made by Svayambhu (Brahma) himself; in the second, the arranger of the Veda (Vyasa) was Prajapati... (and so on up to twenty-eight).

So the eternal sounds have a puranic history.

But this "Puranic history" is not the same as archaeological history.
It can be considered like 'N' concentric dials of a safe-lock.
One dial is awareness of chronological time and history,
Another is 'cosmological' time,
Another is psychological time,
Etc.
In order to comment or have "speculations" on Veda, i.e., to open the safe door, these dials have to be brought into alignment in present time.

[ramana]

Now you sound like Indiana Jones! Where is your whip?

[SaiK]

(i) I open it with a media player, and the MP3 codec a priori interprets it as music, and then proceeds to parse it ..

with due respects to vedas..

An a priori knowledge [information object] exists to interpret the MP3 file for the codec, so it does not lead to inconsistent state. Of course, the knowledge could be little bit more intelligent to either ignore the file and/or consider a nice feedback to user.

iow, providing the vedic wisdom [all those axioms, premises about truth, facts and science of ways of living] represented here by the mp3 data, could have been gracefully handled to say, sorry moorkh, don't even try to interpret this.. please upload a vedic codec, that interprets it correct.

now, it may be there, but not well known. perhaps, mostly because of sanskrit as language not being in use.[see where i am faulting?].. we have allowed it be interpreted in various ways is my blame [or that itself not valid considering a framework, where it is valid, and people take it out of context, than validate it as satisfied for their agenda].

still.. I think I blame people who did not bother to interpret it correct. </OT>

[shiv]

Just received Stephen A. Daitz's recordings on what ancient Greek might have sounded like. Listening even a little to it, I think we (generically) are greatly handicapped approaching ancient Greek through English. We need to approach the study of ancient Greek through Sanskrit (i.e., through works that don't yet exist, but ought to be created.)

Such concerns have not made it to consciousness level among European linguists who seem to have interpreted all languages as needing to be written in Roman script. By this I mean that the word "st-" cannot be pronounced or used and anyone who tries to pass off "st" as a word is "missing at least one vowel". That vowel could be anywhere as long as it is easy to pronounce. Since vowels are a,e,i,o,u onlee, the word must be ats, est, ist, ost, ust. Or it must be sat, set, sit, sot, sut. It could also be sta, ste, sti, sto, stu.

On the other hand, if you can read an Indian language you may find that the identity of "st" is "शत". You will see no missing vowel. The two consonants are able to stand on their own. The phonology of the consonant is designed to be that way, and need not have become that by an accidentally dropped vowel.

So "dropped vowels" and missing sounds and changes of sound from "e" to "a" can be completely imaginary and contrived to fit into the linguistic brain connections of a native speaker of languages that are expressed in an inadequate Roman script. The use of a universal code Roman script based code to express pronunciation still does not get past the fundamental "brain connection barrier". Language and brain wiring are interconnected. If you grow up associating sounds with the Roman alphabet,you will always see a missing vowel in ""st" or "sht" You will also see "diphthongs" in ऎ (ai) and औ (au), According to your brain "st" previously had vowels that were dropped. Using comparative linguistics "cent" tells you that the vowel was "e". Therefore the sound change "e" to "a" has occurred in Sanskrit. If you are faced with a ten thousand character long unknown script you will be seeing these missing sounds everywhere and by comparing with a language you know it makes it easier to cook up missing sounds of new sounds that seem logical to your brain connections. Some one with different linguistic connections wil see it differently.

This is the sort of reasoning that I see accepted as "normal" or even "wise and serendipitous" in linguistics. But if you are already professor who the fug can question your vie no matter how stupid it might be? When you teach stupidity to 10,000 students you have a mass of followers who support you and your fart is God's word.

I read somewhere that the Greek letter "gamma" is not just "g" but pronounced somewhere at the back of the throat like "gn". There is plenty of tunnel vision in linguistics whereby other languages and cultures are judged and codified according to one's own narrow view of how things "seem to be".

[Agnimitra]

SaiK ji,

Unfortunately I don't believe there is any cut-and-dried, one-size-fits-all "Vedic codec". That's why I said the example was just a lower-level analogy.

The codec must be self-discovered, and one could speak of sub-processes of orientation, education, etc. which can help us in that endeavor. There are 32 brahma-vidyas, etc. and all such fall into addressing one or the other possibilities of distortions.

The other important thing is that these sub-processes do not require any non-empirical assumptions at all in order to be discovered or derived. The reason for this is that their usefulness is in removing self-imposed distortions to reveal what we have, rather than introducing something that we don't yet have. Thus, these vidyas can and must be reinvented as times and circumstances change. That is not to say it does not require "luck" or the help of the gods. But that luck tends to follow when one does what is expected.

Far from saying "sorry moorkh, don't even try to interpret this..", the intention is always to understand this. But there is no readily uploadable codec -- that would be an old trick used by any person or group who wishes to have power over other human beings. Sorry, there is no uploadable or downloadable codec that can be transmitted and installed via electrical devices, or someone's shaktipaat, or some particular book written in a particular language, or the right sampradaya, etc. Rather, via whatever experience is required (including by going through any of the above), one must discover it within. We've all heard this before. The relevant axiom here is "The map is not the territory, but the map is part of the territory." So there is a fractal, holographic, recursive aspect at play here, and this is what can lead people into one rabbit-hole after another.

Lastly, rather than "blaming" particular individuals and groups, we have to understand that historical phenomenon also in the perspective of the axioms. Any "truth" has a scope of validity. E.g.:
Something which may be true for some cultures may not be true for all of Mankind.
Something which may be true for a society may curiously be found to be absent in most individuals picked from that society and examined as individuals.
Something which may be true for one "mode" or "part" of an individual must not be considered to be true for the individual taken as a whole.
Something true in one time/mode may not be true for another.
Etc.

So also, the blame here is on a civilizational distortion, and I think that's what people discuss on the Deracination thread behind the burqa.

[shiv]

The codec must be self-discovered, and one could speak of sub-processes of orientation, education, etc. which can help us in that endeavor.

While I am anxious that this thread should not morph into a discussion of the Vedas, I agree with Carl here. If you learn the Vedas by recitation (as was originally intended) you will get a completely different insight into them than if you start "reading" transcriptions of the Vedas with the pre-programmed thought that all written material encodes information in words that tell a factual or fictional story. If you then interpret that story as "Pastoral people" "horse culture" etc your entire view of the Vedas is going to be different from the other guy.

The vedas did not face opposition in India and had no competition from non Vedic cultures and written scripts. So the Vedas did not come with the instruction that they must be learned by recitation and that interpretations are pointless. Only one codec was designed and used.

But the Vedas have been "hit" by people writing them, then reading them and then interpreting them. In other words, people ignorant of the audio codec have simply used a text editor. And people with no audio player have read those texts. There was no law against this. It is up to us to point out what has happened.

[Satya_anveshi]

IMO, just like Dubey ji says that there is no historically relevent information available in RgVeda to do historical analysis, it is also that RgVeda was not meant to be written down at all in the first place and hence was orally passed down the generations. Only when the continuity of passing down Vedas via oral transmission was perceived as risky, a written effort may have began with monumental and unparalleled efforts to ensure the preservation.

That said, IMO, this is one subject we Indians should control end to end. We ought to be producing loads of knowledge (instead of consuming the snake oil that we have been made to gulp without question) on this subject including initially drawing a bigger line than current and slowing baton passed on to the rightful place of line being extended to infinity. In that sense, my view is that we should pursue both routes (draw a bigger line, set and control the parameters of the debate, keep the parallel efforts along vedas being eternity line to take it to logical conclusion).

Both approaches should thrive (not be stiffled with) in the interim and internal conflict managed carefully.

[Arjun]

You are getting it all wrong. If the RV is seen, correctly, to have no historical bearing on deciding the AIT/OIT/PIE question, then the AIT loses immediately.

How does the acknowledgement of RV as 'revealed and deciphered sounds' as opposed to 'authored work' kill AIT ?

- The fact that the sounds 'asva' and ' ratha' were assigned the meanings as we know them in the RV indicates that the people who undertook the decipherment were familiar with the domesticated horse and the chariot.

- The meaning assigned to 'ayas' would indicate that the people who 'deciphered' the Vedas were familiar with metal objects- so must have belonged to bronze age in the least.

And so on...basically 'RV dating' would take on the slightly different meaning of when the RV sounds were deciphered as opposed to when it was authored. Further the clues would now relate to the geography of the people undertaking the decipherment as opposed to the geography of those authoring the work.

Would be good to understand how this would be an AIT-killer.

[KLP Dubey]

So the eternal sounds have a puranic history.

So shall we then just rename the Rgveda as the Rg Purana and get over with it ?

The Puranas do not claim the Veda as eternal. They usually claim that is was breathed forth by Brahma/God/The Creator or something like that.

The Eternal Veda is a much deeper, fundamental principle.

KL

[SaiK]

In my understanding, puran implies story, and I don't think vedas qualify for that. Essentially, in my understanding (even those that I have not understood, but understand that they are actually to be understood that..) vedas are based on facts, scoped for the realm of what vedas stands for - sanatana dharma, etc., that may or may not include science, math or other aspects. It need not be logically equivalent, but could hold a property that can be proved to be true. For example, going round the temple 108times clockwise helps in.. can be only proven by holding the property, and within the premise of the property definition.

So, it does not qualify to be puran, meaning it does not tell a story, but can hold properties of a story.

[Anand K]

The "revealed knowledge" and "eternal" type thingies are not falsifiable and will simply divert the debate. Maybe Parabrahmam "spoke" to the chosen or maybe this is a civilization control mechanism from Reaper indoctrination devices or maybe some neolithic age charismatic madman swayed his gullible kin with spirituobabble after a fever dream and started a new faith.

One thing is known to practicing Hindus, the intonation (and mudra and upacharas) are paramount. The teachers swear these sounds haven't changed since it was first uttered by human mouths thousands of years ago.... though other things like upacharas and mudras have changed over time. Once the mantras are translated into another language or written down, they cease to have any real meaning. The important thing is apparently reciting the mantras in the right way, within a right "ambiance".
Maybe some linguists and anthropologists (and maybe some fizzicysts) should investigate this line by living-the-life field research, going to Veda boot camp/crash course and gain a real understanding. Perhaps such research can unlock trans-dimensional psionic field or quantum entanglement............ or that this is all just another aam admi control scam that has been institutionalized over the years.
Satyameva Jayate, eh?

PS: Anyone aware of such research? I mean..... a linguist/anthropologist who has actually walked the talk like say, Guru Jared Diamond who lived in Papua new Guinea for 22 years?

[shiv]

Maybe some linguists and anthropologists (and maybe some fizzicysts) should investigate this line by living-the-life field research, going to Veda boot camp/crash course and gain a real understanding. Perhaps such research can unlock trans-dimensional psionic field or quantum entanglement............ or that this is all just another aam admi control scam that has been institutionalized over the years.

I suspect anyone who does that will change from David Frawley to Vamadeva Sastry, exactly as occurred. In other words the effect of going to that boot camp seriously cannot be expected to have the type of results that one wants before going in. Anyone going in will show only the results that have been well documented for several thousand years. Nothing different or new will come of it.

I doubt if one can learn the Vedas with the pre-determined idea of getting information and results of a particular nature. OTOH, perhaps you will get exactly the results you want. if you are looking for AIT you will find it. If you are looking for OIT you will find it. If you are looking for trans-dimensional psionic field or quantum entanglement you will find it. And you won't find anyone who believes you.

[Anand K]

Shiv

doubt if one can learn the Vedas with the pre-determined idea of getting information and results of a particular nature. OTOH, perhaps you will get exactly the results you want. if you are looking for AIT you will find it. If you are looking for OIT you will find it. If you are looking for trans-dimensional psionic field or quantum entanglement you will find it. And you won't find anyone who believes you

Reminds me of one of Wendy's children, a PIO, who stayed in a Shakti ashram... some offshoot of the RamaKrishna Matham IIRC. While he was there he behaved like an obedient and ideal pupil and impressed the gurus with his dedication. He goes back to Wendy-Amma and Pir reviews his work and publishes it. When it was released the ashram was surprised; half of the book was on the ummm.... so called "Asampradayas" which RamaKrishna and some of the disciples apparently practiced. The rest was on the female energy concept turned on it's head into "cave age cannibal mother", human sacrifices a-la Demeter myth and "vagina dentata". This was not like a Joseph Campbell type analyzing primitive methodology and development into more esoteric concept but a round denouncement aimed at the Bible Belt audience.

Anyway, while the physicist thing aside (despite some reports of "instruments analyzing atmospheric vibration during vedic chants"), the Vedas has to be analyzed in the anthropological approach also. The AIT does draw some strength from some of the narratives in vogue in anthropology.
Mutually reinforcing proof, birathers..... mutually reinforcing proof.

PS: BTW, what are the documentations over a several thousand years? No comprende.

[Murugan]

ukumar wrote:
I have one doubt with date older than forth millenium BC. World population becomes very small as we go deep in to prehistory. I think society needs critical mass of people, technological advancement and social organization to free up brain power to preserve knowledge. You need people dedicating their life to memorize Vedas and they need support from the society. Beyond certain time depth it may not be possible to remember anything more than legends. So some legends from Rigveda may go deep in to prehistory but the whole MBh text is a stretch.

Dwivedis, Trivedis and Chaturvedis were critical mass of people who had to dedicate their lives to study vedas, memorise and be a master in one ved.

All brahmins were supposed to learn all the vedas, and master one.

The brahmin groups of Dwivedis were identified to master Yajurved.
Trivedis to master Sam Ved. Raavan was a trivedi brahmin.
Chaturvedis - Atharva Ved

Other understanding is that the Dwivedis used to master Two veds, Trivedis Three Veds and so on, but this is far fetched.

Now only the surnames have remained and the duties are of various kinds of babus.

But, some activities are taking place and people are again finding interest in vedas, upanishads and darshans, which was earlier just chest beating and rhetoric, the new trend looks solid and people have resources and will.

In all panch goud and panch dravid brahmins, one can find groups of brahmins identified with ved.

During marriage ceremony also the Priest used to ask for three things
1) Gotra of Groom
2) Pravar of Groom
3) Specific Ved of Groom in case of Brahmin