Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[Prem Kumar]

Responding to earlier replies from Ramana and Nilesh - on the relative chronology of MBH and SSVC.

One of the challenges we need to overcome if we propose a MBH < SSVC model is that there is no evidence of iron in SSVC, while there are references to it in MBH. Also, there are cities & palaces in MBH. But the SSVC civilization seems less sophisticated in comparison. What could be the possible reasons for this discrepancy?

a) Were iron and palace references a later interpolation into MBH? Doesnt seem likely, given the preponderance of references to cities, palaces and multiple iron references in the MBH

b) Were different civilizations in India at different stages of development, even though they might be contemporaneous? Possible but difficult to explain away SSVC because its in-between Gandhara and Hastinapur geographically. So, its unlikely the Harappans wouldnt have known/used iron if people to their East and West were using them

c) SSVC was advanced, had cities, used iron etc. Its not yet been discovered or maybe never will. AOE != EOA

d) Some civilizations regressed

[prahaar]

I understood his claim to be that a consistent set of meanings cannot be derived for many of the words in the Rig Veda taken in its entirety. I have no idea if this claim is supported by evidence or not, but it seems perfectly refutable. All one has to do is to take an example of such a word (or a set of words) and show that it can be ascribed a meaning such that all the statements using the word still remain sensible.

Great. I would encourage you to take this up with KLP Dubey ji and see if he accepts (not that that is a condition..i.e. he has to accept your refutation) your refutation of his position.

I think the Mimamsakas have done an amazing thing making the Vedas infallible. One cannot make an instrument of faith into something fallible.

However arguments like
a) Anukramanis have rishi names without accents.
b) One cannot derive consistent meanings from proper nouns in the Sanskritic reading of the Rigveda.

are all fallible! They just need a good explanation, i.e. once the various alleged inconsistencies have been listed. So I just don't think that is the way to go. The better way is for Vedic scholars to build up a consistent narrative and a literature around it explaining how their stand is perfectly plausible. They need to show how Sanskrit was gleaned and developed based on Rigveda, and offer some theories as to how the proper nouns were assigned as they were. Furthermore they could develop a list of disclaimers and qualifiers which "secular" scholars are encouraged to follow, so that they do not cause any hurt to the sentiments of the orthodoxy or even Hindus at large. If the Vedic scholars can postulate a narrative which makes the Vedas immune from any scientific analysis, historical reading, geographic placements, etc., it takes away the need for a conflict, and thus people are not required to pick sides.

Without these narratives, rational people outside the Dharmic upbringing would consider the Vedics simply cookoos for thinking Rigvedas to be sounds given to humans by non-human agencies and that Sanskrit was developed based on those sounds and not in the natural way many other languages of the world came about. The Vedics need to work to offset any such impression that may emerge.

I am neither a scholar on this topic nor am I contributing anything significant to the discussion, so please ignore if my post seems like inconsequential.

Dan Mazer's reply about assign meanings so that all the words' meanings become consistent as long as they seem sensible. This does not make sense at all. What seems sensible to majority without evidence is how the PIE/AIT story was bought by people around the globe.

Also, your discomfort with inconsistencies/gaps in our understanding of appropriate meanings of words also seems dangerous. It is a perfectly valid possibility that meaning for some things cannot be understood. This feels like Asuric tendency to conquer everything.

If I have failed to understand your post correctly, I apologize. Also, I am a big admirer of every contributor on this thread since it has given me concrete vision/eyes to decipher/question without hesitation claims without worrying about "established facts" emanating from "eminent persons".

[RajeshA]

However arguments like
a) Anukramanis have rishi names without accents.
b) One cannot derive consistent meanings from proper nouns in the Sanskritic reading of the Rigveda.

are all fallible! They just need a good explanation, i.e. once the various alleged inconsistencies have been listed.

Also, your discomfort with inconsistencies/gaps in our understanding of appropriate meanings of words also seems dangerous. It is a perfectly valid possibility that meaning for some things cannot be understood. This feels like Asuric tendency to conquer everything.

prahaar ji,

there is absolutely no discomfort in accepting the mystery. Some things are better kept as mysteries. Resolve the mystery and the magical attraction of thing vanishes!

No. That was not the issue. The need to remove gaps in understanding arise only when side A says that side B's views on the mysterious object of attention are wrong because side B cannot solve the puzzle/mystery. Then side A is setting up a challenge, and not allowing side B to retain its views on the mysterious object of attention unless the challenge is met!

I am saying side A should desist from setting up such useless challenges which will be met, but then the mystery may be gone and thus side A would end up doing much harm to the validity of his own views on the object.

[Prem Kumar]

With all respect to Dubey-ji, RajeshA's stance is right on this one. Vedic scholars have done precious little to dismantle (or even engage) AIT-Nazis. They need to be Brahmanas+Kshatriyas (activists), like Kumarila and Shankara. Instead, they seem to have a head in the sand type approach. If the AIT-Nazis set the terms of the debate, its the failing of the Vedic scholars who let them do so.

And the claim that the Buddhist challenge was a more sophisticated one is just empty bravado. I've not seen Vedic scholars take on the likes of Witzels. Instead, what I do see are felicitations and guest invitations to Witzel to give talks at Sanskrit College in Chennai. However, the Vedic scholars dont hesitate to pour scorn on the likes of Talageri. WTF?

There is a saying in Tamil: "Veetula Puli, Velila Eli" (Tiger in the house, Mouse outside)

[RajeshA]

Author: K. E. Eduljee
Zoroastrian Heritage

The Age in which Zarathushtra Lived
There is no consensus on the age in which Zarathushtra lived. There are a range of dates put forward ranging from 8,500 to 3,700 years ago.

A great body of relevant ancient Iranian records have either been viciously destroyed by Alexander, the Arabs and Mongols, or lost. The majority of accounts of the time in which Zarathushtra lived that have survived are Greek writings from the fourth century BCE to the first century ACE.

Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) quotes Eudoxus of Cnidus (ca. 365 BCE) and Aristotle (ca. 350 BCE) as placing Zoroaster 6000 years before the death of Plato (347 BCE) or 6365 BCE. Pliny also quotes Hermippus (ca. 250 BCE) as placing Zoroaster 5000 years before the Trojan war (ca. 1200 BCE) or around 6200 BCE.

Diogenes Laertius (230 CE) states that according to Xanthus of Lydia (ca. 450 BCE), Zoroaster lived 6000 years before the Persian king Xerxes invaded Greece (ca. 480 BCE) or about 6480 BCE. Diogenes also states that according to Hermodorus (ca. 400 BCE), a follower of Plato, Zoroaster lived 5000 years before the Trojan war (ca. 1200 BCE). Plutarch (ca. 46-120 CE) also places Zoroaster 5000 years before the Trojan war.

While he is not a classical Greek author, Lactantius (ca. 240-320 CE), a Latin-speaking native of North Africa, states that ancient King Vishtasp (Hystaspes) reigned long before the founding of Rome (ca. 750 BCE?). Zoroaster lived during King Vishtasp's reign.

Some authors think the dates placing Zarathushtra as having lived 8,200 to 8,500 years ago are too fantastic to be true and place Zarathushtra about four thousand years from the present. Yet other dates (now known to be in error) place him later in time.

Behruz (also spelt Behrooz) Dabih (1889-1971 CE), a Persian satirist, is credited with proposing the vernal equinox of 1737 BCE, the beginning of the period of Aries, as the date when Zarathushtra proclaimed the religion. Therefore, the Gregorian year 2010 CE would be 3747 AZ.

The late Mary Boyce (1920-2006), Professor of Iranian Studies at the University of London, stated in her book Zoroastrians, Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (page 18) that "to hazard a reasoned conjecture" was "that Zoroaster lived sometime between 1700 and 1500 B.C.", the lower date apparently being made to appease other Western 'scholars' who advocated even later dates.

[Prem Kumar]

Google Talageri. The Voice of Dharma site is the 3rd result from the top. What's the 2nd result from the top - its Witzel's whine about Talageri's response!

Another example: Google Indus Script. Steve Farmer's diarrhea is on page 1 - thankfully Rajesh Rao's TED talk appears a few links above it in the results.

It shows the amount of back scratching & mutual references amongst the AIT crowd that results in this kind of a search result. I wouldnt be surprised if there are systematic efforts (with financial backing) to maximize page hits via SEO (Search Engine Optimization) & link farming to present the AIT point of view in search results.

Both Wikipedia and Google ranking draw heavily on the "reference" model, which is mainstream in Western academia. Indians need to learn to play the publish or perish game. Numbers count. References count. China is starting to catch up in terms of publications (while in parallel, blocking out Google/Wiki access to their population while they catch up). They know how the game is played. Do we?

[Nilesh Oak]

Responding to earlier replies from Ramana and Nilesh - on the relative chronology of MBH and SSVC.

One of the challenges we need to overcome if we propose a MBH < SSVC model is that there is no evidence of iron in SSVC, while there are references to it in MBH. Also, there are cities & palaces in MBH. But the SSVC civilization seems less sophisticated in comparison. What could be the possible reasons for this discrepancy?

a) Were iron and palace references a later interpolation into MBH? Doesnt seem likely, given the preponderance of references to cities, palaces and multiple iron references in the MBH

b) Were different civilizations in India at different stages of development, even though they might be contemporaneous? Possible but difficult to explain away SSVC because its in-between Gandhara and Hastinapur geographically. So, its unlikely the Harappans wouldnt have known/used iron if people to their East and West were using them

c) SSVC was advanced, had cities, used iron etc. Its not yet been discovered or maybe never will. AOE != EOA

d) Some civilizations regressed

Prem Kumari Ji,

The list of challenges/problems is long.... for any date say before 1000 BC , for MBH and Ramayana.
In the context of MBH before SSVC, the same list applies and some more (your point, e.g. Ayas)

Some of these challengs included, but not limited to...
(1) Palaces, gardens, jwellery, silk, horses, elephants, chariots (not just with 1 or 2 horses, but even 4 (Krishna's) and may be more.
(2) Sophisticated weapons, Divine weapons.. some of them as good or better than modern weapons (lazer guided missiles)
(3) Sheer number of horses, elephants, chariots, warriors during the war
(4) Aeroplanes (Krishna's Dwarka was attacked and the enemy had a plane (Saubha?)
(5) Roads that could be traveled/employed for war etc. linking all of India North -south-east-west.. all the way to Afganistan, Iran, but also beyond.
(6) Ayas -Iron, etc.

All of them raise more quetions than they answer, but none of them are capable of acting as 'falsifiable evidence for 6th Millennium BC.

Frankly, the problems for MBH in 6th millennium (in the context of timing of SSVC and what we know about SSVC) also apply to Ramayana.. since Ramayana is before MBH and Ramayana also had horses, silk, divine weapons, elphants, chariots etc.

Since you do recognize AOE argument, so I will not repeat. Quick comments on your points

(a) Better to say we don't know rather than jump to simple solution of interpolation. You are right.
(b) Definitely differnt areas (not civilizations) of same civilization at different stages (villages vs. metropolis etc.). however as you pointed out, that does not solve the problem, in fact, it will generate many more
(c) I won't repeat
(d)While this may not solve our problems, the potential for this happening was huge... post MBH. Specifically due to loss of significant population, loss of wealth (working peole, Kshtriyas, horses, elephants, resources), flooding of coastal areas throughout India (definitely west coast), seismic activities, potential migration of people (leading to nomadic life style).. due to changes of Sarasvati/Mansoon. All of this of course in the realm of speculation with nothing concrete to show as evidence.. at least for now.

[Prem Kumar]

One observation: though it may offend the sensibilities of some staunch Hindus, we need to consider the fact that both Ramayana and MBH (either in their original or subsequent revisions) have a mixture of truth + embellishments. If a human from year 10000 AD gets a copy of Isaac Asimov, he shouldnt automatically assume that we had robots serving us & operating under the 3 laws in the year 2000.

So, I am extremely skeptical of special weapons, vimana & other such claims. The key is in separating the wheat from the chaff. Perhaps the cities in Ramayana & Mahabharata werent cities in the modern sense, but more like Harappan towns. We need to be willing to dilute the claims in these epics, if we want them to represent accurate history - otherwise, it will sound like quackery.

[JwalaMukhi]

Perhaps, let us say in a few years a huge solar storm occurs and fries all the electronic systems as we know today. This is coupled with other large scale natural calamity. Let's say it takes humans a long time to develop a semblance of civilization back again.
Would someone reading that there were mechanisms where entire library and body of knowledge was condensed into a small area measuring less than 5 square inches and this vast knowledge was transferred at stupendous rates such as say less than 2 minutes, would he question this as belief or investigate could it have happened? Is there a bias somehow that human knowledge and capacity increases linearly in time. IOW humans today are more capable and intelligent than previous generations? Is that a foregone conclusion?

There could be many speculations. But all would need something that can be tested to either confirm or for denial.
1) Could require reexamination of dating of SSVC? Is it accurate enough with current knowledge.

2) Could the proposed dating of Mahabharatha be even more earlier than ~5561 B.C. by many orders of magnitude. For example the time needed for the decay to set in from MBH to SSVC.

[RajeshA]

Looking for Connectivity with other Civilizations

Asian history is really a big puzzle, where the libraries of some of the most advanced civilizations have simply been burned. So one would have to put together the puzzle differently.

We need to be looking at the cross-sections of big civilizations to see if we can find some form of Rosetta stones there, at the meeting point of civilizations.

One such civilization/culture could be Jiroft Culture. Jiroft is a place in Kemran province of Iran. It had its high time in the fourth millenium BCE, and also had its system of writing, different from cuneiform and hieroglyphic. So some background to Jiroft.

Published on Jan 06, 2003
New studies show Jiroft was ancient trade link

The studies indicate that its residents had extensive trade ties with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, the Persian Gulf region, and Transoxiana 5000 years ago, the director of the team of archeologists studying the site said.

Yusef Majidzadeh added that additional studies have shown that the region, especially the ancient city of Kenar-Sandal in the Halil Rud region, was the commercial link between the abovementioned regions in ancient times.

“Each seal bears various patterns as well as commercial trademarks. The seal for each country was different than the other. That is, it indicates which region the businessmen had commercial ties with. The collection includes various seals for each country they had ties with.”

Jiroft, located in Kerman Province, is one of the richest historical areas in the world, with ruins and artifacts dating back to the third millennium BC. Over 100 historical sites are located along the approximately 400 kilometers of the Halil Rud riverbank.

Many Iranian and foreign experts see the findings in Jiroft as signs of a civilization as great as Sumer and ancient Mesopotamia. Majidzadeh believes that Jiroft is the ancient city of Aratta, which was described as a great civilization in a Sumerian clay inscription.

_______________________

Okay let's simply ignore the title and then watch:





________________________

What was Jiroft?


Major archeological sites from the fourth and third millennia BC.

_________________________


Here is the script:

Published May, 2004
The Tablet from Konar Sandal B (Jiroft)

[shiv]

Would someone reading that there were mechanisms where entire library and body of knowledge was condensed into a small area measuring less than 5 square inches and this vast knowledge was transferred at stupendous rates such as say less than 2 minutes, would he question this as belief or investigate could it have happened?

I believe you are jumping into philosophy here. All that knowledge stored in that 5 sq inch storage would be trash in the absence of a human who could retrieve and use it. If that storage device were found by archaeologists of the future and connected up with an ancient legend that spoke of "marriage" of the device with another causing a vision where the knowledge appeared as a voice or images. the latter story would be dismissed as the tendency of ancient people to exaggerate and not interpreted as connections to a computer and data retrieval via the screen or speakers.

So when the story comes down that the Vedas are sounds, it is our tendency to dismiss it as rubbish, having lost the connection with the past.

Pisko wise - if people from a civilization imagine that they are the best and the most supreme ever, then they are more likely to dismiss others and older civilizations as rubbish. To some extent. monotheistic religions have nurtured the idea that only one set of thought processes can be supreme and nothing else comes close.

[Prem Kumar]

Shiv, Jwalamukhi: we shouldnt mix up 2 things here. There is a flawed "west is best and was always that way" cr@p that needs to be demolished.

However, the idea that there was a superior civilization aeons ago, which have disappeared without a trace is a different theory. I mean "superior" in the sense of Atlantis, Brahmastra = atomic weapons etc. Even without such fancy weapons, our civilization was far superior to the West in ancient times. So, no need to artifically bolster it further. It may have the opposite effect, like the canceling effect of regular ropes on the bonds imposed by the Brahmastra on Hanuman.

We dont need to subscribe to fancy claims in order to prove OIT. In fact, its better if we dont.

At the risk of going OT, there are some valid reasons why the fancy histories usually dont hold water: if Rama used celestial weapons, which was the equivalent of today's nukes, why didnt he have a cellphone to check in on his dad? Why did the army not use civil engineers to build the bridge to Lanka using concrete, why so many years to get from Ayodhya to Rameshwaram etc. How can a society be so sophisticated in weaponry but so primitive in other aspects.

I dont want to impose my skepticism on other people. To each his own. I have my own superstitions that others might find silly. All I am trying to say is that we shouldnt rely on unverifiable claims to build our narrative of history.

[JwalaMukhi]

Prem Kumarji:
Skepticism is always good. It is even better if one is also very skeptical of why one should dismiss a certain claim. Is the dismissal done casually or is it done after due skeptical consideration even for dismissal process itself? That's all is emphasized. Being unsure doesn't mean that one takes a position either way. With existing ken, that claim couldn't be verified satisfactorily, doesn't mean it couldn't have happened.

[Nilesh Oak]

Prem Kumar ji,

Ramayana and Mahabharata texts have descriptions. Some of them are testable and others are not, at least with our current knowledge and technology available. My approach is not to discard/throw away what I can not test (that includes Vartak's astral travel.. so it does not have to be something from 5561 BC). I want to be careful never to throw baby with bathwater.. and if bathwater happens to be from 5561 BC , I don't want to throw that either. (Not sure if you read the article where researchers are studying 'dumped garbage from SSVC to know more/critical clues about that civilization.. the article appeared under "Someone's trash, other person's treasure.. of course removed in time by ~5000 years).

Since you talked about Hindu sensibilities.. Let me tell you what my conjecture is (I am not the first but definitely I have made original contribution that takes us quantum leap forward) about 'Draupadi Vastraharan'. MBH text is consistent with she being brought up in the court in 'ekavastra'.. however numerous references (~ 78:2) within MBH text talk in favor of No Vastraharan: Vastraharan attempt, and those 2 references in favor of latter + the very reference of Krishna supplying unlimited sarees create more problems than they solve.

I mention this to let you know that if I can find evidence, I am willing to question and modify whatever that tells us to modify (Satyameva Jayate). On the other hand...'Divine weapons'...while I am clueless about what they were and how they were employed..... as I read more about them, I find them more realistic. I will stop since it is OT on OIT.

[ShauryaT]

On the other hand...'Divine weapons'...while I am clueless about what they were and how they were employed..... as I read more about them, I find them more realistic. I will stop since it is OT on OIT.

Let us not shy away from these "divine" weapons. The very fact that we could think of all these MIRV's, UCAV's and TN is just awesome, even if it is 400% imaginary.

[shiv]

I dont want to impose my skepticism on other people. To each his own. I have my own superstitions that others might find silly. All I am trying to say is that we shouldnt rely on unverifiable claims to build our narrative of history.

It is equally erroneous to build our version of what is right from what we see around us and convince ourselves that our logic and our way of arguing with records that do not argue back is better

If ancients did not use concrete, cellphones and nekaler weapons the possiblities are
1. They were exaggerating
2. They actually had all that stuff or some of it
3. You are misinterpreting records of what has been passed down to you by trying to fit it in terms of war, concrete, cellphones and nukes.

We reach conclusions from what others interpret for us. If the interpreter is wrong, or his interpretation suits your own viewpoint, then the conclusion will seem right to you when it might not be right.

In my view everyone must reach his own judgement on this because no claim is verifiable when it comes to events that took place 5000 or more years ago. Ultimately we believe in today's technology more out faith than anything else. When it comes to reliable aircraft or reliable medicines, our faith can be easily verified by experience. But in certain other areas our faith in modern tech is faith onlee and is unverifiable.

For example, the dating of a grave in Kurgan

• 1. I have faith that the carbon dating is accurate. I have faith that the lab that did the dating had the means to calibrate the carbon dates against some other standard from the area
  2. I have faith that the archaeologists have accurately defined the archaeological layers in a dig where 1 inch may man 1000 years
  3. I have faith that the metal "bit" that was held in the horses mouth is actually 5000 years old as carbon dated by the piece of bone/wood lying next to it. I have faith that the ancient people who buried the animal or metal did not themselves dig through 2000 years of their own history in a grave that was already in use for 5000 years, mixing up their own remains with remains that are 5000 years older
  4. I have faith that pottery and metal dated by using wood and bones lying nearby represent accurate dates
  5. I have faith that the shape of a grave described by ABC corresponds exactly to the shape of a structure described by XYZ in a translation of an ancient work in an ancient language and I have faith that both cultures are the same
  6. I have faith that same culture means same language

It is oh so easy to believe in modern tech and use modern and unrelated examples like reliability of cellphones and aircraft to assume reliability of archaeological dating and then diss ancient oral records as nonsense. It is all about faith actually.

[shiv]

When I lose faith this is what I say

• 1. The labs that do carbon dating in third world countries are unreliable
  2. Historic rivalry between two neighboring third world countries often results in the archaeologists of each side exaggerating the antiquity of their own finds to enhance personal or national prestige
  3. The original archaeological digs were not done properly so ancient and modern remains have got mixed up
  4. Revisionist historians have a political agenda to try and change facts that have been confirmed by western scholars over a century ago.
  5. Poems are fiction, like Harry Potter and should bot be considered as fact without attestation or archaeological evidence.

[shiv]

My approach is not to discard/throw away what I can not test (that includes Vartak's astral travel..

If one culture does not have the vocabulary to express a concept that was accepted and well known in another culture, it is possible to misinterpret and mistranslate and cook up nonsense-idiot expressions like "Astral travel". I wrote about this in a medical sense over a decade ago referring to the way concepts that are understood in India cannot be expressed in English and are given "stupid-nonsense" names about which I had written an article on an alumni website over a decade ago. The article was with reference to the confusion of the Macaulayite English speaking SDRE when faced with this. I quote:

One of the most frequent and frustrating problems I encounter is while talking to patients with haemorrhoids in India. We learn that haemorrhoids are caused by "straining" at stool i.e. by performing Valsalva's manoeuvre in the act of defaecation. Unfortunately, English does not have a specific word to describe the act of straining at stool unlike Tamil, Kannada and other Indian languages. If I ask a patient not to strain, he says, "Yes doctor. I have been under a lot of strain recently. I have had to work very hard to meet a deadline and have been sitting at my desk from 8 AM to 10 PM" Making this chap understand what I'm actually getting at is an uphill task from here.

I wonder which buffoon originally decided to describe food flavoured with chillies as "hot". Couldn't he have thought up a totally different English equivalent of the Tamil word "kaaram"? Calling spicy food "hot" is the source of total confusion in India. To make matters worse, it appears that every Indian family hands down a family medical tradition of alleged Ayurvedic knowledge in which it is believed that certain foods cause "Ushna" - a concept mistranslated into English by some imbecile as "heat". Such foods include brinjals, tomatoes, chicken and chillies (Even Ice Cream, according to one patient of mine). "Heat" in turn is said to cause various diseases, ranging from haemorrhoids, to boils to peptic ulcers. The sophisticated Indian software engineer, laptop in hand and mobile in pocket, just in from Sunnyvale has a mind totally bewildered by a confused mix of sources of thermal heat measured in joules, calories and degrees and sources of dietary "heat" that may be causing his symptoms.

[Nilesh Oak]

The key is in separating the wheat from the chaff.

Sometime ago I wrote drafts of 6+ articles/essays...whatever... essentially on this subject, and tentatively named it .. Stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata : Separating the grains from the chafff.

Oh well, the project has to wait for a while now. Dating of these events (RN and MBH) is more critical than intereting events within them.

[ShauryaT]

Do we have consensus estimate dates for our Smritis? Forget Manu, How about Yagnavalkaya, Narda, Brihaspati? Do we even have a consensus on Kautilya? I guess not with dates for Chandragupta being not settled. So, one of my questions is when we do not seem to have accurate dates for some straight forward works of law books and reigns of known kingdoms, then do we not think that dating the Purans, let alone the Shrutis is a task of much higher difficulty?

So, how much do we know about these dates for the smritis? Dread to think, what would have happened to Yagnavalkya, if someone had not written the Mitakshara.

[Arjun]

So, how much do we know about these dates for the smritis?

Why do you think dating of Smritis is easier than dating the Shrutis? The latter is more 'pristine' and is assumed to have far less of interpolations - which would imply dating of the latter is easier.

Shouldn't the motto be 'Satyameva Jayate' only ? ( I like the way this phrase is bandied about by every camp )

[Murugan]

“First of its Kind” tele-serial “Upanishad Ganga”; is be aired on Doordarshan’s National network(DD1), every Sunday between 10:00 – 10:30 am for 52 weeks, from 11th March 2012.
Hope everybody is aware about this.

Upanishad Ganga is a mammoth effort covering the entire gamut on Indian Culture, Heritage, Philosophy and Wisdom spanning more than 5000 years. In this serial, the knowledge of ‘Upanishads’ is explained in a modern context through stories.

It is dedicated to revive the glorious cultural heritage and pride in the Spiritual Genius of Bharat.

Conceptualized by Swami Tejomayananda, Global Head – Chinmaya Mission, it is Directed by Dr.Chandraprakash Dwivedi (of Chankya fame), and acted by many renowned TV actors, this serial is produced by ‘Chinmaya Creations’.

Please pass on this message to many more. Let the knowledge of the Upanishads flow uninterrupted like the Ganga and touch the hearts of everyone.

[A_Gupta]

Taking the Ramayana or Mahabharata as literal truth is exactly what the Church did with the Bible and the Muslims did with the Quran. I really wonder why **we** insist on doing that.

KLP Dubeyji has pointed out a paradigm quite unparalleled in the ancient world: a "text" (see, in English we don't even have the words for it, "composition", "scripture", "book", etc., are equally inappropriate) that was preserved **for its sounds, not its meaning**.

Whether or not you believe the Rg Veda Samhita represents a human language or not, whether it was composed or received, the **undeniable fact** is that the generations upon generations of Brahmins who preserved it, were concerned with the sound, not with the meaning.

(I can think of one analogy, and that is of music, where the sound is what matters - but I am in no way sure that that is how the Rg Veda Samhita is thought of.)

You notice one immediate side-effect, which is if there is no meaning to argue over, there is no way to make someone wajib-ul-qatl (or target of the inquisition).

Coming back to the theme, in this ancient society with a very different (and to us Macaulay-contaminated moderns, almost alien) way of thinking, I would think that the other works of the Aastikas are also not to be thought of in the way given to us by the West. But that is what we persist in doing, maybe knowing better, but not able to imagine any better. If it were not for the fact, undeniable, that I mentioned, that the generations upon generations of Brahmins who preserved it, were concerned with the sound, not with the meaning, we would not believe KLP Dubeyji, I bet. If we cannot recover that very different world-view, if we have lost it permanently, then we are lost anyway. AIT/OIT, etc., is merely covering the retreat. We will become curry-flavored West, a West maybe that started in Indraprastha instead of Rome, but a version of the West only.

Shiv is reading the ancient Greek historians, I'm sure he will agree that their writings read very different from the Puranas or epics. The Vedic culture chose not to produce that kind of work. Why?

[Murugan]

A_Gupta-ji

+ 1

This is what is "Being Different"

***

बलाद्दत्तं बलाद्भुक्तं बलद्यच्चापि लेखितम्
सर्वान् बलकृतानर्थान् अकृतान् मनुरब्रवीत्
- मनुस्मृति
- manusmRuti

Meaning of the subhAShita:
That which is given forcefully, that which is possessed (enjoyed) forcefully, also that which is written forcefully; all affairs extracted by force are wretched, said manu.

[Arjun]

Whether or not you believe the Rg Veda Samhita represents a human language or not, whether it was composed or received, the **undeniable fact** is that the generations upon generations of Brahmins who preserved it, were concerned with the sound, not with the meaning.

I am not sure this is entirely correct. In contrast to Western cultures where the meaning was far more important than the sound, it looks to me that the Brahmins were equally concerned about both - sound and meaning. I am not convinced that meaning was regarded as unimportant.

In fact the whole goal of Mimamsa was to derive the correct meanings from the sounds. Wasn't Mimamsa focused on the performance of Vedic rites and rituals? The Kalpas (rituals) were derived from the Srauta-sutras of the Shruti.

If the meaning of the Shrutis are unknown then what is the argument for Mimamsaks to focus on ritual activities derived from these same Shrutis? Shouldn't the GIGO principle apply?

[RajeshA]

From Metallurgy in India - A Retrospective

Published on November 26, 2000
Author: R.K. Dube
National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur
India's Contribution to the Mining, Extraction and Refining of Gold: Some Observations Related to the Pre-Christian Era

Gold is known to Indians since even the Vedic times, i.e. more than 10,000 years at least.


The following paper has some ulta-pulta dates of AIT, but still a good paper.


Published in Journal of Metallurgy and Materials Science, Vol. 42, No. 1, January-March, 2000, pp. 65-74.
Authors: A.K. Vaish, P.K. Biswas, N.G. Goswami, C.S.S. Krishnan and P. Ramachandra Rao
National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur
Historical Perspective of Iron in Ancient India


Published in Indian Journal of History of Science, Volume 28, Issue 4, 1993
By Arun Kumar Biswas
Dept. of Metallurgy, IIT Kanpur
The Primacy of India in Ancient Brass and Zinc Metallurgy

We claim that the earliest artifact noted so far containing an appreciable amount of zinc anywhere in the world is from India. Lothal (2200-1500 BCE) showed one highly oxidized antiquity.

[ramana]

On the other hand...'Divine weapons'...while I am clueless about what they were and how they were employed..... as I read more about them, I find them more realistic. I will stop since it is OT on OIT.

Let us not shy away from these "divine" weapons. The very fact that we could think of all these MIRV's, UCAV's and TN is just awesome, even if it is 400% imaginary.

ShauryaT, There is a clear line from Hindu epics-> German weapons in World War II->US and USSR weapons in Cold War and beyond.

The transalations of the epics inspired the Germans to think beyond the ground based weapons. There are many books exploring this aspect.

[Dan Mazer]

but it seems perfectly refutable. All one has to do is to take an example of such a word (or a set of words) and show that it can be ascribed a meaning such that all the statements using the word still remain sensible.

Say there is a very simple sentence like this in Veda:

"I am atman". what is "I" here? the body? is it the God himself? already we have two meaning which can lead to different understanding.

Now say there is another sentence else where:

"I am not atman"

just the same words but with a negative which can mean the opposite of the prior statement above sentence and both are sensible. The sentences are the same but for the negative, but still one can have different interpretations leading you to completely contrary understanding of the same phrase. The result is that one is left still unclear of the meaning of "I".

You're right. If the inconsistency is of the nature that you describe, that wouldn't be evidence enough. But if it can be shown that the meanings which appear appropriate in one context leads to category errors in other contexts (eg: Statements like 'Do green ideas sleep furiously?') then that would be strong evidence.

[shiv]

Listing some random data points for future reference although I have no clue how I will ever find this post again...

1. Gandhara is apparently mentioned in the Rig veda
2. Most of what is known about Gandhara and its people comes from the epics and puranas.
3. Later information is after 600 BC when Darius took the area
4. Still later - around 300-200 BC it came under control of the Mauryan empire. Later it came under the Greeks, ruled by Menander (Milind) who was a Buddhist
5. Buddha himself had asked that his teachings should be spread in the local languages (Prakrits) understood by the people rather than sanskrit
6. The countrywide edicts that Ashoka made (around 200 BC) were in different languages so that locals could understand them. The one on Kandahar was in Greek.
7. Judging from the language used by Ashoka the languages of Gandhara in the 3rd Century BC were Prakrit in Kharoshti script, Greek and Aramaic
8. It is widely accepted that Panini was writing about the conservative Sanskrit that was spoken in his era around him
9. A comment of Patanjali who came after Panini suggests that the language of the Gandhara area had features closer to later Avestan.

If the language of Gandhara by 300 BC was Prakrit and Greek. Gandhara and Kamboja are known to have had Iranian influences so an earlier Avestan would not be a surprise. When was Sanskrit the local language in Gandhara? Panini lived in that period. The Vedas and Upanishads came before that.

[shiv]

You know what? I am beginning to get suspicious of Greek dates in Greece. At least some of that is bullshit.

[Nilesh Oak]

Dan/Venug,

Leave aside the claim that one can not find consistent meanings for Rigveda words and leave aside 'Mimamsk' for a minute; Arbitrary insistance of 'Arya samaj' to treat each proper-noun (let's say 'proper noun sounding word') as not proper noun led to all kinds of ridiculous things....these experimetns at least establish that if one is hell bent on proving a point, they may do it no matter how ridiculous the outcome.

Another such experiment by ' Arya samaj' in Maharashtra was to accept (and sing) Abhangas of Marathi saints (Tukaram, Namdev, Ekanath ,etc.) however to replace names such as 'Vishnu', Vitthal, 'Vithoba' etc. with generic 'Dev' was equally comical.

I guess they (Arya samaj) were attempting to digest 'Christianity' (to use Rajiv Malhotra terminlogoy).

[member_22872]

But if it can be shown that the meanings which appear appropriate in one context leads to category errors in other contexts (eg: Statements like 'Do green ideas sleep furiously?') then that would be strong evidence.

Don Mazer ji, I still see a problem, the context too should be the same, else meaning of the same sentence can be wrong.:

say there is a statement:

1.The sun rises in the east.

again Somewhere there is another statement:

2. The sun rises in the west.

Say the first statement's context is our sun and observation is earth, then statement 1 is true and 2nd statement false. Now say if the observation point is on Venus, the 2nd statement is true and 1st statement is false. Thus both statements 1 and 2 are true in their respective contexts and valid.

Added later:
Sorry didn't see Nilesh ji post.

[Prem Kumar]

On the other hand...'Divine weapons'...while I am clueless about what they were and how they were employed..... as I read more about them, I find them more realistic. I will stop since it is OT on OIT.

Let us not shy away from these "divine" weapons. The very fact that we could think of all these MIRV's, UCAV's and TN is just awesome, even if it is 400% imaginary.

No doubt the description of such divine weapons is inspired thinking. Nothing surprising either - our ancient philosophical thought, the ease with which we handled really humongous numbers etc all point to very evolved thinking, imagination and computational capabilities. Technology had not evolved back then to make these a reality. And life does imitate art, like Arthur C Clarke's conceptualization of geostationary satellites before they became reality.

[Nilesh Oak]

One observation: though it may offend the sensibilities of some staunch Hindus, we need to consider the fact that both Ramayana and MBH (either in their original or subsequent revisions) have a mixture of truth + embellishments. If a human from year 10000 AD gets a copy of Isaac Asimov, he shouldnt automatically assume that we had robots serving us & operating under the 3 laws in the year 2000.

So, I am extremely skeptical of special weapons, vimana & other such claims. The key is in separating the wheat from the chaff. Perhaps the cities in Ramayana & Mahabharata werent cities in the modern sense, but more like Harappan towns. We need to be willing to dilute the claims in these epics, if we want them to represent accurate history - otherwise, it will sound like quackery.

If you ask me, I am skeptical of 'narrative fallacies' in MBH or Ramayana...e.g., explanations given for things such as 'why Draupadi married 5 Pandava brothers' and incidents of such kind. MBH is not an exception and rather it appears to be 'style' of ancient Indian narrators....recall the indian word 'phalahetu'...Phala-fruit, effect, outcome .....and hetu -cause, objective., i.e. habit of looking for the cause once effect/symptoms/outcome is known/visible.
(Resident Vaidya of this forum would agree that that is the process they employ and then speculate what might have caused it).

Thus a reader of MBH notices a desire on the part of writer to provide explanation whenever he thought that reader/listener (Janmejaya or Rishits of Naimisharanya) may not be comfortable with the narration, unless additional explnation was provided .....'justifying' the incidents described.

And since you are skeptical about weapons and vimanas...consider births of all Kauvaravas, Drona, but also Draupadi and Dhristhadyumna. One would have considered them 'fantastic' until 'test tube baby' experiments began.. and now we may change out objection to something like.."I am ok with test tube babies....but how could they have done it with 'primitive' technology of their time". One may also add....even we have not figured it out how to do it with humans yet". I mention this to be careful with 'marxist' theories applied for future and with 'theories of scientific development' appllied to the past.

Predicting future and conceiving past...are equally challenging.

Also the blame of 'irrationality' is not of researchers alone...questioners are equally dogmatic. In a way, 'being irrational' is a necesary condition for a researcher.. at least in proposing a theory (think of theory of tides, gravitational force between two bodies not connected, bending of space, ameoba to Human beings, etc.). On the other hand a person critiquing a theory has onus to be rational, but not a common occurance.

Vartak describes an instance where he told the story of Queen Utpala Vishphala(correct me, I may not be stating the correct name) getting injured her leg during the war, she was operated by Rishis (surgeons) and was fit and ready next day. After his (Vartak) talk, someone from audience appraoched Vartak and expressed his skepticism. He said, "Dr. Vartak, I think Utpala was not a human being/queen but a horse". Vartak replied back, "Let's assume for a min that Utpala was a horse, but are you willing to accept the implications of your assumptions". The questioner was not sure where Vartak was taking this discussion.. so he listened. Vartak continued, "Even in our times a horse with injured leg is usually put to sleep as bringing back horse back to her original performance is cumbersome". The questioner told Vartak to rather stick with original assumption ofUtpalaVishphala= Human being!

[Nilesh Oak]

No doubt the description of such divine weapons is inspired thinking. Nothing surprising either - our ancient philosophical thought, the ease with which we handled really humongous numbers etc all point to very evolved thinking, imagination and computational capabilities. Technology had not evolved back then to make these a reality. And life does imitate art, like Arthur C Clarke's conceptualization of geostationary satellites before they became reality.

Prem Kumar ji,

I did not see your post, before I posted my previous post.

I have addressed this broader issue of MBH as 'science fiction' vs. 'history'.. briefly at the end of my book. Even if one accepts MBH as 'science fiction' to get away with 'inconvenient' description of 'sophisticated weapons', one simply CAN NOT get away with 'sophisticated technology, calendrics, and multi-millemnium long tradition of astronomy observations and documentation'. It's time to apply 'Occum's razor'.

I know you are not suggesting entire MBH as fiction, but rather referring to 'embellishments'. I do get your point. All I would say is.... it is critical to remember that what one may consider 'embellishments' depends on his/her vision of what is possible for 'technology of 6th Millennium BC'. Don't forget....likes of C V Vaidya and P V Kane considered 'AV' observation as 'embellishment' and 120+ MBH researchers considered it 'embarrasment' to the extent they avoided mentioning it alltogether.

[member_22872]

Sanskrit accents and their importance (Could be useful even in Sanskrit thread in GDF)

[Vayutuvan]

KLP Dubey ji, I already asked, but here I go again.

What I understand from your claim of Vedas being apaurusheyas is that they have arisen in some very distant past. Have they arisen concurrent with the time when humans arose? If so, what survival advantage have these sounds sans meaning bestowed on our species? The survival advantage is obvious for sounds with meaning, i.e. language.

Regards

[Vayutuvan]

"I am atman"..."I am not atman"

just the same words but with a negative which can mean the opposite of the prior statement above sentence and both are sensible. The sentences are the same but for the negative, but still one can have different interpretations leading you to completely contrary understanding of the same phrase. The result is that one is left still unclear of the meaning of "I".

Venug garu, not necessarily.

Your posing of the problem leaves the context out. Is "I" an unbound variable, or a literal of the language? What about "atman"?

For argument's sake, let us say that atman is a literal by definition (loosely speaking that symbol has some preassigned meaning). If we fix the context where variable "I" is bound to "atman", then the first sentence is true and the second sentence is false. That is, there cannot be a contrary understanding as long as the context is specified. Specifying of the context itself might be very involved, but it is possible to remove the contrary understanding.

[Prem Kumar]

It is equally erroneous to build our version of what is right from what we see around us and convince ourselves that our logic and our way of arguing with records that do not argue back is better

If ancients did not use concrete, cellphones and nekaler weapons the possiblities are
1. They were exaggerating
2. They actually had all that stuff or some of it
3. You are misinterpreting records of what has been passed down to you by trying to fit it in terms of war, concrete, cellphones and nukes.

There are other possibilities: (4) These were later interpolations (5) They weren't meant to be taken literally - like animals talking in the Panchatantra (6) They were meant to be Science Fiction even back then and somewhere down the road, this distinction disappeared during transmission

When it comes to reliable aircraft or reliable medicines, our faith can be easily verified by experience. But in certain other areas our faith in modern tech is faith onlee and is unverifiable.

When it comes to accepting things on faith, different fields fall into different points on a spectrum. On the one end, you have technology that you can verify - like airplanes that you mention. Not much faith is required. Even here, we can argue whether our whole lives are a dream and none of these things actually exist. There are limits to verifiability. Keeping that aside, we normally don't need to "accept on faith" that airplanes fly.

Archaeology is further down below, in terms of faith i.e. more faith is required and less is verifiable. Linguistics is even further below.

But we cannot bracket "everything needs some amount of faith & therefore anything goes (or nothing goes)". That obviously leads us nowhere.

It is oh so easy to believe in modern tech and use modern and unrelated examples like reliability of cellphones and aircraft to assume reliability of archaeological dating and then diss ancient oral records as nonsense. It is all about faith actually.

I'm not sure if this is directed at me - if so, you are tilting at imagined windmills. My cellphone analogy has nothing to do with acceptance of the Kurgan hypothesis or AIT. Nor am I claiming that the reliability of cellphones can be extended to archaeology. Nor did I say that ancient oral records are nonsense. I said we need to separate the wheat from the chaff.

The Kurgan hypothesis does look like a house of cards. We need to show that its bunk. But we dont need to counter it with other unverifiable claims. OIT or ancient India's greatness doesn't depend on the Brahma-Astra being a real nuke

Added later: I dont want to dwell on this topic of faith/verifiability too much. This argument is not central to OIT and could only lead to an unnecessary schism within the OIT crowd. I am letting this rest.

[member_22872]

Not sure how pertinent it is, but from what I read about Buddhist philosophy, even Buddha answered only questions which he thought are 'right' questions. Questions which are relevant to understanding of say 'self'. Any extraneous questions like existence of God are considered irrelevant and he and many others never answered. Sometimes they didn't answer questions just because the questioner doesn't have what it takes to understand the complexities of his philosophy, like for example he maintained silence when a gowpalaka asks him questions about what life is etc.

The reason I am bringing this up is I think, this sort of thinking might have existed even among nastika tradition, some questions were never answered even if asked. I think the question of when Vedas really came into existence were irrelevant for them an answer on the lines of "Bhramas gave us" could be enough given strong belief in God. Once it is taken for granted that Brahma himself imparted the vedic knowledge to man, the importance of taking Sruthi for granted comes in whether one understands it or not as Vedas are God given hence they must be carried over as they are given.

Just my thoughts, I could be wrong.