Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[RajeshA]

Therefore, Vedic core must not be exposed in the arena of rascals. Rather, a sort of alter-Veda must be created in order to rebuff the enemy's point.

Excellent!

No need to even create it. The "alter-Veda" is there for free, in the form of the Atharva Veda, the Brahmanas, and the Upanishads. They are the "monkey on the mandap" (in reference to my recent post).

So now all sorts of Indian texts are open for monkey business:

1. Anukramaṇīs
2. Atharvaveda
3. Brāhmaṇas
4. Upaniṣads

Great!

[A_Gupta]

Adrija ji,
It doesn't help the learned Vedic fraternity and it certainly does not help the Indic cause if the learned Vedic community is spared criticism. Only if the learned Vedic fraternity knows that there is disaffection among the masses about their performance, would they come forward and do the needful.

Perhaps it is the masses that has abandoned the learned Vedic fraternity.

[RajeshA]

I even gave RajeshA an eminently falsifiable hypothesis supported by initial data. I explained how one of the most important Suktas on "Vasishtha" (the one that describes the "birth of vasishtha") has nothing to do with a human being of that name. I asked him to then list the other instances of occurrence of the same word and then conclude whether there was a human by that name in the Veda or not.

This is what Shri Shrikant Talageri writes in "The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis", Chapter 6:

One very important feature which must be examined, in order to get a proper perspective on Indo-Iranian history, is the special position of, and the symbiotic relationship between, two of the ten families of RSis in the Rigveda: the ANgirases and the BhRgus.

While all the other families of RSis came into existence at various points of time during the course of composition of the Rigveda, these two families alone represent the pre-Rigvedic past: they go so far back into the past that not only the eponymous founders of these families (ANgiras and BhRgu respectively) but even certain other ancient RSis belonging to these families (BRhaspati, AtharvaNa, USanA) are already remote mythical persons in the Rigveda; and the names of the two families are already names for mythical and ritual classes: the ANgirases are deified as “a race of higher beings between Gods and men” (as Griffith puts it in his footnote to I.1.6), and the BhRgus or AtharvaNas are synonymous with fire-priests in general.

What is more, the names of these two families are also found in the Iranian and Greek texts, and they have the same role as in the Rigveda: the Iranian angra and Greek angelos are names for classes of celestial beings (although malignant ones in the Iranian version) and the Iranian Athravan and Greek phleguai are names for fire-priests.

But an examination of the Rigveda shows a striking difference in the positions of these two families:

1. The ANgirases are the dominant protagonist priests of the Rigveda.
2. The BhRgus are more or less outside the Vedic pale through most of the course of the Rigveda, and gain increasing acceptance into the Vedic mainstream only towards the end of the Rigveda.

The situation is particularly ironic since not only are both the families equally old and hoary, but it is the BhRgus, and not the ANgirases, who are the real initiators of the two main ritual systems which dominate the Rigveda: the fire ritual and the Soma ritual.

Now what Talageri has written may not be politically (or Vedically) correct, he does provide an explanation why the mention of some rṣis do not sound like those of humans at all - the deification.

The subsequent naming of some stars and planets after the old rṣis may also have led to a mythological explanation.

The point of this is that it is really a useless exercise to try and show why the Sanskriti reading of the Vedas does not have a consistent meaning or why everything sounds incredible, not real but mythological. The "eternal and apaurusheya" nature of the Vedas can be asserted in a more effective way, than getting into these childish arguments of claiming incomprehensibility.

[RajeshA]

Adrija ji,
It doesn't help the learned Vedic fraternity and it certainly does not help the Indic cause if the learned Vedic community is spared criticism. Only if the learned Vedic fraternity knows that there is disaffection among the masses about their performance, would they come forward and do the needful.

Perhaps it is the masses that has abandoned the learned Vedic fraternity.

It is all a question of quality of leadership! If the leadership is good, why would the masses look elsewhere?

[Nilesh Oak]

Dubey ji wrote.

There is so much else that OIT can do without even touching the Veda. There is no urgency to win this "Veda" battle at such a cost.

This was your clear and succinct point. I don't know who disagrees with it on this thread.

We can take some time to do the whole thing right. The current decision is not the type exhorted by Krishna in the BG, nor a Chanakyan type of subterfuge for the greater good. It is plain and simple "shooting oneself in the foot", "sawing off the branch one is sitting on", type of thing.

This is a matter on opinion. You have had your say. I do not feel uncontrollable desire to jumpstart on Veda and I don't think Talageri woke up one morning and said to himself, "Let me begin with analysis of Rigveda- our oldest/apaurusheya heritage and fight AIT". Having said that, let me ephasize that I do not feel the kind of artificial barrier you are proposing ...Veda vs. rest of Indian literature....however, this is not a point worth fighting + I understand your position and consider it to be valid (also vallid.. not excluive valid position.. BTW that is a wonderful heritage of Veda....one can draw multiple meanings out of the same things... based on one's intelligence and circumstances.. and not a limitation of Indian literature.. to wit.. take BG...the relevance of BG for anyone today is due to its ability to present itself and allow the seeker to draw out what is useful at any given time.. but I digressed). I also see a stragetic advantage of position you elaborated for separating Rigveda from historical analysis.

The same Krishna asks us to act (even if I have no need to act, Hey Arujan, I act to set an example for others) and only way for an individual to act is via his/her Swadharma (Shreyan swadhramo vigunah). No point for anyone here to pretend that they have become 'Veda reciters' overnight or ever.

I would suggest that Talageri's voluminous works be archived/tabled, to be revisited later if necessary. This chapter of Indians making fools of themselves by trying to find history in the Veda, egged on by various extra-nationals, should be closed and we can all take a thankful deep breath.

This is ridiculous. I would rather be Fool than fool (note the capital F). Indians did not care to find history in Veda, because signficance of Veda for them was much more than history (or Itihaas.. those who may want to make clear distinction between History and Itihas). Someone else did. All Talageri has done is to show them that using their own methods, the conclusion should be exactly opposite of what they reached.

(When helpless women of Naukhali approached Gandhi and aksed for advice what they should do in retaliation when attempts were made to rape them.. and Gandhi replied, "they should bite their tongues". That is not Krishna message in BG.. at least not as I understood it.)

Besides...Witzel and co (and their predecessors over last 150 years) made their argument. I am impressed with rebuttal of Talageri. If you think all this as foolish, then it is up to you to write a book (or peer reviewed paper.. your choice) to show how all these efforts/interactions are foolish. I understood your argument of Rigveda as anadi/apaurusheya..but that is not a rebuttal of work of Talageri. Your position is tired position and will lose its significance if you are not going to do something, but simply repeat it.

[RajeshA]

Nilesh Oak ji,

perhaps you may have noticed, the resident Mimamsaka, has not expressed any desire to enter into a dialogue with Talageri on how to formulate a stand, which does not conflict with the traditional Vedic stance. No, nothing like that! It has been machine-gun firing of one abuse after the other.

Has Talageri ever objected to such a dialogue or objected to factoring in the Mimamsa position, or rejected any preamble, disclaimers and qualifiers proposed? The thing is, now after being hurled with so much abuse, why should he accept any advice of some arrogant horse-rider?!

I do not agree with Talageri on many things. I don't agree on the absolute chronology that he proposes. Nor do I think he should use the word "composer" when he speaks of the ṛṣis. But he has nevertheless contributed a befitting answer to the AIT-Nazis, something that has not been forthcoming from other quarters.

I was very apprehensive of such a discussion here and I had requested the resident-Mimamsaka to reconsider it due to a host of considerations.

The thing about some high-end Vedic scholars seems to be to hurl abuse rather than look for constructive ways to bridge the differences with those who may have been unfortunate not to receive Vedic training (something that is kept to a few anyway) or may have been forced to take a stance, an unpleasant though needful one in view of the assault of AIT-Nazis and their Sepoys.

Anyway, my last post on this issue! Let's hope we can move forward.

[Nilesh Oak]

Dubey ji wrote.

I have stopped writing posts with "details" in them because it become apparent that what the "missionary" posters want is not substance but "busy work".

Not sure about your definitions and you repeating may not help. How about you providing an illustration of what constitutes 'substance'. I will read it.

The problem is that this is a non-scientific area, in which disagreements and arguments
cannot be settled by a well-designed hypothesis and experiment. We have arbitrary assumptions, circular theories, and concocted fantasies. No matter how many volumes Oak, Rajesh, Talageri, Elst etc write on this topic, it will be an ongoing debate that has no resolution.

Not sure 'which' is a non-scientific area? I requested you to show precisely .. this arbitrary assumptions, circular theories and concocted fantasies.. as you see in works of Talageri (note.. many were (maybe still are) apprehensive of my request and your potential response). All you did in response is to state and re-state your positions (no consistent meaning in Rigveda can be found, all attempts are futile.. etc). Yes, tha was all non-scientific (again, does not mean false, not true.. but irrefutable and thus non-scientific).

I'd much rather not give up the demands of my scientific career and divert my time to such activities.

We all have choices and we all bring different skill sets to the table. And while no one blamed you (they might have expressed their disappointment) you are on a political mission to call Talageri, Elst, RajeshA, Shiv, Arjun ji.. many others including yours truly...fools. It is all beyond my comprehension.

Nevertheless, any carefully summarized details that I did give, have met with a deafening silence. Not one peep from any of them.

This is because most of them understand the insight of BG (whether they read it or not)... Shreyan swadharmo vigunah: para-dharmo bhayavah. I am glad they did not drop what they were doing and began reciting Rigveda and start with Shayana and Nirukta and what not.

I even gave RajeshA an eminently falsifiable hypothesis supported by initial data. I explained how one of the most important Suktas on "Vasishtha" (the one that describes the "birth of vasishtha") has nothing to do with a human being of that name. I asked him to then list the other instances of occurrence of the same word and then conclude whether there was a human by that name in the Veda or not.

See above.. paradharmo bhayavah

The conclusion is significant: it will immediately put to rest the idea that the families maintaining the Veda have some biological connection with "human Rgvedic composers". But no, these people "want more data".

Not more data (which I , we, people may ask if the above is not sufficient), but this is a task for someone who is capable of doing it. While I enjoyed what Talageri did, I right away understood that is something I would have never accomplished in my life. (Shreyan swadhamo vigunah ....applies).

Now the Anukramani: Except for a sole commentator, nobody in 3000+ years of Indian inquiry has given it any serious weightage as being authentic. Nobody in their right mind would claim a word to have vedic authenticity if he couldn't tell me the accent on the word (which is part of the word itself). Talageri completely ignores an entire dimension of Veda analysis.

What you missed is many dimensions that Talageri did cover in his book(s). This is the reason I suggested that one reading Talageri can do this thought experiment of removing conclusions drawn from Anaukramanika and still see conclusions of Talageri thesis.

I receive emails where reader expresses their joy at reading my book but also extremely disappointed that 'I did not included 'Draupadi vastraharan' in my book'. Those who have read my book will understand the humor of it.

The response I got from Talageri was: "whether or not the names are accented, the fact is that the anukramani gives the names of the rshis." These are the kind of people who are being touted as the "great hope" of OIT.

Again, I better bring it to your attention.. that to me Talageri's work... is one of the pieces of the puzzle. It is interesting to note that likes of Dubeyji and Witzel are obsessed with Talageri. Both call him names and claim he does not understand anything (Rigveda, sanskrit). Both are silent on specific arguments of Talageri.

And if the fellow is dull enough, he will agree to it. That is basically what Talageri is asking me to do.

Ok. At least Dubey ji, you should concede that we may be all that you call us...but definitely not 'dull'.

I do not have anything against the fact that Talageri is a "bank officer" or something like that. But before writing volumes of details based upon invalid foundations, he should have at least bounced his ideas off knowledgeable people.

He has not stopped knowledgeable people from providing their input, critique, criticism.

I am really offended that such is the state of affairs.

Pessimistic or being sad could be a resonable, albeit unfortuante, response. Being offended is not. But then we don't have control over our responses.

[JE Menon]

Gentlemen, I gently recommend easing up. The forum is generally operating (though not optimally) on two principles on interaction: (1) despite our repeated pleas, parties not posting on the forum and probably not reading it are frequently referred to in less than flattering terms - including people such as the PM, former intelligence chiefs, scientists, etc; (2) people posting on the forum, i.e. BRF members, exercise self-restraint when addressing or referring to other members.

If eminent people can be abused as such, then I see no reason why Talageri cannot be. The other alternative is to stop using such language against any one. On the other hand, mutual sarcasm and so on does not do much other than degrade any thread, and this one is steadily going downhill. I recommend that ALL parties exercise self-restraint.

[RajeshA]

JE Menon saar,

I agree with you.

I would however like to provide a clarification on Talageri. This thread was structured as a "war" between AIT and Indigenists (non-AIT). Talageri's work is referenced as the very first post by me on this thread. Talageri, I would consider, to be the soldier, who helped us re-conquer the peak of Siachen from the AIT-Nazis. It was a good victory, for he for the first time really made a mockery of all the arguments that the AIT-Nazis had been putting forward, based on some alleged Vedic testimony to some migration.

It is really okay to criticize Talageri's work. There is no hero-worship going on. People can differ with his position. I do it too. But I feel considering his contribution to the cause, as propounded by this thread, there is no need to call him names, like "buffoon", "quack", "fraud", "fool", etc. If AIT-proponents do this, it is understandable, but if others do this it does not seem right!

Like many other writers, he too is a hero on this thread, a soldier in this "war"! And some respect is expected to be forthcoming for a soldier!

And if that minimal respect is not forthcoming, then that does affect the mood! On other threads, one can say anything one wants about him! But this is a thread that should show respect to its heroes. Nobody is asking for worship!

[Nilesh Oak]

Adrija + 1

सुजनो न याति वैरं परहितनिरतो विनाशकालेऽपि
छेदेऽपि चन्दनतरुः सुरभयति मुखं कुठारस्य
- भर्तृहरि

Transliteration:
sujano na yaati vairaM parahitanirato vinaashakaale.pi
Chede.pi chandanataruH surabhayati mukhaM kuThaarasya
- bhartRuhari

Meaning of the subhAShita:

An affable person, (who is) always engrossed in the benefaction of others, shall not resort to hostility, even in times of (his own) downfall. Upon chopping, the sandal tree only smears its fragrance onto the blade of the axe.

Murugan ji + 1

What you wrote is great, but I am confident you also know... this..

भले तरी देऊ गांडीची लंगोटी
नाठाळाचे माथी हाणू काठी
- संत तुकाराम

The Dharma is subtle..... (no absolutes...time, place, circumstances, individual attitude, ability.. determines the response).

[shiv]

Adrija ji,
It doesn't help the learned Vedic fraternity and it certainly does not help the Indic cause if the learned Vedic community is spared criticism. Only if the learned Vedic fraternity knows that there is disaffection among the masses about their performance, would they come forward and do the needful.

Perhaps it is the masses that has abandoned the learned Vedic fraternity.

Well if the masses have not done that, they might well have to do it and to hell with the consequences. If the Vedas don't care we need not worry, they will survive with or without us.

This morning I was, as is my wont, arguing with myself about the consequences of closing up and saying that the Vedas are not open to any sort of interpretation because they were never meant to be a record of events or that of a pastoral people. It occurs to me that no matter how deeply this fact might be true it is a naive "high hopes, keep fingers crossed" attitude that can come only from being unaware of which way the AIT debate has gone and how far it has gone.

I can imagine an AIT Nazi AITN) arguing with me

AITN: So the Vedas are all about sounds, not to be interpreted as anything specific?
Me: Yes
AITN: How do you explain Rig Veda 1.62 that clearly tells how a horse must be butchered and then cooked and how the delicious smells of cooked horse are attractive?
Me: You can interpret all sorts of things from a work that is purely meant to be auditory - one of sounds. If youlook carefully you will find passages that say that horses must not be slaughtered
AITN: That is nonsense. You are n denial. Your Rig veda Clearly speaks of cutting up a horse and cooking it and you are conjuring up this nonsensical business of eternal cosmic sounds just to escape the fact that you do not want to accept the bald truth.

At this stage I have to put on a superior supercilious air of contempt and dismiss the AITN as a buffoon.

Hey but its too late. The Vedic fraternity should have done that 200 years ago. They did not. They were too innocent perhaps. And powerless to boot. Only stark and complete ignorance of where AIT stands today can be satisfied with allowing the current state of affairs to continue in a smug certainty of the superiority of the Veda

AIT is not merely a misinterpretation of the Veda. It is a complete explanatory package of your history BEFORE the Vedas and about how the Vedas came into existence. Long long before all these imaginary cosmic sounds were dreamt up by Brahmin priests who are given to a great deal of exaggeration and a fertile imagination there were a pastoral people in Central Asia who spoke Proto Indo European. It is not as if jingostic Indians are alone in claiming that India was the original home. The Germans and Russians and even the Greeks claim that. But both archaeology and philology have proved beyond reasonable doubt that PIE was spoken in the central Asian steppe.

It was these people, inventive people who created the chariot and hitched it to a horse who went to Iran and later India. It is not just the Veda, but proof about those people come from the Gathas of Zoroaster which has linguistic features that may be older than Vedic Sanskrit. In any case the story of the Gathas is never claimed to be this mumbo jumbo about sounds. It is a clear story of a pastoral people who had no vocabulary for farming but knew about chariots and wheels. The rituals are shared with the Rig Veda so vedics can hardly stand by their claim of "cosmic sounds". Those cosmic sounds just did not exist in India until the pastoral people from the steppe came to Iran with their Asura Gods and Deva devils. In a later move to India the Devas became gods and the Vedas which have a clear parallel in the Avesta were subsequently claimed to have a remote origin.

If any one of you guys on this thread is happy that this story is all balls and can dismiss it contemptuously, more power to you. But I am unhappy because I come from a mixed Dravidian Vedic origin. I am one of those infernal mixed breeds that scholars alleged made the Aryan race impure. My own history goes far back in time and I don't want to be told a fake and cooked up version of history. And I am not going to sit back and be smug about cosmic sounds.

I am being told that those cosmic sounds were handed to some horse riding pastoralists in central Asia and the were brought here and preserved here. The strawberries were grown in the steppe. The jam was bottled in India. And guess what? I don't believe the story. There are many holes in that story - with he most obvious one being that there is not a shred of evidence of those sounds having existed in Central Asia. I am not stupid. I am not going to sit back with a smug smile and accept the story. The fake story needs to be reversed and told using other evidence that is available. This will not, IMO be done by smugness and silence and cop out disclaimers to satisfy the Vedic scholars who were unable to make their point first time round. Call me ignorant, but heck most of us are.

[JE Menon]

RajeshA,

I see and understand exactly what you are saying, and I don't object to the message whatsoever - in fact I agree. I am not saying that you have abused the PM or any other personality - on the contrary, you are certainly one of the civil posters on BRF.

However, if as an admin I'm asked, why is B. Raman for example called this and that, or why the PM is called this and that, or why one scientist or the other or one senior bureaucrat or the other is abused, and that being the case why should Talageri be any different - I have no real answer. From an admin perspective, he cannot be a special exemption, no matter what his credentials.

We as admins can call for restraint and occasionally impose it, but ultimately restraint has to come from the posters themselves. We may direct the flow now and then, but generally we go with it.

When members go at each other, the thread hits the floor pretty soon because both parties engage - in the other case, one side is mute - and admins can intervene pretty quickly. And we mostly do.

[Murugan]

Nilesh oakji,

This is a good one from tukaram!

But, vidhi ki vakrata, Though Tukaram maharaj was saint, no nathala, he used to get kathi from his wife!

Socrates from Xanthippe!

[JE Menon]

OK people, back to the topic of the thread...

[shiv]

The Vedas are peripheral to AIT beyond minor "proof". Consolidating the position and content of the Vedas is only a small fraction of the overall work and scholarship needed to call out AIT. We are concentrating on the Vedas based on a mistaken impression that it all depends on the Vedas. That only indicates ignorance of how and where AIT gets its data points.

If we are going to be happy and satisfied that the interests of the Vedas are well looked after there is no point continuing with this thread because it means that we don't have a clue and are merely interested in making sure our precious Veda is not sullied by foes or people who think they are friends.

Of the dozens of little data points that go into the construction of AIT, the Vedas figure only as "horse culture". And the similarity of Vedic language to the Avestan Gathas only adds to "proof" that horses and wheel terminology is all that is required. Unfortunately unless OIT can come up with a yarn that is as credible as AIT we will get nowhere and we must be reduced to refuting AIT first. Protecting Veda is not the same as refuting AIT. If you think it is you just know nuthin about AIT.

Long ago we had a series of threads on religion and islam. Those threads served as learning threads for people who were confused or hesitant. I think we are just about beginning to reach a stage when a few people might have begun to see what AIT really means. It you don't know AIT you don't know OIT either. Saying you support one against the other is fake because you don't know why. It's just faith. Not understanding.

[Arjun]

If eminent people can be abused as such, then I see no reason why Talageri cannot be.

Inter-OIT disputes / disparagement have been specifically defined as OT for this thread - based on the scope of the thread enunciated earlier. While we are all willing to give some leeway for occasional misconduct - continued disregard for this clause will need to be dealt with appropriately.

[JE Menon]

Thank you Arjun. Admins will deal appropriately (the right word) with what we regard as inadmissible. Others may continue posting on this thread, on topic.

[RajeshA]

However, if as an admin I'm asked, why is B. Raman for example called this and that, or why the PM is called this and that, or why one scientist or the other or one senior bureaucrat or the other is abused, and that being the case why should Talageri be any different - I have no real answer. From an admin perspective, he cannot be a special exemption, no matter what his credentials.

JE Menon ji,

I understand.

Just so that it is clear, I don't believe anybody including me, ever reported KLP Dubey ji's posts to the admins for being abusive to Shri Shrikant Talageri. So I think nobody is making the argument that KLP Dubey ji cannot abuse Talageri, because it would violate forum rules or anything of the sort. KLP Dubey ji is very much within his rights to abuse any public personality, he wishes. So as such it is not really an admin issue.

However internally in the thread such abuse can cause discord, going by the topic parameters, I hope the admins can understand why! Such discord has flowed over into occasional sarcasm, but has basically remained at the level of urging the other to desist from abusing the "heroes". There has been seldom any abuse of any poster here, and if it has indeed happened, then I have myself asked for restraint. The name calling, if one call it that, has perhaps been usually neutral, which the person called on, too may not have found offensive.

However I share your view that the quality has slipped and needs to be corrected.

[member_22872]

Hey but its too late. The Vedic fraternity should have done that 200 years ago. They did not. They were too innocent perhaps. And powerless to boot. Only stark and complete ignorance of where AIT stands today can be satisfied with allowing the current state of affairs to continue in a smug certainty of the superiority of the Veda

Shiv garu, I had the same sense of helplessness, which I had expressed few pages back. I wish we stood to the onslaught and twisting of texts 200 years back. Now we can't bring the argument that Vedas can't be interpreted. We already started playing their ball game, any defense on the lines of "Vedas can't be interpreted" won't fly. But I feel very bad that we let down the sanctity of the Vedas. But what else could we have done when our self expression was suppressed and voice taken away under Brit rule?, the whole Indic identity was stolen and hijacked. I only wish and hope that we regain it back, defeat AIT, reinstate the sanctity of Vedas and at least now pay attention to greatness of Vedic corpus and teach our children with pride. I hope this happens.

[Arjun]

It looks to me that those who are 'living the Vedas' as it were, may be viewing the various theories floating about on this thread with some concern. Most of this concern arises from a misunderstanding of the way the sciences (including the social sciences) evolve.

It is not as if any particular theory needs to be set in stone forever - most sciences evolve fairly rapidly (some more rapidly than others) and there are typically a series of theories with one overthrowing the earlier, which is again overturned by a new one etc. So Aristotlean Physics was replaced by Galilieo & Newtonian Mechanics - in turn followed by Relativity. Then by Quantum Mechanics, now String Theory and so on....

There was absolutely no way Newton could have short-circuited this whole process by jumping straight to Relativity - the sophistication of Physics needed to follow a certain evolution.

In similar manner, at the current juncture the aim in Indian pre-history is to replace AIT by the postulate of an indigenous set of 'tribes' who wrote up the RV in ancient India...This is a necessary phase in the evolution. Down the road, this can be replaced (with sufficient scholarly backing) by another theory that perhaps delves into Sanskrit being derived from RV sounds and so on....I don't think it is worthwhile being unrealistic about what the evolutionary process is likely to be in academia and push for what is the equivalent of String Theory in Physics to an academic setup that is still stuck in the phase of Aristotlean Physics.

[A_Gupta]

It is all a question of quality of leadership! If the leadership is good, why would the masses look elsewhere?

Seduced by other ideologies.

[RajeshA]

It is all a question of quality of leadership! If the leadership is good, why would the masses look elsewhere?

Seduced by other ideologies.

That eventuality is accounted for in quality of leadership!

[A_Gupta]

I really think you need to figure out and segment your audience and deliver messages accordingly.
E.g., if your target is Witzel & co, Talageri is not going to help.

If your target is some reasonably well-informed people in India, then informing them about the Vedic Saraswati, the Mahabharata Saraswati, its correspondence with the paleo-channel Saraswati and the dates that geology give, will be quite convincing. Add to that the latest genetic findings. The horse and chariot can be mentioned as disputed evidence, e.g., even after the AITers' dates for horse and chariots, archaeological finds are scarce to non-existent. All you really need to accomplish in this case is for them to not take AIT as accepted wisdom.

There is the audience that tends to value Sanskrit, Vedas, etc., but haven't gotten off their butt yet to actually invest effort. For them, KLP Dubey & Carl -type exposition would be inspirational.

And so on.

One of the key things is to point out what are facts, what are interpretations of facts that could conceivably be interpreted in other ways, and what is speculative.

Another key thing, in my opinion, is honesty and becoming a credible and trusted source of information for that audience.

Thus, e.g., both Western and Indian scholarship (taking KLPDji to be representative) is dismissive of the anukramanis. Knowing this and still using Talageri as a lynchpin of the argument - instead of mentioning him as, btw, if we do take anukramanis seriously over objections of scholarship, we get these additional interesting conclusions - would be a serious mistake.

[A_Gupta]

Seduced by other ideologies.

That eventuality is accounted for in quality of leadership!

I firmly believe that people tend to get the quality of leaders they deserve. People collectively by their actions and lack of actions, set the environment in which leaders are produced. Anyway, this is going badly off-topic.

[Arjun]

Thus, e.g., both Western and Indian scholarship (taking KLPDji to be representative) is dismissive of the anukramanis.

I see you set great store by the 'scholarship' of certain Western and Indian sources

Irrespective, As per Talageri, one of Witzel's associates Theodore Proferes has published a paper "Remarks on the transition from Rgvedic composition to Srauta Compilation" that uses the Anukramanis in the same fashion as Talageri. Its a paid paper - but may be available from some academic networks. Would somebody be able to read through it / download and post a summary ?

[member_20317]

Bhai log, this veda business are the birth pangs for the OIT. So my suggestion is, do not give up, instead all involved should proceed based on a humility that is human not on a sense of entitlement that is superhuman. Caveat is I am known for honest but crazy advice. I give it believing it is priceless, but since the price was paid by me only so your prerogative to treat it as worthless remains with you. To continue, basically OIT needs to treat this as the first challenge. Rest would be a downhill drive (no sarcasm here).

Believe me OIT supporters would not like it if Vedics give their testimony after the OIT is fully formed.

I do not expect responses, rather I request only a cursory read. Had you guys not started this ‘fight club with no blood in it’, I would have remained content reading you guys.



JMT vvv

The reason why Vedic Practioners (Practicing Brahmins) do not develop the whole philosophy around Veda itself could be because they are so involved in maintaining the purity of the original sound that it leave them with little time to do any of the exciting stuff. Looking at it the other way that itself is pretty exciting work. Almost like a 24X7 competition with oneself. I wish I had the kind of real time self control that a Vedic practice is supposed to produce.


AFAIU, Vedas are a grammatical arrangement of basically original sounds.

The easy part first:

Original as in, an effort to reproduce these words can easily meet their end in either a lazy tongue or an over active tougue. A kind of prime number of the sonic world producible or reproducible in a very limited manner. ‘A kind’ because there are more prime numbers then one can care for but seems like the ‘old man in a hurry’ got us all the original sounds leaving only the original combinations to us now.

Now the prime number is prime at only one point. Any operation on a prime takes way its primeness (divide it first &/or then multiply it or vice versa or WTH). I am not good at maths but making an effort to reach out to technical minded people.

The fly in the ointment is that life does not stay still. As a result what is prime/exclusive is only a qualified and ephemeral existence. I will have to qualify the primeness by saying something to the effect, 'all things remaining static', which seems rather unreasonable.

OTOH if we take life to be a moving-grooving dynamic experience then we would need something that explains everything by way of an inclusion/acknowledgment of past even if without accounting for every past. That is to say, a practice designed for a complete experience of the perfection of every moment instead of the primeness/uniqueness of only one moment. In the sonic world that could be Yagya and Vedic uchaaran. A practice designed to take one from realization of one perfect point to another without a seam in between and then keep up this process for good. The fact that a normal life is possible (a pretty rewarding one) without the intervention of Vedas is well recognized. But that does not imply that every practice of anything is designed to do what Vedic practice is supposed to do. Vedas retain their originality or first mover advantage on this count.

Moving further ahead, given such a situation, those interested in Vedas may actually not be interested or even have the resources for other pursuits.

However being Vedic does not imply a disinterest in dharma and to that extent Vedic practioners would be scathing on AIT which is unique in its obscurantist behaviour. But if OIT based on Vedas (henceforth 'Vedic-OIT') comes out as merely one more challenge to Vedic practice that too will be opposed by Vedic practioners because practice is what the Vedas are about in the first place. OIT is all about non-aithaasic history. To that extent there is danger for Vedic-OIT. The Vedic-OIT challenge is however neither unique nor of the same scale as AIT. This should attenuate the Practioners charge (witness the giving up by KLP Dubey ji).

Again Vedic practioner letting up the charge would still not be good for the health of Vedic-OIT as AIT Nazis have a greater lung power than SDRE OIT-walas. The first thing that a AIT Nazi is going to do is pit the Vedic-OIT against Vedic Practioners. That would not be good for anybody except the AIT Nazi.

Also one thing that baffles me is how can Vedic studies affirm OIT if it is used to invalidate AIT, by reason of the variable import of the sounds used. If it is variable, well tough luck, it becomes unusable for everybody involved. In this respect I do not see Vedic practioners as competitors to OIT. Rather a ‘constraint’ would be a more appropriate word. A valid one as I see it, but then that is only me.


The difficult part :

What is the grammar used?

Well no idea here boss. Ergo food for thought. Others before me raised this question in their own manner and tried to answer it too in their own manner.

Also I doubt if any one of the earlier guys claimed for himself the status of the final word. In such a case I would give a benefit of doubt to everybody involved, treating all attempts as ‘valid attempts’ if not ‘valid conclusions’. No finality getting ascribed to any. KLP Dubey ji claiming that everything after the 3 Vedas are distractions is one more matha. Valid attempt indeed. Valid conclusions, well let time prove that. Since it would be prudent to believe in conspiracy theory only after witnessing a reasonably long duration of actions, I personally vote for AV, Brahmanas and Upanishads to be a few more efforts of fit and proper entities, not the isharebazi of some indulgent fools. The fact of life remains that on the whole, things look very amorphous with no clear boundaries. To claim otherwise would be at least superhuman if not supernatural and humans being natural are to work in this very natural restriction, practicing Vedas or otherwise.

I know one thing for sure. Any grammar that does a lesser job of acknowledging the various past will eventually count itself out moving forward in time on account of internal inconsistencies itself. The grammar used will also have to be independent of the sounds/knots/mnemonics/crests and the gaps/aspirations/troughs/WTH. Once this is realized, Vedic practice becomes an important thing (perhaps the most important thing), but not the only important thing.

At this point what baffles me is, why bother with Vedic practice if the practice cannot be extended to its full bloom. What is the point of going on with it if it does not directly or indirectly at least help us in our other pursuits that are also a part of existence as such.


A few things I am gradually becoming very sure of:

1) Even practice of Vedas everyday will not suffice if a person is unwilling to let go. Let go in order to free up the hands for a better grip.

2) PIE is the average of/based on extant sounds, so if the definition of extant changes that would change the average.

3) Vedas are the base/prime sounds tied up through some grammar a phoneme-mala driven into a kind of Shabdmala driven towards perfection. Since it is not an average so the only way it can be challenged is by striking at the Shabd. Nobody in their right mind will attempt to attack the phonemes or the gaps between the Shabds or even the grammar .


BTW can we say that every composite has a prime divisor that would still return a whole number.

I think I have allowed myself too much of a leeway.

Pranaam.

[member_22872]

^^^ All boils down to education. Education about our past, history, importance of respecting the Vedas, learning them the way they have to be learned. Importance of Indian identity, education about AIT, importance and role Sanskrit plays as the glue between different people of Indian ethnicity. When armed with facts and knowledge, I am damn sure Indian masses will be empowered to beat back any kind of suppression and disinformation all by themselves. The road is difficult and long, but must be achieved no other way.

[RajeshA]

Seduced by other ideologies.

That eventuality is accounted for in quality of leadership!

I firmly believe that people tend to get the quality of leaders they deserve. People collectively by their actions and lack of actions, set the environment in which leaders are produced. Anyway, this is going badly off-topic.

Unless of course, society was stratified, where the leaders come from one community in a particular field, unless of course the leaders have been groomed all their lives to take up certain responsibilities in a particular field.

[Virendra]

Gentlemen, a humble request.

The eminences who're debating here perhaps realize that there have been criss cross arguments at personal level lately.
But I don't know if you realize another thing. This thread is constantly being watched/read by a lot of people (yes I know many others following it).
Watched by the mute spectators like me who're hoping that this grand grand manthan would bring something very valuable.
Kindly acknowledge (just to yourself) the stakes and continue on the topic. The thread has tremendous visibility, hope it doesn't change the nature of anyone's posting.

Namaste

[ramana]

Virendra, The Hindu way of debate is all apsects are articulated and debated and when its over the winning side stands alone. The non-winning side melts away and gets no supporters.
Biing brought up under a thousand years of non-hindu rule we have forgotten the way and seek to prop-up shiboleths.

[Arjun]

Also one thing that baffles me is how can Vedic studies affirm OIT if it is used to invalidate AIT, by reason of the variable import of the sounds used. If it is variable, well tough luck, it becomes unusable for everybody involved. In this respect I do not see Vedic practioners as competitors to OIT. Rather a ‘constraint’ would be a more appropriate word. A valid one as I see it, but then that is only me.

You are not alone in your bafflement !

Actually, it is my sense that this business of no meanings can be derived, or have been derived till date seems to be a KLPD ji -specific innovation to Mimamsa Theory.

Mimamsa does affirm eternal nature of Vedas, and their non-human origins. Ancient Mimamsa philosphers hve also speculated on Proper Nouns in the Vedas and have raised some doubts - but as far as I know, they hve NEVER doubted the meanings ascribed to the rest of the Vedas.

Further, I wonder what a 'meaning-less' Veda theory does to Mimamsaks' own insistence on strict observance of Vedic rituals - goes for a complete toss I presume. And if I can afford to be a bit more 'scientific' about this - if massive computers are required to really decipher what the Vedas are all about, is there any guarantee that the final decipherment output would not tend to the more 'profane' side than the sacred? Furthermore, does anybody really think that youth all over India are going to be enticed by the story that the Vedas provide insight into the Universe, but we don't really have a clue as to what that insight is, and as a mater of fact may not be any insight at all ?

[Agnimitra]

A minor quibble - I don't think the Lion really sees the rats as a plague. As we may be aware of, the learned Vedic fraternity's perhaps only contribution in the whole AIT debate has been in teaching all the nuances of the Vedic knowledge system to the Europeans, which the Europeans then used to first impose AIT onto India, and then to claim often superior scholarship rights over Sanskrit and Indian texts. Have we really seen a concerted intellectual retaliation from the learned Vedic fraternity to all the mauling that Indian history has undergone? I would say the Lion was a fool who invited the rats, which have become a plague in the whole jungle, who have eaten all the food in the jungle, and as such the animals of the jungle are being forced to get used to a diet of things unnatural.

The "Lion" is Veda and Vedic attitudes and structures itself - not to be equated with caste-brahmins or any other such elitist group.

I fully agree with your action of taking an axe to the Veda-parachuter rascals who will use some hi-falutin alter-Veda for their social or "spiritual" buoyancy, without giving a damn to its understanding and implementation.

Now there are people from those caste backgrounds who, by sheer dumb association, may have absorbed some useful bits and pieces that are important in the regeneration of the Vedic blueprint. They must be expected to step up and humbly contribute, as eager minds take up this task.

Those from this group that choose not to do so are not only not part of the solution -- they are a part of the enemy and have usually been part of the enemy. Even over the last 150 years you can see how people from this caste worked with the Brits and were affected by them. Even the "nationalist" ones like Golwarkar was talking about the "purest" among them being blue-eyed LOL. So just think about those who were "aloof" from nationalism, how deep the disease is. I can say a lot more about the Pakiness that is rife in these sections of our society, but let's not beat a dying horse (unless its not dying fast enough!).

That said, Dubey ji did mention that he is actively involved in disseminating core Vedic knowledge to all qualified individuals in real life. In that sense he is stepping up to the plate in his own capacity. However, if he doesn't have the time it would be useful here if he could connect us up with students or others who could provide the core scholarship elements that are needed here.

I have been saying that one need not look at the Ṛṣis spoken of in Anukramaṇīs as being composers but only as the first who received the Vedas from whatever earlier source into the known human/Indic society - as the receivers.

Instead of "the first who received", I suggest we make that the "earliest historically known receivers and experts".

[RajeshA]

I have been saying that one need not look at the Ṛṣis spoken of in Anukramaṇīs as being composers but only as the first who received the Vedas from whatever earlier source into the known human/Indic society - as the receivers.

Instead of "the first who received", I suggest we make that the "earliest historically known receivers and experts".

I like the reformulation!

[Satya_anveshi]

Here is my opinion even though my qualifications to opine on this topic are next to nothing as with everything else. This opinion may have been captured excellently by RajeshA ji, Shiv ji and others.

The concept of Shabda Brahma and ultimate paramountcy of "sound" and pronunciation does not negate the meaning the Vedas provide in Sanskrit.

If Sanskrit was really created to force fit Vedic sounds and assigned meanings that make it sensible, meaningful, and consistent too for the most part across the entire corpus of Vedas, then I think the status of Sanskrit becomes even more elevated and amazing.

Sanskrit is much less in dispute as to the ownership where it is created, spoken, liked and the large corpus of literature authored and maintained even today.

All the more reason to ensure that our civilizational contribution is safeguarded from usurpation and deracination (which I believe is almost a done deal at practical level). It is amusing that we have different definitions of what constitutes a "status quo" but that is another topic.

Also, IMO “RigVeda is not in Sanskrit” is…how should I say..a bit confusing at best and dangerous at worst:

You are reaching that conclusion only after you have employed Sanskrit on it in the first place and then saying some parts aren’t making sense. How do you explain away the part that is indeed making sense and based on which centuries of efforts undertaken? Are we to wash away the relevancy of those efforts as well?

To understand this further, let me give an example:

Let’s assume that over the next couple centuries, the awareness and maturity of english etymological studies makes major strides and people generally know from where and which culture a given word is adopted from. So, a person reading today’s english poem finds that majority of words are actually not native to english but adopted from another language/region/culture. Can he then make a claim that the poem is not really in English and we are just force fitting the meaning to it?

Further, once a language is developed, is there a distinction between force fitting a language to sounds or generating those sounds to speak that language?

[Arjun]

I know one thing for sure. Any grammar that does a lesser job of acknowledging the various past will eventually count itself out moving forward in time on account of internal inconsistencies itself. The grammar used will also have to be independent of the sounds/knots/mnemonics/crests and the gaps/aspirations/troughs/WTH. Once this is realized, Vedic practice becomes an important thing (perhaps the most important thing), but not the only important thing.

This is very correct. The Vedas are certainly the starting point of the Indian (and very likely the world's) intellectual journey - but the Hinduism of today is very much more than the Vedas alone.

There are at least 6 different meta-physical innovations in Hinduism each of which can claim to be unique, pioneering and globally relevant-

1. The Vedas + Vedic hermeneutics (Mimamsa). This also includes the old Karma-Marg (karma=ritual)
2. Gyan- Marg (Upanishads + Vedanta, most would mention this as the apex of Hindu philosophy)
3. Yoga - Marg (based on Yogasutras)
4. Bhakti - Marg (based on Agamas, techniques of worship systematized to an extent not seen any place else)
5. Karma-Marg (based on the Gita)
6. Dharma (overarching concept of Dharma as guide and non-dogmatism of Sapeksha Dharma)

And while each one of them nominally accepts the validity of the Vedas - they've evolved to an extent that they are quite stand-alone in their own conclusions and world-view. And if you are looking for the sum total of ancient Indian Intellectual Property in Spiritualism - it gets much bigger since that would also include Buddhism & Jainism.

Only the Vedas are of course relevant to OIT given their antiquity - but the point really is, unlike the Bible to Christianity or Koran to Islam - Hinduism is far, far more than the Veda Samhitas alone.

[RajeshA]

I really think you need to figure out and segment your audience and deliver messages accordingly.
E.g., if your target is Witzel & co, Talageri is not going to help.

<snip>

Thus, e.g., both Western and Indian scholarship (taking KLPDji to be representative) is dismissive of the anukramanis. Knowing this and still using Talageri as a lynchpin of the argument - instead of mentioning him as, btw, if we do take anukramanis seriously over objections of scholarship, we get these additional interesting conclusions - would be a serious mistake.

As far as Witzel & Co. is concerned, there Talageri's book is a big axe! Talageri shows a East to West movement of geographic knowledge based on geography of fauna, flora, weather and rivers, so basically that kills the West to East movement that Witzel & Co. have tried to show in the Rigveda.

Using the Avesta and Rigveda comparison, Talageri has been able to show a Indo-Iranian relative chronology, which really rubbishes the sequence of the AIT-Nazis, that Indo-Iranians separation happened before Sanskrit "developed" and Rigveda was "composed".

So basically Talageri puts the whole direction of movement of "Indo-Aryans" on its head, making it a East-West movement. And until now the Witzel & Co. have not been able to give a cogent argument against Talageri.

ManishH ji tried earlier. The only two arguments our dexterous friend was able to dig up were on the question of 1) Maṇdala VI not making sense as the earliest Maṇdala as it is Bharadvāja Kula-Maṇḍala which I responded to; and 2) Yamuna not being mentioned in Maṇdala VI, which too I responded to.

What Talageri does not answer is all the horse and chariot argument. For that argument one has to look elsewhere.

[Agnimitra]

Actually, it is my sense that this business of no meanings can be derived, or have been derived till date seems to be a KLPD ji -specific innovation to Mimamsa Theory.
...
Further, I wonder what a 'meaning-less' Veda theory does to Mimamsaks' own insistence on strict observance of Vedic rituals - goes for a complete toss I presume. And if I can afford to be a bit more 'scientific' about this - if massive computers are required to really decipher what the Vedas are all about, is there any guarantee that the final decipherment output would not tend to the more 'profane' side than the sacred? Furthermore, does anybody really think that youth all over India are going to be enticed by the story that the Vedas provide insight into the Universe, but we don't really have a clue as to what that insight is, and as a mater of fact may not be any insight at all ?

Just like the concept of "past-to-present" time-binding property of Veda, I think this meaning-neutral property is also being misunderstood. Like the time-binding property, this meaning-neutrality also happens to be a fundamental concept in modern theories of semantics and epistemology.

Meaning neutrality signifies "silence on the objective levels" on the part of the hearer. This means that no intensional or extensional memory contents are impinging on the present-moment's contextual understanding of the words. This means that there is a "non-verbal awareness" that is also important, since it is well known that the greater part of communication that happens even between two people is non-verbal.

So again, the pseudo-scientific AIT'ers need to be shown that a Vedic self-descriptor is found as a fundamental aspect of the most modern theories of semantics and epistemology, while they are busy with their puerile sand-castles in their pseudo-archaeological-linguistic sandbox.

[Nilesh Oak]

What Talageri does not answer is all the horse and chariot argument. For that argument one has to look elsewhere.

It was indeed a good thing (intentional or not) that Talageri did not bother answering horse and Chariot.

The argument is based on such lack of commonsense that I believe frankly Pro-AIT folks also become dizzy with it.. and only keep up with it due to addiction and also from lack of alternate options.

The argument probably emerged from the fastest land based transporation that these AITer could imagine their Aryans to have had access to. If AITer had believed Vimans to exist in the past, they would have considered their postulate for location of origin of Vimanas as the original home of Aryans (Sri Lanka-Ravana, Kuber -NE India/Tibet/China, Bali-Patal-South America etc.)

There is recent article by Priyadarshi (I will try to upload somewhere and post link here) but key aspect (not verified for authenticity.. i.e. authenticity of first person read of referred papers), are as follows..

Long post ..but worth reading if you are still not dizzy with AIT logic of horse.

Horse
Horse too had been domesticated at the homeland before the Indo-European dispersal took place
(linguistic evidence). The cognate words for ek(w)a (PIE horse) or aśva (Sk. horse) are absent
from the Hittite language of ancient Anatolia (Kazanas 2009:174). This can be taken as a proof
of Anatolia not being the homeland of the Indo-Europeans. The first wave of the Indo-Europeans
arrived at Anatolia from the east, probably before the domestication of horse (the earliest of the
several waves of the IE immigration), and that is why we do not get any cognate word for ek(w)a
(horse) in the Anatolia region.
Philology of horse:
Most of the European IE languages are poor in cognate words of ek(w)a. They show loss of the
word or the meaning, and the retention of only a remote semantic connection with the horse. In
the Germanic branch, apart from the Old English eoh (horse), the Gothic aihwa- occurs only as
the compound word aihwatundi (the herb bramble, prickly bush) and the Old Saxon ehu- is
found only as a compound word in ehu-scalc stable-keeper (Lehmann:15). The Gaul epo- (horse)
also does not occur independently, but as the first part of the compound word “eporedorix”
(horse-(of)-the chariot-(of)-the king) and in the name of the goddess Epona. Greek hippos is
another puzzle. The Baltic languages have: Old Prussian ašva, ešva (mare), aswinan (army,
mare’s milk), O. Lith. ašvíenis (stallion) and Lithuanian family-name Ašvine and Ašva. In the
steppe languages, the Old Church Slavic ehu- may be a borrowing from the Germanic (OS ehu-),
and in reality no cognate of ek(w)a exists in the Slavic.

Lehmann remarks that “phonological difficulties may point to borrowing introduced when the
horse became known to the Indo-Europeans through an unidentified steppe people.” (ibid).
However we do not find any phonological difficulty happening to the Indian and Iranian
languages. We can say that the domestic horse was lost from the lives of the Indo-Europeans on
arriving to Anatolian, the Balkans and the Central Europe, and regained later.
This is obvious from the discussion that the steppe people had another language in place when
the Indo-European arrived there. Hence the Slavic borrowed the word for the horse (konj) from
the substratum, which is not found in any other branch of IE, except a stray -konj in a compound
word meaning foot-wear in Albanian. Yet konj has been claimed (by Pokorny) to be of PIE
origin, and the reconstructed PIE is *kab-n-io- with the cognates: Ukrainian kin’, Old Church
Slavonic kon”ь, Russian kon”, Czech ku̥ň, koně, Slovak kôň, koňa, Polish koń, Serbo-Croatian
kòńj, Slovene kònj, all meaning “horse” (Pokorny:301-302).
Pokorny has claimed that the Italic words (Italian cavallo, Spanish caballo etc) are cognates of
the Slavic konj. However, these (cavallo, caballo) and the Irish capall, and the Estonian hobu (all
meaning horse) may be related to the Sanskrit word kapila (brown-red animal; ant, horse, ape),
and needs a re-examination. In a nutshell we can say that the Slavic languages do not show
evidence of early contact with the domestic horse.

Archaeology of the caballus horse:
We get caballus horse fossils from the following places in India: Imamgaon (18,000 BCE,
Badam:413) ; Aq Kupruk from human contexts (14,000 to 6,000 BCE, Meadow 1989:25-26);
Bolan and Son river valleys (18,000 BCE, G.R. Sharma:110 ff.; Kazanas 2009:33-34); domestic
caballus horse from Bolan and Son valleys (6,500 and 4,500 BCE, G.R. Sharma:110ff);
Mahagara (5,000 BCE, R.S. Sharma:17); Bagor (4,500 BCE, R.S Sharma:16); Indus Valley
Civilization (Bokonyi 2005; Lal 2005; Gupta 2005:186-191) etc.
The number of horse bones decrease in India as the hunting practice diminishes, the use of ox
increases, and the farming becomes the principal mode of survival. A directly proportional
relationship of hunting practice and keeping of horse has been found in the archaeological
remains at Begash (Frachetti and Benecke 2009:1025).
India was never devoid of the caballus horse. Its caballus horse type was sivalensis which was a
“forest-type” horse. Although no DNA comparison of the Indian and European horses has ever
been made, the well considered view is that the sivalensis is the ancestor of the European
thoroughbred horse (J.C. Ewart 1911:364), some Kirghiz (ibid), the Barbs (ibid), the Arabic
(ibid:369 and Lydekker 1907:19-21), the blood-horse (statement of Lydekker, and also of Ray
Lankester quoted in Ridgeway 1905:470; also see Ewart 1909:393-394).
Not only this, there is evidence that the domestic Indian horse (sivalensis) was transported to the
Southeast Asia too at about 8,000 BCE. Paterno (1981:396) noted, “This contention is based on
some isolated preservation of E. sivalensis traits. However, rather fully-sivalensis types have
been described from Neolithic strata (8000-4000 BCE) at Lemery, Batangas in the Philippines
together with dog remains.” In the Philippines only the domestic, and not the wild horse could
have been brought by man. Alba (1994) too notes that the E. sivalensis features are still found in
the horses of the so-called “Sulu Horse” and its relatives in Borneo, Sumatra and Malacca. This
evidence points to the arrival of the Indian domestic horse between 8,000 BCE and 4,000 BCE,
much earlier than the arrival/local domestication of the domestic horse in the steppe.
This all evidence enables us to say that the horse was domesticated in India before 8,000 BCE.
The domestic horse skeletons from Mahagara, Bolon and Son Valleys and Bagor fit well in this
timeframe. From this, we can also explain how this horse reached the BMAC and the Andronove
cultures from the south and then finally the steppe by about 2,000 BCE. The steppe horse
(Przewalski) was never domesticated.
In the central Asia and the steppe, the Przewalski horse lived, which could only be hunted for
food. Those which might have been captured and then herded too must have been served to the
plates sooner or later (Levine, quoted in Anthony 2009:205; Anthony 2005:252). Levine in her
detailed study of the horse bones from Botai (3700-3000 BCE) and Dereivka (4200-3700 BCE)
concluded that none of the horse in these two places had been domesticated (see in Anthony
2009:205). The horse at Dereivka and Botai had been captured as the cheap source of meat for
the lean winters (Anthony 2005:253). However Outram (2009) found at Botai evidence of mare’s
milk in the pottery. Evidence of riding was not conclusive, yet it was found that this was a
different breed of horse: “Metrical analysis of horse metacarpals shows that Botai horses
resemble Bronze Age domestic horses rather than Paleolithic wild horses from the same region.”
Probably this finding means importation of domestic horse from either Europe or South Asia,
although no such comparison has been made so far. We are aware (from DNA study) that the
steppe-horse was not domesticated.
Sir William Ridgeway was wise enough to assert in the year 1905 that the Przewalski was not
the ancestor of the caballus horses (Ridgeway:425). However, as the Aryan theory gained
influence, more and more authors started saying that the steppe horse Przewalski was the
ancestor of the caballus horses. To their frustration, the DNA studies have concluded that not a
single horse lineage has descended from the Przewalski (Achilli; Weinstock). The Przewalski
and the caballus have different chromosome numbers, and actually they belong to different
species. On this basis we can say that the domestic horse found in the steppe and Central Asia
was surely imported from outside.
The much widely publicized story of the horse domestication at Dereivka (horse-and-dog burial,
Ukraine) at 4200-3700 BCE, which is generally believed even today, proved wrong in 2000. The
dates claimed were of the soil layer, not of the skull. The Dereivka horse was never accepted as
domestic horse by a large number of scholars (like Levine, Hausler etc). To silence the
opposition, the skull bone was directly radiocarbon dated and found to be from 3000 BCE
(Anthony 1997). However it became soon obvious that this report was wrong as a bone not
actually belonging to the horse had been tested by mistake. Still later, by actual radiocarbon
dating of the horse skull, it came out that the horse-burial had been made by a much later
settlement, settled over the same place (Scythian era 800-200 BCE), digging deep into the lower
layers. David Anthony, author of the Dereivka story was left with no choice. He quickly
retracted his earlier claim (Anthony:2000, 2009:215).

[A_Gupta]

So basically Talageri puts the whole direction of movement of "Indo-Aryans" on its head, making it a East-West movement. And until now the Witzel & Co. have not been able to give a cogent argument against Talageri.

Cogency is in the eye of the beholder (the audience). As far as Western academia is concerned, Witzel gave the cogent arguments; Talageri is the outsider.

Also, Western academia is the hardest case. In the "dam the stream and drain the swamp", they are the stream. The swamp is the current conventional wisdom. One can hope much more easily make a start in draining the swamp (and perhaps faster than the stream is refilling it).

[RajeshA]

So basically Talageri puts the whole direction of movement of "Indo-Aryans" on its head, making it a East-West movement. And until now the Witzel & Co. have not been able to give a cogent argument against Talageri.

Cogency is in the eye of the beholder (the audience). As far as Western academia is concerned, Witzel gave the cogent arguments; Talageri is the outsider.

Also, Western academia is the hardest case. In the "dam the stream and drain the swamp", they are the stream. The swamp is the current conventional wisdom. One can hope much more easily make a start in draining the swamp (and perhaps faster than the stream is refilling it).

It is for the sake of damming the stream, that such vocabulary like AIT-Nazis and AIT-Sepoys is being developed on this thread. It is a case of trying to make them untouchables (in the Indian sense of the word), each within their own academic sphere.

The reason for choosing the Pontic Steppes or Anatolia as the Aryan Urheimat is simply the still widespread Academic Racism in the West, especially in the Anglo-German sphere of influence. They still have to make a cogent argument. That is what we have to keep on drilling, that they do not have a single solid argument to choose Anywhere-But-India.

Even their Pan-Indo-European Horse Cognate argument has fallen apart, which they needed to postulate that the Aryan expansion took place with the use of the horse.