Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

[Pulikeshi]

What you are saying amounts to saying 'India' is a racist word or 'Hind' is a racist word for us, because attrocities have been committed and people have been seen inferior due to this. And every word, when it mutates outside the native language, becomes racist. So whenever you call me 'Bengali', you are being racist, because we do not say 'Ben-gali, Ban-gali, we say 'Bangyaali'. thats absurd, i am sure you will agree.

If I call you a Bong - it is racist , use of Aryan is the same - much worse!

I guess you have never been up close and personal with the Klan! I've hung out with few of these academics that you want us to defer to... no difference!
If you think Aryan is just an Anglicization of the word Arya it means Indian education failed you! Heck the civilization has failed you...

My itihasa comes from my grandmothers lap - not from these pretenders who are vile racists at best and creators of weaponized divisive mythology at worse!
It would require a blindness to all of 20th century history and deracination to come to such a naive conclusion. I rest my case thusly!

[SBajwa]

by SriJoy
Except Negro has been used derogatively, meaning inferior. Aryan has been used exactly the opposite- to denote super-race.

The Nazis thought themselves as the Perfect Aryan Race while for them Indians were their own blood migrated long ago (with off course the good Sanskrit and Vedas) but since then they have been corrupted due to intermingling with non-whites and are thus not Aryans anymore even as Vedas and Sanskrit,etc are Aryan! If Indians call themselves as "Aryans" Nazis persecuted them as they are not like a perfect German Utopia blue eyed/blond hair Aryan.

This AIT theory has been put into the mind of common Indian folks to forget their own past and get rid of their own innovations (Mathematics Arabian vs Hindu numerals), knowledge (Economics by Kautilya/Chanakya), Metallurgy (Iron, bronze, etc), etc. We are only now beginning to understand it!

The most arable land in the world before Americas were discovered in 1500s was India! Fertile with most rivers and protected by Himalayas and Desert.

In such a world
1. Where do you think before Agriculture most animals/meat/leaves/grass/fruits/berries was available?
2. Where do you think hunters/gatherers would decide to stop wandering around and create villages domesticating animals and figuring out crops?
3. Where do you think people would have free time to contemplate upon stars/seas/mountains/morality/freedom/Dharma/Karma/etc and write it down?

To me it seems Logically that India was always populated and from time to time bandits/thieves/desperados invaded India and took the wealth/slaves/etc over to their places (middle east, turkey, etc). This happened especially when the kings in Aryavarta fought among themselves inviting foreigners to step in and loot!



India and indians are only recovering now in last 20 or so years!

[Nilesh Oak]

Interesting presentation.. relevant due to the timing discussed ( 1500 BCE - 1200 BCE) and its implications for the BS known as AIT. Enjoy

https://youtu.be/bRcu-ysocX4

[Primus]

^

Hmm...... if the native Americans did not have agriculture or wheat/rice how did they survive? By some estimates, the population of North America in the late 1400s was around the same as that of Europe or even higher. When the white man came, he did not find the local flora to be wild but orderly, 'like a well tended garden'. There was no wheat or rice and yet there were massive cities and infrastructure in Meso America because there were other crops. While the North American natives may not have had huge farms of today, they had the means to support a large enough population.

To argue that the absence of 'agriculture' means the absence of large population centers is ridiculous.

[RoyG]

First you make the claim that we don't know what the authors intended. Then you make the claim that there is "religious make-believe". Well which is it? Despite your attempt to universalize Semitic anthropology and see our own traditions through that lens, you should ponder on this: Two of our acharyas worked backwards and used the Puranas to interpret the Upanishads and left detailed notes of how they did it. It makes more sense that the Puranas which came after the Upanishads would carry the same meanings within the text and make it accessible to the masses.

It's very easy to see this - Take for example the iconic image of the chariot being steered by Krishna and with Arjuna being the passenger on the Kurukshetra battlefield. Krishna (Buddhi) holds the reins (Manas) over the 5 horses (senses) with Arjun playing the role of Atman (emergent property).

The Ramayan is also really the story of Sita. Without her playing the role of Buddhi/Chitta the story can never progress to the end. She makes all the critical decisions and is pitted between Rama (Moksha/Atman) and Ravarana (Ahamkara).

I think it is both, which is usually the case with a subject ( Puranas) that span history, geography, fables, medicine, etc.

How am i 'universalizing Semetic anthropology' and what does that even mean ?!

A jesuit from the 16th century enters a time machine, warps to the 21st century, and walks into a comic-on convention.

He sees religion (semitic anthropology) and is disgusted by the worship of many grotesque looking gods.

He meets a Bongo there and tells him you worship a false god with big tits and horns (Myth).

Bongo says, "No no this is a comic you see! I know its not real but its fun and exciting and turns me on!"

Now you see this Bongo has a problem and I'm not talking about his severe case of premature ejaculation...

It's a different problem - A problem of anthropology!

Now you see - When you claim to not know, but accept that the text contains 'religion' which is how Europe for a very long time and even till now makes sense of Indian traditions and other social phenomena, you actually do claim to know.

[RoyG]

Now you see - When you claim to not know, but accept that the text contains 'religion' which is how Europe for a very long time and even till now makes sense of Indian traditions and other social phenomena, you actually do claim to know.

that our religions are different in nature than Abrahamic faiths don't mean it is not religion or we don't have religious texts. I use religion in the broadest of terms : unsubstantiated speculations about origin of existence involving divine being(s). Depending on template, means of perpetuation (growth rate of native population/conversion),etc. it varies in rigidity and appeal.
Our Puranas contain a lot of topics, including religion.For e.g., about 'Atman' , a religious concept

PS: could you please rephrase the rest of your post ? I still don't know what you mean by univesalising semetic anthropology.

Okay didn't think you were this...

Alright no problem. Lets take one step back. Simple question: How do you tell the difference between a comic and a religious story?

[chanakyaa]

^^
Having most arable land doesnt mean you automatically have most variety of edible plants and animals. Edible plants are a small fraction of all plants. As you said, USA + Canada is comparable to Indian subcontinent in arable land. Yet, they did not have rice, wheat, barley, etc. before white people came, because these are Eurasian crops. Similarly, India did not have corn, potato, tomato because they are new world foods.
In the same way, India is not where wheat,rice, barley, sorghum originate.
...

Not to be nit picky with words, but the poster to which you responded made no reference to the availability of food/vegetation being automatic. Which modern day countries are you referring to in "Eurasian"? And, where did rice originate? What is Edible and what is not, is relative when the time period in consideration is several thousands of years, no? Out of curiosity, what % of plants are "Edible"? On a little lighter note, Broccoli is not "Edible"...TO ME.

...
Consider this fact: we find animal and some plant matter (seeds) from ice age caves dating 20-30,000 years ago.

Out of curiosity. Where is this magical ice age cave located? What kind of seed was that?

[UlanBatori]

Whatever else, I commend SriJoyji for raising Mullah Shivullah's radiation temperature to levels not seen since the heyday of the 4-Step Paki Detection Algorithm.

[shiv]

Does any evidence exist that Aryans brought a precursor of Sanskrit to India?

Ok, thank you. And answer to your question is obvious- how can someone think Aryans brought anything to India, when that someone says they do not think Aryans came from outside India ?!

I am deeply obliged that you deigned to answer a question that I thought you were afraid of committing yourself. But that is an evasive half answer

You speak of "someone" who says that "they do not think Aryans came from outside India"

You have left out the people who know that "Aryans" did not exist any more than "Dravidians". Arya were simply people wjho followed dharma. I would be happy for you to pick up any reference from all those heavy bookshelves of western literature and point me to one reference from outside of India that defines Arya (or even the fake term "Aryan" as people who follow dharma.

You English is excellent - a boast you have not yet made - but if two different words "Arya" and "Aryan" have two different meanings it should be obvious to a person as smart as yourself that they are not the same. Yet you appear to have this itch to conflate the two and claim that they are the same. And you have not managed to explain this fudging away convincingly, notwithstanding your massive competence in paper parsing and other skills.

[shiv]

Indians of education must consider the word "Aryan" the equivalent of the N word for African origin people!
If someone uses this word to denote people, then he or she is a RACIST!

Well said

Pulikeshi is a man who long ago proved that he really has all the qualities that Srijoy boasted about. And he never said it. he simply showed it.

[shiv]

PS: don't forget aryadesha. We also used that term liberally in 1st millennium AD.

Bluff

The dates are yours. This man is now resorting to tactics where he simply ascribes a date to something tries to pass it off as true.

We first got the Vedas in 500 BC from my Uncle Ghoda Ridonov"

Please provide evidence of the word and dates and don't tell me that I am alleging that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

Absence of evidence means you don't know for sure and that the statement is an opinion.

[shiv]

Explain to me why Aryan its racist but 'Angrez' is not.

That is called moving the goalpost. No matter whether angrez is racist or not Aryan is racist

why should we let the racists claim a word for their own which originates from our language in the first place ?!
they corrupted that word,just like they corrupted the swastika. We need to claim them back both.

You go ahead and do what you like dear. Aryan is as racist as it gets. You want support from others you have to earn it with convincing arguments - not rhetoric

[shiv]

Arya and Aryan is the same.

Please reassure me that you are not defining Arya as a race who migrated to India and defeated Dravidians.

Until you do that you will get nowhere in your urge to take two different words from different sources and claim that they are the same

[A_Gupta]

Most astronomical phenomena of the type in the MBh and Ramayana is recurrent. Now, had unique events like novae or supernovae been recorded, that would be a different matter.

So, as a first approximation, one obtains the LCM (least common multiple) of all the recurrence times as the estimate of how long ago all the observations coincided. That is a long time ago. The more observations one fits, the further in the past the date goes.

Anyway for innovation to occur, the spirit is supposed to be "yes, and also" and not "no, but". So may the research continue.

[chanakyaa]

...
Not all ice age era caves are equal in yielding samples. that said, we have ice age era caves from Europe, ME, India, etc. We have found plenty of animal remains such as bones but rarely any plant matter from the caves, indicating a much more meat heavy and foraging lifestyle back then. We do have seeds preserved from that era from soil samples and such, so its not like plant matter doesn't survive at all from >10,000 years ago.

Do you know the name of at least one site in India, Europe, and ME each, where seeds have survived for over 10K years in soil? Looks like there are plenty of samples. I'm excited to pick up the phone and make a calls to get more details. Seeds in my backyard don't survive a week. Frigging bunny keeps eating every time I throw a new batch.

[shiv]

erroneous post deleted

[RoyG]

Okay didn't think you were this...

Alright no problem. Lets take one step back. Simple question: How do you tell the difference between a comic and a religious story?

On how seriously people take it, if we don't know the intent of the author.

But people take comics seriously don't they? They have pictures hanging from walls, they reenact scenes while dressed up like their fav characters, etc. Point I'm trying to make is this - If you yourself don't know the intent of the Puranic literature why do you assume that it contains 'religion' within it?

[shiv]

I have clearly stated Aryans didnt come from outside. the implications are blatantly obvious . Especially so when the same person says Arya and Aryan is the same word.

What is blatantly obvious is your urge to get others to agree with the idea that Arya=Aryan in an academic environment where Aryans are widely thought of and quoted in academic papers as a race (or people) who migrated from somewhere to India and brought language to India.

By conflating Aryan with Arya you are simply keeping the door open to claiming that the alleged race of migrants with language have an original reference in the Vedas. This type of bluff must not be allowed to persist

Aryan is a western academic concoction denoting a non existent race of people. Arya is a word in the Vedas meaning people who abide by dharma

[shiv]

That is called moving the goalpost. No matter whether angrez is racist or not Aryan is racist

An analogy is not moving the goalpost. Just as English becomes Angrez in Hindi, Arya has become Aryan in English. the universal usage of the word Aryan and never the word Arya, confirms this.

Analogies are always rhetorical constructs to distract from the topic being discussed . Angrez has nothing to do with the fact that Arya is a word derived from the Vedas and Aryan is a concoction of an imaginary race of people created by racist Europeans to try and insinuate that the Vedas came to India from elsewhere

[shiv]

Its not blatantly obvious- because as i said, even the ones who do not consider Aryans to be a race arriving in India- such as Parpola or Kazanas also use the same word.

They are wrong and their mistakes need to be corrected

Your opinion. As i said, i have never found a single reference in English for Arya referring to people. Its always been Aryan. that it was used for racist theories, is irrelevant to the origination of the word.

That is because of the very ignorance and lack of precision that I have been trying to point out. European Indologists who saw the word Arya and failed to understand its meaning added a suffix to denote a race of people who brought Indo European languages to India and changed the meaning of the original word. You now insist that an original error must be legitimized.

I disagree with your opinions both about the word and what is relevant and irrelevant.

[shiv]

Angrez has everything to do with the fact that in different languages, the foreign word isn't conserved perfectly. Just as how English became Angrez in Hindi, Arya became Aryan in English and that is why its usage (Aryan) in English is universal to the topic.

You are making excuses for a racist word. You may not be racist yourself, but you are certainly wrong

the fact that you are under wrong impression, is confirmed by the fact that indegenist (Indian origin) theoreticists like Kazanas, Parpola, etc also use the word Aryan. So doe BB Lal. Something you have also dilligently avoided to address. You have no leg to stand on, except personal opinion.

"Indegenist theorecists" are wrong here. I am sure they can learn. they need to be taught. Even academicians grow up learning crap and find out the truth later in life. the best one change. Humbly.

[shiv]

Given that Buddhists, Jains, Vedics all followed 'dharma', Arya is effectively speaking of majority population of Indian subcontinent in timeframe in question (pre-Islamic).

No. In fact that is not what Arya means. Even among people who live under regimes that promote dharma there are some people who are guilty of adharma while others follow dharma assiduously. The latter are Arya. Not everyone in a society that promotes dharma can be called Arya

[shiv]

They are wrong and their mistakes need to be corrected

Disagree. You have presented no reasoning behind Aryan being a completely separate term from Arya, given that Arya is never used in English in the first place. Between choosing pro-Indian origin scholars and a random internet hobbyist, i think the choice is obvious. they aren't wrong. you are.

Of course you must choose pro Indian origin scholars over an argumentative random internet hobbyist such as myself. That is obvious. It is fascinating that you spend much time and effort refuting every reply by random jerks. It seems to me that you are not confident of what has been passed off as "knowledge" by all those scholars whose words you like to support. If you must wrestle with pigs, you are welcome. You are in the right place.


Arya is not an English word. Borrowing it and b@stard!zing it and changing its meaning does not make the new concoction the same as the old one

false. there were Euro scholars who thought everything originated in India before AMT took a hold. And they too used the word Aryan. So do people who hold OOI perspective. the comprehensive usage of the word Aryan shows its an English appelation of the word Arya, demonstrated by the English to Angrez analogy.

The people who continue to use the racist term Aryan are wrong and they need to re-educated themselves. Even random internet ranters seem to know stuff that they don't - which is a shame

[shiv]

Unless you think that our ancestors were mostly criminals and only a minority were law abiding (which is directly contradicted by I-tsing's testimony), majority population = living dharmically = Aryan, given Aryan means 'living in Dharma' by Indic sources. I think everyone in society who promotes dharma are Arya. Your opinion on the matter is inconsequential, since you are not the judge of what is dharmic or a-dharmic for Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and others

Not everyone in a society are able to stick to every law, including dharma. Only those that do were called "Arya" Not Aryan

I did not boast that my opinions or my paper parsing skills were superlative or even consequential. You chose to engage with me. I will engage you as long as you choose to engage with people whose words are inconsequential. The choice is your and reflects your proclivities.

[shiv]

You are doing the same you are accusing me of, hence obfuscation.

It is your choice to engage with random internet jerk with inconsequential opinions

Or maybe when there is unanimous consensus amongst pro and anti-India scholars for usage of the word and objections are coming from internet trolls, its the trolls that are wrong. I marvel at your ego .

One way to arrive at consensus is to keep repeating something till everyone accepts it. That is what academics did with the fake word "Aryans"

Thank you for recognizing me as a troll. That is perfectly correct. Your choice to engage trolls. I am at your service. Free service, with compliments

[shiv]

Sure. But engaging does not imply agreeing or conceding either. I can choose to engage as many random internet jerks as i want. And if their nonsensical ideas have zero backing from a single scholar both pro or anti-Indian, i can continue to think they are wrong.

This is obvious. Are you stating the obvious as a way to reassure yourself?

clearly your favourite way, since that is all you are doing. too bad its a tempest in a teacup and utterly inconsequential.

Yes. You have told me this before. I have no disagreement with you on this account, but your need to tell me the lack of consequence of my views repeatedly enthuses me greatly. There is something about my views that makes you want to reply to me and that makes me feel important

The other thing that made me smile was your regret that my words are a storm in a teacup

too bad its a tempest in a teacup

I wonder why you regret what I don't regret.

[shiv]

This is obvious. Are you stating the obvious as a way to reassure yourself?

For your benefit, since you have a penchant about asking obvious questions, obfuscating under the guise of 'asking for clarification'.

Thanks for analyzing me and telling me so much about me. I am sure these acts are of utmost importance to you.

[RoyG]

No different process than b@stardizing English into Angrez and then coming up with attributes (steriotypes) that aren't true. Original language does not control appelation change in other language.

Wow that's rich considering we didn't actually colonize them. Angrez isn't a symbol of oppression. Aryan and n*gger are.

[shiv]

. Since dharma guided our laws and i don't believe the majority of our ancestors were criminals and breaking the law

This is a misinformed viewpoint

Adharma is not necessarily criminal. It could be immoral or undesirable from the viewpoint of society, given that sanatan dharma is itself "that which binds society".

[RoyG]

But people take comics seriously don't they? They have pictures hanging from walls, they reenact scenes while dressed up like their fav characters, etc. Point I'm trying to make is this - If you yourself don't know the intent of the Puranic literature why do you assume that it contains 'religion' within it?

Because i see no reason to think the authors of the Purans consider unsubstantiated religious ideas such as Atman or Brahma, etc. as a joke or parody. I am simply pointing out that puranic literature is not all ancient pseudo-science. It has some early attempts at science, some history, philosophy, mythology (unproven/unsubstantiated claims) in it. Puranic literature is a vast and varied topic.

Joke or parody?

Do you posses an "I"?

If the body in all its complexity could yield such an emergent property, they simply inferred the universe as an aggregate could as well.

How is that a leap of faith? It's simply an inference based on observation.

[shiv]

Because i see no reason to think the authors of the Purans consider unsubstantiated religious ideas such as Atman or Brahma, etc. as a joke or parody. I am simply pointing out that puranic literature is not all ancient pseudo-science. It has some early attempts at science, some history, philosophy, mythology (unproven/unsubstantiated claims) in it. Puranic literature is a vast and varied topic.

Roy I think you missed this -you may enjoy it. It appears that the Puranas have suddenly become "vast and varied"

A few days ago the entire body of Sanskrit works according to our favourite paper-parser were a "few scattered epics"

Enjoy:
viewtopic.php?p=2177575#p2177575

What i meant by few scattered epics, is that the entire compendium of vedic sanskrit literature can fit on one shelf of a standard bookshelf. i.e., paucity of body of work. Which gives us a small sample space to work with.

[shiv]

Hence i consider most followers of Dharmic faiths to be an Aryan.

Of course if you actually did pick up any books from that bookshelf and read the scattered epics you would know that some of them were "Arya", not Aryan. But you choose only racist scholars and their modern day bhakts, - so it is your choice to hold on to a racist term and conflate it with a beautiful Sanskrit word.

[shiv]

neither you nor I are a judge on 'Dharmic-ness' of our ancestors to conclude what level of dharmic compliance leads one to be an Aryan.

Do you have any views on people who think they are Dravidians but follow dharma? Are they "Aryan"?

[shiv]

Arya in Sanskrit. Aryan in English.

Different languages. Different words. Different meaning.

[shiv]

Yep. If someone considers themselves dharmic, they are dharmic in my book unless it can be proven they are not dharmic. Its called respect of the person.

So you believe that Dravidians exist as a race? They become "Aryan" by following dharma.

[shiv]

Different languages. Different words. Different meaning.

Aryan has been also used by scholars before aryan invasion/aryan superiority was used.

Those "scholars" were wrong. Old mistakes need to be corrected

[shiv]

So you believe that Dravidians exist as a race?

Nope. You said 'people who think they are dravidian'.

So people who think they are Dravidian become "Aryan" by following dharma. Those who do not follow dharma are not Aryan. For example people who call themselves Dravidian but are Christians. They are not Aryan?

[shiv]

Yep. If someone considers themselves dharmic, they are dharmic in my book unless it can be proven they are not dharmic. Its called respect of the person. For that matter, anyone who considers themselves dharmic, are Aryan. Doesn't matter from where they are.

Origin of a person is not the issue.

Dharma is a self description in your book and a person who thinks he is Dravidian and who does not accept that he follows dharma is not an Aryan.

What you are helping to propagate here (along with all the scholars you quote) is that there are Aryans and non Aryans, some of whom may call themselves Dravidian. Aryans and Dravidians were names of "races" which did not exist before racists conjured them up. Originally it was only people who were not Arya and those who were Arya. There were no Dravidians. Now a person can be "non Aryan" by your book and "Dravidian" by some racists' books

Of course your views are only a small part of the greater political problem that created a group identities "Aryan" and "Dravidian" where that group identity did not exist before racist scholars conjured it up to suit their views of history. It is unfortunate that non racist scholars stick to this old racist terminology. This must change.The semantic arguments of language differences hide a greater political issues relevant to India

The term Aryan needs to be discarded and recognized as racist like "c-h!nk" and nigger

[shiv]

As i said, every single scholar, including the ones who came BEFORE Aryan superiority theory used Aryan, proving it isn't a racial term to begin with, but got racialized, just like Swastika got corrupted.

These was no problem in describing someone as queer or gay, once upon a time. Once those words became associated with sexual preference those words came to mean something specific and are used with the newer specific meaning, not the old one. There is no going back.

Aryan may not have been racist to begin with but it was already wrong because it referred to a group of language speakers and not to dharma where the origin of "Arya" lies. That error was compounded by racists. Now the word "Aryan" means white man who came to India with language. There is no going back on that.

The scholars who use that term and to the extent that it matters, you, are all worng

[Rudradev]

The notion that Arya/Aryan is equivalent to English/Angrez is daft.

The latter is a straightforward mispronounciation of a foreign word in a language with different articulatory phonetic features.

The former is a motivated mistranslation that changes the entire sense of the word, its specific meaning, its contextual implications, even the level of abstraction it brings as a qualifier to the subject of its application. It distorts a term of universal applicability (anyone can follow dharma) to one that defines a specific identity (to wit, a racial identity, very much what can be expected given the racist obsessions of White Europeans).

Only a habitual apologist for White racism and western universalism would turn himself blue in the face repeating the vapid assertion that it is a simple mispronounciation like English/Angrez.