Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[KLP Dubey]

Here is response from Shri. Talageri, I am reproducing it without claiming comprehension or subtlities and nuances.. finer points of articulation....

Thanks. My reply below.

I do not know who it is who finds it "odd" that the composers of hymns should be "human"! The phrase "blissfully unaware" as well as the criticism of the anukramanis seem to be inspired by Witzel, although the implication that the hymns are of divine rather than "human" origin is clearly not.

Talageri's response was only to be expected. He is already convinced that he is correct, and moreoever he is under some delusion that my criticism is somehow "inspired by Witzel".

Also, he seems to have a mistaken impression that I am claiming the Rks to be of "divine" origin (I wonder if Nilesh Oak told him that). I am not saying any such thing.

The point is very clear: the names mentioned in the Anukramani are not composers: these people, if their names are even real, are simply maintaining what is already known to them. The "remote" figures like Vasishtha, Vishvamitra etc who are supposed to the the First Poets/First Singers etc of the Rks are found NOT to be human figures at all, as is quite obvious from their depiction in the RV itself.

The anukramanis, whether the names are accented or not, tell us the names of the composers of the hymns. This has ALWAYS been accepted, even by people who have NEVER argued for a word being of Vedic origin if not accented. Witzel also accepts (except when arguing against my evidence) that the names of the composer, deity and metre were recited before every hymn from the earliest Vedic days, and his disciple Thedore Proferes has devoted an entire thesis to pointing out the general validity of the composer names in the anukramanis.

Unfortunately, they do not tell us names of any composers. I am not really interested in finding out whether Witzel also accepted Talageri's claims. As far as I am concerned, they are both mistaken. I also have no idea how Talageri claims that the names were "ALWAYS" recited from "the earliest Vedic days" (it is not even clear what he means by that). All that people have been trying to show is that the association of the name with the Rk is somehow "authentic". It does NOT allow them to show that the person actually composed it.

Furthermore, it would be JUST AMAZING that the accents on the "composer names" were not properly preserved from Vedic times, if they were really affixed to the Suktas and recited "from the earliest Vedic days". Again, these people (Talageri, Witzel, etc) are asking us to basically "suspend our disbelief" and believe whatever conjured-up bull$hit they come up with.

Here is a very detailed, and FAR more credible analysis, of the names of rishis in the Anukramanis, as well as their connection to the gotra and pravara systems:

http://www.ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/anukramani.pdf

Although it is cast in the mold of AIT/AMT type arguments, the technical quality of the work itself is excellent. What is found by the author is entirely consistent with what I have already stated. Indeed the Anukramani list shows a close correspondence with the origins of the gotra and pravara systems, and it is shown how these systems arose at some point driven by the urge to compile/systematize the Vedic corpus.

The author wisely recognizes that THIS IS ALL that can be reliably obtained from the Anukramanis. Before the anukramanis, the Rks were maintained by various "independent" families under the labels of remote "First Singers" like the Saptarshis etc. These persons, as it turns out, CANNOT be described as human figures by any measure of evidence known to us.

You are welcome to read the whole work, but I paste the abstract here:

Abstract:

The concordance between the i index of the Vedic Anukrama system and the Pravara index of the Gotra affiliations will be our primary data. I will be arguing that the i index provides the earliest picture we can form of the Vedic oral agency, made up now of a large number of poet-families and their collections, of different sizes, each archived in the name of a notional First Singer. The collection of the gveda as the ten-maala sahit brings together these 50-odd disparate collections into a samna or an ecumenical body, including their erstwhile different oral agencies.

Manuscripts of the different collections did not come together, in this period before writing, to form the ten-maala corpus; the different oral agencies did, becoming through the process a pan-Vedic agency to sing a pan-Vedic corpus. The 50-odd pre-collection First Singer labels, each an autonomous oral agency erstwhile in charge of a collection of ks and their praxis, do not die out, although they are now redundant and superseded by the pan-Vedic collection and praxis. Rather, they become the irreducible elements, the backbone, of a pan-Vedic oral agency, each equal to the next, becoming bound into a biological body through the endogamy-exogamy regulations of the Gotra institution: marriages must occur across the fifty-odd Gotra groups, but not within one, welding thus an e pluribus Unum and creating the “caste” of the Brahmans.

I wish people would read the evidence carefully before raising childish objections.

I wish people like Talageri would use a little common sense and read the contents of the RV instead of playing silly games with recent/late lists of names to figure out Vedic chronology. The whole idea is quite simply a joke. It is totally fine to use these lists to study the evolution of the Vedic corpus and its keepers AFTER the event of the last compilation/re-arrangement. But there is absolutely NOTHING in these lists that identifies any sort of "original composer" who created the words. What we see, no matter how further back we can go, is essentially the same thing: oral maintenance of an existing tradition whose origins CANNOT be traced with the available data.

The "ancestors" of the families/lineages described in the Anukramanis are not human figures, as seen from the RV contents, so it is simply quite impossible that they had actual descendents. All these names are created/taken from the RV text itself. This whole issue of a "magical" connection between figures like Kashyapa and Vashishtha and later names using their patronymics, is well known.

In summary, what we can reliably say based on the data (not speculations):

- The RV Rks have never been associated with a composer. All evidence shows that all person who are possibly identified as human "singers" of the RV are only "maintainers". The "original First Singers" whom these folks claim to be connected to (we do not know when the connection was made) are NOT human figures.

- The collection of this vast corpus into a single coherent entity necessitated the assignment of name lists to the Suktas (to honor those who had been maintaining these Suktas and "brought them to the table"), together with the creation of a gotra-pravara system targeted at maintaining this "club" of people as a close-knit entity.

KL

[KLP Dubey]

Here is more nonsense on the matter from Elst:

http://koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... -book.html

To sum up, the Rigveda is not a God-given text exclusively dealing with cosmic stuff, where all names and data are merely symbolic pointers to some Great Beyond. No, they refer to real people and historical events, and nothing human is alien to this ancientmost collection of hymns. But this only increases the merits of the Rishis, the composers who praised the gods in their hymns. Obviously, without their testimony, Talageri’s reconstruction of early Indian and IE history would have been impossible. We might never have been able to locate the IE homeland. All the Orientalists, including Michael Witzel and the present writer, owe a debt of gratitude to Angiras, Vishvamitra, Vasistha and the other Vedic seers, and to their contemporary scion, Shrikant Talageri.

Essentially, what these people are trying to do is fundamentally nothing different from what the AIT proponents wanted to do. That is, reduce the Veda to basically a Purana filled with accounts of mundane events which nobody in this day and age really has any strong reason to care about.

I don't think some of the other posters realize the gravity of the situation and that they are being taken for a ride by a bunch of quacks. Destroying things of real value in the name of some stupid dispute about the origin of various tribals of ancient India.

Think about it and act accordingly. Once again: the real meaning of the Veda is in its sounds, not in fake deductions of historical events.

KL

[KLP Dubey]

If one says that the Veda has only been preserved in India, then the question of interest is a) since when has this "preservation" in India been going on, and b) who were the ones in India who first took up this arduous responsibility. Since the Anukramanis are not to be considered as legitimate, then obviously the burden of proof is on those who question their legitimacy, to show alternative "receivers" of the Veda, or for that matter alternative "preservation initiators" of the Veda. The option that speculation and research into this question cannot be undertaken, would simply not be acceptable to many as the mystery actually becomes a challenge to the intellect.

RajeshA,

A frustrating aspect of this discussion is that I find myself repeating the same things already said before.

First of all, "legitimacy" of the Anukramanis needs to be defined. I have said clearly that most of the names associated with the Anukramanis are "legitimate" in the sense that they were accepted by all the different Vedic schools and shakhas during the final compilation of the RV. What is NOT legitimate is the claim that the rishis are composers/authors.

In fact, the status quo position in Indian thought has ALWAYS been that the rishis are NOT the composers (I am repeating myself), but rather were simply passing along what was already known. As is very well known historically, there have been disputants to this position and the burden of proof has been on *them*. These disputants included Nyaya-Vaisheshikas, Sankhyas, Bauddhas, Charvakas etc. All of their "proofs" were shown to be without merit. This has been played out over 3000 years at least.

The AITers (starting from 150 years ago) and OITers (more recently) are simply the latest disputants. By mistakenly assigning to these people the status quo privilege, and assuming that we need to satisfy their requirements, you are already doing a great disservice to the Indian civilization.

Instead we should be asking: Who are these fellows and where have they come from ? What are they talking about ? And how do their claims hold up to examination in light of the status quo position ? Answer is that all their claims are totally absurd and in fact just a rehash of previously discredited claims with a veneer of methodological complexity that characterizes modern disputants. A great deal of wasted labor goes into these efforts but they fail higher-level tests in the first place. Just because a lot of "busy-work" has gone into these claims does not mean that it should be accepted. This reminds me of certain students in school/college who try to get some points on exam questions by filling up the pages with long answers even if they are totally incorrect.

Challenges to the intellect should be better found in areas that look forward in time than backwards, and discovering things that we don't know at the moment. Somebody needs to tell these people that torturing the same old and fragmentary data with greater intensity will not give any better results and is a waste of time. The RV simply does not allow the deduction of history.

KL

[Nilesh Oak]

A frustrating aspect of this discussion is that I find myself repeating the same things already said before.

Dubey Ji. I agree. And to an extent the feeling is mutual. On the other hand, I am definitely learning a lot.

What is NOT legitimate is the claim that the rishis are composers/authors.

This is where I struggle. I do understand your position/explanation. So no need to repeat.

In fact, the status quo position in Indian thought has ALWAYS been that the rishis are NOT the composers (I am repeating myself), but rather were simply passing along what was already known.

I may agree with this position (which I do) and still reach different conclusion than yours. Difference is in interpretation.

For example, one can legitimately say that what I discovered in my research of astronomy observations of MBH, were certainly known to the author of MBH, and all I was doing was deciphering the knowledge that remained hidden/lost/unintelligible to modern masses.

As is very well known historically, there have been disputants to this position and the burden of proof has been on *them*. These disputants included Nyaya-Vaisheshikas, Sankhyas, Bauddhas, Charvakas etc. All of their "proofs" were shown to be without merit.

Shown (that their proofs were shown to be without merit) by whom?

The AITers (starting from 150 years ago) and OITers (more recently) are simply the latest disputants. By mistakenly assigning to these people the status quo privilege, and assuming that we need to satisfy their requirements, you are already doing a great disservice to the Indian civilization.

I am never for playing exclusively on the turn of opposition. Having said that, I also see the value of showing that we can win on their turf and also on homeground.

Instead we should be asking: Who are these fellows and where have they come from ? What are they talking about ? And how do their claims hold up to examination in light of the status quo position ?

IMHO, likes of Talageri are showing AIT crowd that even while playing by their own rules, they can be shown to be wrong/losers/ridiculous. Isn't what Talageri has done is to essentially show that forget AIT, but if AIT crowd insist, there is case for OIT, based on their own rules/jargon.

Answer is that all their claims are totally absurd and in fact just a rehash of previously discredited claims with a veneer of methodological complexity that characterizes modern disputants. A great deal of wasted labor goes into these efforts but they fail higher-level tests in the first place.

Agree 100%. Fine. But this is the game that is being played in global village. And we can not simply refuse to play and claim that we are winners anyways and where is the need prove it.

Just because a lot of "busy-work" has gone into these claims does not mean that it should be accepted

Agree 100%. This is where 'strategic aspect' comes in picture. As Nietzsche said, "People will believe in truth of anything as long as they feel that majority of people also believe in it". For this very reason, work of Talageri, B B Lal, Kazanas and upcoming breed of writers (Shiv ji, A Gupta ji, Prem Kumar ji, etc. ) is critical.

This reminds me of certain students in school/college who try to get some points on exam questions by filling up the pages with long answers even if they are totally incorrect.

That's me. It worked fine in the system of education I went through. I also realized that this has no place in search of truth. You are right, that is how pir reviewed articles are cranked up and conference proceedings are full of 'Charvita charvanam".
Read Witzel, Thapar, Sharma et al.. same stufff. I admire their tanacity.

Challenges to the intellect should be better found in areas that look forward in time than backwards, and discovering things that we don't know at the moment. Somebody needs to tell these people that torturing the same old and fragmentary data with greater intensity will not give any better results and is a waste of time. The RV simply does not allow the deduction of history.

There is much truth in what you are saying here. The humorous part is ...... AITers also tell us that they have figured out the past and no point wasting time! Romila Thapar says that since data in MBH or Ramayana is fragmentary, there is no point trying to figure out when it would have occured (and that we should humbly and politely follow the views of Astrophysicist -Dr. Rajesh Kochhar) They take their blabber as revealed truth and something that should not be questioned, since it is a revealed truth.. to them, anyway.

[shiv]

Here is a very detailed, and FAR more credible analysis, of the names of rishis in the Anukramanis, as well as their connection to the gotra and pravara systems:

http://www.ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/anukramani.pdf

Although it is cast in the mold of AIT/AMT type arguments, the technical quality of the work itself is excellent.
KL

Indeed - it starts off by accepting AIT dates, completing the AIT circle. The AIT dates are fixed using the Rig Veda. The author of this article uses those dates and accepts them, and his argument is not about dating at all as far as I can tell, so he does not even address the fact that the very theory he quotes is based on dating of the Rig Veda by the horse and wheel arguments based on passages lifted from the RiG veda. He is not concerned about the dating - it is peripheral to his work apart from the fact that he needs that dating to give some order to his theory

The Rṣi index of the Vedic Anukramaṇī system and the Pravara lists: Toward a Prehistory
of the Brahmans:

Sometime now and earlier (ca. 1000 BCE), these different poetic agencies and
their praxises were still neutral and open to the non-Vedic indigenous peoples of South
Asia, an aspect of Vedic history that has not been fully engaged or considered. The
Vedic people did not arrive at an empty space: a wealth of evidence, collectively
designated today as “linguistic area,” tells us that the region, from northern
Afghanistan to the Panjab plains of the Indus river, was inhabited by many non-Vedic
and non-Aryan populations, when the Vedic speaking people begin to arrive in the
Panjab. I will argue that we can postulate that a pan-Vedic oral agency is thus forged
from composite and diverse human groupings, the nucleus of the later social group of
Brahmans.

Of central importance to my argument is that it becomes closed at this point,
certainly with the Pravara list, ca. 900-800 BCE, the near-end of our two lists. The
Pravara lists rise in effect to meet this contingency: it sets out who may marry whom,
and who may not whom.

This article neither proves nor disproves AIT. It only supports AIT dates and is unconcerned about them. Unfortunately it is like saying I don't support or oppose Aurangzeb's actions, I am happy to accept anything that others accept

No matter how accurate and scholarly this man might be his dates are open to question and I will proceed to list my objections to them. The argument here is not about the Rig veda. Itis about how the rig Veda is used by various groups as a dating tool. Accepting those dates implies a de facto acceptance that the Rig Veda can be used as a dating tool.

[shiv]

The author of the pdf linked by Dubeyji is not above gleaning the meanings that he requires from the Rig Veda. He hypothesizes that the transmission of the Vedas became familial after some time (1000 BC) by the creation of a biological agency - the gotras tasked with accurate oral transmission. The author seems to make the following conclusions in the passage quoted below

1. That he 10th mandala is a later development that came after this gotra agency was created
2. That the Rig Veda "is conscious" that this agency has been created for that purpose
3. That the author believes that this "consciousness" was well placed as it turned out because the system did its job extremely well as the subsequent millennia have proven
From page 7

Further, the RV is fully conscious of this accomplishment. It proclaims and
forecasts this body as a samana (Macdonald 1929: 337; s.v. samana “same, combined,
homogenous”) entity in the last hymn of the ten manaala RV (10.191), clearly by design
a hymn of benediction and equally clearly, a hymn added later to mark the benediction:
“samana” appears eight times in the last two verses of the hymn, one in Trituubh (TR)4
and the other in AN, each samana added to signify, equally, the ten madaala corpus and
its oral agency. Well-omened, we should add, in light of its great success as a historical
body..

Clearly the author of this article does not subscribe to the idea that the Rig Veda is all about eternal cosmic sounds. There are parts which he says can be ascribed some historical meaning and context. But for that meaning the author blindly accepts and applies AIT dates. That is my objection to his theory. How does the author decide that this passage in the 10th mandala was written after 1000 BC? What was the dating method used?

The fundamental fact is that the dating of the Rig Veda to around 1000 BC is inextricably tied to the idea that the language itself arrived in Punjab around 1200-1000 BC, and the proof offered for that is lifted straight from the Rig Veda itsellf - the argument being that horses and chariots mentioned in the Rig Veda were unknown in India until they came to India along with the language. That part is accepted in toto by the author of the article Shri TP Mahadevan.

[shiv]

From page 9 of the pdf linked above.

The terminus a qua of our inquiry is the very start of the Vedic age, 1500 BCE,
with the arrival of the Vedic-speaking tribes in the Panjab plains; our ad quem is the
Brahmana-Sutra period, ca. 800 BCE, a time period divided by Michael Witzel (1999: 57-
59), broadly into five levels, from the philological features of the “Vedic” language, as
evidenced in the texts of the period. The corresponding geographical area will cover
the region all the way from eastern Afghanistan to the Kosala region, the Indus plains
in the west and the Ganga-Yamuna doab in the east—also schematized, by Witzel, into
four distinct areas (with considerable interfaces): West, Central, South and East.

As per Shri TP Mahadevan The Vedic period started in India in 1500 BC. This date has certain implications

1. Since the Mitanni texts also date from 1500 BC, Vedic knowledge was already present among the migrating Aryans by the time they reached the 'Panjab" . The compilation started in Panjab
2. The date for the late Vedic period is 800 BC
3. Since Panini was born around 600 BC and Panini knew of the Mahabharata, it means that the Mahabharata was composed between 800 BC and 600 BC.

Now check the implications of these dates along with a standard Wiki date list

• Rigveda, 1500 – 1100 BCE[1][2]
  Samaveda, 1500 - 500 BCE[2]
  Yajurveda, 1500 - 500 BCE[2]
  Atharvaveda, 1500 - 500 BCE[2]
  Upanishads, 1200 - 500 BCE[3]
  Bhagavad Gita, 500 BCE - 200 BCE[4][5]
  Ramayana, 400 BCE - 400 CE[6][7][8]
  Mahabharata, 400 BCE - 400 CE[6][9][10]
  Samkhya Sutra
  Mimamsa Sutra, 300-200 BCE[11]
  Arthashastra, 400 BCE - 200 CE[12]
  Nyaya Sutra, 2nd century BCE[13]
  Vaiseshika Sutra, 2nd century BCE[14]
  Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, 100 BCE - 500 CE[15]
  Brahma Sutra
  Puranas, 3rd - 16th century CE[citation needed]
  Shiva Sutras, 8th century CE[citation needed]
  Abhinavabharati, 950 - 1020 CE[citation needed]
  Yoga Vasistha, 10th - 14th century CE[16]

Wiki puts Mahabharata after Budhha and Panini. That is clearly bullshit. TP Mahadevan uses Witzel dates to put Mahabharata in 200 years between late Vedic and Panini



What the fuk is wrong with Indians?

[pentaiah]

Shiv ji this is last and final boarding call for you. you have been conspicuously absent in important threads and as such your out of India activities and proclivity will be reported to bradmins and if that does not deter you, we may have to use nuke option and report to SHQ with utmost prejudice.
This is not a threat but actionable item on the table be gently ( gentlemen like) fore warned.
See you soon in other threads.
TIA

[shiv]

Shiv ji this is last and final boarding call for you. you have been conspicuously absent in important threads and as such your out of India activities and proclivity will be reported to bradmins and if that does not deter you, we may have to use nuke option and report to SHQ with utmost prejudice.
This is not a threat but actionable item on the table be gently ( gentlemen like) fore warned.
See you soon in other threads.
TIA

I am (as you have observed ) obsessed here. Of course madmen will imagine that their obsession is most vital - so I do believe that this thread carries a significance in terms of attitudes and world view that has an impact on every other BRF thread. Anyhow - will try some deaddiction

[pentaiah]

Shiv ji
All I request is be equally mad at all of us, it shakes us up and we believe you.

By the way in a small way I have been addicted to this as well
Thinking while I was biking in the fall Sunday,
AIT &AIT like AT&T is getting bad reception and noise is exceeding than signal till I found in a eureka moment ( I almost fell off the bike in front of beat up Doge mini van, had it been a BMW many a attorney would have solicited my company)

Any the real meaning of AIT is Andhra Invasion theory or Andhra Immigration theory.
Not at all Aryan or anything related which is western conscipiray to take away T for telengana in the AIT.

I have some data points
Pentaiah
Ramaiah
Dasaiah
Hanumanthaiah
Rangaiah

Now look at the counter parts in western / Roaman version
Zachariah
Moraiah
Mariah (Carrie or some say cry)
Izaiah
Isaiah

So the Andhras never forgot to invade westerners and just like they did to Bangalore. In Memphis TN ( which has 4 lane road named after famous Andhra converted to riches) Mount Moraiah road

Mariah as you know can be easily seen as brown woman and with that high sruti aka pitch can not be but trained by some Carnatic outfit in chennai...
Of course this is at this time circumstantial evidence but surely is good topic Ramachandraiah ghua to be on fool bright scholarship to USA and prove that Andhras are original invader tribes and they never settled down except to fight amongst themselves notice the Inca and Andhra word inka

Also all Andra names have vowels ending
Surapneni
Tummula
Kakani
Raju
And notice Italian names
Sonia
Giovanni
Motwani
Mancini
Minnelli ( the Lisa of Caberet movie)
So the connections are wide enough for two three Ph Ds.

[ShauryaT]

Support for Dubey ji's status quo position by Sri Aurobindo.

VEDA, then, is the creation of an age anterior to our intellectual philosophies. In that original epoch thought proceeded by other methods than those of our logical reasoning and speech accepted modes of expression which in our modern habits would be inadmissible. The wisest then depended on inner experience and the suggestions of the intuitive mind for all knowledge that ranged beyond mankind’s ordinary perceptions and daily activities. Their aim was illumination, not logical conviction, their ideal the inspired seer, not the accurate reasoner. Indian tradition has faithfully preserved this account of the origin of the Vedas. The Rishi was not the individual composer of the hymn, but the seer (drasta ̄) of an eternal truth and an impersonal knowledge. The language of Veda itself is S ́ruti, a rhythm not composed by the intellect but heard, a divine Word that came vibrating out of the Infinite to the inner audience of the man who had previously made himself fit for the impersonal knowledge. The words themselves, drsti and s ́ruti, sight and hearing, are Vedic expressions; these and cognate words signify, in the esoteric terminology of the hymns, revelatory knowledge and the contents of inspiration.

[pentaiah]

So instead of tablets for Moses our folks relayed by folksy rhymes.

That is why in Bhagavad Gita also The Lord says
Shrunu ghuyam sanathanm
That is sacred verse worthy of listening and memorizing and I don't reveal this to all idiots on the streets only I deem worthy of.....to Arjuna

[shiv]

Support for Dubey ji's status quo position by Sri Aurobindo.

VEDA, then, is the creation of an age anterior to our intellectual philosophies. In that original epoch thought proceeded by other methods than those of our logical reasoning and speech accepted modes of expression which in our modern habits would be inadmissible. The wisest then depended on inner experience and the suggestions of the intuitive mind for all knowledge that ranged beyond mankind’s ordinary perceptions and daily activities. Their aim was illumination, not logical conviction, their ideal the inspired seer, not the accurate reasoner. Indian tradition has faithfully preserved this account of the origin of the Vedas. The Rishi was not the individual composer of the hymn, but the seer (drasta ̄) of an eternal truth and an impersonal knowledge. The language of Veda itself is S ́ruti, a rhythm not composed by the intellect but heard, a divine Word that came vibrating out of the Infinite to the inner audience of the man who had previously made himself fit for the impersonal knowledge. The words themselves, drsti and s ́ruti, sight and hearing, are Vedic expressions; these and cognate words signify, in the esoteric terminology of the hymns, revelatory knowledge and the contents of inspiration.

Shaurya I have no argument about this, but I would like to use an analogy. Sorry the analogy is horrifying but it is true and I was witness to it as I am witness to the AIT debate.

My neighbor had a prize cat and one day while I was standing outside my house I saw a stray dog dart into the neighbor's gate and dart out with the cat in his mouth and I heard a blood curdling wail. Moments later 4 or 5 other stray dogs sprinted up and ripped the cat to pieces taking a leg or some part of the entrails.

The status quo position on the Rig Veda is like the cat. It should not have been violated at all. But it has been violated and every dog who violates it uses a part of the Rig Veda to satisfy his needs. Like Shrodinger's cat, the position of the cat has been fixed by killing it.

The world is now firmly divided up into two types of people. One group (mostly Indians - in a minority) who see the RV as a whole and as a sacred inheritance.

The other group are those who are playing with the entrails of a ripped open Rig Veda via translations, texts and interpretations. This latter group holds all the AIT people and they will not be allowed to get away. They will be squashed and taught what is right using their methods and the very entrails of the Rig veda they have torn off for their own consumption.

[RajeshA]

If one says that the Veda has only been preserved in India, then the question of interest is a) since when has this "preservation" in India been going on, and b) who were the ones in India who first took up this arduous responsibility. Since the Anukramanis are not to be considered as legitimate, then obviously the burden of proof is on those who question their legitimacy, to show alternative "receivers" of the Veda, or for that matter alternative "preservation initiators" of the Veda. The option that speculation and research into this question cannot be undertaken, would simply not be acceptable to many as the mystery actually becomes a challenge to the intellect.

RajeshA,

A frustrating aspect of this discussion is that I find myself repeating the same things already said before.

I'll try to hypothesize the cause of this frustration through some analogies.

A) Let's say there is a elderly father with some grown up sons. He is convinced of his ideological position of Ahimsa. The sons respect and him usually defer the worldview and policies of the family to the elderly father. At some time, some savages come along, get into a fight with the brothers, and then one day declare an attack and begin coming at the family with all sorts of weapons. The elderly father says, "No, we will not use force"! The brothers want to follow the leadership of the elderly father, but they see the danger, and they start equipping themselves to put up defense. After all they have their own families and their parents to defend. At this point the elderly father can feel frustration, that his sons are not listening to him. He can keep on repeating himself hoarse, but the exigency of the situation overrides the ideological position of Ahimsa. The elderly father does not understand this.

B ) The issue is we are being asked to sign on to the dotted line, but there are many areas of the document which your position is unwilling to clarify. Now you are trying to make the case, that these areas need no clarification and we should simply sign on. We ourselves feel the moral need to sign on but the lack of clarification has basically tied our hands. All the urging will not help as long as the clarifications are not there. So yes, our unwillingness would cause frustration, but the lack of clarification can also cause frustration in us because it treats us as idiots, who do not deserve a clarification.

First of all, "legitimacy" of the Anukramanis needs to be defined. I have said clearly that most of the names associated with the Anukramanis are "legitimate" in the sense that they were accepted by all the different Vedic schools and shakhas during the final compilation of the RV. What is NOT legitimate is the claim that the rishis are composers/authors.

In fact, the status quo position in Indian thought has ALWAYS been that the rishis are NOT the composers (I am repeating myself), but rather were simply passing along what was already known.

Well too many "status quo" positions have really been swept away by new dominating positions. Till now it was also the "status quo" position that Sanskrit had its origins in India, and the whole Sanskrit-based and Sanskrit-derived civilization was native to the Indian Subcontinent, albeit had spread over a larger area. And despite this "status-quo", we still have AIT being taught in our schools and we are needing this thread to discuss this.

There are many people who would see the rishis as composers, because either they will see the Vedas of being of human agency, even a brilliant and insightful human agency, or they will be forced into that position, because of lack of clarifications coming forth from those pleading the position of "non-human" agency.

However as far as I am concerned, I am willing to formulate this differently. I don't wish to clamor for the position that the rishis be considered composers. It is true that Shri Shrikant Talageri does, but that position need not be mine.

However, I would like the role of these rishis to be then defined properly. This is what I mean by clarifications. Putting the issue in perspective:

Let's visualize the knowledge of Vedas among humans as the liquid in the bowl labeled with "human society". At some point this "liquid", the knowledge of the Vedas was filled into this bowl. The question is

a) Who was holding the bowl labeled "human society"?

Was it people inhabiting the Indian Subcontinent or were these some Central Asians? In other words, to whom was it revealed?

b) When was the "liquid", the knowledge of Veda, transferred into the bowl labeled "human society"?

In other words, when was it revealed? This is what you say is lost in time, not testified, and hence need not be speculated upon! For me this is acceptable, as long as somebody can define the lower limit. One need not necessarily determine the lower limit from the text/sounds of Rigveda. The lower limit can be determined otherwise.

c) From which other bowl, simply termed as "unknown" bowl, was the "liquid" transferred to the bowl labeled "human society"?

In other words how and from where was it revealed? I think you have premised that this "unknown" bowl is from a non-human agency. This "non-human agency" may in fact itself not be the originator of the knowledge/sounds of the Vedas, but may also simply be another transmission channel. I can live with this, though it throws up many more questions on "how".

Those who claim the Rigveda was composed are in fact simply saying that this "unknown" bowl was the nothingness, and from nothingness, the rishis composed the Rigveda using their intellect. There was no transmission.

Others would call this "unknown" bowl as divine inspiration, acting on the heightened consciousness level of the rishis, thus guiding the intellect to come up with the sounds of Rigveda, thus effecting a transmission.

.........

Now I see the question a) as the crucial question for me in this AIT/OIT tussle. That question a) is important because of the issue of Sanskrit.

There are those who say Sanskrit developed as a language and then Rigveda was composed in it. There are those like yourself who say, that Sanskrit was derived from the sounds of the Rigveda. I am willing to go with the latter position, if this position is willing to accept
1) that on earth for the first time, the proper nouns in the Rigveda, which today denote rivers, flora, fauna, personalities, places, etc. were assigned to such within the geography of India.

2) that the seers named in the Anukramanis are accepted as those who are considered as the ones personally holding the bowl labeled "human society". Or if they are not to be accepted, other names be proposed.

As is very well known historically, there have been disputants to this position and the burden of proof has been on *them*. These disputants included Nyaya-Vaisheshikas, Sankhyas, Bauddhas, Charvakas etc. All of their "proofs" were shown to be without merit. This has been played out over 3000 years at least.

The AITers (starting from 150 years ago) and OITers (more recently) are simply the latest disputants. By mistakenly assigning to these people the status quo privilege, and assuming that we need to satisfy their requirements, you are already doing a great disservice to the Indian civilization.

The "3000 years at least" part needs to be worked on as Buddha's date itself need to be revised to 1887-1807 BCE.

I have tried to explain that the two cannot really be compared as the structures of these disputations are different. I wrote:

However I think one needs to appreciate that the current AIT attack based on Rig Veda is not really about the Rig Veda, but about the Sanskrit, and the ownership of the deities. The AIT people will never really try to malign the Rig Vedic deities, though all the mythology that came later on concerning with Vishnu-Shiva-Brahma-Shakti, etc. all that is open for attack. The AIT-Nazis will not attack Rig-Vedic deities because they want to share ownership as Indo-Europeans, or rather to claim them for themselves. So the AIT-Nazi attack is not a typical religious attack which tries to malign the other's deities, philosophical positions, customs, etc. The AIT-Nazis don't want to prove that Rig Veda is inferior to their religion. They just want to say that it is in fact a memory of their culture written in a language derived from their language (PIE).

As such, the debates the Mimamsa school had with the Buddhism, Nyaya, Sankhya, etc. do not apply here as debating models against the AIT-Nazis.

The AIT-Nazis want to own the historicity narrative of the Rig Veda, Sanskrit and Rig Vedic deities.

By considering the earlier modes of disputation as the same as in AIT and even OIT, you are in fact making the wrong arguments for a different problem.

Instead we should be asking: Who are these fellows and where have they come from ? What are they talking about ? And how do their claims hold up to examination in light of the status quo position ? Answer is that all their claims are totally absurd and in fact just a rehash of previously discredited claims with a veneer of methodological complexity that characterizes modern disputants. A great deal of wasted labor goes into these efforts but they fail higher-level tests in the first place. Just because a lot of "busy-work" has gone into these claims does not mean that it should be accepted. This reminds me of certain students in school/college who try to get some points on exam questions by filling up the pages with long answers even if they are totally incorrect.

Challenges to the intellect should be better found in areas that look forward in time than backwards, and discovering things that we don't know at the moment. Somebody needs to tell these people that torturing the same old and fragmentary data with greater intensity will not give any better results and is a waste of time.

Perhaps from your PoV, they are a rehash of previously discredited claims, but as I see it, you fail to appreciate that it is a totally different ball game.

Speaking of school/college, the way I see it is when in an examination a kid tries to fit the English essay he learned by heart on "dog", to a different question in the exam paper, which is for an English essay on "father".

Also this urging to look forwards rather than backwards, is what I meant by treating others like idiots, whom one can convince by simply giving advice on right thinking and rhetoric rather than by providing the clarifications.

The RV simply does not allow the deduction of history.

I think even from your position, one can only say that the sounds of Rigveda do not allow any deduction of history (or geography) for they were not composed.

However one cannot claim that Rigveda is not part of the Indian history, and that includes when it entered "human society" and which human agents "received" it and preserved it.

Also one cannot claim that the proper nouns in the Rigveda which were used to denote certain rivers, fauna, flora, personalities, etc. do not establish a geography. Also the process of selecting, which proper Nouns should denote what in Sanskrit and which objects, was carefully considered such that these would align with the Sanskrit reading thus attained. For example, if the names of the rivers are to be found in Rigveda, than those sounds were associated with those rivers considering their east-west position and many other criteria in which those sounds again come up in the sounds-base of the Rigveda.

The considerations of the human agents in assigning the proper noun sounds to various objects in history and geography of India can however be gleaned from the Sanskritic reading of the Rigveda, and thus historical and geographical statements can be made based on Rigveda.

You have yourself claimed that sometimes meanings as interpreted from the Sanskrit reading of the Rigveda seem unclear and nonsense. This itself may be shows to be a consequence of the historical fitting of objects in the real world with the sounds of Rigveda not being perfect, but that too avers to the process of historical retrofitting objects to sounds, and thus history itself.

What is needed is a much more thorough explanation of the interface between Rigvedic sounds and the real human (Indian) society. This does not seem to be forthcoming.

Also you seem to be hung up on the notion that OIT proponents wish to call the rishis the composers of the Vedas, and the latter a composition undertaken in India. That is one view, but one can define the relationship of rishis to the Vedas as and anyway we want, as long as we can claim the rishis, whose tradition of preservation that is currently being kept alive, to be Indians, and the ones who developed Sanskrit from the sounds of Rigveda to also be Indians having done it in the Indian Subcontinent.

[ramana]

A frustrating aspect of this discussion is that I find myself repeating the same things already said before.

Think of yourself as being near the engine and the rest near the Guards cabin. And some are not even in the train station. So you need to have patience and make your points if you believe them.

[ShauryaT]

The world is now firmly divided up into two types of people. One group (mostly Indians - in a minority) who see the RV as a whole and as a sacred inheritance.

The other group are those who are playing with the entrails of a ripped open Rig Veda via translations, texts and interpretations. This latter group holds all the AIT people and they will not be allowed to get away. They will be squashed and taught what is right using their methods and the very entrails of the Rig veda they have torn off for their own consumption.

Sri Aurobindo too opines in a similar manner in less graphic tone though

He was of the view that one is the traditional view as interpreted by the Indian scholar Sayana, of who he was somewhat critical for not being able to keep coherency and adequate sense. The second is the European view represented in the AIT, which he quickly rejected. He proceeded to give his own hypothesis to the words of the Veda. It is these inspired interpretations using rational and dialectic tools for expositions of the vedas, done by Dharmics that will find acceptance, but rooted in the processes of self-knowledge and we are better off not playing into the games of the west.

The cat has to to grow new and bigger claws. JMT.

[Arjun]

I don't think some of the other posters realize the gravity of the situation and that they are being taken for a ride by a bunch of quacks. Destroying things of real value in the name of some stupid dispute about the origin of various tribals of ancient India.

The above passage provides an insight into the source of angst for these folks driven by the 'ahistorical Veda' argument.

For these folks, the AIT/ non-AIT dispute is secondary and ultimately of not much consequence. What is far more important to them is that the real source of value (the Vedas) not be tampered with. And most of their anger and arguments are directed at Talageri and Konrad Elst (described as 'quacks') - while not having anything concrete against Witzel (other than the vacuous generalizing of 'proof' against Anukramanis to magically apply to all of the Samhitas).

This thread is not meant for making any case based on 'meta-physical' arguments, unless one can clearly demonstrate how the meta-physical assumption is validated. Faith is faith - whether it is faith in a God, a book, a set of sounds or a donkey's behind...For those who think that faith is more important than rational arguments - this thread is probably not for them. There is absolutely no difference between a guy proclaiming that the Bible's creationism means the World started in 4000 BC (non-acknowledged source of many AIT arguments) and a guy who proclaims that the Vedas are beyond history and were present when the world started - UNLESS there is non meta-physical proof presented for either claim.

Those interested in meta-physical, faith-based argumentation can maybe be allotted a thread in GDF for their convenience.

[KLP Dubey]

This thread is not meant for making any case based on 'meta-physical' arguments, unless one can clearly demonstrate how the meta-physical assumption is validated.

Arjun,

I will stop responding to any of your posts if you do not quit this "meta-physics" business.

I've made it crystal clear.

I am going to break this post down into single sentences separated by spaces, so there is no room for doubt.

Please do not hound me about this again.

Nobody needs to even accept "eternal Veda" or "no history in the Veda" principles, even though ultimately they have proven to be reliable time and again.

For this discussion, I have highlighted very clearly the practical, non-metaphysical fact ... based solely upon consistent comparison of references to the same entity (e.g, rishis, rivers, chariots etc) in the RV text itself..... that there is no way to gain trustworthy information on historical matters from the RV.

The entire AIT and OIT interpretations are sustained for decades and centuries by selective interpretation of a small set of 500 or so sounds that could be thought to have some fragmentary historical references in them.

These people get excited about these 500 sounds too easily, while ignoring the remaining 400,000.

It's a shame.

Such things would never pass muster in serious science. But then, this is not science.

KL

[Arjun]

For this discussion, I have highlighted very clearly the practical, non-metaphysical fact ... based solely upon consistent comparison of references to the same entity (e.g, rishis, rivers, chariots etc) in the RV text itself..... that there is no way to gain trustworthy information on historical matters from the RV.

Firstly, the only two cases where you have gone into detail are (i) where you rebut the Proper-Nouns derived from the Vedas & (ii) where you have built up a case against the Anukramani-based 'Composers' of the Vedas. I am yet to see a detailed rebuttal on the horse/chariot and other non-Proper Noun philology of the Vedas.

Even if you do manage to prove that the assigned meanings of asva and ratha are inconsistent, that will NOT suffice for you to say that history cannot be derived from them. The AIT counter-argument to you (even granting that AIT-Nazis/Sepoys themselves are imbeciles, they do have access to folks from the physical sciences who can think logically) will be simply that:

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

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

So, the above counter-argument to your proposal proves that history & geography CAN indeed be derived from the Vedas, irrespective of how inconsistent the words actually are. All it takes is that those who deciphered the meaning 'knew' about the concept of horse, chariot and metal.

Now, do you have an effective counter-counter-argument to this AIT counter-argument or NOT ? The only way to judge how useful your proposal is - is to anticipate the responses that are bound to come & see whether you can address all of them effectively.

[KLP Dubey]

Well too many "status quo" positions have really been swept away by new dominating positions. Till now it was also the "status quo" position that Sanskrit had its origins in India, and the whole Sanskrit-based and Sanskrit-derived civilization was native to the Indian Subcontinent, albeit had spread over a larger area. And despite this "status-quo", we still have AIT being taught in our schools and we are needing this thread to discuss this.

I am not disagreeing with the need for uprooting and throwing out the AIT. But I am not interested in having it replaced by an OIT which will then show up in textbooks with summaries such as that provided by Elst in his review. It is simply not supported by the data.

There are many people who would see the rishis as composers, because either they will see the Vedas of being of human agency, even a brilliant and insightful human agency, or they will be forced into that position, because of lack of clarifications coming forth from those pleading the position of "non-human" agency.

You are still too far behind this discussion. I will stop posting in your thread if this "pleading a position of non-human agency" balderdash continues. Sorry to appear rude about this.

I already wrote a reply to Arjun. Please read it. All that is being said is that "the data do not support an interpretation of rishis being composers". Are you deliberately looking past this simple point - or are you, Arjun, and Nilesh Oak still going to keep on posting the same allegations ?

However as far as I am concerned, I am willing to formulate this differently. I don't wish to clamor for the position that the rishis be considered composers. It is true that Shri Shrikant Talageri does, but that position need not be mine.

If that is so, good for you. I am not pleading any case, only providing useful information.

Was it people inhabiting the Indian Subcontinent or were these some Central Asians? In other words, to whom was it revealed?

From the information available, only the Indians have preserved the Veda. Nobody else. Hence one can assert with confidence that Indians received it. Furthermore, later literature of the Indians shows no evidence that they carried the RV from elsewhere. So it is a confident/quite reasonable claim that this connection with the Veda arose "in India".

Please note, you are violating some basic rules of the game here. Such questions about the past rarely have a 100% clear affirmative answer (although negative answers can be crystal clear). We are not talking about science here.

b) When was the "liquid", the knowledge of Veda, transferred into the bowl labeled "human society"?

The "lower limit" on that event can only be determined by references to *other* works. For example, if Oak succesfully revises the data of the Mahabharata to 5500 BCE, it is clear the Veda was received before that. That is the problem with "pre-history": in the absence of a professional cadre of historians whose job is to make accurate and cross-checked records (like we do now), the only way is to infer from other sources. That is also why it is important for the OIT to pursue reliable chronology *independent* of the RV. If the RV gets drawn into the whole debate, then we will be at an impasse and an unending quarrel with AIT/AMTers.

c) From which other bowl, simply termed as "unknown" bowl, was the "liquid" transferred to the bowl labeled "human society"?

In other words how and from where was it revealed? I think you have premised that this "unknown" bowl is from a non-human agency. This "non-human agency" may in fact itself not be the originator of the knowledge/sounds of the Vedas, but may also simply be another transmission channel. I can live with this, though it throws up many more questions on "how".

You are now asking the sort of questions that are impossible for anyone to answer. Let me ask you: how, when, and where did the first human transcend the stage of "animal grunts and growls" and speak a sentence? Was there "help" ? Do you know? Does anyone know?

There are those who say Sanskrit developed as a language and then Rigveda was composed in it. There are those like yourself who say, that Sanskrit was derived from the sounds of the Rigveda. I am willing to go with the latter position, if this position is willing to accept
1) that on earth for the first time, the proper nouns in the Rigveda, which today denote rivers, flora, fauna, personalities, places, etc. were assigned to such within the geography of India.

I have been saying this all along, that at various points of time people in India were assigning various meanings to the RV words. The "history" then only becomes a question of when those assignments were made, but the problem is that to use such information practically, one needs an independent testimony of the context, date, etc of such associations. Such is the problem with pre-history (or non-history). We have to live with it, not try to artificially "get around it" in a dishonest manner just for the sake of keeping an argument/discussion going.

2) that the seers named in the Anukramanis are accepted as those who are considered as the ones personally holding the bowl labeled "human society". Or if they are not to be accepted, other names be proposed.

Dude, I have already told you the answer. You are not reading. The "original" rishis in the Veda are Vashishta, Vishvamitra, Agastya, Kashyapa etc. It is in the RV itself. The problem is that they are not human beings, as is also clear from the same RV using the same consistent reading of the Rks.

I do not want to be facing such a problem, but I must. It is what the data says. And I am not the first. Generations of Vedic upholders would swear it on their mothers. The AITers and OITers are just ignoring this problem, and saying "Nah. It can't be. I am just going to assume they were human."

You don't seem to realize how silly this whole thing is. Why not just spend a year reading the RV in the original, you will realize it yourself. You will see how flimsy, outrageous, and pitifully scarce are the "data" used by these people to find history in the Veda.


The "3000 years at least" part needs to be worked on as Buddha's date itself need to be revised to 1887-1807 BCE.

For example, if the names of the rivers are to be found in Rigveda, than those sounds were associated with those rivers considering their east-west position and many other criteria in which those sounds again come up in the sounds-base of the Rigveda.

Perfectly reasonable, if you look in ONE PLACE in the RV. You are exactly mimicking here the delusions of AIT/OIT folks. Problem is, if you now carry over the "knowledge" you have gained there to another location in the RV, your knowledge fails. So now what do you do ? Will you now switch to the second location and try to interpret that, or just ignore it, or what ? That is the problem.

The considerations of the human agents in assigning the proper noun sounds to various objects in history and geography of India can however be gleaned from the Sanskritic reading of the Rigveda, and thus historical and geographical statements can be made based on Rigveda.

Wrong. Now we are back to what we discussed in pages 99 and 100 of this thread. For such a thing to work, you need an independent testimony of the context, time, person etc who made the association. Believe me, this is a basic requirement. For example, you may claim that someone associated 'Sarasvati' with a river, but for that to be useful in determining history, where is the testimony regarding the time and place and context of association ?

You have yourself claimed that sometimes meanings as interpreted from the Sanskrit reading of the Rigveda seem unclear and nonsense. This itself may be shows to be a consequence of the historical fitting of objects in the real world with the sounds of Rigveda not being perfect, but that too avers to the process of historical retrofitting objects to sounds, and thus history itself.

Yes you are correct so far, but you fail to close the loop. Indeed, there was a moment of history in that act of "fitting"; but to GET AT THAT and to use that possibility in a historical sense, a second independent testimony of the act is needed. Otherwise you are stuck. Such is the tyranny of the past, my friend!

What is needed is a much more thorough explanation of the interface between Rigvedic sounds and the real human (Indian) society. This does not seem to be forthcoming.

You cannot keep asking for things beyond a reasonable limit. If one could give all details of exactly how, when, and where Rgvedic sounds interfaced with humans, then why on earth would we be discussing things like AIT and OIT ? It would all become redundant.

Enlightenment does demand a level of deeper reflection and thinking. This is why I stressed the high-level framework for such things. There has been too much of "digging into details" without determining a reliable high-level framework to guide that digging. People are seeing trees but not the forest.

Also you seem to be hung up on the notion that OIT proponents wish to call the rishis the composers of the Vedas, and the latter a composition undertaken in India. That is one view, but one can define the relationship of rishis to the Vedas as and anyway we want, as long as we can claim the rishis, whose tradition of preservation that is currently being kept alive, to be Indians, and the ones who developed Sanskrit from the sounds of Rigveda to also be Indians having done it in the Indian Subcontinent.

What I can certainly accept - and I have said it myself without any assistance from you - is that it is indeed the Indians who distilled the Sanskrit language from the RV sounds. There is no doubt about that. It obviously could not have been anyone else.

But the question of RV rishis is something else altogether. In that concern, you are telling me I should just swallow all manner of things that directly contradict basic requirements.

When I myself can read the RV and see clearly the fact that the rishis cannot be thought to be human beings (and I shared several glimpses of that fact in my previous post), why should I agree to the tyrannical claims of motivated people who assume with great conviction that they MUST be human (and then proceed to make a hash of interpreting the Veda)?

Some fellow tells me that Anukramani names are of real vedic rishis carried through the vedic age faithfully in oral form along with the Suktas. Yet there is no explanation as to why the Vedic accents on their names are missing. Otherwise, neither I, nor anybody else, can believe they are vedic words instead of later conceptions made to look like vedic names. Note the reverse is not true: not every currently accented text is Vedic since people have added accents to even classical Sanskrit texts. But it just impossible to believe that for something which purportedly was carried through with high fidelity along with the RV Suktas, the accent inexplicably went missing!

KL

[KLP Dubey]

Firstly, the only two cases where you have gone into detail are (i) where you rebut the Proper-Nouns derived from the Vedas & (ii) where you have built up a case against the Anukramani-based 'Composers' of the Vedas. I am yet to see a detailed rebuttal on the horse/chariot and other non-Proper Noun philology of the Vedas.

I am coming to that, dammit. Do you think I am here to spend all my time responding to you ?

KL

[Arjun]

I am coming to that, dammit. Do you think I am here to spend all my time responding to you ?

Fair enough, was not sure if more was to come from your side or if you thought your arguments so far provided some kind of QED to non-Proper Noun Vedic philology

As you develop your argument, please keep in mind that proof of inconsistency in word meanings will not suffice to prove impossibility of deriving history from the set.

[KLP Dubey]

As you develop your argument, please keep in mind that proof of inconsistency in word meanings will not suffice to prove impossibility of deriving history from the set.

It suffices. I have thought this through quite a bit, and I am not one to write down things in public domain without thinking.

If you can't be sure of word-meanings at two (or multiple, in this case) locations in the same text, you can't derive any historical meanings, unless you explicitly put a "BS Alert" on your derivation and acknowledge that all your are doing is playing a guessing game.

You may accidently get a result that is so "shock-and-awe" that it shuts everyone up for a few years, but that is not necessarily (or usually) the truth.

Your only hope is to have an independent attestation which resolves the issue, but the RV has no such means.

This is the truth, and I am not making it up or trying to be difficult.

I suggest you would do well to contemplate and accept it at some point.

In the meanwhile I will continue (as time permits) providing information that hopefully will lead to the dawn of reason.

KL

[Arjun]

Your only hope is to have an independent attestation which resolves the issue, but the RV has no such means.

The independent attestation is only required for proper nouns....but the fact of those who assigned meanings to Vedic words having lived not before bronze age, or their familiarity with domesticated horse & chariot are historical / geographical statements that are pure deductions from RV - without needing any sort of independent attestation, and without needing the words themselves to be consistent in meaning.

So unfortunately what your argument implies is that the side which relies more on Proper Nouns loses further ground, while it remains of no help whatsoever in countering non-Proper Noun Vedic philology.

[Murugan]

Instead of Cat and Dog Analogy, I see a different picture, crow and eagle, deduce



http://livingwilderness.photoshelter.com/img/pixel.gif

And how much ever crows try, the can never reach the height, flight and grace of Eagle

http://jwestphotography.com/imgs/2011/0 ... 31x288.jpg

[shiv]

Folks there is enough material in attested history to suggest that the dates assumed for Panini are wrong. Panini is . important because he is known to have done his work in Gandhara. Now Gandhara itself falls in the territory of Madra.

Uttaramadra was one of the janapadas (jana+pada = people + foot - people footprint) mentioned in various texts including Panini, th Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Sama veda. Here is one quote from Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttaramadra

Jean Przylusky has shown that Bahlika (Balkh) was an Iranian settlement of the Madras who were known as Bahlika-Uttaramadras.

Madra roughly corresponds to Bactria in Northern Afghanistan. Mahabharata refs to Madra as per Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madra#Maha ... references

Madri, the wife of Pandu king of Hastinapur and the mother of Pandava-putras Nakula and Sahadeva, was a Madra princess daughter of the king of Madra. Madri has also been referred to as Bahliki i.e princess of Bahlika janapada/tribe and king Salya has been referred to as Bahlika-pungava i.e foremost among the Bahlikas.

In other words the Mahabharata, Sama Veda and Panini concur that Madra/Bactria have the same Vedic people who take part in epics or are described in Mahajanapadas.

Now Madra corresponds to "Media" (or the Medes) in "attested" western history gleaned from multiple sources, starting from Rawlinson of India/Behistun to Assyrian king lists

It is said that the history of the Medians is well attested after 1000 BC - especially after 700 AD. From 1000 BC to 700 AD Media came under the Mesopotamian empire. A Greek historian (Ctesias) who wrote his own much criticised "Indika" in 400 BC (downloadable easily) also wrot of a Mespoptaman queen who attacked India at a time when the Mesopotamian empire included Iran and Afghanistan and subjugated the Medes/Medians. This was from 1000 BC to 700 BC. From 700 BC to 500 BC the medians who by then were Zoroastrians ruled Media until they were defeated by Darias of Behistun fame in 500 BC.

Now remember that Panini did his work in Gandhara allgedy in 600 BC. The was smack bang in the middle of the median reoccupation of Iran after 300 years of rule by the Mesopotamians.

In order to get any connection between the Medians and the vedic people we ned to go back to 1200 BC when Zoroaster was allegedly born in the territory of Media. The Medians up until then were worshippers of the following Gods - quoting again from Wiki
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Iranian_Hi ... astrianism

Zoroaster also known as Zarathusra or Zardosht was born around this time. The religion which he founded, called Zoroastrianism originated from an older polytheistic faith called Magism. This was the religion of the Medes and the Persians prior to the birth of Zoroastrianism and was the official state religion during the sovereignty of Media.

Media and Magism are closely related, so much so that the high priests of Magism, the Magi who give the religion its name were exclusively chosen from a Median tribe of the same name. The actual Persian name of the Magi seems to have been Magupat which gradually changed into Mobed with the passage of time. These Magi were the most supreme spiritual authority in the Empire. However, with the passage of time, the Dastur was elevated to a position higher than that of the Magupat and the Magi themselves weren't picked ur from the Mede tribe.

The Iranians, prior to the birth of Zoroaster, worshipped natural forces. They were mostly Vedic divinites like Mithra, Varuna, Vayu, Agni, etc. One of the principal deities Yima Kshaeta (Jamshed in modern Persian) is believed to have originated from the Hindu Yama. Their pantheon also comprised other divinities like Anahita, Spenta Armaiti,Vohu-mano and Asha Vahishta.

So to get a Vedic connection with Media/Madra you have to go back to pre-Zoroaster Iran/Media. If you accept the AIT dates of Zoroaster the Vedic times were before 1200 BC. So Panin and the Sama veda and Mahabharata and Ramayana refer to a "Madra/Media" from a time prior to 1200 BC. When you consider that Panin is post Mahabharata, and Mahabharata is post Veda we are looking at a date of 2000 BC at the latest for the Rig Veda. It could be earlier, but that earlr date is difficult to arrive at from the history of the Medes and Zoroaster as per AIT derived facts

*** - these asterisks are in case I need to search for this post at a later date.

[Murugan]

"The indian or rather the Aryan mind is saturated with the idea that the Veda is Sabdabrahman, i.e. the Word-form of Brahman, and therefore as vast and infinite as Brahman itself.  This deep-rooted conviction in the Aryan is substantiated by the Taittriyabrahmana, an ancient commentary on the Yajurveda.  There we find an interesting story of sage Bharadvaja. 

It is narrated there that he lived a man’s full life-span of a hundred years and devoted himself to the study of the Vedas, but could not finish it.  So he prayed to Brahma, the creator, to extend his life for another full span of a hundred years for the pursuit and completion of his studies.  The boon was granted, but this further extension also proved to be insufficient.  So the sage asked for yet another lease of a full span of human life.  Brahma, pleased with the sincere devotion, regorous austerity and diligent pursuit of studies, accorded him the desired boon and the sage engrossed himself once again in studies but the end of the task was nowhere in sight.  Thereupon there was a spontaneous utterance from his heart: “Infinite indeed are the Vedas!”

The story suggestively indicates that writers of these Brahmanas, the Vedic commentaries, did not consider the four Vedas as encompassing the entire Vedic lore.  According to them, these four Vedas were as if only four handfuls of gems picked up by our creator, Brahma, from the huge mountain-heap of Divine Knowledge, and given to humanity as necessary for the present cycle of creation.  "

The above is == to vedas are not history, was not supposed to be history also. It is ever expanding knowledge, expanding with universe, which we arya forgot in between but picked it up again and again.

[RajeshA]

Well too many "status quo" positions have really been swept away by new dominating positions. Till now it was also the "status quo" position that Sanskrit had its origins in India, and the whole Sanskrit-based and Sanskrit-derived civilization was native to the Indian Subcontinent, albeit had spread over a larger area. And despite this "status-quo", we still have AIT being taught in our schools and we are needing this thread to discuss this.

I am not disagreeing with the need for uprooting and throwing out the AIT. But I am not interested in having it replaced by an OIT which will then show up in textbooks with summaries such as that provided by Elst in his review. It is simply not supported by the data.

I think you need to get your terminology right!

Out-of-India Theory states, that instead of Indo-European Languages spreading from somewhere outside India into India, India was the source of Indo-European languages. There is however a only a wafer-thin claim of people moving out of India and migrating elsewhere. Mostly it is speculation at the moment without much evidence compiled through textual or archaeological means. Most of the evidence that comes in support, comes from genetics. But each side interprets the data to suit their claims. So nothing definite there either.

OIT actually is a thin shell around the major contention - Indigenism. Indo-European languages in the form of Sanskrit, people who spoke those languages, the revelation of Vedas, Vedic deities, are all indigenous to the Indian Subcontinent.

Major part of Shri Shrikant Talageri's work is to find testimony in the Rigveda and the Avesta for the indigenism of the Vedic culture. His OIT contribution is chiefly in providing a history of Iranians splitting from the Indic mainstream, and moving out-of-India into Afghanistan and the Iranian plateau.

The point is that neither Indigenism nor OIT are based on Talageri's work. So if you wish to diss Talageri's work, do so, but don't take recourse to using the term Indigenism or OIT as the theory you seem to be fighting against. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Indigenism and OIT replacing AIT in school curriculum. Your only issue is that Indigenism and OIT not take recourse to claims based on Rigveda.

There are many people who would see the rishis as composers, because either they will see the Vedas of being of human agency, even a brilliant and insightful human agency, or they will be forced into that position, because of lack of clarifications coming forth from those pleading the position of "non-human" agency.

You are still too far behind this discussion. I will stop posting in your thread if this "pleading a position of non-human agency" balderdash continues. Sorry to appear rude about this.

I already wrote a reply to Arjun. Please read it. All that is being said is that "the data do not support an interpretation of rishis being composers". Are you deliberately looking past this simple point - or are you, Arjun, and Nilesh Oak still going to keep on posting the same allegations ?

Lower down you yourself say that the "original" rishis in the Veda, i.e. Vashishta, Vishvamitra, Agastya, Kashyapa etc., who are in the RV itself, are not human beings.

Anyway I looked up your response to Arjun ji. You wrote:

Nobody needs to even accept "eternal Veda" or "no history in the Veda" principles, even though ultimately they have proven to be reliable time and again.

For this discussion, I have highlighted very clearly the practical, non-metaphysical fact ... based solely upon consistent comparison of references to the same entity (e.g, rishis, rivers, chariots etc) in the RV text itself..... that there is no way to gain trustworthy information on historical matters from the RV.

I think we have gone once into your arguments about Sindhu and 'sindhavaḥ'.

I think one should not underestimate man's ability to do textual analysis using the tools of abstraction and poetic license to explain any inconsistencies in the semantic of the references. Also people can pose different requirements on the level of consistency required from texts. You may want to be more strict, whereas others may not.

Those, who consider Rigveda to be compositions, would simply consider lack of ontological resolution of some phoneme as simply the normal difficulty two cultures may have in understanding each other which are so distanced from each other through the gulf of time.

So I think it is really a losing prospect to try to tell people that the references in Rig Veda do not show consistency in interpretation.

The "non-human agency" is in fact a better platform to argue from than one based on inconsistency in meaning.

However as far as I am concerned, I am willing to formulate this differently. I don't wish to clamor for the position that the rishis be considered composers. It is true that Shri Shrikant Talageri does, but that position need not be mine.

If that is so, good for you. I am not pleading any case, only providing useful information.

And your information has indeed been enlightening.

Was it people inhabiting the Indian Subcontinent or were these some Central Asians? In other words, to whom was it revealed?

From the information available, only the Indians have preserved the Veda. Nobody else. Hence one can assert with confidence that Indians received it. Furthermore, later literature of the Indians shows no evidence that they carried the RV from elsewhere. So it is a confident/quite reasonable claim that this connection with the Veda arose "in India".

A zero memory of migration from elsewhere is India's best suit of armor against AIT.

Please note, you are violating some basic rules of the game here. Such questions about the past rarely have a 100% clear affirmative answer (although negative answers can be crystal clear). We are not talking about science here.

b) When was the "liquid", the knowledge of Veda, transferred into the bowl labeled "human society"?

The "lower limit" on that event can only be determined by references to *other* works. For example, if Oak successfully revises the data of the Mahabharata to 5500 BCE, it is clear the Veda was received before that. That is the problem with "pre-history": in the absence of a professional cadre of historians whose job is to make accurate and cross-checked records (like we do now), the only way is to infer from other sources. That is also why it is important for the OIT to pursue reliable chronology *independent* of the RV. If the RV gets drawn into the whole debate, then we will be at an impasse and an unending quarrel with AIT/AMTers.

A chronology *dependent* on RV is used only to refute those claims of AIT-Nazis, which are themselves based on RV. It is important to understand the implicit disclaimer in the beginning of such a refutation, namely, "If one were to read Rigveda as a Sanskrit text which purports historical and geographical data in it, then ...."

However here you are relying too much on the device of written/continuous oral testimony as a precondition of writing history.

Especially in the West, all sort of history has been "reconstructed" based on archaeology, philology, linguistics, and a host of other analytic specialties. Some history writing has been based on a few dubious hints. So attested history is not the only type of history. "Reconstructed" history is also given the honor of being history.

c) From which other bowl, simply termed as "unknown" bowl, was the "liquid" transferred to the bowl labeled "human society"?

In other words how and from where was it revealed? I think you have premised that this "unknown" bowl is from a non-human agency. This "non-human agency" may in fact itself not be the originator of the knowledge/sounds of the Vedas, but may also simply be another transmission channel. I can live with this, though it throws up many more questions on "how".

You are now asking the sort of questions that are impossible for anyone to answer. Let me ask you: how, when, and where did the first human transcend the stage of "animal grunts and growls" and speak a sentence? Was there "help" ? Do you know? Does anyone know?

And still this lack of testimony has not stopped people, especially in the West, from pursuing their search for their roots, the history of evolution.

This unbending search has been going on using a variety of different tools and theories, like that of evolution, out-of-Africa migration, etc. These theories have then in time displaced earlier theories like Biblical creationism, etc.

What I notice is the argument: Since there is no testimony from that time, we cannot say anything historical about it.

History would then simply have to be reconstructed on the principle of best guess. Or at least a reasonable theory would have to be suggested.

There are those who say Sanskrit developed as a language and then Rigveda was composed in it. There are those like yourself who say, that Sanskrit was derived from the sounds of the Rigveda. I am willing to go with the latter position, if this position is willing to accept
1) that on earth for the first time, the proper nouns in the Rigveda, which today denote rivers, flora, fauna, personalities, places, etc. were assigned to such within the geography of India.

I have been saying this all along, that at various points of time people in India were assigning various meanings to the RV words. The "history" then only becomes a question of when those assignments were made, but the problem is that to use such information practically, one needs an independent testimony of the context, date, etc of such associations. Such is the problem with pre-history (or non-history). We have to live with it, not try to artificially "get around it" in a dishonest manner just for the sake of keeping an argument/discussion going.

May be it is the case that a new paradigm has been established in the world, where people have wanted to search all possible clues to get a better representation of their history. It may have started in the West. I don't know, but that is the reigning paradigm now. History needs to be modeled as far as one can based on data and evidence. As the testimony for European civilizations is skimpy, they have gone on a search through the stones, bones, shards, runes and genes to gather more data, and reconstruct history based on that. In any case the Western historians have furnished some narrative, as far as possible. History always has an implicit disclaimer: "To the best of one's knowledge".

So the concept of keeping one's search and speculation in check is really a paradigm which is dead today. Moreover since some have used it to stake their claims on land and cultural achievements, one cannot shut it off now.

Now nobody is demanding that an exact account be given of the past - the "revelation" of the Vedas to human society. What is however needed is a general narrative.

There are only two ways of proceeding:
a) Those who claim Sanskrit came first and then the composition of Rigveda, have it easy. They can build their case based on linguistics and history allegedly contained in the Rigveda, and consider the rishis of the Anukramanis as the composers. They thus have a full narrative. AIT-Nazis provide one such narrative. Shri Shrikant Talageri has provided another account. This school can both make a solid case of how both Sanskrit and Rigveda came about. The inconsistency in semantics of some words is to be considered a mere non-issue, and can be satisfactorily explained or explained away.

b) Those who claim that Rigveda came first, and then Sanskrit was developed from it, and the proper Nouns given some assignments, have the difficult task of reconstructing how the rishis or Sanskrit-developers went about developing Sanskrit from Rigveda and retrofitting the proper nouns. In fact, here scholars of this school would have to develop a full narrative of how this retrofitting must have occurred. Since testimony is not available so some means and system of deduction would have to be developed. This I presume has not even been attempted as yet. Without this analysis, any claim that Sanskrit was derived from Rigveda remains simply a claim, without much in terms of such a derivation forthcoming. It thus remains simply an assertion without much evidence. The argument of semantic inconsistency in the Sanskrit reading of the Rigveda is very tenuous, and can at best be considered as an argument to deconstruct the narrative of the other side, but does nothing to bolster the claims of this side.

So much needs to be done here!

2) that the seers named in the Anukramanis are accepted as those who are considered as the ones personally holding the bowl labeled "human society". Or if they are not to be accepted, other names be proposed.

Dude, I have already told you the answer. You are not reading. The "original" rishis in the Veda are Vashishta, Vishvamitra, Agastya, Kashyapa etc. It is in the RV itself. The problem is that they are not human beings, as is also clear from the same RV using the same consistent reading of the Rks.

I do not want to be facing such a problem, but I must. It is what the data says. And I am not the first. Generations of Vedic upholders would swear it on their mothers. The AITers and OITers are just ignoring this problem, and saying "Nah. It can't be. I am just going to assume they were human."

You don't seem to realize how silly this whole thing is. Why not just spend a year reading the RV in the original, you will realize it yourself. You will see how flimsy, outrageous, and pitifully scarce are the "data" used by these people to find history in the Veda.

Here is Dude responding!

I looked up your post in response to Talageri.

All you say is that these "original" rishis were "not human beings". You don't say what they were. You don't even speculate on what they could be! That is fine.

You speak of families of "maintainers", who were humans. But you don't say how they received either the sounds of the Rigveda or by whom were they asked to do the maintaining of the sounds. That is fine.

In the end your strategy is to not build any evidence in favor of your theory, possibly so that it does not become falsifiable, and thus simply plead - it is not known, there is no testimony. I don't object to this. It may be a sound strategy.

But what I object to is that no theory is provided to show the development of Sanskrit based on Rigveda, thus leaving the field open to those who would say, that Sanskrit came first and only then Rigveda. After all, every rationally thinking human would say, first comes the development of language and after that comes literature, and thus claim Rigveda to be literature.

The "3000 years at least" part needs to be worked on as Buddha's date itself need to be revised to 1887-1807 BCE.

For example, if the names of the rivers are to be found in Rigveda, than those sounds were associated with those rivers considering their east-west position and many other criteria in which those sounds again come up in the sounds-base of the Rigveda.

Perfectly reasonable, if you look in ONE PLACE in the RV. You are exactly mimicking here the delusions of AIT/OIT folks. Problem is, if you now carry over the "knowledge" you have gained there to another location in the RV, your knowledge fails. So now what do you do ? Will you now switch to the second location and try to interpret that, or just ignore it, or what ? That is the problem.

Let me be straightforward. I am "OIT folks". Everybody on this thread, except for a few are "OIT folks"!

As I said, this is a problem I am not yet aware of in its full expanse. You brought up the case of Sindhu, and I responded to that. There is also the case of homonyms and polysemes.

The considerations of the human agents in assigning the proper noun sounds to various objects in history and geography of India can however be gleaned from the Sanskritic reading of the Rigveda, and thus historical and geographical statements can be made based on Rigveda.

Wrong. Now we are back to what we discussed in pages 99 and 100 of this thread. For such a thing to work, you need an independent testimony of the context, time, person etc who made the association. Believe me, this is a basic requirement. For example, you may claim that someone associated 'Sarasvati' with a river, but for that to be useful in determining history, where is the testimony regarding the time and place and context of association?

Sorry this is nonsense!

"Independent testimony" and all that may the sole building blocks in Mimamsa, but other than witness testimony and other forms of direct evidence, there is also something called circumstantial evidence.

What we have are various sounds/words in Rigveda and the same sounds used for real rivers as attested to by other texts and even current tradition and use. Similarly we notice many many sounds/words in Rigveda being used for flora, fauna, places, etc. This is simply reality. True, one cannot perhaps reconstruct history exactly regarding name, time, place, context, etc of sound-object association. But I notice a certain disinterest and even resistance in undertaking this research.

If you do not have anything worth offering the curious people as to how Sanskrit was developed, then basically the only theory remaining credible is that Sanskrit came first and then came Rigveda.

You have yourself claimed that sometimes meanings as interpreted from the Sanskrit reading of the Rigveda seem unclear and nonsense. This itself may be shows to be a consequence of the historical fitting of objects in the real world with the sounds of Rigveda not being perfect, but that too avers to the process of historical retrofitting objects to sounds, and thus history itself.

Yes you are correct so far, but you fail to close the loop. Indeed, there was a moment of history in that act of "fitting"; but to GET AT THAT and to use that possibility in a historical sense, a second independent testimony of the act is needed. Otherwise you are stuck. Such is the tyranny of the past, my friend!

Such is actually the tyranny of those who think they can throw any theory at others, start calling others frauds and quacks, and try to assert authority but do not want to do their homework.

The others have both rationality and much research to show for. You come with nothing and expect others to gulp it down. Answers like "we don't know. they left us nothing" etc. are not going to satisfy anybody.

I too can make a fancy theory like all humans were earlier 10 meters tall with bones made up of silicon. Unfortunately they did not leave any written testimony so we have to live without it. Who will believe me?

What I am trying to say is that one then uses circumstantial evidence. One looks for more data. One can do textual analysis of Rigveda and try to reconstruct the process of how the Sanskrit developers came to assign certain sounds with certain objects. One can try to do use non-proper nouns to see if they used such analysis. However you do it, build some case, build some narrative!

Disclaimer: I don't mean you personally.

What is needed is a much more thorough explanation of the interface between Rigvedic sounds and the real human (Indian) society. This does not seem to be forthcoming.

You cannot keep asking for things beyond a reasonable limit. If one could give all details of exactly how, when, and where Rgvedic sounds interfaced with humans, then why on earth would we be discussing things like AIT and OIT ? It would all become redundant.

Enlightenment does demand a level of deeper reflection and thinking. This is why I stressed the high-level framework for such things. There has been too much of "digging into details" without determining a reliable high-level framework to guide that digging. People are seeing trees but not the forest.

What I see is that the other side has both forest and trees to offer, whereas your side has only verbal abuse to offer, on the lines of "frauds", "quacks", etc. and that too even though nobody is out there hurling such abuse on your school of thinking, where you need to retaliate.

Oh, I think I can ask very much that the the Rigveda-Sanskrit interface as well as the association between Rigvedic proper nouns and real objects and ideas be better explained by your school of thinking!

When I feel like chanting the Rigveda, which I am sorry to say to my regret, I can't really right now, then I will go ahead and do the chanting and leave this discussion in this thread. I'll go and chant without any doubts troubling me.

But this is here the OIT Thread, and I don't particularly like a pro-Indic school of thinking, as represented by you, trying to tear down another pro-Indic school of thinking, represented by Shrikant Talageri, without replacing Shrikant Talageri's AIT-backbreaking analytic work, with an equal amount of theoretically work establishing Rigveda-Sanskrit and Rigveda-Proper-Noun-Reality Associations on a much firmer scholarly footing.

All the work done viz-a-viz Buddhism, Nyaya, etc. may not really be relevant here.

Also you seem to be hung up on the notion that OIT proponents wish to call the rishis the composers of the Vedas, and the latter a composition undertaken in India. That is one view, but one can define the relationship of rishis to the Vedas as and anyway we want, as long as we can claim the rishis, whose tradition of preservation that is currently being kept alive, to be Indians, and the ones who developed Sanskrit from the sounds of Rigveda to also be Indians having done it in the Indian Subcontinent.

What I can certainly accept - and I have said it myself without any assistance from you - is that it is indeed the Indians who distilled the Sanskrit language from the RV sounds. There is no doubt about that. It obviously could not have been anyone else.

Well the whole Indigenism is self-evident to us. And still our schools teach us something totally different.

The question is where did these "Aryan Indians" come from? Were they in Indian Subcontinent when they distilled the Sanskrit language from the RV sounds, or were they outside, say in the Pontic Steppes and made their way southwards later on.

Where is the evidence to all this? How does one know where they heard the first sounds? So many people wander around! If the maintainers of these sounds spread throughout India, they may have also spread into India beforehand?

What I see is that Shrikant Talageri tells me, no this is not possible, and he makes a complete solid case out of it. You don't.

But the question of RV rishis is something else altogether. In that concern, you are telling me I should just swallow all manner of things that directly contradict basic requirements.

When I myself can read the RV and see clearly the fact that the rishis cannot be thought to be human beings (and I shared several glimpses of that fact in my previous post), why should I agree to the tyrannical claims of motivated people who assume with great conviction that they MUST be human (and then proceed to make a hash of interpreting the Veda)?

Some fellow tells me that Anukramani names are of real vedic rishis carried through the vedic age faithfully in oral form along with the Suktas. Yet there is no explanation as to why the Vedic accents on their names are missing. Otherwise, neither I, nor anybody else, can believe they are vedic words instead of later conceptions made to look like vedic names. Note the reverse is not true: not every currently accented text is Vedic since people have added accents to even classical Sanskrit texts. But it just impossible to believe that for something which purportedly was carried through with high fidelity along with the RV Suktas, the accent inexplicably went missing!

The case of accents seem to be something quite minor.

The question is there any prohibition on anything that is said outside the Rigveda but accompanying it to keep the Rigvedic accents? Does the Rigvedic Pratisakhya apply only to Rigveda or does it apply to everything said accompanying Rigveda also? If it doesn't than the sounds would have changed with time. This is especially the case as the Gotras and Parivars which also carry these names are for all maintainers contemporary words, words perhaps applying to the gotra and parivar of the chanter itself. So if the Pratisakhya was not applicable to the associated rishi names, then the rishi names would have sounded like the way they were used in society outside the religious realm.

_________

In the end I would like to say is that I don't mind whether I go with Talageri's views on historicity of Rigveda or with your view on of Rigveda. For me, the only thing important with respect to the AIT/OIT issue is a complete and consistent narrative based on any evidence possible.

So before finishing off other OIT Theories, your school of thinking needs to build up your own unassailable narrative. The we-don't-know-argument means only that the other person is right!

Disclaimer: If the language above sounded hard, I apologize.

[Nilesh Oak]

A Gupta wrote..

It is necessary that all the dates coincide, that could not be a retro diction and would have to be actual contemporaneous observation.

I responded...

I don't undestand what you mean by this.

Did he (A Gupta) mean .... "It is necessary that All the observations (astronomy in this specific case) lead to a single date"?

If so, this is what I claim to have accomplished. In addition,

(1) I have made a case for 'interpolated statements' by showing overwhelming internal evidence goes against such 'specific' (claimed by me as interpolated) observation.
+ (This is critical) I have also shown that those (other researchers) who accepted such observation as NOT interpolated, still failed to corroborate it for their own proposals. Some researchers have gone to the extent of claiming certain observation to be very CRITICAL for building a timeline of MBH War, but then failed to corrborate that very observation for their proposed date.

(2) Looking at other side of the coin, I have corrborated numerous astronomy observations (These observations were considered 'interpolated' or 'unintelligible' by other researchers and thus eliminated/avoided/ignored by them in their work... a Non-scientific approach at its best.. and an obvious fact lost on them).

All of this with simple theory that
"All astronomy observations are visual observations of the sky"
(Occum's razor doesnot get any sharper than this... )

Against this theory, compare theories of ...

(1) Cometary theories of planets! (Brihaspati, Shanichara, somaputra, dharaputra, Lohitanga, Anagarak, Shukra, Suryaputra (shani) as being not planets but COMETS! Go figure)
(2) Astrological theory of 'astronomy' observations
(3) Puzzles of Ganesha and delusion of Vyasa
(4) Astronomy observations as Mother's goose tale
(5) They are not astronomy observations worth paying attention!
(6) Year of Beginning of Kaliyuga - 36 years = year of MBH War
(7)Evidence of 'iron' found only after 1500 BC, so search for MBh War only after 1500 BC
(8) Statistical blah blah, to minimize total error for all planets from their stated positions in MBH text.
(9) Different inferences from these astronomy statements based on Language/grammer.. straight meaning/lakshanic meaning..etc.
(10) Sayana-Nirayana posistions intepretation
(11) Astronomy observations during the War, as actually occuring many years before the War!

and more..

[RajeshA]

Books for the Library



Publication Date: 2003
Author: Subhra Basu Ghosh
Sanskrit Phonetics in the Light of Modern Phonology [Printasia] [Vedams]

Description
This book makes an in-depth Study of Sanskrit phonetics in the light of modern phonology. Critically examining various treatises on phonetics in Ancient India such as Siksa, Pratisakhya, Astadhyayi and Nirukta, it deals with the structure of the vocal organs, the method of Sound production, the analysis as well as classification of actual speech sound, and the rules of phonetic change.

The study attempts to evolve a compromise on two Traditions -- one of vast and enriched Thoughts of ancient Indian philologists, and another of linguistic approach of the modern Scientific World

Table of Contents

Code: Select all

Chap. I : INTRODUCTION :
1.  Linguistic Studies In Ancient India
2.  Utility of Siksa
3.  Siksa-Taittiriya Upanisad
4.  Paniniya Siksa
5.  Defects of Pronunciation-PS
6.  Defects of Pronunciation-YS
7.  Development of Language - Pratisakhya
8.  Difference of Siksa and Pratisakhya
9.  Mutual relation of Pratisakhya and Siksa
10. Development of Language-Nirukta
11. Verbal origin of Names
12. Homonyms and synonyms
13. Three types of Words-Derivation
14. Development of Language Study-Grammar-Aindra School

15. Paninian System of Grammar
16. Division of Astadhyayi
17. Katyayana, author of Varttika
18. Nature and object of Vartikas
19. Five special Functions of Varttika :
i.   Contraction
ii.  Addition
iii. Modification
iv.  Expansion
v.   Rejection

20. Development of Language-Patanjah
21. Contribution of Mahabhasya
22. Candra School
23. Kasika
24. Bhartrhari
25. Bhattoji Diksita-Siddhanta Kaumudi
26. Development of Language Study After Acquaintance With Sanskrit
27. Phonetics And Its Branches
28. Articulatory Phonetics
29. Acoustic Phonetics

Chap. II : STRUCTURE OF THE VOCAL ORGANS AND Sound PRODUCTION :
1.  Psychological Aspect of Speech-Western Philologists
2.  Psychological Aspect of Speech Sound-Indian Philologists
3.  Satapatha Brahmana
4.  Aitareyopanisad
5.  Siksa
6.  Pratisakhya
7.  Majabhasya
8.  Vakyapadiya
9.  Punyaraja
10. Manjusa
11. Physiological Aspect of Speech Sound-Indian Opinion
12. Paniniya Siksa
13. Pratisakhya
14. Mimamsa Darsana
15. Physiologicai Aspect Of Speech Sound - Modern Linguistic Approach
16. Method of sound production
17. Position of the Tongue
18. Different Regions of the roof of the mouth
19. Obstruction in the larynx
20. Classification of Vowels (quality, quantity)
21. Obstruction in the mouth (complete, partial)

22. Classification of consonants :
i.   Stop consonants
ii.  Spirant
iii. Nasal.
iv.  Lateral
v.   Trill
vi.  Sonant

23. Voiced and voiceless sounds
24. Aspirate and unaspirate sounds

Chap. III : Sanskrit SOUNDS :
1.  The Description and Classification of The Sanskrit
2.  Alphabetic Sounds
3.  Svara
4.  Vyanjana
5.  Sparsa
6.  Antahastha
7.  Usman
8.  Anunasika
9.  Omkara
10. Fnumeration of The Sanskrit Alphabetic Sounds and Their Places Of Articulation
11. Paniniya Siksa
12. Astadhyayi
13. Rkpratisakhya
14. Vajasaneyi Pratisakhya
15. Atharva Veda Pratisakhya
16. Taittiriya Pratisakhya
17. Rk-tantram
18. Tables
19. Simple vowels and their places of articulation
20. Sanskrit diphthongal sounds and their places of articulation
21. The mutes and their places of articulation
22. The semi-vowels and their places of articulation
23. The spirants, the nasals and other sounds and their places of articulation

Chap. IV : SOUND CHANGE :
1.  Phonetic Change
2.  Unconditional
3.  Conditionai
4.  Accent
5.  Vowel gradation

6.  Some Efiort-Saving Methods :
i.   Assimilation
ii.  Dissimilation
iii. Metathesis
iv.  Aphesis, Syncope, Apocope
v.   Haplolgy
vi.  Prothesis
vii. Anaptyxis
viii.Epenthesis
ix.  Umlaut

7.  Euphonic Combination
8.  The Various Sound Changing Phenomena Found In
9.  Sanskrit Phonology
10. Accent

11. Vowel-Gradation :
i.   Guna
ii.  Vrddh
iii. Smprasarana

12. Adesa, Agama, Vikara, Lopa
13. Application of Augment etc
14. Svarabhakti
15. Abhinidana
16. Natvavidhana
17. Satvavidhana
18. Sandhi
19. Sanskrit Diphthoagal Sounds and Their Change Under
20. Certain Cireumstances
21. The Treatment of r and ! in the Historv of Sanskrit
22. Language
23. The rnenomenon of abhinidhaan and Its Scope
24. The Phenomenon of Svarabhakti
25. Phonetic Laws As Enunciated By Western Linguists
26. Grimm's Law
27. Grassmann's Law
28. Verner's Law

From the Preface:
"The study of phonetics formed part of the general discipline in ancient India. The germ of this study can be traced to a number of hymns of Rgveda, and it gradually developed in the age of Brahmana, Aranyaka and Upanisad. But the real linguistic approach to the study of phonetics can be observed in the age of Siksa. Siksa and Pratisakhya are the two auxiliary works on phonetics, the phonetic observations made in these two original works as well as in Paninian Astadhyayi and Nirukta, which are based on the scientific and accurate study of the method of sound production, really draw the attention and admiration of the modern world.

"A critical observation on the treatises of phonetics as well as grammars proves beyond doubt that the ancient Indian phoneticians made a splendid attempt to establish the theory of language on the strong base of philosophical quest. But inspite of this. They fail to analyse clearly the most complicated mechanism of the human body that involves in speaking speech sounds. The modern linguists, however, are much advanced and scientific in their pursuit, because they have been able to utilise the scientific apparatus.

"In the present work an attempt has been made to examine critically the various treatises on phonetics in ancient India, and to evolve a compromise on the two traditions traditions-one of vast and enriched thoughts of ancient Indian philologists, and another of linguistic approach of the modern scientific world. And in this respect some amount of originality of the work may be claimed.

"The table of contents will show the topics discussed in the book. With all hesitation and humility it may be maintained that a number of topics has been discussed in a manner which is original in many respects. Special mention may be made of diphthongs, abhinidhana, svarabhakti, treatment of r and i, distinction among vivara, svasa and aghosa, philosophical cumpsychological treatment of mode of sound production, presentation of various tables relating to the place of articulation of the Sanskrit sounds and a new classification of the euphonic changes in Sanskrit."

[ramana]

Shiv, Thanks for the exposition on Media and the Magi. I used to wonder why it was important in the New Testament to have the three Magi bless the baby Jesus. Since the Magi were a known priestly order in Middle East from antiquity, by having them bless the baby Jesus, the importance of Jesus is established.

[Nilesh Oak]

Shiv, Thanks for the exposition on Media and the Magi. I used to wonder why it was important in the New Testament to have the three Magi bless the baby Jesus. Since the Magi were a known priestly order in Middle East from antiquity, by having them bless the baby Jesus, the importance of Jesus is established.

Ramana,

This is extremely common theme/motif (you already may be aware of it, in which case my apologies). A new savior, incarnation, spirtual leader.. etc. as been blessed by, worshipped by, recognized/acknowledged by old established order/deities.

Jesus - Magi but also symbols surronding his birth story.. including symbolism associated with Animals.

Buddha - Blessed/praised by Shiva, Brahma etc. when he attained Buddhahood

and all others. (Josephe Campbell explores this point in great detail in his works.. comparative mythology)

[Vayutuvan]

And notice Italian names
...Motwani...

[shiv]

Shiv, Thanks for the exposition on Media and the Magi. I used to wonder why it was important in the New Testament to have the three Magi bless the baby Jesus. Since the Magi were a known priestly order in Middle East from antiquity, by having them bless the baby Jesus, the importance of Jesus is established.

A sudden aha moment. That blessing story about Jesus may be a cock and bull story.

The Media and their Magi were pretty much dominated and eliminated after Cyrus and Darius - around 500 BC after which everyone became Zoroastrian while the Achaemenids ruled from Syria to the Indus. The Medes are already described as having some weird Ahuramazdaic tradition - not surprising because they were around from 2000 BC, followed Vedic Gods and Zoroaster was later born among them.

The legend of three Magi may have been added simply to add masala like the star over Bethlehem.

[KLP Dubey]

Dear RajeshA,

I have read your post/reply. I wish you all the best in the pursuits you detailed. Just two comments:

1) You say you are just beginning to become aware of the interpretation/consistency issues in RV. I suggest you actually read it in the original (not some translation by Griffith or similar guy). It will take a while to examine all the words. There is no shortcut. Hopefully you will understand how critical the consistency issue is, and the futility of taking a few sounds from the Veda and running with them to generate fake history. Maybe you will also feel ashamed/angry/embarrassed that there is a whole field of activity out there based upon so little substance.

2) Since you do not appreciate that Vedic Sanskrit is an accented language, the lack of accent in the "composer" names may seem "minor" to you. It isn't. The RV Samhita has been reliably transmitted through thousands of years by the oral route. The Vedic accent is a critical part of that transmission. If the rishi names were recited at the start of the suktas right from the vedic age, it's impossible to imagine that the accent went missing at some point. Talageri of course has a cavalier approach to the whole thing.

It seems that common sense and reason can do little to stand in your way. Hence I will not be creating these "minor" obstacles in your path any further. I shall however complete the posts which were requested by Shiv and other posters.

Namaskar,

KL

[RajeshA]

KLP Dubey ji

my few words.

1) I am not going to fake anything here. My knowledge of both Sanskrit and Rigveda is limited. And yes I will most surely learn a lot in the future in these two areas. Thanks for your blessings.

Just as I have to learn a lot, I believe Vedic scholars too need to understand better the exigencies and politics of AIT and do the needful to not just destroy the arguments of the indigenist camp, but also the arguments of the AIT-Nazis and AIT-Sepoys. As scholars of Sanskrit and Vedic traditions they are best placed to help, but in the last 200 years they have been conspicuous by their absence, and when they do show up they start pouring scorn on the indigenists, calling them quacks and frauds.

If the Vedic scholars had been present from the beginning itself in this struggle to uphold Indian history and Indian civilization from the assaults of the West, people like Talageri need not have found it necessary to make a stand.

2) I may not know Vedic Sanskrit, but from my knowledge of learning languages, I have understood that one should not consider anything inconsequential in a language, and everything is important, especially to express nuance. Having said that, that was not what I consider minor, but rather the need to adhere to it in this case.

As I understand the name of the rishi is recited at the start of the Sukta, more specifically before the Sukta. AFAIK, which is not much, that is why I asked you, whether the name of the rishi belongs to the corpus of Rigveda or not, I believe the rishi's name lies outside the corpus of Rigvedic sounds. As such there is no requirement on the rishi names to abide by the rules of the Rigveda Pratisakhya.

So even as Rigveda has been recited every time in the same way, we know that later on various accents of Vedic Sanskrit were abandoned. For example, the accents of Vedic Sanskrit, AFAIK, are not there anymore in Classical Sanskrit period.

Also many of the names of the ancient rishis were used in day-to-day language of the "maintainer" families. They were the same as their gotras and parivar names. Since there were no Pratisakhya requirements on how to pronounce the Rishi names at the beginning of the Sukta, the "maintainer" reciters pronounced those names as they used to pronounce in every day life.

Whether the issue is minor or major is a subjective perspective if it is not a requirement of a Pratisakhya.

_________

I just want to take the opportunity to thank you. I have learned a lot from you, and hope to learn much more albeit not jumping in too often into your arguments.

[Nilesh Oak]

Rigvedic reference that alludes to existance of 'script'.. at least when 10th Mandala was revealed/recasted/composed etc. Again, nothing new for many here, who would not know this already. If someone can add lucid translation, that would be great. (I have added translation of Griffith until better one is posted).

RigVeda 10:71:4



One man hath ne'er seen Vak, and yet he seeth: one man hath hearing but hath never heard her.
But to another hath she shown her beauty as a fond well-dressed woman to her husband.

[RajeshA]

Nilesh Oak ji,

I would tentatively like to mention, it could also refer to enlightenment, when one speaks of "seeing"!

[Agnimitra]

2) Since you do not appreciate that Vedic Sanskrit is an accented language, the lack of accent in the "composer" names may seem "minor" to you. It isn't. The RV Samhita has been reliably transmitted through thousands of years by the oral route. The Vedic accent is a critical part of that transmission. If the rishi names were recited at the start of the suktas right from the vedic age, it's impossible to imagine that the accent went missing at some point. Talageri of course has a cavalier approach to the whole thing.

I think this is an important point. Take extant languages that are accented, e.g. Chinese Mandarin. Take for instance the word "maa". When said with a protracted high accent (--), it means "mother". When said with a protracted high-low-high (\/) tone, it means "horse". When said with an abrupt high-to-low drop in tone (-\) it means "jute"! Now, if Witzel or others think its not a big deal to call his mother a horse, then that shows how idiotic he is.

OARN, I have noticed that the further away people are from a written language, the more their cognition of words and meanings depends on musical tonality. This means that tonality gains in semantic importance the more the cognition is based on hearing rather than seeing. E.g., I was once travelling through Tamil Nadu. The bus stopped at a village. There was an old, illiterate tribal lady standing there, the kind who wrap their sarees around the torso without a blouse. She approached me to ask something. My Tamil is very poor and broken, but educated or younger literate Tamils can usually understand what word I am using. But with her I found that if I said a word in a flat accent, she had no clue what I was saying. But if I said the same word with the singsong accent I see Tamils typically using, (I had to force myself to act it out and exaggerate it, complete with head movements, the way north Indians make fun of madrassis ), then she understood it immediately!

Added: AFAIK, as the mind moves towards losing consciousness, the hearing faculty by far outlasts the seeing faculty -- both in terms of environmental sense object as well as memory. It is the last sense organ to go down. Therefore, the hearing method of language goes deeper than the written word. If a text is based on the hearing method, its tonality is paramount. "Words" are not separate pieces, rather they flow into one another, their relative meaning attaining coherence based on context and tone -- just like musical notes. There's a difference between notes that come together to make music versus noise.

[A_Gupta]

How does the 3000BC or earlier date for the Mahabharata battle account for the horses and chariots described in the battle in the modern recensions of the epic?