Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 02 Oct 2012 00:28

A_Gupta ji,

What the archaeological data on horse domestication gives us is the latest date of horse domestication, and not the earliest. This is an aspect they always fail to mention.

Besides we should be looking more closely at archaeological data on the Arabian horse, and not the Central Asian horse.

The horses were there, whenever our epics took place.

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 02 Oct 2012 02:23

A_Gupta wrote: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?

Since western world is ok with horse domestication by 3500 BC, the proposal for MBH War in 3000 BC may able to get away with "so called" horse problem.

They were domesticated and began running at fast pace towards India, reached India in time to participate in MBH War.

But let's take my (and Vartak) proposal for 5561 BC. This date directly contradicts with what acadmia loves to call...established/agreed by scholars.... bllllllafbhulifdhfdkfl........date of 3500 BC for domestication of horses. There is some news of archeological discovery of domestication of horses in Saudi around 7000 BC, but ignoring that for now....

Imp. to realize that date of 3500 BC (assuming archeology evidence is credible) tells us that horses were definitely domesticated by/in 3500 BC. This does not say if earlier and how early they were domesticated...as recognized by RajeshA ji.

Inductive reasoning is very funny.. it takes big leap of faith when it should not, and reaches wrong conclusions in all other cases, because it always underestimates 'Black Swan'.

So, I have placed the issue of 'horses' in another fashion... i.e. since my proposal for 5561 BC is based on much firmer footing (not just AV observation, but many more), my proposal demands 'domestication of horses' in India during 5561 BC, but frankly long before 5561 BC.

I made similar prediction/new challenge based on my proposal of 5561 BC for SSVC. Since dates of SSVC are something like 3000BC -2000 BC (late phase anyway), I predicted (does not mean it is verified and true, but rather this poses as a mild falsififying test for my proposal) that SSVC is post Mahabharata, and thus post Vedic and post Ramayana.

I also made prediction for OIT. Since descendants of Pururava went to west (Gandhara, Perisia, and Arrata) via Amavasu line and since Pururava was at least 55+ generations before MBH, this migration occurred long time before 5561 BC.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 02 Oct 2012 02:32

A lot of the book is visible in books.google.com.
Chariots in the Veda
By M. Sparreboom

Veda here is not just the Samhita, though a lot of translation of the Samhita is also mentioned.

Prem Kumar · Post by **Prem Kumar** » 02 Oct 2012 02:37

If MBH date is 5561 BC, what are the dates for the IVC? Before or after MBH?

If it is after MBH, we need to be able to explain why long texts are not found in the Indus seals (the infamous Farmer Indus script prize). Not that I give two hoots about the prize, but if an elaborate poem like the MBH has been orally transmitted prior to IVC, there should be at least some writing or pictograms that refer to these events

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 02 Oct 2012 02:43

Camels occur in the Mahabharata as part of armies; the archaeologists' date for their earliest domestication is 3000 BC, in Saudi Arabia or north Africa.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 02 Oct 2012 02:52

Kumbhakarna rides a camel in this translation of Valmiki Ramayana.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry369.htm
(Trijata's dream)

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 02 Oct 2012 03:04

Prem Kumar wrote:If MBH date is 5561 BC, what are the dates for the IVC? Before or after MBH?

If it is after MBH, we need to be able to explain why long texts are not found in the Indus seals (the infamous Farmer Indus script prize). Not that I give two hoots about the prize, but if an elaborate poem like the MBH has been orally transmitted prior to IVC, there should be at least some writing or pictograms that refer to these events

Other than Phase-I (Mehagarh....~6000-7000 BC) all other phases of SSVC/IVC would be post MBH.

Prem Kumar ji,

Let's not confuse EOA = AOE. Lack of long texts in SSVC can be explained by many means..on the other hand AV observation or Bhisma lying on bed of arrows for more than 92 days, until the day of Winter solstice can not be explained for any period after 4508 BC or ~4000 BC, respectively.

Keep in mind that it is 'pain in the neck' to explain what we do find. Let's not burden ourselves what we have not found.. yet ... or may never fiind.

Your argument/demand is weak, however, it also applies to practically all dates proposed for MBH War ---7300 BC through 1000 BC. No long manuscripts are found from this period either. That is not a defense for year 5561 BC, rather it is an illustration of weak logical demand.

"We don't know what we don't know
We won't know until we search for it
We won't know what it is that we found until we can decipher it"

Prem Kumar · Post by **Prem Kumar** » 02 Oct 2012 03:11

Nilesh - thanks for the clarification regarding timelines of MBH versus IVC

I was quite expecting the AOE = EOA counter-argument when I mentioned long text. But something like at least pictograms (if not long texts) referring to MBH events in IVC would be fantastic. It would be a smoking gun. The lack of it does diminish the theory a bit IMO, though its a blemish and not a serious flaw

One more thing to consider: unlike the RV, where exact reproduction was insisted (which ensured its longevity and immunity from corruption), I am not aware of oral transmission traditions for the MBH. I am wondering how the ancients transmitted such a huge corpus of work over several thousand years without corruption, if written texts didnt exist back then.

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 02 Oct 2012 03:12

A_Gupta wrote:Kumbhakarna rides a camel in this translation of Valmiki Ramayana.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry369.htm
(Trijata's dream)

And domesticated elephants with 2, 3 and 4 tusks (Hanuman visiting Lanka) near Ravana's Pushpak. And people thought explaining existance of Pushpak Vimana was the biggest challenge of Ramayana!

But don't give up so soon. I have lectured at Harvard of Corporate world for 4 years in a row and I visit California all the time. Oh, never been to JNU, but still I will cook up something. Book is still being written.

A Gupta, ji, don't give away all the excitment. Leave something for my book on Ramayana. (Just kidding).

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 02 Oct 2012 03:20

Prem Kumar,
IVC (Indus Valley Civilization) aka SSVC(Saraswati Sindhu Valley Civilization) is after Mahabharata. So far no writing that old is found. The singers recite long poems like the Ramayana written by the Adi Kavi Valmiki. Mahabharata is also a poem written by Vyasa. All of them were transmitted by word of mouth (all those phonemes etc). Suka muni was reciting it to Janemejaya.

Vyasa wrote Jaya and told it to four disciples one of which became the Mahabharata (Suka rendition)

Further recall within two generations the Kashi kings forgot the marital ties to the Pandavas when the King of Kashi refused to let his daughter marry Janemejaya. You want the IVC folks to write about MB in their limited trading seals (mudras)? They do refer to Shiv in his yogic pose so they are familiar with him.

Written script came later. IVC seals are too short to describe the long epics. Even if they were written recall bark was the medium of written words. So its easy to proclaim a prize knowing its hard to preserve bark for such long periods.

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 02 Oct 2012 03:22

Prem Kumar wrote: I was quite expecting the AOE = EOA counter-argument when I mentioned long text. But something like at least pictograms (if not long texts) referring to MBH events in IVC would be fantastic. It would be a smoking gun. The lack of it does diminish the theory a bit IMO, though its a blemish and not a serious flaw

One more thing to consider: unlike the RV, where exact reproduction was insisted (which ensured its longevity and immunity from corruption), I am not aware of oral transmission traditions for the MBH. I am wondering how the ancients transmitted such a huge corpus of work over several thousand years without corruption, if written texts didnt exist back then.

Part -1
I agree. That would be fantastic. Even Sullivan code has not provided us (from SSVC seals) any familar MBH names.. while it has proivided many ancient and Indian names.

Part -2,
I agree 100% with you and that is why (chapter 12) I have speculated/proposed/predicted existance of writing during MBH times. I don't have corroborative evidence but I consider it as rather a challenge of higher dimension to address.. if one accepts 5561 BC = MBH War.
That is why I quoted Rigveda 10:71:4, or previously mentioned MBH references such as (1) Warrior/Bowman's names were engraved on their arrows and (2) Resident of Krishna's dwarka carried seals with them specifying their identify and was required for entry and exit during times of emergency.

Prem Kumar · Post by **Prem Kumar** » 02 Oct 2012 03:52

Ramana: I buy your argument about writing not yet being developed so far in the past. But at the risk of writing more AOE=EOA stuff, let me posit this. If SSVC folks continued the MBH oral tradition, somewhere someone would have likely made seals with Krishna with his discus or Arjuna in a Chariot or some such pictogram. I find it a bit odd that something like this is missing. Of course, Rama is also missing. So, is the bow/arrow.

Perhaps the SSVC folks were just busy traders, without much care for religion (borderline agnostics maybe). Seals for trade was more important than seals for religion/philosophy. Maybe creating seals was expensive business and philosophers/vedic-priests couldnt afford them .........

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 02 Oct 2012 04:30

Elephants were first tamed in the Indus Valley c 4500 BC (as per Wiki). Elephants do appear in the Mahabharata war.

pentaiah · Post by **pentaiah** » 02 Oct 2012 04:42

Aswathama hatah kunjaraha
Is enough to tell you elephants were in battle field in Mahabharata

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Oct 2012 06:40

Carl wrote:
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.

Interesting theory. I suspect that hearing is vital and underrated because hearing and sight evolved in the remote past and light appears only for half a day, hearing was needed for survival 24x7. Groups of humans in the dark, whether hunting or simply caring for each other would have found sounds more useful. And that is probably how drums and other long distance communication methods were developed.

It is only our imagination that tells us modern education is "good" and that ancient education was not good - especially when you consider that the most basic tonality in speech is learned by everyone but no one realises that he is using it. All you need to so is to toggle on the text to speech function on your computer to see what absence of tonality does to communication. I for one am particularly irritated by American text to speech software that is not only monotonous but pronounces pooja and pooya.

KLP Dubey · Post by **KLP Dubey** » 02 Oct 2012 07:35

RajeshA wrote: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.

I agree with you the affixed "rishi names" are not part of the vedic corpus. That is the whole point. They were affixed later by somebody, quite possibly near the time of their rearrangement into Mandalas. The Anukramanis are extraneous information and have no bearing on the "date" of the Veda.

It looks like you are agreeing with me fully regarding the fundamental issue but still are arguing over its consequences. You can't have it both ways, man! Your logic amazes me. **shaking head**

Do you not see this: if the hypothetical "rshi" affixed his name to the Sukta he supposedly composed, then by definition, automatically it becomes part of the Vedic corpus. No ifs and buts. There is now an obligation to transmit it exactly. If the Sukta was not composed by a person with that name, then clearly we have nothing to analyze at all. The so-called rishi lists were never "authentic" (in the sense of dating from "vedic days") in the first place.

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.

They were "abandoned" when society moved to speaking and composing new material in classical Sanskrit. But the Vedic material (Rk, Saman, and Yajus) was NEVER converted to classical Sanskrit, it was (and always is) spoken in accented Vedic Sanskrit only!

It is totally ridiculous to imagine that at some point in the history of oral transmission, students were told that it was OK to stop between continuous recitation of two Suktas, switch to non-accented prose, then switch back to accented Vedic for the next Sukta. Such nonsense never occurred. It is not noted nor discussed in any branch of Vedic practice to the best of my knowledge. The correct and logical explanation is that this indexing information was a post-Vedic creation.

Moreover, (as if more elaboration of this is required), a non-accented word in classical Sanskrit loses information. For example, the Sanskrit word "indrashatru" can be two possible words in Vedic depending on which member of the compound is accented. In case of names, change in the accent means change in the name.

In Vedic times, you might even have gotten thrashed if you used the wrong accent. E.g., if you pronounced the name of a man "gotama" (incidentally a word also used in rishi names) without accenting the first syllable, you would be essentially calling him "best of bovines" (i.e., rather dull for a man) instead of the correct meaning as a bahuvrihi ("having the best cows"). What you are saying is that the practitioners of the Veda were so rude and careless that they dropped the accents, which in many cases is like smearing/obscuring a person's identity. And not just any person, but they were doing this to their most beloved "ancestors" whose supposed "compositions" they were zealously preserving.

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.

Exactly! Again, you have the right answer in your mind but it is coming out wrong when you type it

What you have written above is precisely due to the fact that the gotras and pravaras are a historical creation. They were institutions created at the time of assemblage of the Veda into Mandalas, complete with paraphernalia of invented "rishi names" (constructed - almost needless to say - as patronymics of RV names such as "vasishtha", "gotama", etc. in order to give them authenticity) to give a sense of identity to the various "maintainer" families. Such things have been going on everywhere. For example, newly-minted kshatriyas in various parts of India were "instantly" endowed with impressive suryavanshi or chandravanshi lineages which were totally fictitious. Even as late as 100 years ago, you could be thrashed/killed on the spot if you told, e.g. a Rajput, that he in fact was not a suryavanshi or something like that. There used to be a fanatical belief about such things.

As for folks like Talageri, Witzel, and his PhD student whom Talageri mentioned in his reply, they are unmitigated buffoons in my opinion. For example Talageri, who is usually anti-Witzel in the extreme, took pains to tell me that even Witzel and some student of his both accept the authenticity of Anukramani names. If he is trying to say that he is not the only joker in the pack, then I agree. But if he was trying to tell me that I should accept it just because Witzel et al have also done so, I find that an insult to my intelligence.

KL

Nilesh Oak · Post by **Nilesh Oak** » 02 Oct 2012 08:12

Dubey ji,

They were affixed later by somebody, quite possibly near the time of their rearrangement into Mandalas. The Anukramanis are extraneous information and have no bearing on the "date" of the Veda.

You and I would agree that the rearrangment of Manadalas took place at some point (sure, it would have occured many times, but let's us assume what we have today as Rigveda is from the last time this rearrangment of Mandalas took place).
We also know that Vyasa is credited with recasting of Vedas (MBH has reference to this effect).
Could this be then the time when Anukramanis might have been inserted? I am not asking Q or insisting that you agree, but rather suggesting an educated guess.

It is totally ridiculous to imagine that at some point in the history of oral transmission, students were told that it was OK to stop between continuous recitation of two Suktas, switch to non-accented prose, then switch back to accented Vedic for the next Sukta. Such nonsense never occurred. It is not noted nor discussed in any branch of Vedic practice to the best of my knowledge. The correct and logical explanation is that this indexing information was a post-Vedic creation.

How are these Suktas/Mandalas chanted in our times in Ved Pathashalas? Do they refer to name of Rishi, etc. from Anukramanika, before begining new Sukta?

What you are saying is that the practitioners of the Veda were so rude and careless that they dropped the accents, which in many cases is like smearing/obscuring a person's identity. And not just any person, but they were doing this to their most beloved "ancestors" whose supposed "compositions" they were zealously preserving.

Dubey ji,

Then are you suggesting that during the time of rearrangement of Manadalas..or sometime before or after, immediate to this rearrangment, a fraud took place, and group of peole (Chanter of Rigveda, Brahmins, priests, whoever) took upon themselves as owner/responsible for certain Sukta and ensured their names were arranged which subsequently became Anukramanika?

This would be necessary (or something like what I describe above.) in order to explain your suggestion...

What you have written above is precisely due to the fact that the gotras and pravaras are a historical creation. They were institutions created at the time of assemblage of the Veda into Mandalas, complete with paraphernalia of invented "rishi names" (constructed - almost needless to say - as patronymics of RV names such as "vasishtha", "gotama", etc. in order to give them authenticity) to give a sense of identity to the various "maintainer" families.

As for folks like Talageri............. But if he was trying to tell me that I should accept it just because Witzel et al have also done so, I find that an insult to my intelligence.

Interesting you read in his email response what you are insinuating. The way I read it is similar to me saying "even Peter ji finally understood mystery of Arundhati (even though he still wants me admit my fault and fall in line for say... year 3067 BC!)"

This is educational. I am looking forward to your exposition on horses, chariots, but for me... I am curious about Rigveda verses that refer to (are at least interpreted by many) rivers- Ganga, Yamuna, Sarasvati, Shatudri, Payoshni, Sindhu....etc. and why, according to you, these references of Rigveda have nothing to do with geographical rivers of North and Northwest India.

Arjun · Post by **Arjun** » 02 Oct 2012 08:20

KLP Dubey wrote:As for folks like Talageri, Witzel, and his PhD student whom Talageri mentioned in his reply, they are unmitigated buffoons in my opinion.

KLP ji, Lets go easy on the name-calling on the Indegenist camp. One needs to take into account the larger picture of who has displayed leadership so far in taking on the obvious buffoonery of the AIT camp - and not base it on random logic here or there.

For example, there are a number of words that come to my mind as I see the stupendous 'logic' on display as regards 'impossibility of deriving history from the Vedas'. But I have chosen to hold my tongue so far based on the fact that one needs to judge based on the larger picture - and you may yet be able to come out with more sustainable logic to base your arguments on.

At the end of the day - the purpose of this thread is very clear. It is to identify the best total package of arguments to beat down the jokers from the AIT camp. If you come up with a total package that achieves this, which is more effective than the other arguments out there- you will have earned the right to term Elst and Talageri as 'buffoons'. Until then the opposite will hold true.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Oct 2012 10:12

When I start digging into history, I find several points to note
1. Most of the history that one can read is written by European/western sources.
2. A lot of the history stems from common sources that are considered reliable or "accepted' by western sources' Huge volumes and thousands of pages of history written over the past 200 years all take from the same remote sources barring new archaeological/literary finds as they arrive.
3. When it comes to the remote history of North West India and Iran, the source that is most commonly taken as credible is Herodotus. An older source, Ctesias is more or less dismissed, although Ctesias has some valuable information
4. None of the sources acceptable in the west gives any kind of history earlier than 500 BC or so. 1000 BC is as far back as it goes when it comes to India and Eastern Iran
5. This leaves a 1000 year gap between 2000 BC and 1000 that has been used creatively cook up history.
6. If you spend a little time looking at ancient history before 1000 BC from Iranian sources and Indian sources you get a different picture.

I will try and make brief summary of that pre-1000 BC history from Indian and Iranian sources (like Vedas, epics, gathas and old Iranian texts).

Ancient Iranian memories go back to an undated Aurmazda and Zoroaster. Iranian sources know that Old forms of Avestan which are the oldest texts are very similar to Vedic Sanskrit. The only conclusion we can reach from this is that both are before 1000 BC and that the geographical area is the same. From this period onwards Iranian history moves on to the post 1000 BC era which is reasonably well documented, particularly in Western Iran after about 600 BC

Sanskrit sources are slightly different. They do not acknowledge and Ahura mazda or Zoroaster. The oldest texts see the lands of Gandhara, Media and Kamboja as extensions of Vedic regions with a cultural exchange between those regions and Indian lands lying further south and east. The Vedic history clearly predates the Zoroastrian history and this is acknowledged in Zoroastian texts abut not accepted by newly cooked up "linguistic evidence". So much for the bluff that linguistics is not used for chronological judgements.

Western sources are never going to accept Indian sources as authentic. They will ask for horse bones and inscriptions - so it is is pointless trying to convince anyone, but it is important to record a parallel and much older history of the Indian subcontinent in the era prior to 1000 BC about which western sources are blind and prone to cook up stuff.

If Vedas says horse was present, horse was there, Whether it happens to be 1,000,000 BC or 1 BC horse was there. Just because horse was seen by Western historians in 4000 BC in Central Asia does not mean that all horses came after that. Just like Western historians choose to believe their sources, we have to look at what our sources say and not be apologetic or hesitant as we slavishly tend to be.

I believe that linguists have painted themselves into a corner by cooking up linguistic evidence that forces them to classify the beginning of the Vedic period as 1400 to 1200 BC (after Mitanni) and the end as around 800-500 BC . Too much "attested evidence" exists that can be used to question this timeline. Bactria including Gandhara were hotly contested areas between 100 BC and 500 BC with Iran serialy coming under control of bablylon from 1000 BC to 700 BC. Under the medians from 700 BC to 500 BC and the Achaemenids after that. The west of the Indus region was hardly "Vedic" by 900 BC.

This is where Ctesias comes in. Ctesias's "indika" has a detailed description of an attempt by a queen Semiramis (who lived around 800 BC) to try and cross the Indus and take India in a war against an Indian king "Stabrobates" by one Armenian Google link as "Sthabarpati"

An excerpt from Ctesias:

When she heard that the nation of the Indians was
the greatest in the world and that they possessed the largest and most beautiful land, she
resolved to launch a campaign into India where in those days Stabrobates reigned with
countless soldiers and an incredible number of elephants, brilliantly adorned with terrifying
instruments of war. (3) India is a land of exceeding beauty divided by many rivers; there is
water everywhere and it produces harvest twice each year. There is such an abundance of
life’s necessities that the natives are always provided with plentiful enjoyment. It is said that
there has never been a famine or loss of crops in this country because of the good climate.
(4) It has an incredible number of elephants far surpassing those in Libya both in forcefulness
and bodily strength. There is also an incredible supply of gold, silver, iron and bronze, and
in addition to these, there is a large quantity of precious stones of all types as well as nearly
everything pertinent to luxury and wealth. After Semiramis heard about all this in detail, she
was persuaded to declare war on the Indians, although she had not been provoked in any
way.

So the idea that the post Vedic people such as Panini could have lived in Gandhara codifying Sanskrit in 600 or 500 BC stretches credulity. By 600 BC the Median dominance (700-500 BC) that followed Babylon (1000-700 BC) was going to end soon and Cyrus, followed by Darius with the old Persian language were about to dominate Iran/Afghanistan right up to the Indus.

The only way to reconcile these conflicts is very simple. All that needs to be done is to put the Vedic prior to 1500 BC. This the current historians are unwilling to do and that is their problem. In fact if you can accuse the Vedas of describing a pastoral society, then a date of 3000 BC would fit in perfectly.

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 02 Oct 2012 10:23

shiv wrote:
Carl wrote:
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.
Interesting theory. I suspect that hearing is vital and underrated because hearing and sight evolved in the remote past and light appears only for half a day, hearing was needed for survival 24x7.

Shiv ji, its not a theory, its a scientific observation. E.g.: in Communicating with unconscious patients...

VOL: 97, ISSUE: 48, PAGE NO: 35

Karen Leigh, BSc, DipHE, RN, is staff nurse, The Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford

According to Sisson (1990), hearing is the last sense to go when a person becomes unconscious. It is, therefore, imperative that health professionals evaluate the way in which they communicate with unconscious patients.

Moreover, while appearing clinically "unconscious", patients have woken up to say they remembering hearing all conversations in the room, but could not move or talk or see. Emotional responses are also observed via monitoring when certain phrases are spoken to patients who appear to be "unconscious". It depends on where we draw the line of conscious/unconscious.

Furthermore, the above is the case when the words heard go into the conscious memory. There are studies that show that beyond a certain point of amnesia trance, the words go into some part of the "subconscious", and there exert the effect similar to a post-hypnotic suggestion. The patient won't remember anything heard, but acts according to it. So in this case also, "hearing" is happening. Here also the psychoacoustics of, both, the verbalization as well as tonality is picked up. However, its neuro-semantic effect is different from the above case. The details of the differences between these two cases can be rather interesting.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 02 Oct 2012 10:25

^^^ So a prediction would be that archaeologists will uncover horse and chariot remains from 3000 BC or so in India. One thing it means is that so far they've been looking in the wrong places.

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 02 Oct 2012 10:29

KLP Dubey wrote:In Vedic times, you might even have gotten thrashed if you used the wrong accent. E.g., if you pronounced the name of a man "gotama" (incidentally a word also used in rishi names) without accenting the first syllable, you would be essentially calling him "best of bovines" (i.e., rather dull for a man) instead of the correct meaning as a bahuvrihi ("having the best cows").

Dubey ji I am thoroughly enjoying your posts.

I have a question -- a little earlier I gave an example of the importance of tonality and accent from modern Chinese - a language spoken by over a billion people. Over there, tone variation and duration can radically alter the meaning of the word. In the case of Vedic chhandas, is its effect only restricted to the kind of difference you point out above, or can it be a totally different meaning altogether? For instance, "go" can be cows, but also earth, or the senses? Were those differences in meaning earlier indicated by accent?

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 02 Oct 2012 10:30

shiv wrote:

3. When it comes to the remote history of North West India and Iran, the source that is most commonly taken as credible is Herodotus. An older source, Ctesias is more or less dismissed, although Ctesias has some valuable information.

Actually, the cuneiform libraries in the Middle East are a key source of Iranian history.
E.g., Medes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medes
talks of the Assyrian sources.

Murugan · Post by **Murugan** » 02 Oct 2012 11:51

On hearing and sruti, experience of Aurobindo

Contents of the Veda

Coming to the contents of the Veda we find that various theories have been advanced on this subject. But we confine ourselves to Sri Aurobindo’s view which is strictly based on his direct self-experience. It is interesting to note here that even before he commenced the study of the Vedas he had direct vision of certain Vedic deities, saw them in their manifest forms, had an insight into their nature and function and came to know the symbolic meaning of their names by inspiration. When he was pursuing certain lines of self-development in the way of Indian Yoga, there began to arise in his mind some symbolic names. They pertained to certain psychological experiences which he was privy to regularly. Among those experiences “...there came the figures of three female energies, Ila, Saraswati, Sarama, representing severally three out of the four faculties of the intuitive reason, - revelation, inspiration and intuition. Two of these names were not well known to me as names of Vedic goddesses, but were not well known to me as names of Vedic goddess of learning and Ila, mother of the Lunar dynasty.

“But Sarama was familiar enough. I was unable, however, to establish any connection between the figure that rose in my mind and the Vedic hound of heaven, who was associated in my memory with the Argive Helen and represented only an image of the Physical Dawn ...”

In course of time he had a direct inner experience of the nature of these three goddesses as also the goddess Daksina. He said that these goddesses represented “...the four faculties of the rtam or Truth-Consciousness, - Ila representing truth-vision or revelation, Saraswati truth-audition, inspiration, the divine word, Sarama intuition, Dakshina the separative intuitional discrimination.” In ancient Indian terminology Ila corresponds to Drsti, Sarasvati to Sruti, Sarama to Smrti and Daksina to Smarta Viveka.

Thus we have seen that even before studying the Veda, Sri Aurobindo had a vision of the Vedic goddesses and the touchstone of his own inner vision helped in revealing to him their symbolic nature and all this happened in the same way as the Mantras of the Rgveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda dawned in the hearts of the four great seers. Agni, Vayu, Aditya and Angiras respectively in the beginning of human creation. Therefore, the secret meaning revealed to Sri Aurobindo has the solid backbone of experiential authority. Consequently the method he has evolved to interpret and annotate the Vedic text is the most authoritative, flawless and holistic in its scope.

In another context he has himself clearly said, “Sri Krishna has shown me the true meaning of the Vedas, not only so, but he has shown me a new Science of Philology showing the process and origins of human speech so that a new Nirukta can be formed and the new interpretation of Veda based upon it. He has also shown me the meaning of all in the Upanishads that is not understood either by Indians or Europeans

The work Veda means derivatively knowledge as a direct experience. If the Veda is the word, it is not the written word but spoken, or rather a word heard, sruti, as it is called. That means the language of the Veda itself stems from a non-human or impersonal source. Sri Aurobindo has said, “The language of Veda itself is sruti, 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.” It follows that the Veda as a Divine Gospel is unbounded, unlimited and infinite. Issuing from the ineffable sources it penetrates and permeates the hearts of Rishis.

The self-same Truth has been explained in yet another way by Sri Aurobindo. In The Synthesis of Yoga he writes: “The supreme Shastra of the integral Yoga is the eternal Veda secret in the heart of every thinking and living being. The lotus of the eternal knowledge and the eternal perfection is a bud closed and folded up within us. It opens swiftly or gradually, petal by petal....” This statement of Sri Aurobindo’s corroborates and buttresses the traditional conviction that the Veda is not a book but an eternal and infinite knowledge, embedded in the heart of each individual

Arjun · Post by **Arjun** » 02 Oct 2012 12:18

Murugan wrote:On hearing and sruti, experience of Aurobindo
In another context he has himself clearly said, “Sri Krishna has shown me the true meaning of the Vedas, not only so, but he has shown me a new Science of Philology showing the process and origins of human speech so that a new Nirukta can be formed and the new interpretation of Veda based upon it. He has also shown me the meaning of all in the Upanishads that is not understood either by Indians or Europeans

Well, this particular 'experiencing' of the Vedas by Aurobindo seems to have come along with the meanings - as opposed to Dubey ji's formulation where the initial experiencing by Humans came without attached meanings. In the latter view - mankind had to try and decipher the meanings of the sounds, & they have not been entirely successful at it.

Did Aurobindo publish the 'new Nirukta' mentioned?

Are there any other published viewpoints that point to Vedics having received the Vedas without meanings attached (which ultimately resulted in Sanskrit language being derived from RV)- other than the one propounded by Dubey ji ?

Murugan · Post by **Murugan** » 02 Oct 2012 12:27

Aurobindo on vedas

The Secrets of The Veda

Is a good book

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 (dras.t.¯a) of an eternal truth and
an impersonal knowledge.

In the Vedic idea of the revelation there is no suggestion of the miraculous or the supernatural. The Rishi who employed these faculties, had acquired them by a progressive self-culture. Knowledge itself was a travelling and a reaching, or a finding and a winning; the revelation came only at the end, the light was the prize of a final victory. There is continually in the Veda this image of the journey, the soul’s march on the path of Truth.

A tongue unintelligible to us may be correctly understood once a clue has been found; a diction that is deliberately ambiguous, holds its secret much more obstinately and successfully, for it is full of lures and of indications that mislead. Therefore when the Indian mind turned again to review the sense of Veda, the task was difficult and the success only partial.

Added later

The Vedas, becoming less and less the indispensable basis of education, were no longer studied with the same zeal and intelligence; their symbolic language, ceasing to be used, lost the remnant of its inner sense to new generations whose whole manner of thought was different from that of the Vedic forefathers. The Ages of Intuition were passing away into the first dawn of the Age of Reason.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 02 Oct 2012 12:45

A_Gupta wrote:^^^ So a prediction would be that archaeologists will uncover horse and chariot remains from 3000 BC or so in India. One thing it means is that so far they've been looking in the wrong places.

that is only possible if a horse and chariot were submerged in a flood or volcanic eruption. neither horse nor chariot is likely to be buried otherwise - given indian funerary practices

Murugan · Post by **Murugan** » 02 Oct 2012 12:51

Here the Dog and Cat Analogy

As the Veda had passed from the sage to the priest, so now it began to pass from the hands of the priest into the hands of the scholar. And in that keeping it suffered the last mutilation of its sense and the last diminution of its true dignity and sanctity.

***

But when the Veda came to be written down, the law of euphonic combination had assumed a much more despotic authority over the language and the ancient text was written by the grammarians as far as possible in consonance with its regulations. They were careful, however, to accompany it with another text, called the Padapatha, in which all euphonic combinations were again resolved into the original and separate words and even the components of compound words indicated.

It is a notable tribute to the fidelity of the ancient memorisers that, instead of the confusion towhich this system might so easily have given rise, it is always perfectly easy to resolve the formal text into the original harmonies of Vedic prosody. And very few are the instances in which the exactness or the sound judgment of the Padapatha can be called into question.

We have, then, as our basis a text which we can confidently accept and which, even if we hold it in a few instances doubtful or defective, does not at any rate call for that often licentious labour of emendation to which some of the European classics lend themselves. This is, to start with, a priceless advantage for which we cannot be too grateful to the conscientiousness of the old Indian learning.

But it is the ritualistic conception that pervades; that is the persistent note in which all others lose themselves. In the formula of the philosophic schools, the hymns, even while standing
as a supreme authority for knowledge, are yet principally andfundamentally concerned with the Karmakanda, with works,—and by works was understood, preeminently, the ritualistic observation of the Vedic sacrifices. Sayana labours always in the light of this idea. Into this mould he moulds the language of the Veda, turning the mass of its characteristic words into the ritualistic significances,—food, priest, giver, wealth, praise, prayer, rite, sacrifice.

Wealth and food;—for it is the most egoistic and materialistic objects that are proposed as the aim of the sacrifice, possessions, strength, power, children, servants, gold, horses,cows, victory, the slaughter and the plunder of enemies, the destruction of rival and malevolent critic. As one reads and finds hymn after hymn interpreted in this sense, one begins to understand better the apparent inconsistency in the attitude of the Gita which, regarding always the Veda as divine knowledge, yet censures severely the champions of an exclusive Vedism, all whose flowery teachings were devoted solely to material wealth, power and enjoyment.

It is the final and authoritative binding of the Veda to this lowest of all its possible senses that has been the most unfortunate result of Sayana’s commentary. The dominance of the ritualistic interpretation had already deprived India of the living use of its greatest Scripture and of the true clue to the entire sense of the Upanishads. Sayana’s commentary put a seal of finality on the old misunderstanding which could not be broken for many centuries. And its suggestions, when another civilisation discovered and set itself to study the Veda, became in the European mind the parent of fresh errors

A retrospect of Vedic Theory, The Secrets of The Veda, Sri Aurobindo

***

Finally

The ancient Scripture was delivered over to a scholarship laborious, bold in speculation, ingenious in its flights of fancy, conscientious according to its own lights, but ill-fitted to understand the method of the old mystic poets; for it was void of any sympathy with that ancient temperament, unprovided with any clue in its own intellectual or spiritual environment to the ideas hidden in the Vedic figures and parables. The result has been of a double character, on the one side the beginnings of a more minute, thorough and careful as well as a freer handling of the problems of Vedic interpretation, on the other hand a final exaggeration of its apparent material sense and the complete obscuration of its true and inner secret.

Modern Thories, The Secrets of the Vedas, Sri Aurobindo

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Oct 2012 13:45

A_Gupta wrote:^^^ So a prediction would be that archaeologists will uncover horse and chariot remains from 3000 BC or so in India. One thing it means is that so far they've been looking in the wrong places.

I would not make such a prediction. Several reasons for that.

A_Gupta wrote:shiv wrote:
3. When it comes to the remote history of North West India and Iran, the source that is most commonly taken as credible is Herodotus. An older source, Ctesias is more or less dismissed, although Ctesias has some valuable information.
Actually, the cuneiform libraries in the Middle East are a key source of Iranian history.
E.g., Medes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medes
talks of the Assyrian sources.

Cuneiform sources speak of Persian history only insofar as it affected them and that too only after 1000 BC. The Medians set off the collapse of the Babylonian empire by taking Iran and holding it between 700 BC and 500 BC by which time Cyrus and son Darius came on the scene and created a newer and even larger Achaemenid empire.

The Behistun cuneiform inscriptions of 500 BC Darius are in Old Persian, Babylonian and Elamite reflecting the major languages spoken in an empire that went all the way up to the Indus in the East. No Sanskrit in those inscriptions. This is where it gets interesting. If these were the major languages of an Achaemenid empire that included Bactria and Gandhara, then Panini could have not been writing of Janapadas in Gandhara just 100 years before that.

Panini serves as a watershed of sorts because
1. His work has a geographic location (Gandhara)
and
2. He has been given an AIT date of 600 BC

As pointed out above, 600 BC is too late for Panini. The area was under the medians and the Persians,not Vedic Sanskrit speakers. Panini must have been earlier.

How much earlier?

Considering that the Babylonians are on record as having knocked at the gates of India and having been opposed to the Medians and records go back to 1000 BC, Panini must have lived earlier some time before 1000 BC. 1000 BC is the latest date that is likely for Panini. Since the Mahabharata and the "Vedic period" came before Panini, and lasted 600 to 800 years we are looking at a date closer to 2000 BC for the Rig Veda putting it earlier than Mitanni. But that in the middle of an urban civilization. More likely the Rig Veda itself pre dated the urbanization of the IVC.

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 02 Oct 2012 14:59

For whatever it is worth, inspired by the debate and flow of knowledge here, I bought a pack of 4 CDs which contain some verses from Vedas. The verses have been recited by various priests from Kashi (with the name of each priest having a prefix of Ved Moorti). The introduction written on the CD cover reads as such - "The Vedas are more an oral than a written tradition - the sacred mantras need to uttered in right accent, intonation and pronunciation. To achieve this purity, specific forms of recitation have been designed - samhita path, jata path, kram path and so on.This album contains essential verses of The Vedas delivered in the original tradition by the great priests of Kashi"

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 02 Oct 2012 15:10

Online Books

Reposting a Good Link

Publication Date: 1861
Author: Theodor Goldstücker
Páṇini : his place in Sanskrit literature : an investigation of some literary and chronological questions which may be settled by a study of his work

The writer goes into the issues of dating Pāṇini. Though one should not consider all the considerations made in this book as exhaustive.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Oct 2012 17:39

RajeshA wrote:
Publication Date: 1861
Author: Theodor Goldstücker
Páṇini : his place in Sanskrit literature : an investigation of some literary and chronological questions which may be settled by a study of his work

The writer goes into the issues of dating Pāṇini. Though one should not consider all the considerations made in this book as exhaustive.

Many thanks Rajesh. This man confirms what I have written above in a different argument. From page 16

And is it really plausible that
even 600 or 700 years later, the greatest grammarian of India
composed a most artificial and most scientific system of grammar,
utterly ignorant of the simplest tool which might have assisted
him in his work? Should it be possible to realize an advanced
stage of social development without a knowledge of writing, then
it is needless, of course, to refer to the arts, sciences, measures,
and coins mentioned in the Sutras of Panini ; yet I will advert,
within the limits of these preliminary remarks, to one fact, at
least, which it may be as well not to overlook.
We know from Herodotus that Darius, the son of Hystaspes,
subdued the Hindus ; and we have inscriptions of this king himself
which tell us that amongst the nations subdued by him were
the Gadara and Hidhu or the Gandharas, and the peoples living
on the banks of the Indus.'" Could Panini, therefore, who was
a native of Gandhara, had he lived after Darius, as Miiller supposes
to be the case, have remained ignorant of the fact that
writing was known in Persia ?

Whether the writing part is confirmed or not here is one sure proof that Gandhara came under Darius around the time assumed for Panini. In fact this adds to may argument that Panini needs to get an earlier date and that wil carry the entire horse, cart and manure argument back by several centuries.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Oct 2012 17:41

rohitvats wrote:For whatever it is worth, inspired by the debate and flow of knowledge here, I bought a pack of 4 CDs which contain some verses from Vedas. The verses have been recited by various priests from Kashi (with the name of each priest having a prefix of Ved Moorti). The introduction written on the CD cover reads as such - "The Vedas are more an oral than a written tradition - the sacred mantras need to uttered in right accent, intonation and pronunciation. To achieve this purity, specific forms of recitation have been designed - samhita path, jata path, kram path and so on.This album contains essential verses of The Vedas delivered in the original tradition by the great priests of Kashi"

Rohit - name of producer please. I saw a set of Times DVDs but did not buy as I was unsure

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 02 Oct 2012 17:53

KLP Dubey wrote:
RajeshA wrote: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.
I agree with you the affixed "rishi names" are not part of the vedic corpus. That is the whole point. They were affixed later by somebody, quite possibly near the time of their rearrangement into Mandalas. The Anukramanis are extraneous information and have no bearing on the "date" of the Veda.

This can be argued from different views:

View A: Vedas are of non-human origin.
Accordingly the "ṛṣi names" affixed to the sūktas, are the names of those ṛṣis who received the Vedas from the non-human source.

It is possible that these original ṛṣis took the sounds already available within the corpus of the Ṛgveda, and named themselves after these sounds. These ṛṣis established gotras and paravars for the maintenance of the Vedas. Later on these ṛṣis were deified by the Vedics, and even stars and planets were named after them. Some may even consider these ṛṣi names as titles which are conferred to the head of the Guru-Parampara at any given time.

The date of the Vedas does not get fixed in this view. Nobody can say how long the Veda were in the possession and maintenance of the "non-human agency" before humans, Indics, were given the charge of maintaining it.

In fact this process of transmission from the "non-human agency" to the humans may have taken quite some time, and not the whole of the Vedas corpus as we know today, was really given in one go.

The names of the ṛṣis which appear in the Ṛgveda itself, have in this case no relation with the ṛṣis themselves, except that the ṛṣis may have adopted these sounds as their own names. The ṛṣis are not to be considered composers. The Anukramaṇī stand. The original Sanskrit was derived from Ṛgveda.

View B: The Vedas are of human origin
Accordingly the "ṛṣi names" affixed to the sūktas, are the names of those ṛṣis who composed the Vedas. As the corpus of the Vedas grew ever more ṛṣis contributed to this corpus.

The Anukramaṇī is an index of all the composer ṛṣis (or most of them). The Anukramaṇī stand. Ṛgveda was composed in Sanskrit, which had already developed by then indigenously in India.

View C: The "ṛṣi names" were affixed much later
The "ṛṣi names" are simply the names of the gotras and paravars, responsible for the maintenance. They were affixed when the Vedas were rearranged. The "ṛṣi names" are not authentic.

The Anukramaṇī are hence bogus. The time, place and means of introduction of Vedas into human society is not known. Who received the Vedas is not known. There is no way to ascertain geography or history as such - not just of the Vedas (which we consider eternal), but also the history and geography of introduction of the Vedas into human society is unknown. The The Anukramaṇī shed no light on this as it is bogus anyway!

The process of developing Sanskrit from the Ṛgveda can also not be analyzed or researched. Point is we can't say anything!

--------------

Considering the three views here, View C is actually the most destructive. It starts calling earlier Vedic scholars and maintainers as well as several works as quacks, frauds and boguses. It destroys whatever history and geography we have in testimony form, e.g. the Anukramaṇī. When asked to suggest alternate view of history and geography pleads inability because everything is lost, and everything available is bogus.

KLP Dubey wrote:It looks like you are agreeing with me fully regarding the fundamental issue but still are arguing over its consequences. You can't have it both ways, man! Your logic amazes me. **shaking head**

Do you not see this: if the hypothetical "rshi" affixed his name to the Sukta he supposedly composed, then by definition, automatically it becomes part of the Vedic corpus. No ifs and buts. There is now an obligation to transmit it exactly. If the Sukta was not composed by a person with that name, then clearly we have nothing to analyze at all. The so-called rishi lists were never "authentic" (in the sense of dating from "vedic days") in the first place.

The Vedas are considered eternal and authorless, so how can a ṛṣi's name become part of the Vedic corpus? The ṛṣi's name can at best be considered an attachment, which is spoken out just before chanting the Veda sūktas. The name can never become part of the sūkta!

If however the Vedas are considered authored works, then of course tradition can demand, that the composer attaches his name to the sūkta in the beginning, in which case yes, then the name can be part of the sūkta.

The Ṛk-Prātiśākhya is as far as I understand is only an application requirement for the corpus of the Ṛgveda, i.e. the sūktas, but not a requirement on the attachments, the preface parts, the metadata.

KLP Dubey wrote:
RajeshA wrote: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.
They were "abandoned" when society moved to speaking and composing new material in classical Sanskrit. But the Vedic material (Rk, Saman, and Yajus) was NEVER converted to classical Sanskrit, it was (and always is) spoken in accented Vedic Sanskrit only!

Yes, I agree with this. The Vedic material was never converted to classical Sanskrit. The question is if the Vedic material includes the metadata or not? AFAIU, it doesn't.

KLP Dubey wrote:It is totally ridiculous to imagine that at some point in the history of oral transmission, students were told that it was OK to stop between continuous recitation of two Suktas, switch to non-accented prose, then switch back to accented Vedic for the next Sukta. Such nonsense never occurred. It is not noted nor discussed in any branch of Vedic practice to the best of my knowledge. The correct and logical explanation is that this indexing information was a post-Vedic creation.

What is the meaning of post-Vedic creation? As the Vedas are eternal and authorless, of course everything would be considered post-Vedic!

The Anukramaṇīs as such do not prescribe how the ṛṣi names ought to be pronounced during chanting. Of course the various maintainers can pronounce the names as they see fit or as tradition demands.

As far as I understand the function of the Anukramaṇīs is to give various kind of metadata about each mandala, sūkta and ṛca, as well as to elaborate some on the various ṛṣis. The Anukramaṇīs of Shaunaka, Katyayana, etc. would of course be based on previous works or on previous oral historical knowledge transmission traditions, which they simply compiled. Their compilations too must have been later works.

Actually for the writers of the Anukramaṇīs, it would have posed not that much more difficulty to use accented names of the ṛṣis. After all these names were still being used mostly in accented form during chanting. You yourself claim this. But outside of the chanting, in scholarship, in gotra and paravar names, these names were also being used without the accents. The Anukramaṇīs are scholarship works - indices, and perhaps the writers did not see it necessary to include the ṛṣi names in accented form.

I don't dispute that the Anukramaṇīs known to us are later works, but there is also no need to doubt that they are based, beside on the metadata used before the chanting of the sūkta and ṛca and the numerical analysis of the Rigveda, also on story-telling traditions of earlier scholars and paramparas.

Trying to look for some "evil" design in Anukramaṇīs works is both disingenuous and unnecessary.

KLP Dubey wrote:Moreover, (as if more elaboration of this is required), a non-accented word in classical Sanskrit loses information. For example, the Sanskrit word "indrashatru" can be two possible words in Vedic depending on which member of the compound is accented. In case of names, change in the accent means change in the name.

In Vedic times, you might even have gotten thrashed if you used the wrong accent. E.g., if you pronounced the name of a man "gotama" (incidentally a word also used in rishi names) without accenting the first syllable, you would be essentially calling him "best of bovines" (i.e., rather dull for a man) instead of the correct meaning as a bahuvrihi ("having the best cows"). What you are saying is that the practitioners of the Veda were so rude and careless that they dropped the accents, which in many cases is like smearing/obscuring a person's identity. And not just any person, but they were doing this to their most beloved "ancestors" whose supposed "compositions" they were zealously preserving.

Well the Anukramaṇīs are not prescribing Rigvedic chanters to mispronounce names. The pronunciation of those names would probably be dictated by other traditions.

However as far as Anukramaṇīs go, the question is whether any pronunciations that arise from them are in reality affecting the meaning of the names or not! It is one thing that something can theoretically be affected and quite another, that it is truly affected.

KLP Dubey wrote:
RajeshA wrote: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.
Exactly! Again, you have the right answer in your mind but it is coming out wrong when you type it What you have written above is precisely due to the fact that the gotras and pravaras are a historical creation. They were institutions created at the time of assemblage of the Veda into Mandalas, complete with paraphernalia of invented "rishi names" (constructed - almost needless to say - as patronymics of RV names such as "vasishtha", "gotama", etc. in order to give them authenticity) to give a sense of identity to the various "maintainer" families.

I have no problem with that, that these names were invented later on. However you are maintaining that these names were invented much much later, perhaps at the time of rearrangement of the Vedas.

I would suggest that we treat these names as historic personages who played an active role in receiving the Vedas. There is no need to kill historicity of the introduction of Vedas into human society.

KLP Dubey wrote:Such things have been going on everywhere. For example, newly-minted kshatriyas in various parts of India were "instantly" endowed with impressive suryavanshi or chandravanshi lineages which were totally fictitious. Even as late as 100 years ago, you could be thrashed/killed on the spot if you told, e.g. a Rajput, that he in fact was not a suryavanshi or something like that. There used to be a fanatical belief about such things.

As for folks like Talageri, Witzel, and his PhD student whom Talageri mentioned in his reply, they are unmitigated buffoons in my opinion. For example Talageri, who is usually anti-Witzel in the extreme, took pains to tell me that even Witzel and some student of his both accept the authenticity of Anukramani names. If he is trying to say that he is not the only joker in the pack, then I agree. But if he was trying to tell me that I should accept it just because Witzel et al have also done so, I find that an insult to my intelligence.

Well Shri Shrikant Talageri is mostly used to hearing derisive objections from the Witzel camp, so his initial reaction to criticism would be on those lines only.

What is somewhat more distasteful is your own usage of AIT material on Anukramaṇīs in this post to try to run down Shrikant Talageri. Somehow reminds me of some Indian kings inviting foreigners to invade other Indian kings, whom they did not like, or simply siding with foreign invaders!

Anyway calling Indigenist scholars 'buffoons' would hardly reflect well on you or your school of thinking.

There will be Indians who would be looking at the Vedas as a work in Sanskrit, which was composed, and perhaps consider it revealed in their own way, perhaps through inspiration. No, they do not contribute anything to the Dharmic faith, but they do contribute to Indic ownership of scholarship in Indian heritage. These scholars are here to stay. The faithful can consider them outlaws and call them names, if they want. In other religions, similar things happen with tension between orthodoxy and "modernists/secularists".

The problem is that by attacking such "modernist science" scholars, the Vedic scholars will only end up deepening the schism, and ultimately lead to loss of faith in the Vedas among the "educated public", just as it has happened in Europe with Christianity.

The Vedic school of thought should never be seen as opposing or being vindictive about scientific inquiry, even in the Vedas. It is quite another thing to take apart all those Western mischief-makers and their Indian sepoys on other grounds. Hinduism's scientificity is one of its best selling points. Let's not spoil that image by calling others buffoons, quacks and frauds, who mean well for India and Hindus.

member_22872 · Post by **member_22872** » 02 Oct 2012 18:27

Dubey ji, could you also share some good references on Mimamsa and other important Vedic works if you don't mind? What do you think of Kumarila Bhatta Tantravarttika (A Commentary on Sabara's Bhasya on the Purvamimamsa Sutras of Jaimini) by Gaganatha jha? Or do you study only Sanskrit expositions?

Thanks.

member_22872 · Post by **member_22872** » 02 Oct 2012 18:42

Just curious, who authored Bible? What is Stand of Church on this? If Bible is off limits to scrutiny, why is that we don't take the same stand with regards to Vedic corpus? But again I do understand whether Bible has a author or not, Vedic Corpus can be considered given in the first place.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 02 Oct 2012 19:01

shiv wrote: Western sources are never going to accept Indian sources as authentic. They will ask for horse bones and inscriptions - so it is is pointless trying to convince anyone, but it is important to record a parallel and much older history of the Indian subcontinent in the era prior to 1000 BC about which western sources are blind and prone to cook up stuff.

If Vedas says horse was present, horse was there, Whether it happens to be 1,000,000 BC or 1 BC horse was there. Just because horse was seen by Western historians in 4000 BC in Central Asia does not mean that all horses came after that. Just like Western historians choose to believe their sources, we have to look at what our sources say and not be apologetic or hesitant as we slavishly tend to be.

Yes, we should refuse to play their game yet build our own case based on our own understanding of matters. Earlier, I posted the views of Sri Aurobindo, here is another relatively modern seer Sri Dayanand Sarasvati. We need more such Dharmic seers. Few venture into the world of the Vedas themselves, largely sticking to their sampradayas and their own favorites.

According to him all the words in the Vedas have been used in their Yougika derivative or sense and consequently there can be no proper names or historical references in them. And herein lies the difference between Dayanand and other Vedic exegists who take such words as Indra, Agni, Vayu, Ashivinau, etc., to mean particular deities presiding over different departments of nature.

Dayanand interpreted them to mean either God or physical objects and forces according to the context. The other Indian commentators of the Vedas were obsessed with the mythology of the Puranas and tried to read into the Vedas their stories. If they came across the world Vasishtha they could not think that it could mean anything other than the great preceptor of Rama. They forgot that the Shatapatha Brahamana under stood it to mean 'speech'.

Dayanand had not such ideas to fetter him. He discarded the interpretations of Sayana andothers and went back to the ancient commentators. This gives to his interpretation a freshness and a freedom which are so conspicuously lacking in other commentaries.

Dayanand's commentary when it made its first appearance was pooh-poohed among

Before writing the commentary of the Vedas he wrote an Introduction to it which is now presented to the public in an English garb for the first time.

In it he showed that the origin of knowledge could not be explained except on the basis of revelation. The unaided human intellect was powerless to advance even an inch from the instinctive knowledge.

http://www.vjsingh.info/int1.html#7

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 02 Oct 2012 19:20

The Anukramaṇīs

Wikipedia: Anukramaṇī

Six Anukramanis of the Rigveda are ascribed to Shaunaka: Anuvakanukramani, Arshanukramani, Chandonukramani, Devatanukramani, Padanukramani and Suktanukramani. Except the Anuvakakramani, other Anukramanis survive only in quotations found in the writings of Shadgurashishya.

The most important Anukramani of the Rigveda is Katyayana's Sarvanukramani (ca. 2nd century BCE), recording the first word, the number of verses, name and family of poets (rshis), names of deities and metres for each of the 1,028 hymns of the Rigveda. The Vedarthadipika, written by Shadgurushishya (12th century) is a significant commentary of this work.

Mayrhofer (2003) discusses the personal names contained in the Rigveda Anukramani, counting 543 items. Academic opinion regarding the age and authenticity of the tradition of these names is not unanimous. Mayrhofer suggests that Hermann Oldenberg (1888) was essentially correct in assuming that

"the editors of the lists of authors [...] [possessed] a correct notion of the families associated with these Mandalas [the Rigvedic "family books" 2–7], possibly rooted in tradition. Beyond this, they do not betray as much as the slightest sign of any genuine tradition on the hymn authors." (p. 229)

Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Sitzungsbericht 2002, Heft 3, Seite 165
By Manfred Mayrhofer [Obituary]
Die Personennamen in der Rgveda-Samhita. Sicheres und Zweifelhaftes
"The Personal Names in the Ṛgveda - the Certain and the Dubious"

Publication Date: 1888
Author: Hermann Oldenberg
Über die Liedverfasser des Rigveda Online

Publication Date: 1888
Author: Hermann Oldenberg
Die hymnen des Ṛigveda: Metrische und textgeschichtiliche prolegomena, Band 1

Translation: 2005
Author: Hermann Oldenberg
Prolegomena On Metre And Textual History Of The Rgveda [Google] [Amazon]

Publication Date: 1904
Author: Arthur Anthony Macdonell
The Brhad-devata Attributed to Saunaka: a summary of the deities and myths of the Rig-Veda Online!

Publication Date: 1953
Author: H L Hariyappa
Rgvedic Legends Through The Ages Online! [Digital Library of India]

[New Edition @Amazon]

Digital Critical Edition of Sadgurusisya's Vedarthadipika: Research Project @Brown University, Rhode Island, USA

Anand K · Post by **Anand K** » 02 Oct 2012 19:27

I am not sure if we should go into the intelligent design/creationism path...... Also, doing the "SDRE men don't need them around anyhow.... Sweet Home Madiwala..." thingie would only enable the Weasels to bolt the door by claiming the other side is "enamored with fantastic myths" a "slave of a hoary, rigid and ancient theology"

Someone here posted that debates in ancient India was not the US Prez debates where both get nicked and call it a day..... Debates were serious affairs in which only one is left standing and the vanquished must submit unconditionally. The victories of Mahavira, Buddha and Shankaracharya can be explained only in this way, hain? So the debate we engage with the west must be such that they cannot weasel. Scientific method and hard evidence it is.

JMVHO

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 02 Oct 2012 19:46

shiv saar,

some Western scholars make it an issue of Pāṇini's mention of the word 'yavanani', possibly as a reference to an available script. Westerner say that the word refers to Greeks, and as such he may either be after Alexander's march to the gates of Bharat, or say that even before Alexander, there was Greek elite influence in the region.

Sometimes they come up with many nutty theories!

Pandit Kota Venkatachelam says these "Yavanas" had nothing to do with any Ionians or Greeks who had ventured into the Indian region. He says these Yavanas were more like Bharatiya Kshatriyas who had been pushed out of India, even excommunicated because they did not use to adhere to the Vedic ways!

I think the concept of Yavanas need a lot more research.