posted 14-10-2000 21:12            

That is a nice qualifier. Because in many of the verses quoted by Kaushal from Sethna's book both sindhu and samudra have been used.

I-46-2 -- sindhu mAtarA -- rmà"w bt;ht | sindhu = either river or sea and mAtara = mother. This verse describes Ashwins as sons of the sea i.e they were born or they came out of a sea every morning.

I-163-1 -- udyant samudrAduta -- W'àÀmbwŠt=w; | The same after breaking up becomes: W'à;T + mbwŠt;T + W; which respectivley mean rising (as in the morning)+ from the sea + up.

Since the Ashwins and the sun are intimate to one another, it makes more sense to interpret the word sindhu in I-46-2 as describing a sea rather than the river Sindhu in the light of I-163-1.

Two seas are mentioned frequently together in the context of the sun residing in both i.e. rising from one in the morning and retiring in the other in the evening. The following verse makes it clear:

X-136-5 -- ubhau samudrAvA ksheti yashcha pUrva utAparaha -- WCti mbwŠtJt Gur; gëa vqJo W;tvh& | ubhau = both; samudrAvA = seas; ksheti = dwells; yashcha = who (masculine); pUrva = east(ern sea); utAparaha = after rising up.

The above is further qualified by the mentions in VII-6-7 (ref.: Sethna's book)

VII-6-7 -- aasamudrAdavarAda parasmAt -- ytmbwŠt=Jht=t vhôbt;T | After breaking up it becomes (IMO): yt + mbwŠt;T + yJht=t + vhôbt;T, which respectivley mean: or + from the sea + near/this + from the other/far.

in association with in the same verse, from heaven or earth:

VII-6-7 -- diva aa prithivyAhA -- r=J yt v]r:Ôgt& | diva = heaven; aa = or; prithivyAhA = from the earth

VIII-26-17 -- yad ado divo arNava iSHo vA madatho grhe -- g=T y=tu r=Jtu yKoJ RMtu Jt b=:tu d]nu | The word divo meaning heaven before arNava meaning sea, could mean some sort of sea in the heaven. Hence I am not too sure about it. But the important thing is the use of the synonym arNava for sea.

posted 15-10-2000 02:46            

By Dr. David Frawley

Ch.9.The Rediscovery of the Sarasvati River
http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/myth_aryan_invasion/page11.shtml

Ch.10.The Vedic Image of the Ocean
http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/myth_aryan_invasion/page12.shtml

References

10. Manu Samhita II.17-18.

11. Note Rig Veda II.41.16; VI.61.8-13; I.3.12.

12. Rig Veda VII.95.2. This is in a hymn of the rishi Vasishta who has the greatest number of hymns in the Rig Veda.

13. Studies from the Post-Graduate Research Institute of Deccan College, Pune, and the Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), Jodhpur. Confirmed by use of MSS (multi-spectoral scanner) and Landsat satellite photography. Note MLBD NEWSLETTER (Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass), Nov. 1989.

Note also Sriram Sathe, BHARATIYA HISTORIOGRAPHY (Hyderabad, India: Bharatiya Itihasa Sankalana Samiti, 1989, pp. 11-13.

14. David Frawley, GODS, SAGES AND KINGS: Vedic Secrets of Ancient Civilization. Salt Lake City, Utah: Passage Press 1991/ Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass 1993.

15. R. Griffith, THE HYMNS OF THE RIG VEDA (Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976).

posted 22-10-2000 09:59            

Naval Warfare in ancient India

By Prithwis Chandra Chakravarti

The Indian Historical Quarterly

Vol.4, No.4 1930.12, pp.645-664

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

p. 645

I
Introduction

India has an extensive sea-board, being bounced
on three sides of her borders by the sea. She has a
net-work of large and navigable rivers, free from the
freezing effects of a severely cold climate. She has
also a wealth of forests, abounding in strong timber
which might be readily utilised for the construction
of ships and boats. These natural advantages--coupled
with the steadiness in the direction of the monsoons
over the Indian Ocean and China Sea--aided the Hindus
to acquire that nautical skill and enterprise for
which they were justly famous in the ancient world.

The history of Indian shipping and maritime
activities goes back probably to the early times of
the Rgveda (I, 48, 3 and I, 116, 5). The Jatakas, the
Greek and Roman authors, the early Tamil poems as
well as a host of archaeological discoveries in India
and abroad--all go to prove that long before the
birth of Christ the Hindus had acquired a fair
knowledge of the art of navigation and that they
plied their boats not only on the inland rivers but
also on the high seas. There were ports and harbours
all along the coast-line, such as Tamralipti,
Kaviri-pattanam, Bharukaccha and Surparaka; and it
was practicable to attain to any of them starting
from up the Ganges, not only from Campa (Bhagalpur)
but even from Benares. The Samudda-vanija Jataka (iv.
159) relates how a settlement of wood-workers,
failing to carry out the orders for which pre-payment
had been made, made a 'mighty ship' secretly, and
emigrated with their families, shipping down the
Ganges, by night, and so out to the sea, till they
reached a fertile island. The Mahajanaka Jataka (vi,
34) tells us that prince Mahajanaka set out for
Suvannabhumi from Campa. And according to the Vinaya
(iii, 338) Mahinda travelled by water from Patna to
Taimalitti, and to Ceylon. Not only were coasting
voyages round India frequent, but distant over-sea
journeys were also carried out with equal boldness
and alacrity. The Baveru-Jataka indicates "that the
Vanijas of Western India undertook trading voyages to
the shores of the Persian Gulf and of its rivers in
the 5th, perhaps even in the 6th century B.C. just as
in our

p. 646

own days." The author of the Periplus of the
Erytlhraean Sea saw Hindu merchants settled down in
the desert island of Socotra off the coast of Africa.
Tacitus refers to "some Indians who sailing from
India for the purpose of commerce had been driven by
storm into Germany." Euxodus speaks of the famished
Hindu sailor who piloted the Greeks across the
Arabian sea to the Malabar coast.

There were obvious risks attending sea-voyages.
Sanskrit and Pali literature contains innumerable
allusions to vessels wrecked on the high seas so much
so that we seem to hear across the ages the piteous
wailings of souls lost in the ocean. But nothing
could daunt the people into passivity. Love of
adventure and wealth stimulated them to defy death;
and in storm and tempest these early navigators and
their comrades learned the art and craft of the sea.
They established commercial relations not only with
Burma and the islands of the Indian Archipelago on
the east but also with Mesopotamia, Arabia, Phoenicia
and Egypt on the West. And the same volkerwanderund,
which had impelled the primitive Aryans to move out
of their original home, found expression in the
colonial empire which their descendants built up in
southern Asia. Ceylon was colonised before the 3rd
century B.C., and Burma and Siam not much later. The
colonial movement went on apace, and by the 2nd
century A.D. Hindu soverignty and Hindu culture
dominated almost all the lands and islands, which
constitute the Indian Archipelago.

It is not the purpose of the present writer to
attempt anything like a history of the art of
navigation in ancient India, nor even of the colonial
activities of that distant past--however fascinating
such a study might be--but to limit himself to the
less ambitious subject of navy, meaning thereby ships
and vessels employed for military and police
purposes.

II
Early traces in literature

That the art of employing boats and ships for
military purposes was known and practised in very
remote days is testified to by the ancient literature
of India. The Rgveda retains the echo of a naval
expedition, on which Tugra, the Rsi king,
commissioned his son Bhujyu. Bhujyu, however, was
ship-wrecked on the ocean,"where there is no support,
no rest for the foot or the hand," but was rescued by
the twin Asvins in their hundred-oared galley (Rv. i.
112, 6;

p. 647

116, 3; 117, 14-15; 119, 4; iv. 27, 4; vi, 62, 6).
The Mahabharata relates how the Pandavas, ingeniously
escaping from the 'house of lac' by a subterranean
passage, came upon the Ganges and got on board a
vessel, which 'was provided with machinery and all
kinds of weapons and was capable of defying storms
and waves': sarvavatasaham navam yantra-yuktam
patakinim (Adi Parva, ch. 15). Elsewhere in the same
work we read how Sahadeva, the youngest of the
Pandava brothers, continued his march of conquest
till he reached several islands in the sea (no doubt
with the help of ships) and subjugated the Mleccha
inhabitants thereof.(1) In the Santi Parva there is a
verse which specifically refers to the navy as one of
the angas of a complete army(2). In the Ramayana we
have a picture of the preparations made by a Nisada
chief for an impending naval encounter with Bharata.
Finding the huge folIowing of Bharata from a
distance, the tribal chieftain thus ordered his
retinue:

tisthantu sarvadasas ca Gangam anvasrita nadim/
balayukta nadirakasa mamsamulaphalasanah//
navam satanam pancanam kaivartanam satam satam/
sannadhanam tatha yunam tisthatv ity abhyacodayat //(3)

Naval warfare was also well-known in the days of
Manu, for he had laid it down that boats should be
utilised for military purposes when the theatre of
hostilities abounded in water (VII, 192). A very
much later work, the Yuktikalpataru, specifies a
class of boats called agramandira (because they had
their cabins towards their prows) as eminently
adapted for naval warfare (rane kale ghanatyate).(4)

posted 22-10-2000 10:48            

This is a mirror site for
http://www.voi.org/vishal_agarwal/AMT.html

Michael Witzel is one of the proponents of the AMT, as we have seen earlier in this thread as well as the Rajaram's fraud thread. But he has only come forward with one passage in the Rg on this (again that is subject to conflicting interpretations)topic.
At the same time he has been trigger happy in dubbing Rajaram as a fraud, while he himself has been very sparing of demonstrating evidence for his views.

K

posted 22-10-2000 13:36            

"The Vedic corpus provides no evidence for the
so-called Aryan invasion of India"
by Koenraad Elst, Leuven (Belgium), 22 October 1998

Ed.note - the conclusion that Koenraad Elst makes is noteworthy and interesting;

>The status quaestionis is still, more than ever, that the Vedic corpus provides no reference to an immigration of the so-called Vedic Aryans from Central Asia. This need not be taken as sufficient proof that such an invasion never took place, that Indo-Aryan was native to India, and that India is the homeland of the Indo-European language family. Perhaps such an invasion from a non-Indian homeland into India took place at a much earlier date, so that it was forgotten by the time of the composition of the Rg-Veda. But at least, such an "Aryan invasion" cannot be proven from the information provided by the Vedic narrative itself.

One cannot disprove a negative (i.e. a AIT/AMT never took place in pre-history)at least on these grounds, but one can assert with a fairly high degree of confidence that there is no evidence of such a invasion/migration in the Rg.

K

posted 22-10-2000 17:38            

BOOK REVIEW

The Rigveda
A Historical Analysis
Shrikant Talgeri
New Delhi, Aditya Prakashan, 1992
520 + xxiv pgs., Rs. 750 (HB)
Reviewed by N.S.Rajaram

A Major New Work On Vedic History

posted 22-10-2000 17:58            

The Sindhu-Sarasvati Civilization
and
its Bearing on the Aryan Question
by Michel Danino
Text of a lecture given on 29 September 1999 at Chennai’s Indian Institute of Technology, at the invitation of the students’ Vivekananda Study Circle. The talk was accompanied by a slide-show illustrating most aspects of the life of the Indus Valley civilization, and followed by a long question-and-answer session.

posted 22-10-2000 18:36            

Also the same guy told me that Manu was a Royal-sage from South India, present day AP.

posted 23-10-2000 16:58            

As for Manu, there are apparently several Manus. See for instance,
http://www.yrec.org/yogatimetable.html

4000-3500 This is the period of Manu Svayambhuva, the first Manu (who is credited with the authorship of the Manu-Smriti), as well as the next five Manus. Contemporaries of the first Manu were the seven great seers Marici, Angiras, Atri, Pulaha, Kratu, Pulastya, and Vasishtha. This is also the time of the wicked King Vena, who was killed by the power of mantras, and his sagely successor Prithu, who was a great visionary emperor ruling benignly over the people of India (Bharata).

Feb. 18, 3102 Traditional but unverified Hindu date (according to the later Puranas) for the beginning of the Dark Age (kali-yuga), which, according to some pundits, coincides with the end of the great war chronicled in the Mahabharata (see under . Others think that this date coincides with the reign of Manu Vaivasvata, the seventh Manu and the first ruler after the great flood reported in some Hindu scriptures. His son Ikshvaku founded the solar dynasty of North Indian kings to which the God-man Rama belonged (see see under 2380 B.C.E.). His grandson Candra, son of the sage Atri, founded the lunar dynasty to which the God-man Krishna belonged (see under 1450 B.C.E.). This is the era of the seven great seers Vasishtha, Kashyapa, Atri, Jamadagni, Gautama, Vishvamitra, and Bharadvaja. Also the venerated sage Bhrigu lived at this time. Many later sages adopted their names, which has caused some confusion.

posted 24-10-2000 08:27            

Indus valley civilization
c.2500-c.1500 B.C., ancient civilization that flourished
along the Indus R. in present-day Pakistan. Its chief
cities were Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, where
archaeologists have unearthed impressive public and
private buildings that are evidence of a complex society
based on a highly organized agriculture supplemented
by active commerce. The arts flourished, and examples
in copper, bronze, and pottery have been uncovered.
Also found were examples of a pictograph script that
long baffled archaeologists but was finally deciphered in
1969. The fate of the Indus valley civilization remains a
mystery, but it is believed that it fell victim to invading
Aryans.

posted 24-10-2000 09:33            

What was deciphered was the pictograph script found on the seals, of which the archaeologists found several hundred.

Pl. follow the arguments and links and you will be well rewarded.

posted 24-10-2000 14:31            

Rajaram refutes witzel here. http://www.pragna.org/Art21001.html

From what I gather, the biggest hole in the indigenous theory is the absence of horse in Indus.
Rajaram argues about Indus 17-rib horse vs. European 18-rib horse in the article.
But there is something far more significant: the smaller Indian horse,
like the horse of Southeast Asia, is a different variety from the Central Asian or the Eurasian horse.
Here is what one expert (Paul Kennai Manansala) has to say:

Deep in the specialized literature on horse classification, we can find that In
dian and other horses extending to insular Southeast Asia were peculiar from oth
er breed. All showed anatomical traces of admixture with the ancient equid known
as Equus Sivalensis. However, like that equid, the horse of southeastern Asia
has peculiar zebra-like dentition. Also both were distinguished by a pre-orbital
depression. The orbital region is important because it has been demonstrated as
useful in classifying different species of equids. Finally, and most importantl
y in relation to the Vedic literature, the Indian horse has, like Equus Sivalens
is, only 17 pairs of ribs. (Emphasis added.)
Inere is verse 18 from hymn I.162, which is devoted to the sacrifice (authors t
ranslation):

posted 24-10-2000 15:13            

See also , R.gvedic horse has 34 ribs, a breed distinct from the Arabian equus caballus
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/horse2.htm

Contrary to what has been alleged in the Rajaram fraud thread (admins - methinks you terminatd it prematurely, there was a lot of good info in the thread) Rajaram is not a fraud. He has spent several years on this topic and he is a talented individual specializing in the field of 'archaeological and literary forensics' IOW trying to decipher what happened in ancient India from literary as well as archaeological evidence. As he rightly observes professional Indologists and Historians feel threatened since they do not possess the manifold skills he possesses (knowledge of Samskrtam, accompanied by knowledge of various branches of the sciences and mathematics). This coupled with an inxhaustible energy and a passion for truth make a lethal combination but also an inviting target for polemically inclined individuals like Witzel.

I agree in large part with Rajaram. The Horse is not central to the argument and neither is the decipherment. I agree also with those who say that decipherment of the SSC script is difficult and will take more effort to be sure of what the script is saying. But the central argument always has been the drying up of the Sarasvati river around 1900 BCE. Why would the Vedics, if they immigrated to India ca.1500 BCE, as the Western Indologists claim, refer to this(as a mighty) river about 50 times, if it was already dried up. It simply does not make sense.

The answer to people like Witzel is for Indians to learn Samskrtam and read the texts in the original. There is of course no reference to any Immigration or Customs anywhere in the Rg or even to any geography outside of the subcontinent. References to what is now Afghanistan(Gandhara - Kandahar) do not count , since Afghanistan was part of India in those days, and the Vedics were spread far into that region. The AMT theorists, when they talk about immigration, talk about immigration from places such as Turkey and Central Europe.

I do not want to give the impression that I know exactly what happened 5000 years ago, but of this I am fairly certain. The Vedics did not come from Central Europe and Turkey ca 1500 BCE and bring with them a finished language called Samskrtam, spoken only in India, and the Vedic texts, studied only in India.

More on the palaeontology of horses
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/horse5.htm

K

posted 25-10-2000 03:26            

From: Subhash Kak
Date: Tue Oct 24, 2000 6:01pm
Subject: Kazanas

I have just received an excellent article on the Rgveda and
the larger Indo-European problem by Nicholas Kazanas, the Greek
Sanskritist. Here's the complete reference:

Nicholas Kazanas, "The Rgveda and Indo-Europeans." ABORI, vol.
80, 1999, pp. 15-42.

This paper synthesizes different kinds of evidence: linguistic,
mythological, literary, archaeological, to develop the arguments.
Check it out and tell us what you think,

posted 25-10-2000 03:39            

Why the Aryan Invasion of India Never Happened

The following is an updated excerpt from In Search of the Cradle of Civilization,
authored by Georg Feuerstein, Subhash Kak, and David Frawley,
published by Quest Books in 1995. Copyright 1998. All rights reserved.
In our book In Search of the Cradle of Civilization, we have covered enormous ground-from the rediscovery of the sacred canon of the Hindus by nineteenth-century Western scholars to the discrediting of the Aryan invasion theory, to the discovery of the Indus and Sarasvati towns and villages and the likely geological and environmental cause of their demise, and finally to the archaeological surprise of the large neolithic town of Mehrgarh dated back to 6500 B.C.E. The following is an overview of the reasons for our rejection of the Aryan invasion theory and for dating the Rig-Veda before 3100 B.C.E. (marking the beginning of the Indus towns):.....

posted 26-10-2000 15:23            

A new look at Vedic India

I have yet to go through his arguments in detail before i can comment on them, But basically he is espousing the idea that there was interaction between the Vedics ,SE Asians and Austronesians (?)

posted 27-10-2000 04:11            

A recent bibliography on Vedic History and related matters at the e-groups Indian civilization site.

posted 29-10-2000 02:27            

The official pro-invasionist argument at last
A review of the Aryan invasion arguments in J. Bronkhorst and M.M. Deshpande: Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia
by Koenraad Elst, Leuven (Belgium), 26 November 1999

Invasion, not just immigration

To start with a clear understanding about the terminology used, please allow me me explain why I have chosen to retain the term "Aryan invasion" where most contributors to this volume use "Aryan immigration". Some of them have, in other forums, insisted that I drop the term "invasion" as this represents a long-abandoned theory of Aryan warrior bands attacking and destroying the peaceful Indus civilization. Well, I disagree.

Immigration means a movement from one country to another, without the connotation of conquest; invasion, by contrast, implies conquest or at least the intention of conquest. Yet invasion should not be confused with military conquest; it may be that, but it may also be demographic Unterwanderung. What makes it into an invasion is not the means used but the end achieved: after an invasion, the former outsiders are not merely in, as in an immigration, they are also in charge, just like after a military conquest.

In today's immigration debate, we can vividly see the contrast between the two terms. Those who expect Mexicans in the US to blend in, use the neutral term "immigrant", even when prefixed with "illegal". Some people, however, speak of a "Mexican invasion", by which they mean that the Mexicans, whether "wetback" or legal, have no intention of becoming Americans, of respecting the existing system, but want to impose their identity on Texas or California, making them Spanish-speaking rather than English-speaking states. Likewise, some French opinion leaders, including former president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and former actress Brigitte Bardot, have spoken of a "Muslim invasion" in France, though most Muslims concerned are perfectly legal "immigrants" who entered France without any violence. What raises alarmist cries of "invasion" is the perception that these North-Africans want to impose a Muslim identity on French society.

It is the end result which decides whether an "immigration" can be called an "invasion". If the newcomers end up imposing their (cultural, religious, linguistic) identity rather than adopting the native identity, the result is the same as it would have been in the case of a military conquest, viz. that outsiders have made the country their own, and that natives who remain true to their identity (like Native Americans in the US) become strangers or second-class citizens in their own country.

In the case of the Aryan invasion, the end result clearly is that North India got aryanized. The language of the Aryans marginalized or replaced all others. In a popular variant of the theory, they even reduced the natives to permanent subjugation through the caste system. So, whether or not there was a destructive Aryan conquest, the result was at any rate the humiliation of native culture and the elimination of the native language in the better part of India. It is therefore entirely reasonable to call such development an "invasion" and to speak of the prevalent paradigm as the "Aryan invasion theory" (AIT).

K

posted 30-10-2000 00:52            

K
http://www.voi.org/vishal_agarwal/AMT.html

The Aryan Migration Theory: Fabricating Literary Evidence

Revision B on October 10, 2000

Note: All ‘Notes’ and ‘References’ are located at the end of the article.

Contents:

1.0 Background

2.0 The Literary ‘Evidence’

3.0 A Critique of the ‘Direct’ evidence for AMT

4.0 Arguments and Counter-Arguments

5.0 Cover Ups?

6.0 Discussion

7.0 Epilogue

posted 30-10-2000 19:29            

Girilal Jain reviewing young Talageri's work.

posted 02-11-2000 11:42            

>>It seems clear now that the Vedas were entirely composed in India, not in Central Asia as sometimes conjectured. Vedicists now stress that the term "Aryans" in the Vedas referred not to a 'race' but to members of a particular culture that was already indigenous in northwestern South Asia by the time the earliest Vedic texts were composed.

Finally a hundred years of obfuscation about Aryan races and the rest of the paraphernalia that is a legacy of the ghost of Max Mueller, is being put to bed. Coming as this does from the high priest of AIT, the only question is when did this metamorphosis happen;
http://www.infinityfoundation.com/ECITmessagesframeset.htm ;

posted 05-11-2000 23:28            

New Delhi: A debate over whether the Harappan and
Vedic civilizations were the same has been stirred by the
contention of some Indian archaeologists that the former
should be renamed the Indus-Saraswati civilization.
A pamphlet by the National Museum on an exhibition
'Harappan Civilization', however, claims that around 500
sites have been dug up on the Saraswati basin, whereas
the number of similar number of sites on the Indus is only
150.

It says the excavations point to three broad phases of the
civilization, the early phase (3,500 B.C.-2,600 B. C.), the
mature phase (2600 B.C.-2000 B.C.) and the late phase
(2,000 B.C.-1,500 B.C.)

A recent publication, "Harappan Script on the Way of
Decipherment," interprets some of the discoveries as
indicative of early Harappan people (3200-2700 B.C.)
and early Vedic people existing at the same time,
disputing the earlier theory that the Indus Valley
civilization was destroyed by the Aryans.

posted 05-11-2000 23:46            

Serindian: Site for Education and Research-India,aims at
bringing you the best and latest information on Indian
archaeology, anthropology, Quaternary geology; and ecology.
Amateurs and professionals, young and old-we have something
in store for all of you. From popular articles to databases of
information... a storehouse of information on India's past. We
are totally dedicated to the ideology of secularism, and are a
non-communal and apolitical site.

posted 06-11-2000 02:17            

In any event apart from the politics, the National Museum should be worth seeing. I have yet to see Egypt and Mexico city but once the National museum is filled it should be comparable in scope to the other two. Many of the artifacts from the SSC are extremely intriguing and are some of the oldest in the world.

The new Serindian site should be interesting. It has a good article on the Brahmi script. The next step is to bridge the missing link between Brahmi and Harappan . There are of course no archaeological finds in the intervening time period(1700 BCE to 500 BCE) between Pre_maurya and the end of the SSC, to shed further lighton the matter. This has also been the weak point of the AIT since they say the Aryans swooped into India around 1300 BCE but of course there are no archaeological finds to confirm that either.

posted 06-11-2000 09:08            

A reply to Frontline’s cover story (October 13 issue)
by Profs. Michael Witzel, Steve Farmer & Romila Thapar

[Note : Michel Danino, a French researcher settled in India for more than twenty years, has translated and edited many books related to Sri Aurobindo and Mother and given lectures on Indian culture and civilization, some of which have been published in book form. He has also made a study of the Aryan invasion theory in the Indian context, published under the title The Invasion That Never Was (co-authored with Sujata Nahar, 2nd edition, 2000)(ed.this has been posted in this thread already). The above reply to Frontline was not published in the two issues that followed the October 13 number.]

The two articles in Frontline’s cover story (October 13 issue) regrettably show more prejudice than scholarly objectivity, and call for the briefest of answers on several distinct points : 1) the horse question in the Harappan civilization ; 2) N. Jha’s and N. S. Rajaram’s proposed decipherment of the Indus script ; 3) the relationship, if any, between the Harappan and the Vedic worlds ; 4) the deeper question of "Indology" vs. Indian civilization....

K

posted 07-11-2000 09:34            

Apparently this was found in the web site of Kurdistan. The Kurds as we all know are the disenfranchised people who occupy the same area today as the Mitanni did 3500 years ago. We have already cited the Hittite Mitanni treaty circa 1450 BCE, which makes reference to Vedic Gods (Varuna, Indra and the Natasyas)

K

posted 07-11-2000 19:17            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kaushal:

The new Serindian site should be interesting. It has a good article on the Brahmi script. The next step is to bridge the missing link between Brahmi and Harappan . There are of course no archaeological finds in the intervening time period(1700 BCE to 500 BCE) between Pre_maurya and the end of the SSC, to shed further lighton the matter.
K

---

Kaushal,

I was gonna post a link to that article. U already got it. Isn't amazing/perplexing that no proof any writing (1700 BCE to 400 BCE) hasn't been found yet. That'll be a big find, whenever that happens. I wonder if we would be havin' this discussion if places like Nalanda were not destroyed.

posted 08-11-2000 12:08            

The burning down of Nalanda, Vikramshila and Odantipura in Vihar by Ikhtyar-ud-din Muhammed bib Bukhtiyar Khalji (a forerunner of Allauddin Khalji a hundred years later) ca. 1200 AD is one of the seminal events of Indian history comparable to the burning of the Library of Alexandria 600 years earlier by the Arab Khalifs. We will never know the extent of the knowledge that was irretrievaby lost in the process.

But I have a hope that eventually it will be established that some of this knowledge may have been preserved in the monasteries of Tibet by Padmasambhava and his disciples, hopefully before the Communists destroy what is left. Which is why in order to study Indian history it is important to have a knowledge of Tibetan also.

In the meantime it is important to continue archaeological studies to determine the missing link between Harappan and Brahmi scripts. See the article i posted on the connection between the SSC script and the script of the Santhals of Bihar in the Indic traditions thread.

K

posted 08-11-2000 17:19            

K

Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 21:29:07 GMT
Reply-To: Indology
Sender: Indology
From: Vidyasankar Sundaresan
Subject: Analogies,
valid and invalid (was Re: Scenario of language replacement)
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

>I've heard counterarguments like Arun Gupta's repeatedly, but
>they always overlook a glaring problem. Indo-European languages
.....
>Anatolia, Greece, and the Italian peninsula. The Indian problem
>is not as unique as chauvinistic writers make it out to be.

Alas, here we go again. I daresay Arun Gupta can respond to this himself,
but I need to make certain points here, as the points he raised struck me as
curious too. This post is addressed to all those who agree with Steve
Farmer's comments quoted above.

1. Just as "Western Indologists" do not all want to be clubbed together into
one stereotypical category, "Indian amateurs" do not want to be stereotyped
either. To make a comment about the analogies used by Parpola (and by most
everybody else in "mainstream" academia) is not to be chauvinistic about
India. Every once in a while, can we just discuss issues, instead of
attitudes?

2. Those list members who are interested in Indian philosophical thought may
appreciate the following. Some schools of thought accept perception
(pratyaksha), inference (anumAna), analogy (upamAna), postulation
(arthApatti), non-being/non-availability (abhAva/anupalabdhi) and testimony
(Sabda) as valid sources of gaining knowledge. Other schools, e.g. the nyAya
school of logic, accept only three, perception, inference and testimony,
taking the others to be special cases of inferential argument. In the nyAya
structure of valid logical argument, analogy does find a role, through the
example (d.r.s.tAnta) that needs to be cited to make the argument complete.
If the example does not satisfy the conditions of the propostion sought to
be proved, the argument is invalid.

3. In modern science, analogy plays an important role. When people first
discovered that electricity can flow, they tried to understand it through
analogy with fluid flow. It succeeded quite well, at least with respect to
Newtonian fluids and current through a simple ohmic resistor. Electric
current was analogous to flow rate and voltage was analogous to pressure
drop. It succeeded so well that today students first learn about electricity
and when they come to learn about fluid flow, they are taught to first think
of it in terms of electric flow. When we model new things based on our
knowledge of previously known things, we look for at least a few points of
similarity. If we can't find them, we reject the proposed model and look for
better models. All this is simply to say that although Aristotleian logic
does not put much emphasis on the validity of analogy, human beings look for
existing examples of something similar when trying to understand a new
phenomenon. If the analogy fails on certain counts, our understanding of the
new phenomenon correspondingly fails or remains faulty, till something else
happens to improve the state of knowledge.

4. From the perspective of standard patterns of Indian thought, and from the
perspective of modern patterns of scientific thought, the analogies cited by
Prof. Parpola fail on all the counts cited by Arun Gupta. The reason they
fail is that one cannot substitute the word "migration" for "invasion" and
then proceed to cite examples where linguistic change took place because of
naked aggression. If the idea is to retain the model of linguistic change
implied by the Spanish and Portuguese presence in south America or the
English presence in India, then call a spade a spade and assert boldly that
there was an Aryan invasion of the Indian subcontinent. Indian scientists
and traditionalists may not agree with you, but at least they will grant
that you are being consistent in your effort to understand the problem. If
the word "invasion" is being replaced by "migration" in order to placate the
chauvinists, then that is just a silly and useless compromise. If the word
"invasion" is being replaced by the word "migration" for solid linguistic,
textual and/or archaeological reasons, then please put your heads together
and cite examples that do not involve European aggression and violence upon
the rest of the world. If you can't do that, then don't label everyone who
points to the flaw in the analogy as a chauvinist. Some of us think with our
heads too, not just with our hearts.

Vidyasankar

posted 09-11-2000 18:36            

Antiquity of the Narmada Homo erectus, the early man of India

Arun Sonakia* and S. Biswas

Palaeontology Division, Geological Survey of India,
Nagpur 440 006, India

The fossilized skull of Narmada Homo erectus was found embedded in a conglomerate bed in the Narmada valley of central India. This bed occurs at the basal part of a formation sandwiched between two other formations of 0.73 Ma and 74000 yrs BP. The conglomerate bed has also preserved fossils of Hippopotamus namadicus, Equus namadicus, Stegodon namadicus, Sus namadicus, etc. having Middle Pleistocene affinity. All these stratigraphic and palaeontological evidences point to a Middle Pleistocene age of the Narmada Homo erectus.

A hundred years of investigation on human ancestry in India was rewarded in the year 1982 with the discovery by the first author of a skull cap of Homo erectus from the Quaternary alluvial deposits of the Narmada valley

K

posted 09-11-2000 21:42            

Rajaram' statement to the media to the latest onslaught in Frontline, Kaushal

November 8, 2000

THE ‘HORSE SEAL’ CONTROVERSY

Statement to the media by:

Dr. N. Jha and Dr. N.S. Rajaram

posted 10-11-2000 10:07            

Ways of Indo-Aryan Migrations
This is from a Russian site , an article by an individual by the name of Cyril Babaev.

K

posted 10-11-2000 10:34            

Kaushal,

I am not sure either if Godavari, Krishna and other below the Vindhyas rivers have been mentioned. I am still reading the Bhargava book and so far I have not come across these rivers. Nevertheless, Ganga and Yamuna have been mentioned. But neither have been given much imprtance or praises as they got during the post-Rg vedic period.

posted 11-11-2000 12:04            

From:
Date: Sat Nov 11, 2000 12:14pm
Subject: Domestication of horse prior to 3500 BC

Please reload URL and see the following and additional info. on equus
sivalensis in a table at http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/horse2.htm

Rana Ghundai, a chalcolithic site is in North Baluchistan. What
is found ain't a pony, it ain't equus caballus. Does Meadow discuss
this archaeological report?

E.J. Ross reported the discovery of bones scattered over an area of
about 40 ft., of a domesticated horse in the lowest level of Rana
Ghundai I, close to Mohenjodaro and Ga_ndha_ra (pre-Harappan,
contemporary with Hissar IA, Susa B and Middle Uruk in Iraq, assigned
to ca. 3500-3400 B.C.) in a chalcolithis site of Northern Baluchistan.
`It should be noted, however, that these remains are not, as might be
expected, those of small pony-like animals. The teeth were well
examined by an expert veterinary officer before their dispatch to the
Archaeological Department and he assured us that they are
indistinguishable either in structure or in size from those of our
modern cavalry horses. This points to a very long previous period of
domestication'. (E.J. Ross, Rana Ghundai, a chalcolithic site in
Northern Baluchistan, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 5, 1946, pp.
284-516; R.H. Dyson, Problems in the relative chronology of Iran
6000-2000 B.C. in R.W. Ehrick, Chronologies in old world archaeology,
Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1965, pp. 215-50).

This is what Sandor Bokonyi said about the Surkotada equus: "The
occurrence of true horse (equus caballus L.) was evidenced by the
enamel pattern of the upper and lower cheek and teeth and by the size
and form of incisors and phalanges (toe bones). Since no wild horses
lived in India in post-Pleistocene times, the domestic nature of the
Surkotada horses is undoutbtful. This is also supported by an
intermaxilla fragment whose incisor tooth shows clear signs of crib
biting, a bad habit only existing among domestic horses which are not
extensively used for war."

A Hurrian text from Yorgan Tepe uses Indic words to describe the
colour of the horses, for example, babru (Indic babhru 'brown'),
parita (palita 'grey') and pinkara (pingala 'reddish'). The Mitanni
charioteer is called marya (Indic-Vedic marya 'warrior, young man').
Added to these are a series of names of the noblemen or aristocracy of
Mitanni which are clearly Indic. The conclusions are: "an element of
Indic-speaking chariot warriors superimposed themselves on a native
Hurrian-speaking population to form a ruling dynasty that endured for
several centuries...there are also possible (though disputed) Indic
traces in the names of a few gods revered by the Kassites (Surias and
Marytas: i.e. Su_rya and Maruts)...By the thirteenth century the
Mitanni kingdom collapses which sees an end to the Indic presence in
Southwestern Asia..." (J.P. Mallory, opcit, 1989, p. 38).
http://www.egroups.com/message/IndianCivilization/1471

>>The Hun Period - Denis Sinor
from the Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, 1990, pg203

"Information on the horse, faithful and indispensable companion of
the Hun warrior, is also lopsided. Written sources contain many
references to the ugly but sturdy Hun horses and the veterinary
surgeon Vegatius Renatus described them in some detail. On the basis
of contemporary descriptions one may safely conclude that the typical
Hun horse was from a breed of the Mongolian pony. There is a strange
contrast between the vivid descriptions given by the authors and the
absence of any information provided by burials. To quote S.Bokonyi,
a foremost authority on the subject, "We know very little of the Hun's
horses. It is interesting that not a single usable horse bone has
been found in the territory of the whole empire of the Huns".
There is yet no answer to the question of what happened to the mortal
remains of these fearful conqurors and their strange mounts. Hun
domination was short lived and if the dead were cremated and and the
horse bodies not put into graves, the likelihood of finding their
bones is necessarily limited."

Bokonyi is quoted from his "History of Domestic Mammals in Central and
Eastern Europe"

Absence of horse bobes in the SSC is cited as confirmation of scarity or absence of horses in the SSC. But no horse bones have been found of the Hun horses (of Attila the Hun). Does that mean Attila or his Mongolian pony did not exist ?

posted 11-11-2000 12:46            

quote:

---

Scientists believe that 80% of European men inherited their Y chromosomes from primitive hunter-gatherers who lived up to 40,000 years ago.

The other male ancestors are likely to have
been migrants who arrived in Europe from the
Near East about 10,000 years ago bringing
with them farming technology.

---

European men descend from 10 forefathers -- Study
http://my.aol.com/news/news_story.psp?type=1&cat=0200&id=00111109231326

quote:

---

Virtually all European men descend from 10 genetic forefathers who lived tens of thousands of years ago in various parts of the continent, researchers reported.

They all seem to have been descended from men who moved to Europe from the Ural mountains of Central Asia and the Middle East in three successive waves, the international team of genetic researchers reported in the journal Science on Friday.

---

posted 12-11-2000 15:25            

1. In one verse the rSHi Agastya speaks of ninety-nine rivers and claims to have secured all their names. But he does not mention them, nor are they enumerated anywhere else. The verse is as follows:

I-191-13 -- lJtltk lJle;tltk rJMôg htuvwNeKtbT < mJtomtbd{Ck ltbthu

2. The rSHi of yet another verse speaks of ninety-nine flowing rivers:

I-32-14 -- lJ a gàlJr;k a m{Jà;e&

3. In another verse Agastya first probably speaks of twenty-one beautiful rivers and then of seven main rivers:

I-191-14 -- rºt mË; bgqgo& (literally twenty-one peahens)

I-191-14 -- mË; mJmthtu (literally seven sisters)

4. In certain other verses, the rSHis speak of twenty-one rivers, but they do not supply the names of all of them:

I-34-8 -- rºthrëJlt rmà"wrC& mË;bt;]rC&

IX-86-21 -- rmà"wÇgtu rºt& mË;

5. The most frequently used term is however, the 'Seven Rivers':

I-32-12 -- mË; rmà"qlT

I-71-7 -- mË; gñJe&

I-164-3 -- mË; ôJmth&, mË; Jnrà; etc.

It would thus appear that among the ninety-nine rivers, twenty-one were fairly large and seven were main. It is on account od this that the country had been called 'Sapta Saindhava' -- mË; mià"J (Avestic Hapta Hendava). One would be tempted to jump the gun here and identify the seven rivers as the present five rivers of the modern day Punjab and the Indus and the Sarasvati.

Bhargava says that people obsessed too much with AIT are unable to conceive that the now very insignificant Sarasvati could ever have been big enough to deserve the honour of being one of the Sapta Sindhus. He says that had they cared to know the size of the Sarasvati either from the Mahabharata or the old beds of the river itself, they probably would have realised how palpably wrong they were.

Now to the main rivers of the Sapta Saindhava:

A verse shows the VitastA (the Jhelum) and the AsiknI (the modern Aik(?)) as the tributaries of the MarudvrdhA (the Chenab) and the ParuSHNI (the Ravi) as that of the ShutudrI (the Satluj). The Bias (Rgvedic VipAs) is not at all mentioned in that verse. Thus out of the modern five large rivers of the Punjab, three viz. the Bias, the Ravi and the Jhelum were not the main rivers but mere tributaries.

The verse is as follows:

X-75-5 -- Rbk bu dkdu gbwlu mhôJr; Nw;wrŠ ô;tubk ma;t vh¥íãgt>
yrm¢lgt bh¥=TJ]"u rJ;ô;t_gtLsfUegu ¶]KwÊt mwMtubgt>>

Translation: O! Ganga, O! Yamuna, O! Sarasvati, O! ShutudrI with the ParuSHNI accept my laud. O! MarudvrdhA with the AsiknI and the VitastA and O! AarjIkIyA with the SushomA listen. The verse following this i.e. X-75-6 is addressed to the Sindhu (ÀJk rmà"tu ), which is described as as going forward to unite with several other rivers one after another.