posted 19-12-2000 17:38            

Kaushal

posted 28-12-2000 10:26            

Kaushal

posted 11-01-2001 03:16            

http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/ieindex.htm

THE RIVER SARASVATI:
LEGEND, MYTH AND REALITY
(December 1999)
Dr. S. Kalyanaraman*
[Commemoration volume released at the First Vishwa Saraswat Sammelan held in Mangalore, Karnataka, India, from 16 to 19 December 1999; published by All India Saraswat Cultural Organization, Ashwamedh, 10 Botawala Bldg., Sitladevi Temple Road, Mahim, Mumbai 400016; Price: Rs. 100].

CONTENTS
Prologue
1. Revival of the Sarasvati River
2. Natural History of Sarasvati River
3. Historic Legacy of Sarasvati Civilization
4. Ancient History of Sarasvats and Dravidian Culture
5. Chronology of Vedic Age and Sarasvati Sindhu Civilization
6. Language of the Indus People
7. From Sarasvati to Haraqvaiti
8. Evolution of Civilization and Vedic Culture
9. Migration of Ailas
10. Plaksha
Epilogue
Appendixes
Bibliography
About the Author

Also the online version of Koenraad Elst's 'Update on the Aryan Migration Theory' is now available too.
http://www.voi.org/books/ait/

Kaushal

posted 05-02-2001 23:39            

Killer quake breathes life into 'mythical' Saraswati river
RAVI S. JHA
Ahmedabad, February 05, 14:34





The quake's epicentre was in Kutch.

he Saraswati river -- the missing third link in Allahabad's Sangam -- is making a sudden, pleasant appearance in quake-injured Gujarat. Scientists say shifting of tectonic plates in the Allah Bund fault area has led to a geographical osmosis in the Rann of Kutch area, pushing the hitherto mythical Saraswati over-ground in surprise spurts.

Hundreds of villages in the Rann, where there was no water till Friday last week, now have streams flowing all over. Geological experts say, "In all likelihood Saraswati, the distributary of Indus which had vanished mysteriously, has changed its course towards Kutch." They say Saraswati is the most likely source of these streams as its falling point was the ancient city of Dholavira.

"There is evidence that Saraswati was a distributary of Indus. And we also know that Saraswati had a connecting point from Indus that still flows from top of Rajasthan to Pakistan," a Central Ground Water Board scientist said.

On Friday last week, residents of Dhrang Godai village - where the epicentre of the killer quake was located - saw water streams flowing from the ground and informed officials. By the time the official survey team arrived, the streams had reached as far as Mundra taluka, Rammania, Nanitundi and Bhatigwal.

The dry wells in and around Bhatigwal village were suddenly filling with water. In Nakhtrana, Junagram, Hajipur villages in Banni wastelands too the dry wells were full of water. Though initially a blue volcanic mud oozed out, it soon became clear, potable water.

"This a definite indication that the ground water regimen has changed. This water could be from those river sources that had vanished thousands of years ago," says Prof R.S. Chaturvedi, a senior geo-scientist.

Though in places like Maliya and Surajbari the water streams dried up soon after they appeared, in many villages they continue to flow into large pools. "It is not that these regions had no water. It's just that, after the earthquake, the ground water table has begun rising tremendously," a government official said.

Now the question these villagers are asking is will these springs stay. Prof. Chaturvedi says the answer can come only after a thorough research. "It depends on the amount of water available in the parent river," he said.

posted 06-02-2001 04:05            

I happened to read the article by Mr. Velayudham-“This is who we are” through the link in your last post. You opine that his arguments are “quite valid”. The following passage in the article caught my attention. (Got back from India yesterday. Curiosity and jet-lag have contributed to this long post )

Here it is:

“Some of this migration took place southward too, and the Dravidian languages and customs were born. Contrary to what separatist groups in South India would have you believe, the South Indians have a very strong resemblance to Vedic culture. In fact, South India is one of the best places today to observe and learn about Sanskrit, and other Vedic traditions! The remarkable difference between the Dravidian and the Sanskrit family of languages is not due to any racial divide, but rather it is evidence of the remarkable creativity the people of this subcontinent have been blessed with."

Let us juxtapose the above with one of your early posts (06/20/2000, I believe):

"The new school (Kak, Frawley, Rajaram, Jha) believe also there is no difference between Dravidian and Vedic languages and that they both spring from the same root language."

You surely remember the following George Hart (Holds the Tamil Chair at UC Berkeley) essay on Tamil as a classical language. You posted it Oct-Nov last year during a discussion on Sanskrit. Following the Hart essay are a few questions to which I hope you and other experts on the forum can help me find answers.

(I found a copy of the following article through this link as well:
http://www.sysindia.com/forums/General_Discussion/posts/9086.html

Status of Tamil as a Classical Language
Prof.George Hart

Professor Maraimalai has asked me to write regarding the position of Tamil
as a classical language, and I am delighted to respond to his request.

I have been a Professor of Tamil at the University of California, Berkeley,
since 1975 and am currently holder of the Tamil Chair at that institution.
My degree, which I received in 1970, is in Sanskrit, from Harvard, and my
first employment was as a Sanskrit professor at the University of Wisconsin,
Madison, in 1969. Besides Tamil and Sanskrit, I know the classical languages
of Latin and Greek and have read extensively in their literatures in the
original.

I am also well-acquainted with comparative linguistics and the literatures
of modern Europe (I know Russian, German, and French and have read
extensively in those languages) as well as the literatures of modern India, which,
with the exception of Tamil and some Malayalam, I have read in translation.
I have spent much time discussing Telugu literature and its tradition with
V. Narayanarao, one of the greatest living Telugu scholars, and so I know
that tradition especially well. As a long-standing member of a South Asian
Studies department, I have also been exposed to the richness of both Hindi
literature, and I have read in detail about Mahadevi Varma, Tulsi, and Kabir.

I have spent many years -- most of my life (since 1963) -- studying Sanskrit.
I have read in the original all of Kalidasa, Magha, and parts of Bharavi and
Sri Harsa. I have also read in the original the fifth book of the Rig Veda
as well as many other sections, many of the Upanisads, most of the
Mahabharata, the Kathasaritsagara, Adi Sankaras works, and many other works in Sanskrit.

I say this not because I wish to show my erudition, but rather to establish
my fitness for judging whether a literature is classical. Let me state
unequivocally that, by any criteria one may choose, Tamil is one of the
great classical literatures and traditions of the world.

The reasons for this are many; let me consider them one by one.

First, Tamil is of considerable antiquity. It predates the literatures of
other modern Indian languages by more than a thousand years. Its oldest work,
the Tolkappiyam, contains parts that, judging from the earliest Tamil
inscriptions, date back to about 200 BCE. The greatest works of ancient
Tamil, the Sangam anthologies and the Pattuppattu, date to the first
two centuries of the current era. They are the first great secular body
of poetry written in India, predating Kalidasa's works by two hundred years.

Second, Tamil constitutes the only literary tradition indigenous to India
that is not derived from Sanskrit. Indeed, its literature arose before
the influence of Sanskrit in the South became strong and so is qualitatively
different from anything we have in Sanskrit or other Indian languages.
It has its own poetic theory, its own grammatical tradition, its own
aesthetics, and, above all, a large body of literature that is quite unique.
It shows a sort of Indian sensibility that is quite different from anything
in Sanskrit or other Indian languages, and it contains its own extremely
rich and vast intellectual tradition.

Third, the quality of classical Tamil literature is such that it is fit
to stand beside the great literatures of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Chinese,
Persian and Arabic. The subtlety and profundity of its works, their
varied scope (Tamil is the only premodern Indian literature to treat
the subaltern extensively), and their universality qualify Tamil to
stand as one of the great classical traditions and literatures of the
world. Everyone knows the Tirukkural, one of the world's greatest
works on ethics; but this is merely one of a myriad of major and
extremely varied works that comprise the Tamil classical tradition.
There is not a facet of human existence that is not explored and
illuminated by this great literature.

Finally, Tamil is one of the primary independent sources of modern Indian
culture and tradition. I have written extensively on the influence of a
Southern tradition on the Sanskrit poetic tradition. But equally important,
the great sacred works of Tamil Hinduism, beginning with the Sangam
Anthologies, have undergirded the development of modern Hinduism. Their
ideas were taken into the Bhagavata Purana and other texts (in Telugu and
Kannada as well as Sanskrit), whence they spread all over India. Tamil
has its own works that are considered to be as sacred as the Vedas and
that are recited alongside Vedic mantras in the great Vaisnava temples
of South India (such as Tirupati). And just as Sanskrit is the source
of the modern Indo-Aryan languages, classical Tamil is the source
language of modern Tamil and Malayalam. As Sanskrit is the most conservative
and least changed of the Indo-Aryan languages, Tamil is the most conservative
of the Dravidian languages, the touchstone that linguists must consult
to understand the nature and development of Dravidian.

In trying to discern why Tamil has not been recognised as a modern
language, I can see only a political reason: there is a fear that if
Tamil is selected as a classical language, other Indian languages may
claim similar status. This is an unnecessary worry. I am well
aware of the richness of the modern Indian languages -- I know that
they are among the most fecund and productive languages on
earth, each having begotten a modern (and often medieval) literature
that can stand with any of the major literatures of the world. Yet
none of them is a classical language. Like English and the other
modern languages of Europe (with the exception of Greek), they
rose on pre-existing traditions rather late and developed in the
second millennium. The fact that Greek is universally recognised as a
classical language in Europe does not lead the French or the English
to claim classical status for their languages.

To qualify as a classical tradition, a language must fit several
criteria: it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition
that arose mostly on its own not as an offshoot of another tradition,
and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature.
Unlike the other modern languages of India, Tamil meets each of these
requirements. It is extremely old (as old as Latin and older
than Arabic); it arose as an entirely independent tradition, with
almost no influence from Sanskrit or other languages; and its ancient
literature is indescribably vast and rich.

It seems strange to me that I should have to write an essay such as
this claiming that Tamil is a classical literature -- it is akin to
claiming that India is a great country or Hinduism is one of the
world's great religions. The status of Tamil as one of the great
classical languages of the world is something that is patently
obvious to anyone who knows the subject. To deny that Tamil is a
classical language is to deny a vital and central part of the
greatness and richness of Indian culture

Questions:

1. Mr. Velayudham seems to imply that a southward migration of the Vedic people and their “remarkable creativity” created the so-called Dravidian language like Tamil which doesn’t sound, read or look anything like Sanskrit. What was the necessity to create a language so radically different from the mother language?

2. Prof. Hart (and several eminent linguists) has opined that Tamil evolved independent of Sanskrit. For the sake of argument, let us assume that as true. This would indicate a rich literary tradition that possibly evolved and existed independent of the so-called Sanskrit based Vedic culture. If a “native Tamil” or so-called “Dravidian based culture” existed in the south along with a “Vedic culture” in the North, does that not weaken the hypothesis of the “Talageri-Rajaram-Frawley” types, that the Sanskrit based culture is the root of all Indian culture?

3. Based on the revelations of the “vedic” school of thought, is it safe to conclude that there are no “Dravidian languages” or “Dravidian culture”?

4. I feel that there is a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the independent origins of Tamil and its rich literary traditions. The existence of an independent rich Tamil based culture in India at the time of the “Vedic age” would no doubt present challenges to their theory that everything evolved from the Vedic-Sanskrit based civilization. Would the existence of another advanced indigenous culture challenge their thesis?

5. More importantly, Mr. Velayudham says,” The remarkable difference between the Dravidian and the Sanskrit family of languages is not due to any racial divide.” Why is this “racial divide” question so important? So what if there were different “races” which spoke different languages? Since the “new evidence” seems to suggest that the “Aryan civilization” was indigenous, what is wrong with the possibility that there may have been another indigenous culture speaking a different language? Why is the commonality of race so important here?

I hope we can find better answers than “Agastya, the Arya sage created Tamil and brought it to the South.” We in Tamil Nadu are also wary about theories that suggest “invented anywhere but Tamil Nadu” .

This thread has dealt with the question of “negation” in great detail. To deny the indigenous and independent origins of Tamil and Tamil culture merely to propound and solidify a certain hypothesis is also negation at its finest.

posted 06-02-2001 12:33            

Mu Varadarasanaar, "Tamil Language - A brief review of its history and features"
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5180/tamil7.html

Unnecessary Polemics (Excerpt from the above article, and there is more)

"The existence of such combination of antiquity and individuality in Tamil literature, was forgotten by later day Sanskrit scholars. As such they not merely denied the greatness due to the Tamil language but began to look upon it on the assumption that it borrowed immensely from Sanskrit from its very inception. Therefore, Sanskritists indulged in unwanted polemics by arguing that Tamil had no intrinsic merit of its own because it borrowed heavily from Sanskrit. To establish this assumption, Caminata Desikar, a Sanskrit scholar and author of a grammatical work entitled ilakkaNakkottu compared the alphabets of Sanskrit and Tamil and found that all, expect five alphabets, the two short vowels e (±) and o (´) and three consonants Ra, na and za (È, É, Æ ) are common to both the languages. Therefore he argued that all the characters common to the two languages essentially belonged to Sanskrit and the five rare symbols which are absent in Sanskrit belonged specifically to Tamil. Based on his findings he wrote an unusual verse in which he posed insolently a question whether Tamil with only five letters of its own could ever be called a language.

Intelligent persons will be ashamed
To call it a language
That possesses only five letters.*

--
* Arumuka Navalar (ed.), llakkanakkottu (Madras). p. 9, lines 27-28.
--

This scurrilous verse only indicates the irrational attitude of the Sanskrit scholars of the seventeenth century. "

Prof. A. Vellupillai, "Religious Traditions of the Tamils"
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5180/tamil.html

An excerpt from the above recommended for introspection…

"The appeals to fundamentals of Brahminical Hinduism, as it is understood in North India, do not seem to have its echo among Tamils, because of the character of Hinduism in tamizNAdu. A few months ago, Prof. Saraswathy Vijayavenugopal, a folklorist from Madurai University in South India, in a lecture in Uppsala, made the observation that there seem to be many folk religions among the Hindu Tamils. Synchronization - continuing synchronism of different religions - seems to be a living process within what is called Hinduism among Tamils. The influence of political Hinduism, exemplified by Bharatiya Janata Party and Vishva Hindu Parishad, which champion Brahminical values, is negligible among Tamils."

Key question:

The establishment of "Vedic-Sanskritic" roots (even in cases where there doesn't seem to be any basis) for Indian culture and civilization as a whole appears to be the goal of the "political Hinduism" movement. Perhaps more evidence that the study of the origins of Indian civilization will be tainted (and continue to be) by pre-conceived, ulterior motives from the right and left?

posted 08-02-2001 18:42            

"In my book, I have presented numerous facts suggesting that the Harappans mainly spoke a Dravidian language. The Harappans are estimated to have totalled at least one million people, while the primarily pastoralist Aryan-speaking immigrants could have numbered only a small fraction of this. Eventually, however, the language of the minority prevailed over the majority. There are numerous parallels to such a development. Almost the whole continent of South America now speaks Spanish or Portuguese, while t he Native American ('Indian') languages spoken there before the arrival of the European conquerors are about to vanish. This linguistic change has taken place in 500 years, and was initiated by just 300 well-armed adventurers. In 400 years, the British managed to establish their language and culture very widely in South Asia. To conflate the identity of the Vedic and Harappan cultures and to deny the external origin of Sanskrit and other Indo-Aryan languages is as absurd as to claim, as Dayananda Sarasvati did, that the railway trains and aeroplanes that were introduced in South Asia by the British in the 19th and 20th centuries had already been invented by the Vedic Aryans.

posted 11-02-2001 23:29            

The Goddess cult in Bengal is said to go back several thousand years and is supposed to pre-date the Vedic civilization. It was obviously assimilated into the Vedic pantheon. Such instances of syncretic development of Indic religions are in evidence in many instances. What makes you feel that Tamils alone carry the mantle of a supposed Dravidian civilization which predated Aryan invasion?? It appears to me that the Santhals and Mundas i.e the Adivasis alone can lay claim to being the original one. Tamil chauvinism is no different from the Hindi chauvinism that some display. That can also lead to mistakes like claiming another civilization thousands of miles away from Tamil Nadu. I haven't read Asko Parpola although I am aware of his theory that the Indus script is proto-Dravidian. So I will not comment on that. I will only add that a few months back we discussed some genetic evidence. Preliminary genetic evidence seemed to suggest that the founding mother of Indians belongs to the Austric race (adivasis) and it has been layered by two waves of Caucasian migrations with the North Indian caste groups retaining the latter one along with the former one while South Indian caste groups retaining only the former one. What is the possibility that both the Vedic and Tamil civilizations are independent events which occurred after this racial mixing took place? The Vedic civilization then raced out incorporating other native cultures and subcultures, religions and cults. This resulted in a Vedic coating on pre-Vedic rituals. The Tamils being at the southern most tip were the last to be influenced by Vedic civilization and hence retained much of their original religion and culture but were still influenced by Sanskrit and Vedic Hinduism.

As for what some Tamil Brahmins claimed I would rather presume that it has something to do with internal TN politics rather than any serious scientific study.

As for Parpola's logic I still do not understand two things:

1) By what mechanism a small pastoral minority dominates and alters the culture of a majority that is more civilized without physically dominating them i.e. if Parpola's theory is correct he has to either prove that a) there indeed was an Aryan invasion or b) there was elite domination by the Aryans. If it is the latter then he has to suggest the mechanism by which this elite dominance occurred.

2) The comparison with the Spanish conquest of South America is at best fragile. The Spanish invaded and ruthlessly suppressed the natives, and altered their religion and culture at sword point. Besides that Spanish was a well-established language with a well known script. In comparison pre-Rig Vedic Sanskrit may not have been as well-established a language. Also I would like to know the mechanism by which horse riding barbarians create well defined languages. Perhaps Mr. Parpola would like to explain that.

This does not mean that I support Rajaram's theory that the Aryans were indegenous but so far as I can see Asko Parpola's decipherment of the Indus script as proto-Dravidian is not a decided case. Unless I see evidence that this has been in general accepted by the international community of historians as settled it will be just another claim. I can ofcourse see why this issue if so much importance to The Hindu. For many years I could not understand the ideological moorings of the The Hindu. Now I have a better understanding.

Parpola's logic of introducing Dayanand's observations was a cheap one. If you read many of the Hindu texts it is not illogical to come up with evidences of aeroplanes and nuclear bombs. I think you may not have read any. I suggest that you read some and you will find many weird things. These were in all likelyhood fantasies which may have been taken more seriously by the devout e.g. Dayanand Saraswati. I and you will dismiss them as fictitious and fertile imagination.

I am also suprised that those who dismiss people as "w/o Ph.D.s" do not mind quoting a rank outsider like Tilak. This leads me to believe that politics is more important than truth and the likes of Witzel, Parpola are as guilty of it as Rajaram or Kak.

posted 12-02-2001 12:11            

http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/kach/quakekutch.htm

Shrikanth Talegeri showed how there was an east to west migration in his second book on the subject, Historical Analysis of RigVeda. As far as I know Rajaram bases his conclusions on Seidenberg's thesis that Pyramids of Egypt and Vedic fire altars are based on Sulba Sutras and some of the sites of SSC civilisation predate the Pyramids. Balarama goes on a pilgrimage along the banks of river Sarasvati before the MahaBharath war starts and returns at the end. Archealogists say Sarasvati dried up completely by 3700 BP. Vedas predate MahaBharath according to both linguistics and astronomical markers. All this cannot agree with AIT which is supposed to have happened around 3000BP. The AIT proponents do not have any answers to this scenerio, so they are diverting attention by bringing in political motives. Frontline comes in handy for all this. It appears that there is a slight disagreement between The Hindu and Frontline in ideology. I heared that Dr. Rajaram is organising a conference next month on the South Indian contribution to Vedic civilisation.
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/12/19/stories/13191351.htm

Looking beyond the Aryan invasion - N. S. Rajaram

I am reposting this link just in case anybody has missed it. It was originally posted by Kaushal on 18-12-2000 22:21 just before the thread detoured on to politics.

Some exerpts:

New data, new problems

As more technical data became available, scholars began to notice serious
contradictions between data and the theory. For example, genetic studies showed that
the presence of any genetic input from Eurasia or Europe in the Indian population was
negligible to non-existent. Further, this insignificant imprint was the same in North and
South India, which flies in the face of the Aryan- Dravidian division. A scientifically more
acceptable explanation is that the physical differences among Indians are due to
adaptation to the environment due to natural selection. This takes tens of thousands of
years and not centuries or millennia. All this suggests that the Indian population is very
ancient and not the result of any recent migrations or invasions.

There is now a new dimension to this scenario. Throughout history, going back untold
millennia, India's ties with East Asia and Southeast Asia have been much closer than
those with Central Asia or Europe. This was interrupted by three centuries of European
colonialism in the region, leading to a Eurocentric version of history being imposed on it.
(The Aryan Invasion Theory was a key part of this.) In recent years, scholars have
begun to re-examine many assumptions of the colonial period, looking in particular at the
physical and biological imprint in the region. This has to begin with the recognition that
Indian climate as well as flora and fauna are closely related to those of Southeast Asia.
In particular, Indian cattle (Bos Indicus) are domesticated versions related to the wild
cattle of Southeast Asia known as the Banteng (Bos Banteng or Bos Javanicus).
Similarly, the Indian horse is a special breed, close to an ancient equid known as Equus
Sivalensis (the `Siwalik Horse'). This or its close relative appears to be the horse
described in the Rigveda - and not the Central Asian or the Eurasian variety, which is
anatomically different. (The Rigveda describes the horse as having thirty-four ribs like
the Sivalensis, while Central Asian breeds have thirty-six.) Thus the widely held belief
that horses were unknown in India until they were brought from Central Asia has no
scientific support.

It is a similar story when we examine the human imprint on the region, especially the
genetic evidence. As several experts like Manansala and Kennedy recently pointed out,
the skeletal record shows that in most ways the Indian population is quite unique.
Genetic studies lead to a similar conclusion - that the Indian population is very ancient to
which the contribution of Eurasian strains is negligible to non-existent. It is a different
story when we compare Indian and Southeast Asian populations.

Paul Kekai Manansala points out: ``The overall genetic picture indicates a very old
biological relationship, probably extending in part at least to the original migration out of
Africa.'' The current understanding is that Africa was the original home of the entire
human population now distributed all over the world. The overall genetic picture of
Indians is that they are closely related to the Southeast Asians, going back tens of
thousands of years. In contrast, their links to Eurasia or Europe find no scientific
support. As a result, one thing can safely be asserted: Indians are ancient inhabitants of
India and Southeast Asia (or Greater India) and not recent immigrants.

Maritime background

From all this it is safe to conclude that in order to understand the origins of the Vedic
Civilisation and its history, it is necessary first to drop the west-northwest bias that has
dominated discourse for nearly two centuries. One of the keys to this is recognising the
maritime background of Vedic Civilisation. In this context it is worth recording that the
Rigveda is preeminently an Indian document. While there are occasional references to
the lands beyond the Indus, these are greatly exceeded by references to oceans and
maritime activity. Prayers to the safety of ships and navigators occur in many parts of the
Rigveda. This again shows a southern rather than a northwestern orientation.

---

In summary, bringing this southern reorientation of ancient India appears to resolve many
of the puzzles and paradoxes that plague current theories that try to explain the Vedic
and Harappan Civilisations in terms of invasions and/or migrations. This is not to suggest
that a southern origin for the growth of the Vedic Civilisation should replace the current
version. All that is being suggested is that it is an important but sadly neglected area that
merits serious study. Of one thing we can be certain: trying to explain the origin and
growth of the Vedic Civilisation in terms of migrations/invasions a few thousand years
ago runs into formidable scientific and literary obstacles. We should learn from this
experience and first build a scientific foundation that makes use of all data available
today. Only then can we hope to recover the history of that hoary age based on the
records they left behind. As Albert Einstein said: ``A theory must not contradict
empirical facts.''

posted 13-02-2001 23:03            

Punnam,

Actually IIRC the invasion is supposed to have happened much later around 1500-1700 BC. It is possible that the so-called 'Aryans' migrated into the subcontinent after the Harappan civilization had disintegrated following natural causes - perhaps a great earthquake that changed the course of major rivers. Only in this scenario is it possible for a small minority to take over a larger majority and impose its language, religion and culture without physically subjugating the majority. It is possible that the disruption was so large that the Harappans lost their indegenous script and the latter day settlers had to reinvent scripts like the Brahmi. This scenario will not fit in if we consider that the Vedas mention the Saraswati as the main river. Herein one may consider the claim by pro-AMT people that the Aryans actually brought memories of these rivers from their original homeland and then named the rivers that they came across accordingly when they reached India.

The alternate scenario could be that the Harappans were themselves a mixed people - a mixture of Caucasian tribes and Austric tribes that came into contact with each other and settled the fertile plains of the Saraswati-Indus. These mixed people became urban settlers who developed over many centuries the Harappan civilization. Natural disruption caused this civilization to whither away. It took centuries for civilization to reappear and hence the gap between the decline of Harappa and the appearance of the Vedic civilization. This may be the reason also why there is a gap between the Harappan script and the latter day scripts like Brahmi/Kharosti. When it reached a peak the Vedic seers started calling themselves and the elite of the society 'Aryans' i.e. noblemen - men of high virtue just like the Roman elites used to call themselves. This scenario would argue for an indegenous development of civilization with 'Aryan' being merely a cultural term.

posted 14-02-2001 00:21            

Punnam is correct when he says that AIT is supposed to have taken place 3000 BP -- BP = before present. Which in this case would be around 1000 BC or earlier.

You also say:

quote:

---

Herein one may consider the claim by pro-AMT people that the Aryans actually brought memories of these rivers from their original homeland and then named the rivers that they came across accordingly when they reached India.

---

posted 16-02-2001 16:27            

Hyderabad, Feb. 16: The excavation of a megaligithic burial at the Hyderabad University campus have led to the discovery of signs of a civilisation that existed around the city 12,000 years ago.

Assistant director at the State Department of Archaeology and Museums Subramanium told Deccan Chronicle on Friday that the findings of microliths and stone grooves at the campus indicate that a fairly well-developed civilisation existed near Hyderabad around 10,000 BC.

“What we had found so far were graves with earthen pots and some pieces of iron. But the excavation we wound up last week we found microliths or small implements made of semi-precious stones and the stones with grooves that are a result of rubbing of a stone implement,” he said.

If what Subramanium said could be verified with further excavations, it will be established that Hyderabad was home to people from old and new stone ages too. Earlier studies, especially of the megalithic burials, have confirmed existence of an iron age civilisation in the area.

The excavation of a nearly 3,000-year-old megalithic burial was carried out at the campus from January 24 to February 9.

posted 20-02-2001 19:20            

Beginning of the end
Nayanjot Lahiri

From the time that Mohenjodaro and Harappa first captured popular imagination, the reasons for the end of its city culture have provoked large historical speculation and contestation. Did the cities collapse suddenly and simultaneously? Was the collapse related to Aryan invasions, or are those invasions to be assigned to the realm of mythology? To what extent did rivers, earthquakes and climate contribute to the demise of this civilisation?

The importance of earthquakes was considered, perhaps for the first time, in 1956 by palaeontologist M.R. Sahni. According to him, the waters that devastated Harappan sites, at least in Sind, were not part of the normal regimen of overflooding and siltation. Instead, the flood that destroyed the civilisation was unprecedented and a product of earthquakes. A collision of earth plates resulted in the uplifting of land. Consequently, the Indus was damned, leading to the submergence of large areas.

The tectonic episode of 1819, when violent earth movements resulted in the creation of a dam (Allah Bund) across the eastern channel of the Indus in Kutch, provided an ethnographic analogy to what was being posited. Concurrently with this elevation, the area to the south subsided. As a result, far-reaching changes occurred in the eastern, almost deserted channel of the Indus which bounds the province of Kutch. Additionally, an area of 2,000 square miles was submerged, forming "an inland sea".

Sahni's evidence for suggesting such a phenomenon in the second millennium BC came from the hillocks of Budh Takkar and those opposite Jhirak in south Sind. Here he found unconsolidated thick alluvium containing fresh-water shells. This suggested to him an exceptional rise in water level and a period of long submergence. He also discovered two settlements in Sind which he believed were of Harappan vintage. These were covered with thick alluvium, deposited by floods, which must have destroyed the settlements.

The importance of plate tectonics in the physical geography and cultural history of north-west India is today well recognised. What is significant in the case of the Harappan civilisation is that it was Sahni who first postulated that the instability of the Indus river system, which led to the submergence of Harappan sites in the Indus plains, may have been a consequence of such earth movement. Subsequently, other scholars have highlighted the catastrophic river diversions that have been produced by such land uplift.

After Sahni, hydrologist R.L. Raikes extended this line of investigation. The ramifications of Raikes' investigation - the several phases of rebuilding at Mohenjodaro and Chanhu-daro, the peculiar character of the silt there (deposited in still-water conditions), the possibility of Sehwan, south of Mohenjodaro, providing suitable ecological formations where a permeable dam could come up and the lake that would have been created because of it - have been extensively discussed and were taken up in 1967 by H.T. Lambrick in the Geographical Journal.

A reading of Lambrick will no doubt also reveal that the culpability of excess river water, whether caused by regular floods or tectonic upheaval, has not been universally accepted and here the debate has centred on the set of assumptions that Raikes and Sahni were working with.

Almost every bit of unconsolidated silt, fresh-water shells, the dam as also the lake behind it, the slope of the flood plain was discounted by Lambrick. While it is felt that literary information - of which the Aryan question is a good example - can be variously interpreted, a fall-out of this contentious debate has been the realisation that archaeological and geophysical data are just as capable of being explained in different ways.

The debate on environmental variation and its impact upon the end of the Indus civilisation has involved much more than the floodwaters of capricious rivers. That urban collapse may have been a consequence not of excessive but insufficient river water in areas to the east of Sind, a drying up caused by earthquakes, has also been an issue.

The river in question is the Ghaggar-Hakra, which, if early Sanskrit writings have any accuracy, is the Saraswati. Although the Ghaggar today becomes non-perennial at a short distance from the Sivalik hills, its dry course in Bikaner and Bahawalpur is striking. For over 100 miles the flat bed is two miles wide, while in places this expands to over four miles.

In that stretch of the river which flows through Pakistani Cholistan - roughly between Rahim Yar Khan on the west and Yazman in the east - the largest known pocket of mature Harappan sites (174 in number) flourished. The presence of so many protohistoric settlements suggests an important perennial flow.

That a permanent river of some magnitude flowed through Bikaner and Bahawalpur and then towards the Rann of Kutch (with the eastern Nara in Sind probably being in continuation), was of course suggested as early as in 1893 by C.F. Oldham on the basis of scattered mounds throughout this tract and the testimony of the Rgveda.

However, the solid evidence which, most importantly, is dateable, has come from Rafique Mughal's work. Mughal has also documented the reduction in the number of sites - only 50 - that post-date the mature Harappan phase which he proposed occurred due to a major hydrographic change around 2100 BC. So, the fact that the Ghaggar-Hakra was drying up is something that most scholars would agree with, as also the premise that this happened due to river diversion.

There is no such unanimity about the identity of the river which meets the Ghaggar through a diversion. R.L. Raikes strongly argued in favour of an oscillating Yamuna, alternately diverted to the Indus and the Ganges systems because of the influence of deflection due to the earth?s rotation. This hypothesis was put forward with special reference to the question of the sudden abandonment of Kalibangan, a provincial Harappan centre that was situated on the left bank of the Ghaggar. Here, no post-urban phase has been encountered and, as its excavator put it, Kalibangan experienced its death as an adult and did not witness incapacitated old age.

Raikes explained this by positing the annexation of the Yamuna drainage by the Ganga. The grey granite-derived material from the bore-holes that were sunk into the former flood plain of the Ghaggar was believed by him to be similar to what occurs in the present Yamuna bed, while the watershed between the two river systems, and where this oscillation of the Yamuna could happen, were identified as being near Indri.

That the earth's deflection (called "force") should have influenced rivers all over the area, not just the peripatetic Yamuna was, also pointed out. This involved the capture of the Sutlej which flows to the west of the Ghaggar.

Unlike earlier theories, this interpretation was based on a study of Landsat imagery, in which images generated by satellites are converted into photographic ones. Through this technique, old water channels were identified - the vegetation pattern on their beds was different from that of the surrounding areas. This suggested that the Sutlej was the main tributary of the Ghaggar.

The westward movement of the Sutlej away from the Ghaggar was seen as being related to a tectonic upheaval and, as a consequence of this, the latter channel dried up. As they put it: Tectonic factors assumed such overwhelming importance only because the major channels like those of the Saraswati were structurally controlled by enechelon faults. It was because of this reason that even relatively minor tectonic movements caused considerable changes in the configuration of palaeo-channels.?

posted 13-03-2001 15:47            

A 5000-year-old well-planned city of the "Copper Age" has been found at Ozhiana village in Bhilwara district of Rajasthan, throwing new light on the ancient history of this state, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) said today.

The city, situated 30 km away from Byawar on the Byawar-Bhilwara road was excavated in three stages by an ASI team led by its Jaipur Circle Superintendent B R Meena. It was possibly surrounded by a magnificent six foot wide fortification wall built of stone and comprised lanes of similar width and houses made of stone and raw bricks. The doors of all the houses opened towards the lanes.

An important information about that time came from the kitchen unearthed, that indicated there were separate provisions for cooking vegetarian and non-vegetarian food. Besides, a large number of valuable stones, white painted pottery and earthen painted figures of small oxen and cows were also found. These excavated archaeological evidence point to the developed and systematic planning of the copper age civilisation.

posted 27-03-2001 03:23            

On the Misportrayal of India:
Toward a New Look at Indian History
by David B. Gray, PhD

"It is not my point here to argue that there was or was not an Aryan invasion. Given the ambiguity of evidence, it is a topic on which I must remain agnostic, although I should add that the burden of proof lies with those who insist on its veracity. Here I would only like to point out the peculiar fact that on such a tenuous hypothesis rests an entire edifice of Indian historiography. The assumption of Aryan conquest of Northern India was elaborated into timelines of Indian history as well as theories of social geography and demography that are extended well into the historical era, as if this one event of the distant past is the key to understanding all of Indian history. As Inden points out,

"Presupposing their Aryocentric geography and oriental demography, scholars have represented these states on their maps and read the political history they fabricated from them. That history consisted of the narrative of a society that was made to be inherently dependent on the intervention of a Western political economy for its unity and prosperity. (1990:187)

posted 17-04-2001 10:39            

David Frawley's observations on his recent visit to India
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivilization/message/5089

Kaushal

posted 27-04-2001 02:13            

Kaushal
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivilization/files/Sarasvati_Kazanas.pdf

posted 29-04-2001 16:01            

Warning: Anyone who uses this opportunity to slander this or any other religion, will lose his/her posting privilages. If you wish to challenge this decision, you are more than welcome to email me at webmaster@bharat-rakshak.com

DO NOT reply to this thread. Your post will be promptly deleted.

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

Hello all, new here. I just had a question regarding the exact date the Mahabharata and Ramayana were written. I don't mean this to be a religious discussion, and one of the admins said it was ok to post this, so please don't get my first thread here locked by turning it into a religious discussion or by doing other unmentionable things...

Basically, my points are these:

(1) The Vedas are now accepted (by some at least) to be a lot older than the original (arbitrary) date of 1500 BC which Max Mueller fixed, because (among other things) they mention the river Saraswati so many times, and hardly mention the Ganga or the Yamuna, and the Saraswati river was in full flow only before 3200 B.C., after which it started drying up, and dried up completely before 1500 BC (archaeological, satellite evidence).

(2) However, the Ramayana and Mahabharata seem to mention the Ganga/Yamuna rivers a lot, and (as far as I know) there isn't a single reference to the river Saraswati in either epic. The Ramayana talks about how Bhageeratha brought the Ganga down from the heavens, and the Mahabharata talks a lot about the antics of the child Krishna on the banks of the Yamuna, and also mentions the Ganga a lot (Bhishma's mother).

(3) The Mahabharata war is dated around 3201 B.C. by some scholars, and at least one scholar(?) dates it even earlier: http://www.swordoftruth.com/swordoftruth/archives/miscarticles/tsdotmw.html

(4) If the Mahabharata was indeed composed in this period (around 3201 B.C. or even earlier), would it not mention the river Saraswati?

(5) It is possible that the Indus/Saraswati Civilization and the kingdoms mentioned in the Mahabharata were distinct entities around the same period, but this is not borne out by the fact that many of the kingdoms mentioned in the Mahabharata were supposed to be around the same geographical location as the Indus Valley Civilization (e.g., Gandhar, ruled by Shakuni, was around the region of Afghanistan, and if I remember right, Chedi, ruled by Shishupal, was around the Indus region).

(6) The geopolitical situation mentioned in the Mahabharata seems (to me at least) to resemble the period just before the rise of the Mauryan empire, with a lot of tiny and not-so-tiny kingdoms all over India, and a large central kingdom (Magadha, ruled by Jarasandh in the Mahabharata).

(7) However, if the Mahabharata were indeed composed sometime before the start of the Mauryan empire (as Western 'Indologists' say), would the name of the author (not just saying it was Veda Vyasa, who was supposed to be intimately involved with the story right from the start according to the epic itself) not have been preserved for us, since this period was a relatively well recorded period of Indian history?

(8) Where does all this leave the Ramayana, which is supposed to have happened even earlier?

So who is right? The Western 'Indologists' who take delight in assuring us that both epics are purely fictional accounts written barely 2000 years ago, or our own scholars who say they really happened, one around 3200 B.C., and the other ages earlier than that?

I realise that the epics are probably a lot older than the earliest written versions, because of our tradition of passing on knowledge by oral means. However, the above points are still valid in that case.

I didn't want to make this a part of the other Aryan Invasion thread by Kaushal, since that one is already so big. And in case anybody is wondering how any of this matters at all, I think it is of the same relevance as finding out the truth about the Aryan Invasion Theory itself. We have had our history modified by outsiders to suit their own needs, and I think it is of importance to really find out the truth about our own history and culture. If any of the members here could shed some light on this issue, I would appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

[This message has been edited by Rakesh Koshy (edited 13-03-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Rakesh Koshy (edited 13-03-2001).]

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Kaushal
Member posted 10-03-2001 23:11
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This is not a simple question to answer as different authors have come up with different answers dependent on methodology.
See the post dated 22/6/2000,2:10, in the AIT thread, for the reference to the astronomical evidence. http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000003-2.html

A good place to start with the chronology of the dynasties is The History and Culture of the Indian People (HCIP), ed. by RC Majumdar, and the particular chapter by AD Pusalkar,ch. XIV, vOL.1, the Vedic Age. Rajaram takes a different viewpoint. I will try to summarize the different viewpoints, when i get a chance.

Kaushal

[This message has been edited by Kaushal (edited 10-03-2001).]

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Prof Raghu
Member posted 11-03-2001 00:47
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The Adyar Library (within the Theosophical Society HQ in Chennai) has a fascinating collection of Indology books.
One of the books had a chapter on the various dynasties from Pariksit (I deliberately spell it wrong, because the automatic forum software does not like the real spelling!) to Chandragupta Maurya. Based on that, that book also comes up with an estimate about when the Mahabharat war must have happened.

My memory is not perfect, but I believe there were nine (or ten) different dynasties mentioned therein.

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punnam
Member posted 11-03-2001 12:53
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Hi! Sudharshan,
<<(2) However, the Ramayana and Mahabharata seem to mention the Ganga/Yamuna rivers a lot, and (as far as I know) there isn't a single reference to the river Saraswati in either epic.>>

I am not sure about this. This is a reference from Dr. Kalyanaraman on his list. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivilization/message/471

I had suggested to GOI that UNESCO should consider declaring the
Sarasvati River Basin as a world heritage site -- from Har-ki-dun to
Somnath. What this entails in terms of 'budgets' [or lack of support
from the bureaucray called UNESCO] is another problem.

I hope to live to see the day when Balarama's pilgrimage from Dwaraka
to Mathura described in the Maha_bha_rata along the River Sarasvati_,
can be undertaken by the children of today, along the re-born
Sarasvati_.

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Ravi Patil
Member posted 11-03-2001 13:08
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On a totally different tack, is there any data published on radiocarbon dating on the artifacts, such as old manuscripts?

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punnam
Member posted 11-03-2001 13:20
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivilization/message/2477

> If some Indologists think 'milakam' refers to IVC, and it is none
> other than Meluhha, Milakkha, Mleccha , then they are driving
> themselves into a corner.

With a wink at fanciful etymologies, let me point to two sets of
lexemes of the linguistic area ca. 3500 BCE.

Pali. milakkha, copper.
Tamil. mileccam, milecca_ciyam, copper.

If maru-sthali_ (Skt.) is marutam (Tamil; maruta-nila ve_ntan-:
Indra), is it possible that meluhha region was close to the khetri
copper mines? If so, can this also be a Harappan-Vedic (S'atapatha
Bra_hman.a) parallel?

mleccha
m. a foreigner , barbarian , non-Aryan , man of an outcast race , any
person who does not speak Sanskr2it and does not conform to the usual
Hindu1 institutions S3Br. &c. &c. (%{I} f.) ; a person who lives by
agriculture or by making weapons L. ; a wicked or bad man , sinner L.
; ignorance of Sanskr2it , barbarism Nya1yam. Sch. ; n. copper L. ;
vermilion L. (Cologne Digital Skt. lex.) [I feel comfortable with the
semant. of a person who lives by making weapons! This is what I
believe the entire corpus of inscribed objects is all about. The key
is, therefore, to reconstruct the many lexemes of the Milakkha dialect
that Vidura and Yudhis.t.hira knew]. This, together with Balarama's
pilgrimage along the River Sarasvati_, is yet another instance of the
Great Epic, the Maha_bha_rata being the sheet-anchor of the ancient
history of Bha_rata.

Read more about mleccha, including the conversation between
Yudhis.t.hira and Vidura about a dialect of the linguistic area
(nothing to do with aryan or non-aryan tongues) at:
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/html/vedictech.htm#Kyzyl Kum

More on Meluhha, Dilmun and Magan in ref. to trade at: http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/lapis/lapis_lazuli.htm

Do you want to see how a Meluhha-speaker (interpreter) looked like? He
was a bearded guy, like the one from whom the R.gvedic people
bargained and bought the Soma. Two impressions:
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/contacts/meluhhaseal_small.jpg http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/contacts/akkadianseal_small.jpg

Here are two seal impressions showing a Meluhhan-interpreter:
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/contacts/contacts1.htm

See also JESHO XX: 129-165 for an analysis of texts indicating the
presence of a Meluhha village in Mesopotamia: Parpola, S., Parpola,
A., and Brunswig, RH, 1977, The Meluhha village: evidence of
acculturation of Harappan traders in late third millennium
Mesopotamia?

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punnam
Member posted 11-03-2001 14:45
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.voi.org/reviews/rev-trha.html
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

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

"Thus, by a conservative estimate, the total period of composition of the Rigveda must have covered a period of at least two millenniums."

This, as the author observes, is a conservative estimate. The question then is of absolute chronology: can we place limits in terms of actual dates? This is a question that Talageri does not address himself to, but we are now in a position to make an estimate, especially following Jha’s decipherment of the Indus script. The decipherment and the readings emphatically demonstrate that the Harappan Civilization (c. 3100 – 1900 BC) is post-Rigvedic, and overlaps substantially with the Sutra period. The last historical figures mentioned in the Rigveda are the brothers Shantanu and Devapi, who came three generations before the Mahabharata War, which may now be placed in the Early Harappan period (c. 3100 BC). (Forget the 1400 BC for the War, it has no scientific or literary support. Much of North India was still reeling under the impact of a massive drought, and could not have supported the society and the numerous kingdoms described in the Mahabharata.) Adding a minimum of two thousand years takes the early parts of the Rigveda to 5000 BC and beyond, which, by the author’s reckoning must be deemed conservative.

This agrees substantially with the dates reached by David Frawley and this reviewer in Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization. There are a few interesting consequences. First, this places Mandhata and his campaign against the Druhyus, resulting in their northward migration in the 6th – 5th millenniums (conservative). Next the traditional date of Rama Dasharathi (c. 4300 BC) becomes entirely plausible, just like the traditional date of the Mahabharata War (c. 3100 BC). This suggests that one should not be too hasty in dismissing traditional dates.

[This message has been edited by punnam (edited 11-03-2001).]

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Srinivas
New Member posted 11-03-2001 19:00
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Let me give a completely different perspective on Ramayan. In early 19th Century, when Charles Darwin and his associates came up with revolutionary theory of evolution with lot of evidence from paleontology and anthropology, they stunned the whole world. Initially it was received with lot of skepticism as this revelation was beyond our comprehension at that time. Even if modern research tools existed some 3000 years ago, I really doubt whether any social scientist would have experimented with such a bold theory.

On the other hand, I have no doubt in my mind that the author of Ramayan had full comprehension of evolutionary process. His employment of Vanaras ( half human – half ape) character in this master piece is deliberate , vivid , consistent, genuine and very profound which is not possible without the author truly subscribing to the evolutionary theory of humans.

Having said that, there are only two ways he could have done that without the luxury of modern research: 1. He was extremely intelligent with exemplary imagination ( it is tantamount to possessing mythological divine powers) or 2. He or his relatively recent ancestors, from whom the knowledge was transformed to him, were contemporary to the transformation period of apes to humans which may be anywhere between 200,000 bc to 20,000 bc ( the period of Neandertals).

Though I am not sure about the time frame, I am just giving another piece of evidence to support the antiquity of this eternal master piece.

------------------
Srini

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Sudarshan
New Member posted 11-03-2001 19:09
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Hi,
Thank you all for your replies. I've seen the astronomical evidence for placing the Mahabharata war a little before the start of the Kali Yuga in 3102 B.C. (not 3201 B.C. like I said in my earlier post- that was my mistake- sorry about that). Also, in the website I quoted before, the author mentions the same evidence, but uses it to show that the war really happened around 5500 B.C., while the Ramayana happened around 7300 B.C. But my problem with the date of 3102 B.C. for the Mahabharata was that as far as I knew the Mahabharata did not mention the Saraswati river. Looks like it does though (from Punnam's first post).
However, this raises further questions (grin- enjoying this yet?). The span of the Dwapara Yuga, in which the Mahabharata happened, is supposed to have been 8,64,000 years (twice 4,32,000 years, which is the span of the Kali Yuga). If the Ramayana (which happened in the Treta Yuga, before the Dwapara Yuga), is placed around 4300 B.C. (or even 7300 B.C.) and the Kali Yuga is supposed to have started around 3102 B.C. (or 5500 B.C.), how could the Dwapara Yuga's span be 8,64,000 years?

Also, if any of you have read 'Worlds in Collision' by Immanuel Velikovsky, in which he proposes that the earth was involved in several near-collision encounters with Venus (from around 1500 B.C. to around 700 B.C.) and Mars (from around 760 B.C. to around 687 B.C.) which changed its orbit around the sun, the inclination of its axis to the ecliptic and the length of the day, among other things, how does all this (rhetorical question), if true, affect the date fixed for the start of the Kali Yuga (according to the astronomical evidence)?

In his book Velikovsky seems to have implicitly assumed that the Vedas were written sometime after 1500 B.C. (though he never says this explicitly), after the first encounter of the earth with Venus, after which the length of earth's year was 360 days and the moon's orbital period around the earth was almost exactly 30 days, which is the basis of the old Hindu calendar, and which is uniformly mentioned in the Vedas, though the current year is 365 days long and the moon only takes a little more than 29.5 days to orbit the earth. According to him the current orbital periods of the earth and the moon were assumed after the final encounter of the earth with Mars in 687 B.C.

Basically, I'm just what my questions here indicate me to be- a confused character, not knowing what to believe in the face of conflicting evidence. I was hoping someone here might know more about this than me.

[This message has been edited by Sudarshan (edited 11-03-2001).]

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punnam
Member posted 11-03-2001 22:43
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<>
In addition to Valmiki's knowledge, Vyasa in MahaBharath, Santhi Parva says,

Matsyah Kurmo Varahasca Narasimho atha Vamanah
Ramo Ramasca Ramasca Krsna Kalkithi te dasa

The 3 Ramas should be in order Parasurama Rama and Balarama.

This could be interpreted as a knowledge of evolution.

Life in water -> water and land -> only land -> half lion-half man -> primates -> primates using stone age tools for hunting -> bow and arrow for hunting -> agriculture -> modern man -> future evolution.

Yuga system could be to explain the relative moral standards. 432000 * 4 could be related to the years estimating evlolutionary stages of life or some other scientific info. Where is the 432000 given? in Vishnu Purana? Isn't it a different text than Mahabharat?

[This message has been edited by punnam (edited 11-03-2001).]

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Raja Ram
Member posted 11-03-2001 22:47
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Sudarshan,
I would recommend reading books by Dr. N.Mahalingam on the dating of the Ramayana and the Mahabharatha. Dr. Mahilingam is the Chairman of Sakthi Group of industries and has some interesting views on the subject. Well read man. I do not want to comment on his theories, simply because I am not that well informed. I do not recollect the titles of the books but I thnk these were available in Higginbothoms in Chennai.

Perhaps more knowledgable folks here may recollect the books that I am referring to.

Another book which is quite interesting and has detailed explanations on the dates of vedas, ramayana and the mahabharatha is "Hinduism in the Space Age" by Dr. Veda Vyas. Will get the publishers address and post it later. Hope these are of some use.

Rajaram

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Sudarshan
New Member posted 14-03-2001 09:11
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Punnam,
The 2*4,32,000 years is from the Nirayana Calendar system, about whose origins I am not sure. According to this system, a Mahayuga cycle consists of the Kruta Yuga (4*4,32,000 years), the Treta (3*4,32,000 years), Dwapara (2*4,32,000 years) and the Kali Yuga (4,32,000 years), for a total of 43,20,000 years. One such cycle is a day of the Brahma, and his life span is a 100 years with each year being 360 such days. I think too often these ancient concepts are dismissed as being just mythological or poetic language, and later turn out to be literal and true statements. The same was true of the Ramayana and Mahabharata themselves, so I at least think further investigation is needed to reconcile the calendar system with the traditional dates of the epics.
The reason I brought Velikovsky into the picture was that the author (Vartak) on the website I quoted above used the astronomical evidence to show that the Mahabharata occurred around 5500 B.C., with the implicit assumption that the planets have been steady in their orbits the last 8000 odd years, an assumption which Velikovsky tries to refute. According to Velikovsky, the planetary system has been in a constant state of upheaval since God-knows-when. Which being true would certainly affect the dates of the Mahabharata and Ramayana, going by the astronomical evidence.

Kaushal, Prof. Raghu, Rajaram, thanks for the references. I don't have the books right now, but I'll try to get them.

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Kaushal
Member posted 14-03-2001 10:40
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Sudarshan, the reason I did not answer your question categorically is that at the present time there is no answer that is 100% certain. We simply do not know until more information becomes available.The 3 candidates for the date of the Mahabharata are 1.ca.1500 BCE(Pusalkar, MaxMueller),2. ca.3000 BCE and 3. 5561 BCE. I suggested the HCIP as a starting point not becuase i believe the conclusion, but that it gives a nice table of the Dynasties starting from Manu Vaivasvata. So, the time between Manu and Pariksh*t is known with some confidence, but what is not known with as much confidence, is the absolute dating of Manu
Until you brought up the piece by Vartak, I had always leaned to the date around 3000 BCE. But certainty in this topic is elusive and we may never know the exact date of the Great Bharata War. That goes also for the significance of the Yugas. The intriguing question is whether there existed prior civilizations of equal or greater grandeur during those Yugas, after all the age of the earth is 4 Billion years and we hardly know anything about human history beyond 8000 years. Like Newton, we are like little children playing with pebbles on the beach, when there is a vast ocean to study and ponder over.

The problem is that unlike Egypt, there is far less archaeological evidence in India. When there is archaeological evidence such as in the Sarasvati Sindhu civilization, the European Indologists for reasons which are now obvious, have fraudulently claimed that it is not Vedic on the flimsiest of grounds. The point that is often forgotten by denigrators of the Ancient Indian heritage is that India has the largest extant literary tradition (bar none) in the entire history of the world. Nobody can take that away. Unfortunately Sanskrit is a very terse language subject to ambiguity and it needs a lot more scholarship by Historians and Linguists to decipher the messages in the ancient texts.

Good questions and good luck in your quest to know the truth,

Kaushal

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acharya
Member posted 14-03-2001 12:48
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According to Velikovsky, the planetary system has been in a constant state of upheaval since God-knows-when.
This does not have a basis according to several studies done on other civilization around the world who have recorded the planetary movements during the ancient ages.
In a program in National geographic they looked at the marking of the stars from Maya and aztec civilizaation and were able to calculate back the dates when the stars were observed assuming that the planets were revolving as observed now.

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Sudarshan
New Member posted 14-03-2001 14:21
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quote:
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Originally posted by acharya:

In a program in National geographic they looked at the marking of the stars from Maya and aztec civilizaation and were able to calculate back the dates when the stars were observed assuming that the planets were revolving as observed now.
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I'm not sure what you mean- do you mean that the dates when the stars were observed were unknown, but calculated back assuming that the planets were revolving as observed now? That doesn't prove anything. Were these dates compared with the original known dates of observation (assuming these were known)? That might prove that V. was wrong. Also, if the original dates were known, were they later than 687 B.C.? If they were, it still doesn't prove anything, because according to V. the last upheaval was in 687 B.C.

Like I said, I'm not sure if I understood you right. Please tell us exactly what you meant.

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acharya
Member posted 14-03-2001 14:57
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I apologize for not being clear.
In the NG program I saw the expert looked at the marking on the ground(aztec) in the horizon to represent a particular star constellation.
He then looked at the current position of the same constellation. Using the difference in the position he was able to calculate the period in time when the marking on the horizon was made. This period in time for that example was around 3000 BC. The period was corraborated with archeological findings
around the area.
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VRaghav
Member posted 23-03-2001 22:26
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Interesting thread indeed. Have been reading the questions posed by Sudarshan over and over again, but could come up with answers to only some of them. Here they are:

quote:
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However, the Ramayana and Mahabharata...there isn't a single reference to the river Saraswati in either epic
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This statement is not accurate. In fact if you keenly go through Kaushal's AIT thread, you will definitely find that the above statement of yours is not upto the mark.

quote:
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If the Mahabharata was indeed composed in this period (around 3201 B.C. or even earlier), would it not mention the river Saraswati?
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Yes. It does mention not only the Sarasvati, but also one if its main tributaries to the south called DrShadvatI. One of the verses occuring in the Vana Parva, actually defines the area called Kurukshetra as that portion of the earth which is bounded by the SarasvatI in the north and DrShadvati in the south. However, I do not know anything about the dating part. Hence I am afraid I won't be able to comment on that. Give me some time and I will quote the verse(s) in Devanagari font.

There is a legend which is associated with the composition of the Mahabharata and the disappearance of the Sarasvati. I came to know it through my Hindi teacher in Class VII. If somebody can double-check on the same, that will be great. Here goes:

Mahabharata is believed to have been composed by Vyasa who used Ganesha as his 'stenographer' (if I may) who used a piece of his tusk as the writing tool. During one of the routine sittings, (which by the way was done secretively), Sarasvati happened to wander around the place where the duo was sitting and overheard the recitation. Vyasa somehow came to know about this 'tehelka' by Sarasvati and lo and behold he cursed her very harshly...that she would disappear into oblivion and be erased off the memories of generations to come.

Thus goes the legend. Well legends are anyway legends. However with the help of the modern science of archaeology, glaciology etc we are fortunate enough to know exactly the factors which led to the drying up of the once mighty Sarasvati which flowed from the Har-ki-Dun glacier and poured into the Arabian sea at PrabhAsa in the Kutch coast.

[This message has been edited by VRaghav (edited 23-03-2001).]

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acharya
Member posted 23-03-2001 23:21
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According to a theory being proposed by N S Rajaram , there was a meteor strike around Sindh in ~ 2400 BC. THis could have changed the lanscape dramatically. But will take a long time to prove this. May go the 'Witzel' way.
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Sudarshan
New Member posted 24-03-2001 14:47
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Acharya,
Your evidence from the NG program does seem convincing proof against Velikovsky. However, he points out evidence of the same kind as proof for his theory- like star maps drawn all over the world around 1500 B.C. and later showing the sky as it looked before the proposed near-collisions and after, and they are vastly different. Anyway, I'm sorry if I appear to be obsessive about Velikovsky- like I said, the reason I brought him up at all was because his theories, if correct, would affect the dating of the epics based on the astronomical evidence.
VRaghav,
I guess it was my mistake when I said that as far as I knew the Mahabharata did not mention the river Sarasvati. Punnam and you pointed out evidence that it does.

From what I understood so far, it looks like the traditional date of 3101 B.C. for the start of the Kali Yuga is very much possible, and the IVC could have been a remnant of the earlier, much more glorious civilization of the Mahabharata period. The arbitrary date of 500 B.C. for the Mahabharata proposed by the western 'Indologists' doesn't sound very convincing, to say the least. I remember the thread here about a radioactive city being found somewhere in Rajasthan. Some posts in that thread connected that city with the one mentioned in the Mahabharata as a place where a weapon accidentally landed. And the discovery of Dwaraka is of course further evidence in favour of the fact that the Mahabharata was 'real', though the dates given for the submergence of the city are again conflicting. All in all, I think only rigorous efforts on the part of archaologists, historians etc. can help solve this riddle.

Sudarshan

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Samudragupta
New Member posted 26-03-2001 02:07
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A suggestion on how to put an upper limit on the age of the Ramayana --
As far as I can remember, the sage Agastya greatly predates the happenings in the Ramayana.
There is also the related story that the Vindhyas stopped growing at Agastya's request as he migrated to the south of the country.
It ought to be possible I suppose to roughly guess the age of the Vindhyas and the time tectonic plates that caused the
Vindhyas to form were active.
This would at least give a baseline from which to start.
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punnam
Member posted 26-03-2001 07:08
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Agastya's balancing of the subcontinent from tectonic shifts by crossing Vindhyas is supposed to have happened 7000 years ago. That is what I read during the immediate aftermath of Gujarath Earthquake. I saw this info in a link posted on BR. It maybe time now for Rakshaks to send more money to Gujarath. One of the news reports say after a deluge funds have now stopped coming in.
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psmith
Member posted 26-03-2001 21:18
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In an introduction to the epic, Mahabharata was described as a "library" - with the core of the epic composed ~600-500BC and material being added to it for centuries till ~300AD when the "book-shelves" were closed. Sounds reasonable to me (fwiw) in light of point (6) in Sudarshan's initial post.
He (the author of the introduction) also posited that the Ramayana post-dates the core of the Mahabharata, since in the former the domain of 'Aryavrata' has penetrated further south compared to the latter.

VRaghav>>Mahabharata is believed to have been composed by Vyasa who used Ganesha as his 'stenographer' (if I may) who used a piece of his tusk as the writing tool.

Raghav, apparently this incident appears only in the southern editions of the epic and not in the northern/eastern ones (or vice-versa?), and for this reason is absent from the critical Sanskrit edition prepared by the Bhandarkar Research Institute. (From what I understand, the critical edition was tasked with collecting the 'greatest common material' from the various regional editions.)

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advitya
Member posted 26-03-2001 23:31
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quote:
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Originally posted by psmith:
VRaghav>>Mahabharata is believed to have been composed by Vyasa who used Ganesha as his 'stenographer' (if I may) who used a piece of his tusk as the writing tool.
Raghav, apparently this incident appears only in the southern editions of the epic and not in the northern/eastern ones (or vice-versa?),

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The role of Ganesha also appears in the eastern tradition - i.e. Maithali, Bengali/Pali and Oriya.

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VRaghav
Member posted 26-03-2001 23:56
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According to the traditional belief, Mahabharata is a smriti work i.e. which is 'remembered' in written form. Whereas the Vedas are works of shruti i.e. which have been 'heard' or revealed through spiritual experience. Smritis can be amended, but not the Shrutis. Hence it is plausible that the Mahabharata was composed at a much later period of time after the events actually occurred. It may also not be unreasonable to say that the poem underwent changes over a priod of time. Hence I would say that psmith's point about the dating is plausible.
However the Mahabharata has unequivocal pointers to the names of the places where the Sarasvati was "lost" in the desert; where it reappeared from underground and the place where it poured into the sea. The names respectively are VinAshana, ChamasodBheda and PraBhAsa (which is situated in the south-easter coast of the modern Saurahstra). It also has clear references to the Coastal city of Dwaraka and the details of its planning and architecture. According to it (specifically Mausala VII) and the PurANAs, it seems that the city of Dwaraka was submerged in the 36th year after the BhArata war. If we can determine the age of the city discovered submerged under the Arabian Sea by renowned Marine Archaeologist S. R. Rao, I think we can back-calculate the period of the BhArata war. The data may already exist somewhere, because the pottery which the team found in Dwaraka and on the land further into the sea called Bet Dwaraka, was dated to
about 3520 years BP (Before Present) using the technique of Thermoluminiscence.

The above eerie precision with which the poem describes places, vivifies the events and its close correspondence to the latest archaeological discoveries makes me wonder if later dates of its composition as proposed by some Indologists are really that reasonable?

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VRaghav
Member posted 28-03-2001 23:43
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Most of the information that I have posted in this thread are from Lt. Col. Manohar Lal Bhargava's book named 'The Geography of Rgvedic India', 1964.
Now for the verse which talks about the SarasvatI and DrShadvatI rivers.

Vana Parva, LXXXIII:

=rGKul mhôJÀgt =]MÅÀgwúthuK a >
gu Jmrà; fUwh¥Guºtu ;u Jmrà; rºtrJ³gu >>

If we were to believe in the reality of the Mahabharata based on some of the above geographical evidences, then it must have happened (much) before 2000 BCE by which time the Sarasvati is believed to have been dessicated completely.

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Kaushal
Member posted 29-03-2001 02:26
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This appears to be a revised edition of an earlier version, but seems to contain much useful information about the Pauranic dynasties. However, the book posits a milder version of AIT, kaushal http://www.vedamsbooks.com/no19165.htm
India in the Vedic Age : A History of Aryan Expansion in India/P.L. Bhargava. New Delhi, D.K. Printworld, 2001, 462 p., map, ISBN 81-246-0171-2.

Contents: 1. Introduction. 2. Examination of sources. 3. General survey of Aryan expansion. 4. Geography, fauna, and flora of the Vedic homeland. 5. The Puranic genealogies. 6. Agreement of Vedic and Puranic traditions. 7. Evidence of synchronisms. 8. Eras of the Vedic age. 9. The families of Vedic Rsis. 10. Chronology of the Vedic age. 11. History of the Vedic age. 12. Social and economic conditions. 13. Political and legal institutions. 14. Religion and philosophy of the Vedas. 15. Language and literature. Bibliography. Index.

"Vedas aren’t just the scriptural texts, but the earliest record of Indo-Aryan civilization. On the basis of this corpus of mankind’s oldest literature, together with his indepth analyses of the later-day Puranic writings, Professor Bhargava offers the first ever systematic, well-knit study of the Aryan expansion on the Indian subcontinent since c. 3100 BC. Retrieving, thus, hard historical facts from the complex Sanskrit verses of ancient seers, Dr. Bhargava’s book opens a fascinating panorama of life in Vedic India—highlighting, in particular, its powerful dynastic families, its rsis, society, economic conditions, political setup, religion, philosophy and literature. The book also includes a vivid description of the Aryan homeland, its geography, flora, fauna, and a lot else.

"Now in its third enlarged, fully revised and updated edition, India in the Vedic Age has, ever since its first appearance in 1956, been acclaimed not only by prestigious journals or discerning readers, but also by many Indologists/Sanskritists/historians of worldwide eminence, including notably, A.L. Basham, K.D. Vajpeyi, Ludwik Stembach, T.G. Mainkar, and G.V. Devas. While A.S. Altekar acknowledged it as "a distinct advance over Pargiter’s work", Dr. Bhargava’s book is certainly, as U.N. Ghoshal observed, "the most original work of our time"." (jacket)

[P.L. Bhargava was Professor and Head, Department of Sanskrit at Rajasthan University. His books include Retrieval of History from Puranic Myths, Chandragupta Maurya and Fundamentals of Hinduism.] No. 19165

posted 06-05-2001 11:05            

Allchin, Raymond and Allchin, Bridget; 1997; Origins of a
Civilization – The Prehistory and Early Archaeology of South Asia;
Viking; New Delhi

Bryant, Edwin (Ed.); The Aryan Migration Debate- Quest for the Search
of the Roots of the Vedic Civilization; Oxford University Press;
Cambridge; April 2001

Dales, George F.; 1961-62; `The Mythical Massacre at Moheno-Daro'; in
Journal of Oriental Research, 31:32-39; Madras

Danino, Michel and Nahar, Sujata; 2000; The Invasion that Never Was,
2nd ed.; The Mother's Institute of Research; New Delhi

Erdosy, George; 1995; `The Prelude to urbanization: ethnicity and the
rise of Late Vedic chiefdoms'; in The Archaeology of the Early
Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States, Allchin, F.
R. et al (eds.), pg. 75-98; Cambridge University Press; Cambridge;
1995

Hock, H. H.; 1999; "Through a glass darkly: Modern "racial"
interpretations"; in Madhav M. Deshpande and Johannes Bronkhorst
(eds.), pp. 145-174, Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia – Evidence,
Interpretation and Ideology; Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora
Vol. 3; Harvard University; Cambridge

Kazanas, Nicholas; 1999; `The Rgveda and Indo-Europeans'; in Annals
of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, vol. LXXX:15-42; Poona

Kenoyer; Jonathan Mark; 1998; Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley
Civilization; Oxford University Press; Karachi

Kennedy, Kenneth A. R.; 1982; `Skulls, Aryans, and Flowing Drains';
in Gregory L. Possehl (ed.). Harappan Civilization – A Contemporary
Perspective, pp. 289-295; Oxford and India Book House; Delhi

_______.; 2000; God-Apes and Fossil Men, Paleoanthropology of South
Asia; The University of Michigan Press; Ann Arbor

Poliakov, Leon. Translated into English by Edmund Howard; 1974; The
Aryan Myth – A History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe;
Basic Books; New York

Rajaram, Navaratna Srinivasa; 1995; The Aryan Invasion Theory and the
Subversion of Scholarship; Voice of India; New Delhi

posted 08-05-2001 23:39            

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

The Aryan Migration Theory: Fabricating Literary Evidence
http://www.voi.org/vishal_agarwal/What_is_AMT.html

What is the Aryan Migration Theory?

posted 15-05-2001 09:10            

quote:

---

Higher caste Indians may have come from Europe

Hyderabad, May 15: New genetic studies have revealed that the higher ranking castes in India may have come from Europe.

According to a study in this month's Genome research Journal, scientists said that while India's higher ranking castes are genetically more similar to Europeans, the lower castes are more similar to Asians.

The study, done by an international team led by Michael Bamshad (University of Utah), is believed to be the most comprehensive attempt so far to explore the impact of ancient western migrations on people in India.

---

posted 15-05-2001 19:16            

(1) Kaushal has over 7000 posts (keep it up, K)

and

posted 15-05-2001 19:49            

http://www.safarmer.com/genetics/

Sharad_A's post:"Higher caste Indians may have come from Europe"

posted 15-05-2001 20:13            

About the 'high caste from Europe part' it is probably some dork journalist from IE giving his own spin. As Europeans are Caucasian and Indians have Caucasian markers it is not surprising that there will be similarities. Perhaps IE wants upper caste Indians to vote for Madam as now they are all Europeans. -

posted 15-05-2001 20:30            

Excellant link.
*******

Deep common ancestry of indian and western-Eurasian mitochondrial DNA lineages.

Kivisild T, Bamshad MJ, Kaldma K, Metspalu M, Metspalu E, Reidla M, Laos S, Parik
J, Watkins WS, Dixon ME, Papiha SS, Mastana SS, Mir MR, Ferak V, Villems R

Department of Evolutionary Biology, Tartu University, Tartu, 51010, Estonia.

About a fifth of the human gene pool belongs largely either to Indo-European or Dravidic
speaking people inhabiting the Indian peninsula. The 'Caucasoid share' in their gene pool
is thought to be related predominantly to the Indo-European speakers. A commonly held
hypothesis, albeit not the only one, suggests a massive Indo-Aryan invasion to India
some 4,000 years ago [1]. Recent limited analysis of maternally inherited mitochondrial
DNA (mtDNA) of Indian populations has been interpreted as supporting this concept [2]
[3]. Here, this interpretation is questioned. We found an extensive deep late Pleistocene
genetic link between contemporary Europeans and Indians, provided by the mtDNA
haplogroup U, which encompasses roughly a fifth of mtDNA lineages of both
populations. Our estimate for this split is close to the suggested time for the peopling of
Asia and the first expansion of anatomically modern humans in Eurasia [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
and likely pre-dates their spread to Europe. Only a small fraction of the
'Caucasoid-specific' mtDNA lineages found in Indian populations can be ascribed to a
relatively recent admixture.
**********
Fundamental genomic unity of ethnic India is
revealed by analysis of mitochondrial DNA

Current Science 2000 Nov;79(9): 1182-1192.

Susanta Roychoudhury, Sangita Roy, Badal Dey, Madan Chakraborty,
Monami Roy, Bidyut Roy, A. Ramesh, N. Prabhakaran, M. V. Usha Rani,
H. Vishwanathan, Mitashree Mitra, Samir K. Sil and Partha P. Majumder,

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) profiles of 23 ethnic
populations of India drawn from diverse cultural, linguistic
and geographical backgrounds are presented.
There is extensive sharing of a small number of
mtDNA haplotypes, reconstructed on the basis of restriction
fragment length polymorphisms, among the
populations. This indicates that Indian populations
were founded by a small number of females, possibly
arriving on one of the early waves of out-of-Africa
migration of modern humans; ethnic differentiation
occurred subsequently through demographic expansions
and geographic dispersal. The Asian-specific
haplogroup M is in high frequency in most populations,
especially tribal populations and Dravidian
populations of southern India. Populations in which
the frequencies of haplogroup M are relatively lower
show higher frequencies of haplogroup U; such populations
are primarily caste populations of northern
India. This finding is indicative of a higher Caucasoid
admixture in northern Indian populations. By examining
the sharing of haplotypes between Indian and
south-east Asian populations, we have provided evidence
that south-east Asia was peopled by two waves
of migration, one originating in India and the other
originating in southern China. These findings have
been examined and interpreted in the light of inferences
derived from previous genomic and historical
studies.
**************

posted 15-05-2001 21:02            

Sagar:

I thought so too. A good collection of genetics related work on the "Peopling" of India. This Bamshad dude seems to have been awfully busy. He is cited in 3 or 4 other abstracts.

posted 15-05-2001 21:07            

Let us suppose for a moment that the Bamshad et al article is wholly correct and the final scientific word about the issue. Even if this
was true, the IE headline still is unwarranted. I have read the abstract of the article - reading the full version on the web requires a subscription to the journal Genome - at least the abstract does not say anything like what IE claims. The most the abstract says is that some aspects of the gene pool of
the so-called higher-castes have a stronger correlation than other castes. This does not
mean, or imply, that the so-called higher-castes are Europeans or even that they came
from Europe.

Of course, I seriously doubt that the Bamshad
article is the last word on this issue in any case. Just read the article by Gadgil et al.

posted 19-05-2001 14:26            

NEW DELHI: In a major marine archaeological
discovery, the Indian scientists have come up with
excellent geometric objects below the sea bed in the
western coast similar to the Harappan like ruins.

"This is the first time that such sites have been reported in
the Gulf of Cambay," science and technology minister
Murli Manohar Joshi told reporters on Saturday.

The discovery was made few weeks ago when the
multi-disciplinary underwater surveys, carried out by the
National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), picked
up images of several "excellent geometrical objects"
which were normally man-made in the
nine-kilometre-long stretch west of Hazira in Gujarat.

"It is important to note that the underwater marine
structures discovered in Gulf of Cambay have similarity
with the structures found on-land on archaeological sites
of Harappan and pre-Harappan times," Joshi said.

The acoustic images showed the area lined with well laid
house basements like features partially covered by sand
waves and sand ripples at 30-40 metre water depth.

At many place channel like features were also seen
indicating the possible existence of possible drainage in
the area, he said.

Possible age of the finds can be anywhere between
4,000 and 6,000 years, Joshi said, adding the site might
have got submerged due to a powerful earthquake.

Stating that it was a very exciting discovery and raised
many questions, he said the Department of Ocean
Development has decided to carry out a series of studies
to know how these structures were submerged and their
archaeological importance.

Lauding the efforts of scientists, Joshi said that the
findings need to be investigated in greater detail.

The material collected at the site included well-rounded
pebbles, cobbles and alluvium, which were normally
found in river beds, NIOT officials said.

A detailed examination of the geology and tectonics of
the area revealed that a couple of major rivers have been
flowing approximately in the east west direction
coinciding with the course of the present day Tapti and
Narmada rivers.

Due to the geological processes and tectonic events, the
entire Cambay area might have sunk taking down with
that the then existing part of the river sections and the
ancient settlement, they said.

NIOT proposes to initiate a detailed survey of the area
by deploying various underwater equipments, including
remotely operated under water videography equipment
and by divers, they said.

posted 19-05-2001 17:48            

Somehow I have a feeling that the pro-Congress newspapers are picking this up for political reasons. They know that Sonia Gandhi faces the greatest opposition among upper caste North Indians and she can only rule with the help of the upper castes although she may win enough seats with the help of all others. Basically I will try to read the paper as soon as it is out and I can lay my hand on.

From a quick glance the claim made by this group is not much different from the ones made by the Majumder group (but I guess the firangi stamp helps) except the replacement of the word 'European' for 'Caucasian'. Now I do not know if they are looking at something specific for Europeans but not for other Caucasians. If they are then it is a very interesting finding that there should be a jump in such interesting markers over other Caucasian people who live in the region between India and Europe. If it is just a Caucasian marker then I will think that it is merely pro-Congress media propaganda as this is something that anyone even with just an observant eye will tell you. You do not need to be a big genetecist to understand that Indians are a mixture of 2-3 races although this does provides more biological evidence in support of that.

The only important difference with Majumdar is that Majumdar claimed that there was no significant difference in the appearance of Caucasian markers in Southern, Northern (UP) and Eastern caste groups although there was a difference between North and South with the North showing a higher frequency. This is not unexpected as the Caucasians were likely to have migrated from the North-West. What surprised me most was that the Chamar and Brahmin in UP did not show a huge difference in Caucasian markers as would be expected if the basis for caste was purely racial. OTOH, one may argue that given this racial mixing occurred thousands of years ago the racial purity was lost although the caste distinctions remained (but wasn't caste migration frozen for a long period??). If Bamshad is right then what they are suggesting is that the Caucasian male was the invader/immigrant and mixed with the Austric female to produce the people of the subcontinent. So far so good. However, did the Caucasian male impose the caste system on the rest or imposed themselves upon the caste system in such a manner that they always ended up in the upper castes. Bamshad claims that his data shows that the frequency of the Caucasian markers decrease with caste. This is different from Majumdar's claim where he suggested a fundamental genetic unity of most Indians. What I find hard to believe is that caste could be formed just on the basis of measuring the Caucasian nature of the person. How would the ancients ensure who was how much Caucasian??

So I go back to the hypothesis that the Vedic civilization itself developed in the Saraswati basin among people who were either pure Caucasian or somewhat mixed with Austrics (more likely) and developed a caste system for proper functioning of their society and the caste system was highly mobile (as the people were more similar than different). However, the civilization spread to other areas perhaps due to expanding economy or natural calamity or war and incorporated other people who were mostly Austric (in peninsular India) and mostly Caucasian towards the West. The newcomers were incoporated lower down in the hierarchy and the caste system frozen. However, the Austric marker moved up as the male from a caste slightly higher could marry a female from a caste slightly lower than them (this is what Majumdar also claimed in an earlier paper). This rule still stays as it is relative less difficult for a Brahmin boy to mary a Kayastha girl than vice versa. Horizontal caste proliferation i.e. divison into various sub-castes may have been a consequence of more people being incorporated and an expanding economy requiring more professions than earlier thought off.

My guess is that the caste system already prevailed in the area of Vedic civilization which was in the Indus-Saraswati basin and later in the Gangetic basin. The similarity with the Persian caste system prevalent during the times of Zarasthrusta (although they had only 3) suggests that this was an ancient system prevalent in the region during those times. Those who believe in the racial theory of caste suggest that the Shudras were later added as the civilization spread to the interiors of the subcontinent and the local tribes were absorbed. I agree with only the latter part as I believe that the Vedics themselves may have been of mixed race although clearly quite different from the tribals. What we cannot say for sure is whether the early caste system was confined purely to Caucasian immgrants. My guess would be 'No'. Otherwise we would have seen the Caucasian marker dominant over the Austric marker among the Brahmins. However, the Brahmins studied by Majumdar whether Iyer/Iyengar from the South or Brahmins from UP/Bengal all showed that the Austric marker was dominant. My interpretation will be that the caste system arose after the racial mixing took place. However since this mixing took place initially in the North-West and then spread towards peninsular India many upper castes appear to be more Caucasian than the rest. My guess will also be that once the civilization started spreading the fear of being swamped by the new comers led to the caste system getting frozen. Also just being Caucasian was not sufficient for entry to upper caste as most of the later Caucasian invaders were absorbed in the middle castes. The Rajputs, the ruling class of Indo-Scythians were only absorbed as upper caste (perhaps because they did not have much option i.e. how do you ask the rulers to take a lower caste?). Also notice that the orthodox Hindu in the past had the same dislike for Caucasian Greeks, Persians, Turks, Arabs and the Europeans as they had for the outcastes. From this I do not believe that the caste system was established purely for racial reasons as all outsiders whether Austric (tribal) or Caucasian (Huns, Greeks, Scythians, Europeans) were thought to be 'unclean' and hence kept out.

Thus, IMO this news suddenly appearing all over the pro-Congress media (first IE and then TOI) has more to do with politics and less to do with genetics unless I read the paper and come to the conclusion that it was indeed a breakthrough. Remember the pro-Congress media has the daunting task of convincing the upper caste establishment about the acceptability of Sonia Gandhi.

[This message has been edited by Sagar (edited 19-05-2001).]