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Weasel and co gets their behind kicked yet one more time.
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> ON THE EMIGRATION OF A SECTION OF THE VEDIC PEOPLE FROM NORTH-WEST INDIA TO
> WESTERN ASIA
> B. B. Lal
> Former Director General
> Archaeological Survey of India
>
> My attention has been drawn to a review of Chapter 6 of my book, *How Deep
> are the Roots of Indian Civilization? Archaeology Answers,* by Dr.
> Francesco, posted on the Web-site “Indo-Eurasian_ research@ yahoogroups. com”,
> dated October 28, 2009. Dr. Francesco opens the review by quoting from his
> mentor, Professor Michael Witzel, wherein the latter says: “It is surprising
> how an established archaeologist [referring to me] can be so *naïve*, in his
> *old age*, about facts from outside his field (palaeontology, genetics,
> texts, linguistics) and still loudly proclaim his ‘revolutionary’ result
> (also in his latest book ‘The Sarasvati Flows On’.” To this Dr. Francesco
> adds his own flavor: “Indeed, this new chapter in Lal’s conversion to
> *Hindutva-oriented
> historical revisionism* betrays, at minimum, a very naïve approach to
> historical an linguistic facts …”.
>
>
>
> Professor Witzel is well known for making such unsavory personal remarks.
> For example, at a seminar organized by UMASS, Dartmouth, in June 2006, when
> I drew the attention of the audience to the learned professor’s wrong
> translation of the a very crucial passage from the *Baudhāyana S̄rautasūtra,
> * which is the main subject of the discussion by Dr. Francesco, Professor
> Witzel shot at me by saying that I did not know the difference between Vedic
> and Classical Sanskrit. He had to be told that I had the privilege of
> obtaining in 1943 my Master’ Degree in Sanskrit, which course included a
> study of the *Veda*s, and that I had obtained a First Class First from a
> first class university of India, namely that of Allahabad. I have already
> referred to this incident in my Inaugural Address delivered at
> 19thInternational Conference on South Asian Archaeology, held at the
> University
> of Bologna, Ravenna, Italy, July 2-6, 2007, which is duly published.
>
>
>
>
>
> I do not propose stooping down to the low level of these learned scholars.
> At the same time it must be said that this particular type of debating
> technique is adopted by these scholars with a view to intimidating the
> opponent on the one hand and, on the other, impressing upon the reader that
> the if the author concerned is ‘naïve’ and ‘old’ how can his conclusions be
> correct? However, it is a great satisfaction that by now the reader all over
> the world has become fully aware of their game-plan.
>
>
>
> I now proceed to answer the various points raised by Dr. Francesco.
>
>
>
> Since the passage from the *Baudhāyana Śrautasūtra*(18. 44)* *forms the
> central piece in the debate, it is necessary to discuss it in some detail.
> The relevant Sanskrit text reads as follows:
>
> *Pra**-**n** .**a**-** yauh**.** pravavra**-* *ja tasyaite Kuru**-**-Pan* *~**
> cha**-**la** -**h**.** Ka**-**s**́**i**-** -Videha**-** ity etad A**-**yavam
> pravrājam. Pratyan**.** Ama**-**vasus tasyaite Ga**-**ndha* *-**rayas Pars**́
> **vo Ara**-**t**. **t**.**a* *-** itya etad A**-**ma**-* *vasavam*
>
>
>
> Dealing with this particular passage in his paper, ‘R.gvedic
> histor̄y: poets, chieftains and polities’, published in 1995 in a book
> edited by Erdosy, Professor Witzel, wrote, as follows:
>
> Taking a look at the data relating to the immigration of Indo-Aryans into
> South Asia, one is struck by the number of vague reminiscences of foreign
> localities and tribes in the R.gveda, in spite of repeated assertions
> to the contrary in the secondary literature. Then, there is the
> following *direct
> statement* contained in (the admittedly much later) BŚS [Baudha-yana
> Śrauta-su-tra] ,
> 18.44: 397.9 sqq which has once again been overlooked, *not having been
> translated yet:* “Ayu went eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru-Pan~ca- la
> and Ka-śi- -Videha. This is the A-yava (migration). (His other people) *stayed
> at home in the west.* His people are the Ga-ndha-ri-, Parśu and A-rat.t.a.
> This is the Ama-vasava (group)". (Emphasis mine.)
>
>
>
> To return to the Sanskrit text itself. It has two parts. In the
> first part, i.e. in* ‘prāṅayuh … pravrājam’* the verb used is *‘pravavrāja’,
> * which means ‘*migrated’. In the second part, i.e. in ‘pratyaṅamāvasuḥ ….
> amāvasam’ the verb is not repeated. However, according to the well known
> rules of grammar, it has got to be same as in the first part i.e. it has to
> be ‘pravavrāja’. As a result, the second part would mean that ‘Amāvasuh
> migrated westwards and his descendants are the Gāndhārī, Parśu and Araṭ̣ṭa.’
> *(Although it is not necessary, yet I will give an example of how the
> ‘missing’ verb has to be inserted. Take, for instance, the following
> sentence: “Yesterday, in a match between India and Australia, the former
> scored 275 runs, whereas the latter only 230.” In the first part the verb
> has clearly been mentioned as “scored”, but in the second part it is not so
> mentioned. Nevertheless, it has got to be the same as in the first part,
> viz. “scored”. Ser
>
>
>
> All this clearly shows that the learned professor had deliberately
> mistranslated the Sanskrit text in order to tell the unwary reader that
> while one lot migrated eastwards, the other ‘stayed at home’. *In reality it
> is a case of two-way migration, viz. eastwards and westwards, from one
> central point.* * *The area of parting* *is likely to have been somewhere
> between the Ga-ndhā-ra region on the west and the Kuru region on the east.
> Since the Ga-ndha-̄ra region is placed in eastern Afghanistan and the Kuru
> region (modern Kurukshetra) is in Haryana in India, the region from where
> these eastward and westward migrations took place is most likely to have
> been the (pre-Partition) Punjab.
>
>
>
> * **There can, therefore, be no denying the fact that a section
> of the Vedic people did migrate to the west. The text also very clearly
> mentions the names of the destinations of this migration. These are,
> seratum: Gandhāra, Paraśu and Araṭta. ** ***
>
>
>
> * *Although Dr. Francesco has raised certain objections in
> respect of the identification of these areas, these objections are
> meaningless. The term Gandhāra occurs in ancient literature and was
> doubtless a part of Afghanistan -- whether northern or southern it is of
> little consequence in the present context. Parśu, which is also referred to
> by the same name in an 835-BCE inscription of Shalmaneser of Assyria, is
> again very clearly Persia.(The name was changed to ‘Iran’ only in 1935.) As
> regards Aratta, most scholars hold it to be Ararata in the Armenian region,
> but Dr. Francesco, allergic to that identification, would like to take it
> all the way to Seistan. Says he: “Nowadays scholars … place Aratta *
> somewhere* in Iran; a consensus is slowly emerging on the tentative location
> of the land of Aratta in Seistan.” What is this ‘somewhere’? Evidently,
> because Dr. Fracesco does not know ‘where’. Again, what indeed is the value
> of a phrase like ‘a *consensus* is *slowly emerging* on the
> *tentative*location …’. Surely, this is yet another technique to avoid
> facing the
> reality. Truth is sometimes too bitter to swallow!
>
>
>
> Now to the evidence of the inscribed clay tablets discovered at
> Bogazkoy in Turkey. Ascribable to circa 1380 BCE, these tablets recorded a
> treaty between a Mtanni king named Matiwaza and a Hittite king, Suppiluliuma
> in which the following gods were invoked as witnesses: Indara (=Vedic
> Indra), Mitras(il) (=Vedic Mitra), Nasatia(nna) (= Vedic Nāsatya) and
> Uruvanass(il) (=Vedic Varuṇa). Scholars agree that this treaty establishes
> the presence of the Vedic people in a part of Turkey. In fact, Dr. Francesco
> himself admits this reality when he says: “The (Indo-) Aryan deities
> mentioned in the 1380 treaty are likely to have been worshipped by the
> Mitanni king.” The only debating point left now is whether these Indo-Aryans
> were on their way to India or had come there from India. The reason for some
> scholars to have held the former view was that at the time of the discovery
> of these tablets, viz. at the beginning of the 20th century, the date of the
> *Veda*s, as per the fatwa of Max Muller in the 19th century, was taken to be
> 1200 BCE. (In this context it must not be forgotten that Max Muller had
> himself back-tracked by saying: “Whether the Vedic hymns were composed [in]
> 1000 or 1500 or 2000 or 3000 BC, no power on earth will ever determine.”) In
> Chapter IV, Section H, of my book under discussion I have given detailed
> evidence from archaeology, geology, hydrology, C-14 dating and literature,
> which clearly establishes that the *R**̣̣**igveda **is older than 2000
> BCE.*How much earlier is anybody’s guess. However,
> other scholars like Kazanas and Nahar Achar place the *Rigveda* in the
> fourth millennium BCE. The former uses the linguistic evidence, whereas the
> latter bases his dating on the astronomical data. This new evidence thus
> shows that the mention of the names of the Vedic gods on the Bogazkoy
> tablets in Turkey is the finale of the movement of the Vedic people from
> north-west India to that region. In this context one might as well pose a
> question: “Was there any country, other than India, in the entire world in
> the 14th century BCE, i.e. at the time of the Bogazkoy treaty, where the
> gods Indra, Varuṇa, etc. were worshipped?” The answer is an emphatic “NO”.
> Then why shy away from facing the reality? In fact, at one stage in his own
> review, Dr. Francesco admits: “the so-called Mitanni Indo-Aryans can be but
> a group of Vedic Aryans having migrated to Kurdistan from their supposed
> ancestral homeland in NW South Asia.”* *
>
>
>
> Research is an ongoing process, not something static. With new evidence
> pouring in every day, paradigms have to be changed and one should not feel
> belittled if one’s earlier views have to be modified in the light of the new
> data. Let not an ostrich-like attitude blind us to the upcoming truth!
>
>
> Subject title of posting by Dr. Francesco: "Did Some Vedic People Emigrate
> Westwards out of India?" - by B.B. Lal
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