Unmasking AIT

[Guest]

Well, from Edwin Bryant's book..In <b>Quest of the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate</b>

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>India, the Cradle of Civilization </b>

Other scholars, however, upon learning of these linguistic (and therefore racial) connections of the distant Indic languages, felt that radical alternatives to the Armenian point of origin had now gained legitimacy. India, in particular, was a popular candidate, especially among segments of the intelligentsia in the late eighteenth century and first half of the nineteenth century, and especially (but not exclusively) on the Continent. As it had done in classical times, India again captured the imagination of Romantic Europe. <b>The astronomer Bailly, the first mayor of Paris, was very influential in popularizing Indian wisdom. In 1777, after some deliberation, he situated the earliest humans on the banks of the Ganges</b>. Even before Jones's announcement, Bailly stated that “the Brahmans are the teachers of Pythagoras, the instructors of Greece and through her of the whole of Europe” (51). Voltaire voiced his agreement: “In short, Sir, I am convinced that everything—astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc.—comes to us from the banks of the Ganges” (Bailly 1777, 4).

The French naturalist and traveler Pierre de Sonnerat (1782) also believed all knowledge came from India, which he considered the cradle of the human race. In 1807, the well-known metaphysician Schelling could wonder “what is Europe really but a sterile trunk which owes everything to Oriental grafts?” (Poliakov 1971, 11).

<b>A year later, the influential Friedrich von Schlegel argued that “the Northwest of India must be considered the central point from which all of these nations had their origin” (505). </b>In 1845, Eichhoff was adamant that “all Europeans come from the Orient. This truth, which is confirmed by the evidence of physiology and linguistics, no longer needs special proof” (12). Even as late as 1855, Lord A. Curzon, the governor-general of India and eventual chancellor of Oxford, was still convinced that “the race of India branched out and multiplied into that of the great Indo-European family.....
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Ah, this is new.....Another Schlegel, I was getting confused with... Hmm..

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In 1842, <b>A. W. von Schlegel, in contrast to his brother Frederik</b>, claimed that “it is completely unlikely that the migrations which had peopled such a large part of the globe would have begun at its southern extremity and would have continually directed themselves from there towards the northeast.
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