<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Mahabharata over the "Aryan Phoren" Myth.</b>
http://karigar.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/...horen-myth-.htm
Beside the wonderful "Bhagvad Gita", hereâs one other reason to care about whatâs "written" in the MahabharataÂ
~x~
Current mainstream scholarship on Indian Pre-History is still holding onto the myth -
AIT / AMT / ATT /ALT /A"X1"T / A"X2"T.....
[ i.e. Aryan X Theory; where X = "I "means Invasion; X= "M" means Migration; X= "T" means Tourism ; X= "L" means Language diffusion...you get the point...i.e. claiming that -
Wild Wandering Nomads calling themselves "Aryans" for no particulat reason came to India, & gave us the vedas/sanskrit {presumably composed while riding these wild horses}, & some of their Genes, amongst other things...Everything good about India & its culture is "Phoren"]
Currently, we Indians enjoy the unenviable status of "half-breeds" in the world, i.e. Indo-Aryan, basically "Eurasian" mongrel hybrids. [I know I'm overstating, but ..]. This is because we (our "Scholars / leaders") don't seem to care very much about how the world sees us, based on biased "scholarship" of the past few hundred years.
The basic (utterly unproven) premise is that all the "high points" of Indic Culture{vedic thought, language, sciences, the whole "hindu" way of life} are from foreign Sources.
i.e. from this "accepted' & "scholarly Point Of View-
If not White/Central AsianInvaders, then it'd better be Migrants, if not that, then, pleeze pleeze, its "got to" be small bands of tourists, or "pretty please" maybe just an "imported" language, Sanskrit ??
This mindset rules all "intelligent" discussions regarding Indian Pre-History.
For those whoâve noticed, it also "rules" i.e. casts [pun intended!] its long shadow when it comes to the contentious issues of Indian society today. [Like the "Soni(a) Kudi ruling Mannu Bhai, from behind the curtain, pulling the strings]
I mean even things like "Caste"System", "Reservations", etc (See my Blogs Casht Sishtum -Bhoil Da Bhoot explains â Part 1 , & Part 2 for a Ruff ân Tuff take on this) .
All media / academy / even our kids education is yet to get De-hypnotized from this attitude. (see my blog on the Calif School controversy - Macacaâs fate in California hangs in balance; Ref# 8, #4-7among many others...)
It is perhaps a matter of time before our origins are accepted as ours (i.e. Indian) which is being shown as more & more plausible based on the important evidences, Genetic / Archaeological / literature...
Itâs a "Mahabharata" perhaps already in its "Kurukshetra" battle phase, but most "cool desis" donât know , or donât careâ¦
Mahabharata
Mahabharata, part of our "Itihaasa", or so we think. Variously known as "Epic", or "myth" or "drama", etc, its literary aspects are respected the world over. But it is a lot more for Indians. Traditionally, & over many millennia, it has come to define our culture. It is one book, which contains all of humanityâs humanity, & divinityâs divinity.
For people respecting Indic culture, & Sanatana Dharma practitioners (aka "hindus"), it is much more. To paraphrase what has often been attributed to Rishi (sage) Vyaasa after he dictated it to Sri Ganesha,
"Whatever is in the world, will be found in the Mahabharata, and whatâs not in the Mahabharata, will not be found in the world!"
You might call it a hyperbole, but that is for another debate / discussion.
Here Iâm looking at just one aspect of this Itihaasa ( roughly translated from Sanskrit, meaning, "Thus I have Heard"). This is the aspect of its chronology.
"Scholars", mostly of the European & Europeanized-Indian variety have been "assigning" various arbitrary dates to its composition, depending on their biases & agendas, from AIT inspired dates of 500 BC or even later to closer values from our Indian traditional dates of earlier than 3000 BCE, i.e. 5,000 + years ago.
BN Narhari Achar (from Univ Of Memphis, TN, USA ) has developed a "Planetarium Software" which can model the sky over the North Indian Subcontinent at various points of time, even as far back as 3 or 4 thousand years ago, with good accuracy.
[5+ yrs ago, paper at http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/english/docu...hari01.pdf , see Ref#1 for Excerpts]
Being a "scientific" project, it is open to being checked & refuted by competent objectors, who canât use the common excuse of "Oh the Sanskrit texts are contradictory, & confusing" which was often used in the past to deny legitimacy to our "itihaasa" texts.
Since one can reasonably assume that our ancient ancestors:-
(a) did not have computing resources to "pre-date" a full & complete description of a sky a few thousand years ago from their time!
(b) even if they did, why would they choose an arbitrary date & "back calculate" a whole description over a 100+ year period in the Mahabharata ? [Oops I forgot, they were perhaps trying to fool the eminent scholars of today..??]
One can look at what the descriptions of the dates & sky in the Mahabharata tell us, using this software.
Nicolas Kazanas (see Ref # 2 for Bio)Â wrote an extensive paper refuting many many elements of the "Indic Culture / Genes / etc..were all brought from outside" theory that masquerades as fact today.
A wonderfully revealing & interesting paper in itself, & worth reading. [Iâm still reading it..V V loooooong]. Paper at - http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/english/documents/IIR.pdf
An excerpt from this, regarding Mahabharata dating, & N Acharâs calculations, is what Iâd like to share below.
Excerpt -
3. We now come to the epic Mahaabhaarata and Achar's third paper (2001). In this, Achar examined some astronomical references in Bks III, V and XIII of the MB.
His sky map showed that of all calculations by Westerners and Indians only that of KS Raghavan (1969) was correct: the exact year for the great war of the Bharatas on the basis of all these data was 3067.
In Bk V, to take some examples,
Krsna leaves for Hastinaapura on the day of the Revati naksatra in the month Kaumuda (=Kaartika, ie Oct-Nov) and arrives there on the day of Bharan-i (81, 6ff); on the day of Pusya
Duryodhana rejects all offers of peace; Krsna departs on the day of uttara phaalguni and says to Karn-a that the amaavaasyaa (day of the New Moon) will come after 7 days, then Karn-adescribes the positions of some planets at that time (141, 7-10).
All these data converge in agreement with Acharâs sky formation only in the year 3067.
Whatever other data are contained in the MB and whatever other dates are suggested thereby, the passages with the astronomical facts for the year 3067 remain unaffected.
The ancient Indian tradition of the Puraan-as and astronomers was fairly correct in placing the onset of the Kali Yuga at 3102 and the Bharata war 35 years earlier: the disparity is only 70 years (Kazanas 2002).
The medieval Kashmiri historian Kalhana (and his tradition), of course, seems to have been quite right in setting the previous cycle at 3067 (Elst 1999:104).
Here however we must take into account that people begin to create tales and poetic cycles in fixed forms 2 or 3 generations after the event they celebrate when the actors have departed from the stage.
So 3067 is a good date for the origin of the core of the MBh.
It is the date when the sons and grandsons of the warriors began to recite/sing in established forms the deeds of their ancestors.
Neither Bryant nor Witzel mention this paper, so we donât know what sort of objections will be raised.12
But, if these finds are correct (and I see no reason at all to doubt them), then, obviously, there is much work ahead for the younger indologists.
As Leach said, the old chronologies and matters of style and so on will have to be scrapped and a new framework established.
On the basis of the astronomical data the initial core of the MB belongs to the early 3rd millennium; the epic developed and grew in length in the subsequent 1000 years, when, c1800, perhaps, a new change of style, language and rearrangement of contents took place leading to the final form in the last centuries BCE. This is conjectural, of course.13
When, in 1996, I decided to abandon the mainstream view of the AIT and its chronology , I knew very little about astronomical data beyond the works of Jacobi and Tilak (both in the 1890s).
Naturally it is good to have confirmation from Archaeoastronomysince heaven does not lie.
~x~
Further References:
Ref#1
Excerpt from
"Date of Mahabharata War using simulations from Planetarium software"
The Mahabharata war is an important milestone event in the chronology of Bharata. The great epic tells us that the war was fought1 at the junction of the dvaapara and kali yugas.
There is an age-old tradition of celebrating certain events connected to the epic such as the Gita jayanti or Bhishmaashtami.
No Bharatiya ever doubted the historicity of the event. In spite of such longstanding traditions, the situation changed when Western (and some Indian too) scholars began to study the epic seriously from the 'rationalist historic' point of view.
Doubts were expressed about the war having been a historical event.
Even if the historicity of the war was conceded, the date of the event was deemed to be in doubt. The importance of determining the date of the Mahabharata war for ancient Indian chronology can hardly be overstated2.
A plethora of dates, derived on the basis of a number of diverse methodologies have been proposed and no consensus has been reached.
â¦
â¦
These simulations compel one to agree that the astronomical references in the epic Mahabharata form a consistent set, the events must have been observed and not put into the text by some later clever astronomer. These simulations also provide a basis for determining the date of the Mahabharata war.
The date of the events, 3067 BCE, is proposed on the basis of very stringent astronomical conditions that must be satisfied for the occurrence of the events described in the epic. It is based on the following facts:
there was an equinox near jyeÿstha; a solar eclipse occurred at jyeÿshha in an eclipse season with two lunar eclipses on either side; the final lunar eclipse occurred in less than fourteen days after the solar eclipse.
It is demonstrated conclusively by the simulations that the proposed date, which is identical to the one proposed earlier by Raghavan, provides the best agreement with the events described in the epic.
â¦
â¦
The problem was first suggested to the author by Dr. Kalyanaraman and the author started the project with an uncharacteristic naivete overflowing with confidence about applying the new tool to determine the date of the war.
However, soon he realized both the enormity and the complexity of the problem and that while he was among the first to use the Planetarium software, he was not the only one. He was amazed by the number of people, who have attempted to determine the date of the Mahabharata war.
He can echo the sentiments expressed by the fourteenth century Kannada poet, who under the penname kumara vyasa composed in verse form the epic Mahabharata in Kannada.
Kumara vyasa in explaining as to why he chose to compose the Mahabharata, instead of the Ramayana, says " tinukidanu phaniraaya ramayanada kavigala bharadali". [" even the great serpent, ËAdisesa groaned under the weight of the number of people who have composed Raamaayana".]
The present author can say " tinukidanu phaniraaya kelavaleva janara bharadali" [" the great serpent groans under the weight of the pandits who have tried to determine the date of the Bharata war".]
------------------------------
Ref # 2:
Nicolas Kazanas on himself (from Paper mentioned above) :-
I am a sanskritist with a little Greek and less Latin. I am of Greek nationality (but a British subject) and although I have twice visited India for extended periods I know very little about the modern religion(s) there and practically nothing about its politics (except the unfortunate conflict over Kashmir).
As an undergraduate and postgraduate at SOAS (London) in the 1960s I absorbed the mainstream "Aryan Invasion Theory" (AIT hereafter); for G Dalesâ s work that knocked down Sir M Wheelerâ s extravagant view had not yet percolated down to us.
In any case I was then, and continued to be for many years afterwards, interested in Sanskrit only, the dramatic works and the
Subsequently I taught the AIT with the South Russian Steppe as the locus of dispersal of the IndoEuropeans (IE hereafter) for 18 years and I wrote a Course of Sanskrit (in Md Greek) in which I actually concocted fictitious passages about the Aryans invading with chariots and subduing the natives who thought it prudent to accept them and cooperate!
In 1987, I began to wonder about the AIT.
In the same year I went to India and collected much material which took a few years to sort out and digest, since I had little acquaintance with Indian archaeology and early history. What became abundantly clear in the early 1990s (and filled me with incredulity) was the fact that there was
In 1996 I abandoned the AIT in all its forms and the mainstream chronology for Sanskrit literature. The experience was doubly painful:
first it was not easy to give up an idea I had taken for granted for more than 20 years;
Upanishads and Vedaanta; I had no interest at all in the early history of India. no evidence whatever for any invasion (which by that time was becoming "migration").
second I could not understand why mainstream indologists adhered to the AIT so passionately, since it was supported only by linguistic data that could, in any event, be interpreted in different ways.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Dig deep & find â No Aryan Phoren here! </b>
http://karigar.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/...ryan-phoren.htm
A little bit of Archaeology, & a bit of Fraud Psychobabble, or Freudian Psychoanalysis
Â
Confessions, Personal
[in the time tested traditions of "dig in, & spill your guts"]
(A) Bondage
Growing up In "Modern" India, I was as "cool" as they come. Going to the best schools in town (inevitably "convent" type, i.e English Medium, nuns and/or no nunsâ¦) I was pretty pleased, on top of the pile, so to speak. I could afford to be quite "superior" to the rest of the gang in the playground, in the cricket team, etc. Only 3-4 of us were "angrez" enough in this most Anglicized of games, & could pronounce all the propah words like "Howzat", & know that "Greg Chappell, re gadhe, not Chappal!". [And proudly knowing what the word "Chapel" meant]
Used to feel a kind of pity for the other kids who struggled when they encountered English in its pervasive forms, in words, style, manners, & ideas. It was a badge of "honour" when friends said "Saala! Angrez India chod ke gaya to is angrez ki dum ko chod gaya!" [i.e. When the English "dog", metaphorically of course, left India, he left this wagging tail behind.]. Glowed inwardly when dad said (after watching me go "English Only" in my entire personality, reading habits, music, arguments on "stupid customs", etc)
" Neenu Englandalle huttu bekagittu! Namma mele ishtu yaake kripa madidiyappa?"
[Why this great condescension, this great favour, o great English lord, of being born in this humble Indian family? You should have been born In England!]
Suffice it to say, I really had started feeling I was "being wasted" in dull India, & "truly" belonged in the West, England, America, even "lowly" Australia/NZ , sometimes even the "Gulf" seemed like a worthy place ["at least I can use a "lift" every day, drive a cool Toyota on the smooth highways"..]
Then I transited from just reading about the distant west, & wanting to be like âem, to seeing, really seeing my "kindred souls" from out âYonder, the Great Westâ. Boy they looked a lot "fairer" than I had imagined! Deathly Pale, actually.
Being "fair" [or "light skinned", depending on where you say it] was fine, easy on the eyes & all that, but this!? "Haven't seen too many Indians who look like this!" This was a time when book covers were being "upgraded" from simple line drawings or B&W pics, to color pics on glossy paper. Enid Blyton characters suddenly went "blond & blue eyed" on me, and was my hero James Bond [Roger Moore in the movies at that point] really sandy haired, & so "gora".
I mean, donât get me wrong, I had read & "intellectually understood" that according to prevailing classification, I was "Brown" & they were "White", but it is one thing to "know, & quite another to experience! One can {& still does} ignore others strangeness of appearance when reading about them, even thinking about them., but a living , breathing personâ¦
["Gawd, sheâs a Goddess!" my friends would say after spending a lot of time & money to just say "Hi!" to the girls in the Swedish students group camping one summer in our school dormsâ¦"Yup! What a Blond Bombshell", Iâd nod in agreement. "Kuch Hasee kyaa? Kuch Phansee kyaa?" All in fun of course, but oh...the longing..]
Many a time have I spent my teenage years looking at the mirror, under the brightest of lights, wishing my "nose were a little straighter & narrower" or that I were, oh about 5 inches taller, 4 inches wider in the shouldersâ¦you get the picture. All because I thought I looked "almost" like James Bond, if only the lights were bright enough, & the above alterations could somehow be made to happen.
I was "almost" like these wonderful guys that I wanted to emulate, & these girls that I admired. Coupled with all this usual teenage turmoil going on, I was also mad as to why India wasnât more like the West Iâd so come to admire, or to be more direct, why I wasnât more like the Westerners I so admiredâ¦
And only later did I realize the foolishness, the insidiousness of it all. I was comparing my physical "assets" to some "norm" of the "cool guy" from another culture, another genetic makeup. Why was I so caught up in trying to be someone I could never be? And- Whatâs so great about this "norm" anyway?
And I bet I was not alone in this, nor has much changed today.
Moving to the US in my mid twenties didnât change things much, although this thought pattern did recede into the background due to various factors, mainly about being busy setting myself up for the future. Other things helped too, like my "being in the same boat" as many buddies, establishing a career, having enough interaction with the opposite sex to get a healthy sense of self-respect.
But stillâ¦."Oh I wishâ¦." Wouldnât Quite go away.
(B) Salvation
[Fast Forward to AXT, {see my "Aryan Phoren part 1" }]
A couple of years ago, as part of a metaphoric "journey back to the roots, back "home", I started reading about the debates going on amongst Scholars, Linguists, Archaeologists, Geneticists, & the like on the concept of "Indo-Aryan". [A word most of us educated in India have absorbed without much thought, as it comes out of most school history books we study. {For this issue in US, see my blog Macacaâ¦.} ]
It took me quite a while to absorb the easily missed fact that "Indo-Aryan"or "Dravidan" or "Adivasi" the category most Indians are supposed to belong to, is a fairly recent 18-19th century construct of European vintage [Ahhâ¦I love French & Italian Wine, donât youâ¦??]. It is also based on quite dubious conjectures & analogies of linguistic similarities between Sanskrit based Indian languages & Central Asian & European languages.
The idea of us Indians being a hodge-podge unclear mixture of Conquering Aryans from (where else but) the North West, sometimes Europe, sometimes Central Asia, (depending on the scholar's whim & personal background) with some other distinct "local people" is also just a theory, without much evidence to support it.
Its main currency has been gained by constant repetition over the past 200 odd years.
Now let's look at what our culture, especially the "samskriti" or "high Culture", has to say. Indian samskriti has extensive "oral self-documentation" from the distant mists of time, i.e. Rgveda & beyond [again ref part 1].
There is not one word about foreign origins. {SeeSwami Vivekananda, Ref#3for his candid take on this.}.
Compare this with most other cultures. They remember their foreign origins (if any), thru legends, songs & such, which refer to rivers & mountains etc they left behind, songs of journey...remember the Biblical song "By the Rivers of Babylon"....the "Discovery of the new land" etc. [See Ref#4 excerpts, Ref#2 & Ref#1 for details of other cultures stories & myths]
So what's going on Today? Where's this "Salvation" that I "promised" coming from?
The answer lies in Genetics & Archaeology, for those who'd like to subject our own cultural memories, however well preserved, to the "sceptics searchlight".
Genetics & Archaeology are getting better & better, (& both are much more "hard science" than linguistics) and they are basically saying at every turn, that Indians have been basically the same from before the "Indus Valley Civilisation" onwards.
So, all these things (along with India & Indians changing position in the world) together kept fermenting in my mind for quite a while, & still areâ¦.But they definitely tell me one simple thing-
I am not an "almost gora" in looks, abilities. Nobody is an "almost somebody else". In fact , the very idea violates the whole notion of individuality.
I have no reason for being told what my origins are by a patently immature theory. My culture may have may foreign influences, but they are mere influences. At the core, my culture is mine, & foreigners didnât bring it here.
When I (the metaphoric "I", meaning any self-respecting desi) look a "Westerner" in the eye, I need to know, & have it be known, that I come from a culture that gave the world more than it took, & as much as (s)he defines him/her self, I define myself. I need self-respect, & hope for respect from others, for my culture. It defines who I am.
For a proper self-definition, of course, I need to know what my culture is, from as original a source as possible. I need to be deeply sceptical of much that passes as "scholarship" about India, & Indian culture.
Letâs discuss Archaeology for this time. The past few decades have bee very exciting ones in the "digging" of the Indian Subcontinent. RadioCarbon dating has advanced to reliably date matter found on buried sites.
Not being an "accredited scholar", Iâll just take help of the scholars own words, from here on.
Archaeology?
Howâll that increase my Self-Esteem ?
Now itâs the time for the experts. I give over the rest of this blog to the experts, the Archaeologists themselves. Notice please, the words NO EVIDENCE, & how often they crop up in the discussions below.
After reading thru, if the reader gets one thing, which is that todayâs Indian needs to radically take a good look at the misconceptions floating around about Indian & Indians, it will be worthwhile. Also, it may appear "dry" & "scholarly" but scholars are humans too, with pet biases, & we cannot let a scholarâs bias decide how we or our next generation (a) looks at themselves; (b) is looked at by others.
More on this in the next part of the Phoren Aryan (if there is oneâ¦)
QUOTABLE QUOTES [Ref by #s at very end]
(A)
Hereâs the words of Shaffer & Litchtenstien: [from Ref#1 Ananth Kumar ]
Besides other ideological motivations [43], racism, too, has played its part in IE studies and the framework it constructed, as has been noted by a number of scientists in the field. As recently as the late 90s, archaeologists Jim Schaffer and Diane Lichtenstein remarked:
As data accumulate to support cultural continuity in South Asian prehistoric and historic periods, a considerable restructuring of existing interpretative paradigms must take place. We reject most strongly the simplistic historical interpretations, which date back to the eighteenth century, that continue to be imposed in South Asian culture history. These still prevailing interpretations are significantly diminished by European ethnocentrism, colonialism, racism, and antisemitism. Surely, as South Asia studies approaches the twenty-first century, it is time to describe emerging data objectively rather than perpetuate interpretations without regard to the data archaeologists have worked so hard to reveal. [44]
[29] Archaeology:
In Migration, Philology and South Asian Archaeology (1999), archaeologists James Schaffer and Diane Lichtenstein conclude:
That the archaeological record and significant oral and literature traditions of South Asia are now converging has significant implications for regional cultural history. A few scholars have proposed that there is nothing in the "literature" firmly placing the Indo-Aryans, the generally perceived founders of the modern South Asian cultural traditions(s), outside of South Asia, and now the archaeological record is confirming thisâ¦. Within the context of cultural continuity described here, an archaeologically significant indigenously significant discontinuity was a regional population shift from the Indus valley, in the west, to locations east and southeast, a phenomenon also recorded in ancient oral traditions.
As data accumulate to support cultural continuity in South Asian prehistoric and historic periods, a considerable restructuring of existing interpretative paradigms must take place.
James Schaffer and Diane Lichtenstein, Migration, Philology and South Asian Archaeology, in "Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence, Interpretation and History," (University of Michigan Press, 1999).
(B)
Hereâs what other eminent Archaeologists have to say { from Ref#2 N Kazanasâ paper, mentioned widely in part 1}
Writes J.M. Kenoyer, specialist in the archaeology of the Indus Valley: "[T]here is no
archaeological or biological evidence for invasions or mass migrations into the Indus Valley between the end of the Harappan phase, about 1900 BC and the beginning of the Early Historic Period around 600 BC" (1998:174).
Shaffer and Lichtenstein confirm this emphasizing the continuity of the indigenous culture (1999).
The absence of archaeological evidence began to be noted in the late 1960s. Jarrige and Meadow established (1980) the indigenous Mehrgarh culture with cereal cultivation c6500 on the Bolan, north-west of Mohenjadaro and its gradual spread south-east to the Indus where it developed into the Harappan or ISC (=Indus-Sarasvati Culture) c3000.
Subsequent studies confirmed this: "The shift by Harappan groups and, perhaps, other Indus Valley cultural mosaic groups, is the only archaeologically documented west-to-east movement of human populations in South Asia before the first half of the first millennium BC" (Shaffer & Lichtenstein 1995:135).
Other investigators provide additional evidence from their own branches of research.
No
flow of genetic traits occurred from Bactria into Saptasindhu c1800:
"Parpolaâs suggestion of movement of Proto-R
rgVedic Aryan speakers into the Indus Valley by 1800 is not supported by our data. Gene flow from Bactria occurs much later and does not impact Indus Valley gene pools until the dawn of the Christian Era" (Hemphill & Christensen 1994).
K Elst, who quotes this passage, explains that the later flow is apparently that of the Shaka and Kushana invasions (1999:232; also Bryant, 231).
K Kennedy (in Erdosy, 1995) concurs with this view: "There is no evidence of demographic disruptions in the northwestern sector of the [Indian] subcontinent during and immediately after the decline of the Harappan culture" (again in Elst, 233; also Bryant, 231).
REFERENCES:
Ref#1:
Ananth
Kumar- The AIT : More than meets the eye
[
http://www.india-forum.com/articles/153/1/...n-meets-the-eye]
A really well written (& really loooong) comprehensive article.
Excerpts: (Opening Paras of the article)
There are some Indians today who are convinced that the subcontinent's population can be classified into Indo-Aryan and Dravidian ethnic groups. Ignoring the fact that Indo-Aryan and Dravidian are defined as being merely language families and so do not denote ethnicity at all, their conviction shows that it has now become a question of identity.
The Indo-European language family represents a model of the world which incorporates a view of history, of population dispersal and of language diffusion. Within its framework are to be found the now-familiar concepts of Aryan, Dravidian, Indo-European languages and their subfamilies, as well as the notion that at some point in its history, India accommodated entrants from Eurasia who supposedly brought with them India's first Indo-European language and an equally alien culture.
With these concepts having entered our everyday lives today (not just our vocabulary, but also our view of history), it is easy to forget how recent the Indo-European (IE) framework actually is. In a short span of time, just over two centuries, something has changed entirely.
Indians have started to identify themselves with terms defined within the IE framework and have internalised its views.
Language and thought
Today, the Indo-European world-view has very cleverly and dangerously reduced our choices to either Indo-Aryan orDravidian, thereby excising the valid third option of 'Indian'.
This might appear very trivial, but it is a form of language control. Language control is a means to alter and limit people's way of thinking. George Orwell's cautionary novel Nineteen Eighty-Four [1] describes a totalitarian dictatorship that systematically destroys language, thereby shaping the very thoughts and reality of its undermined subjects. [2]
Language is the means through which humans understand and formulate ideas, and by which we communicate and express ourselves.
Denying language is to deny thought; and controlling language is to control thought. Although this is what propaganda attempts to do in its own crude and overt manner, the subtlety of the IE world-view in imposing language control on Indians has mostly gone unnoticed by us.
Many Indians have subconsciously absorbed its views and can now only look at the world according to how the IE framework has defined it.
For a long time now, it has been shaping the reality of present-day India.
Consider that we have a political party (the DMK) whose name contains the term 'Dravidian', whilst history books have long been teaching children about Aryans who allegedly invaded India sometime around 1500 BCE. The IE world-view, through denying us access to the term 'Indian', has effectively started denying our thinking of ourselves as Indians. It is shaping our perceptions of our own identity.
A few other examples of language control that Indians are being subjected to today include how, through the media, the term 'Dalit' has slowly but consistently been replacing 'Harijan' [3]; the vague and merely geographic 'South Asia' has come to replace the historic entity of the 'Indian subcontinent'; and we are forced to use the Portuguese-derived word 'caste' which describes neither jati nor varna nor any other Indian word or Hindu concept. [4]
Though one may not immediately see it, these are impositions on our way of viewing and understanding history, our present world, and ourselves.
Another example: the Holocaust memorial in the US commemorates the genocides of the 'Soviets' and 'Yugoslavs' of World War II. Yet which nation today is called the Soviet Union? Where is Yugoslavia? There are no people and no nations today that go by these names. This is tantamount to an act of rewriting history: through calculated use of language, historic atrocities against the Russians and Serbs have been pushed to the background. Why? In order to prevent either from gaining public sympathy when the west intends to take action against them: Serbia during the Balkan Wars of the last decade; and Russia, because its imminent rise might come to pose a threat to the west. [5]
We return now to the Indo-European framework, which has attempted to explain (that is, to model) the observed linguistic similarities between European languages and India's Samskritam and northern languages. Like all models, it is based on some assumptions.
Retracing the history of how the IE linguistic family was formulated will uncover the assumptions underlying its world-view.
By re-examining their validity in light of what is known today, we can re-evaluate the IE framework and its applicability. And then perhaps, instead of passively accepting it, we may be in a better position to decide whether or not- its world-view should be considered so final as to determine our own.
REF#2: Nicolas Kazanas (Quoted extensively in part 1 i.e. "Mahabharataâ¦Aryan Phoren"
A survey of all "Current scholarship, & scientific info" on the issue.
A wonderfully revealing & interesting paper in itself, & worth reading. [V V loooooong]. Paper at -
http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/english/documents/IIR.pdf
REF#3:
Picked up from Sulekha blog Lies for children in indian text books by krisanu
The Myth of Aryans and Non-Aryans
By Swami Vivekananda
"The mind jumps back several thousand years, and fancies that the same things happened here, and our archaeologist dreams of India being full of dark eyed aborigines, and the bright Aryan came from - the Lord knows where.
According to some, they came from Central Tibet, others will have it that they came from Central Asia. There are patriotic Englishmen who think that they were all black haired. If the write happens to be a black haired man, then the Aryans were all black haired.
Of late there have been attempts to prove that the Aryans lived on the Swiss lakes. I should not be sorry if they had been all drowned there, theory and all. Some say now that they lived at the North Pole. Lord bless the Aryans and their habitations.
As for as the truth in these theories, there is not one word in our scriptures, not one, to prove that the Aryans came from anywhere outside of India, and in ancient India was included Afganistan. There it ends.
All the theory that the Shudras caste were all non-Aryans and they were a multitude, is equally illogical and equally irrational. It could not have been possible in those days that a few hundred Aryans settled and lived there with a few hundred thousand slaves at their command. These slaves would have eaten them up, made "chutney" of them in five minutes.
The only explanation can be found in the Mahabharatha, which says, that in the beginning of Satya Yuga there was only one caste, the Brahmanas, and then by difference of occupation they went on dividing themselves into castes, and that is the only true and rational explanation that has been given. And in the coming of the Satya Yuga all the other castes will have to go back to the same condition. The solution to the caste problem in India, therefore, assumes this form, not to degrade the higher castes, not to crush out the Brahmana."Â
REF # 4:
Historian Shrikant Talageri's contributions to Koenraad Elst's Online Book [Bharatvani Website].
[Note: "Urheimat" is repeatedly used here. Seems to be German, roughly translating to "our original home"]
4.6.5. Migration history of other IE tribes
Other branches of IE have a clear migration history, even if no literary record has been preserved. It is commonly accepted that the Celtic and Italic peoples were invaders into their classical habitats. The Celtsâ itinerary can be archaeologically traced back to Slovakia and Hungary, and Germany still preserves some Celtic place-names.
52
In France, Spain, and the British Isles, a large pre-IE population existed, comprising at least two distinct language families. Of the Iberian languages, only a few written fragments have been preserved. Etruscan is extinct but well-attested and fully deciphered, though we donât know what to make of the persistent claims that it was a wayward branch of the IE Anatolian family. The Basque language survives till today, but attempts to link it to distant languages remain unsuccessful. At any rate, this area witnessed a classic case of IE expansion, resulting in the near-complete celtization or latinization of western and southern Europe.
Germanic, Baltic and Slavic cover those areas of Europe which have been claimed as the Urheimat: Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, South Russia. In the case of the Germanic peoples, there is no literary record (but plenty of archaeological indications) of an immigration, nor of the replacement or assimilation of an earlier population.
The Baltic language group, represented today by Latvian and Lithuanian, once covered a slightly larger area than today, but there is no literary memory of a migration from another area. However, many Balts today will tell you that they originally came from India.
Before this is declared to be an argument for an Indian Urheimat, it should be verified that this belief really pre-dates the 19th century, when it was the prevalent theory among scholars throughout Europe.
The folklore avidly recorded by nationalist philologists in the 19th century could well contain not only age-old oral traditions of the common people but also some beliefs fashionable among those who recorded them. The Slavic peoples have expanded to the southwest across the Danube, and in recent centuries also (back?) to the east, across the Ural mountains. The farthest in time that human memory can reach, Ukraine and southern Poland seem to have been the Slavsâ homeland.
When scholars from the Germanic, Baltic and Slavic countries started claiming their own country as the IE Urheimat, this certainly was not in contradiction with facts known at the time.
But these Urheimat claims were only based on a weak argumentum e silentio: the first written records of these peoples are comparatively recent, several millennia younger than the break-up of PIE, and the true story of their migratory origins has simply been lost.
This is not to deny that they may have preserved traditions of their own migrations for as long as the Israelites, but apart from the erosion wrought by time, it is christianization which has generally put a stop to the continuation of the traditional tribal knowledge.
And where Christian monks stepped in to collect and preserve remnants of the national heritage (as in Ireland), it was too late: stories had gotten mixed up, the people who remembered the traditional knowledge were dying out, the thread had become too thin not to be broken,
That the Greekstook their classical habitat from an Old European population is not in doubt, but there is no definite memory of their immigration. Perhaps the myth of the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece, located in Georgia, should be read as a vague indication of a Greek migration from there, overseas to Thracia, whence the Greek tribes entered Greece proper in succession. But an actual immigration narrative is missing.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://karigar.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/...horen-myth-.htm
Beside the wonderful "Bhagvad Gita", hereâs one other reason to care about whatâs "written" in the MahabharataÂ
~x~
Current mainstream scholarship on Indian Pre-History is still holding onto the myth -
AIT / AMT / ATT /ALT /A"X1"T / A"X2"T.....
[ i.e. Aryan X Theory; where X = "I "means Invasion; X= "M" means Migration; X= "T" means Tourism ; X= "L" means Language diffusion...you get the point...i.e. claiming that -
Wild Wandering Nomads calling themselves "Aryans" for no particulat reason came to India, & gave us the vedas/sanskrit {presumably composed while riding these wild horses}, & some of their Genes, amongst other things...Everything good about India & its culture is "Phoren"]
Currently, we Indians enjoy the unenviable status of "half-breeds" in the world, i.e. Indo-Aryan, basically "Eurasian" mongrel hybrids. [I know I'm overstating, but ..]. This is because we (our "Scholars / leaders") don't seem to care very much about how the world sees us, based on biased "scholarship" of the past few hundred years.
The basic (utterly unproven) premise is that all the "high points" of Indic Culture{vedic thought, language, sciences, the whole "hindu" way of life} are from foreign Sources.
i.e. from this "accepted' & "scholarly Point Of View-
If not White/Central AsianInvaders, then it'd better be Migrants, if not that, then, pleeze pleeze, its "got to" be small bands of tourists, or "pretty please" maybe just an "imported" language, Sanskrit ??
This mindset rules all "intelligent" discussions regarding Indian Pre-History.
For those whoâve noticed, it also "rules" i.e. casts [pun intended!] its long shadow when it comes to the contentious issues of Indian society today. [Like the "Soni(a) Kudi ruling Mannu Bhai, from behind the curtain, pulling the strings]
I mean even things like "Caste"System", "Reservations", etc (See my Blogs Casht Sishtum -Bhoil Da Bhoot explains â Part 1 , & Part 2 for a Ruff ân Tuff take on this) .
All media / academy / even our kids education is yet to get De-hypnotized from this attitude. (see my blog on the Calif School controversy - Macacaâs fate in California hangs in balance; Ref# 8, #4-7among many others...)
It is perhaps a matter of time before our origins are accepted as ours (i.e. Indian) which is being shown as more & more plausible based on the important evidences, Genetic / Archaeological / literature...
Itâs a "Mahabharata" perhaps already in its "Kurukshetra" battle phase, but most "cool desis" donât know , or donât careâ¦
Mahabharata
Mahabharata, part of our "Itihaasa", or so we think. Variously known as "Epic", or "myth" or "drama", etc, its literary aspects are respected the world over. But it is a lot more for Indians. Traditionally, & over many millennia, it has come to define our culture. It is one book, which contains all of humanityâs humanity, & divinityâs divinity.
For people respecting Indic culture, & Sanatana Dharma practitioners (aka "hindus"), it is much more. To paraphrase what has often been attributed to Rishi (sage) Vyaasa after he dictated it to Sri Ganesha,
"Whatever is in the world, will be found in the Mahabharata, and whatâs not in the Mahabharata, will not be found in the world!"
You might call it a hyperbole, but that is for another debate / discussion.
Here Iâm looking at just one aspect of this Itihaasa ( roughly translated from Sanskrit, meaning, "Thus I have Heard"). This is the aspect of its chronology.
"Scholars", mostly of the European & Europeanized-Indian variety have been "assigning" various arbitrary dates to its composition, depending on their biases & agendas, from AIT inspired dates of 500 BC or even later to closer values from our Indian traditional dates of earlier than 3000 BCE, i.e. 5,000 + years ago.
BN Narhari Achar (from Univ Of Memphis, TN, USA ) has developed a "Planetarium Software" which can model the sky over the North Indian Subcontinent at various points of time, even as far back as 3 or 4 thousand years ago, with good accuracy.
[5+ yrs ago, paper at http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/english/docu...hari01.pdf , see Ref#1 for Excerpts]
Being a "scientific" project, it is open to being checked & refuted by competent objectors, who canât use the common excuse of "Oh the Sanskrit texts are contradictory, & confusing" which was often used in the past to deny legitimacy to our "itihaasa" texts.
Since one can reasonably assume that our ancient ancestors:-
(a) did not have computing resources to "pre-date" a full & complete description of a sky a few thousand years ago from their time!
(b) even if they did, why would they choose an arbitrary date & "back calculate" a whole description over a 100+ year period in the Mahabharata ? [Oops I forgot, they were perhaps trying to fool the eminent scholars of today..??]
One can look at what the descriptions of the dates & sky in the Mahabharata tell us, using this software.
Nicolas Kazanas (see Ref # 2 for Bio)Â wrote an extensive paper refuting many many elements of the "Indic Culture / Genes / etc..were all brought from outside" theory that masquerades as fact today.
A wonderfully revealing & interesting paper in itself, & worth reading. [Iâm still reading it..V V loooooong]. Paper at - http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/english/documents/IIR.pdf
An excerpt from this, regarding Mahabharata dating, & N Acharâs calculations, is what Iâd like to share below.
Excerpt -
3. We now come to the epic Mahaabhaarata and Achar's third paper (2001). In this, Achar examined some astronomical references in Bks III, V and XIII of the MB.
His sky map showed that of all calculations by Westerners and Indians only that of KS Raghavan (1969) was correct: the exact year for the great war of the Bharatas on the basis of all these data was 3067.
In Bk V, to take some examples,
Krsna leaves for Hastinaapura on the day of the Revati naksatra in the month Kaumuda (=Kaartika, ie Oct-Nov) and arrives there on the day of Bharan-i (81, 6ff); on the day of Pusya
Duryodhana rejects all offers of peace; Krsna departs on the day of uttara phaalguni and says to Karn-a that the amaavaasyaa (day of the New Moon) will come after 7 days, then Karn-adescribes the positions of some planets at that time (141, 7-10).
All these data converge in agreement with Acharâs sky formation only in the year 3067.
Whatever other data are contained in the MB and whatever other dates are suggested thereby, the passages with the astronomical facts for the year 3067 remain unaffected.
The ancient Indian tradition of the Puraan-as and astronomers was fairly correct in placing the onset of the Kali Yuga at 3102 and the Bharata war 35 years earlier: the disparity is only 70 years (Kazanas 2002).
The medieval Kashmiri historian Kalhana (and his tradition), of course, seems to have been quite right in setting the previous cycle at 3067 (Elst 1999:104).
Here however we must take into account that people begin to create tales and poetic cycles in fixed forms 2 or 3 generations after the event they celebrate when the actors have departed from the stage.
So 3067 is a good date for the origin of the core of the MBh.
It is the date when the sons and grandsons of the warriors began to recite/sing in established forms the deeds of their ancestors.
Neither Bryant nor Witzel mention this paper, so we donât know what sort of objections will be raised.12
But, if these finds are correct (and I see no reason at all to doubt them), then, obviously, there is much work ahead for the younger indologists.
As Leach said, the old chronologies and matters of style and so on will have to be scrapped and a new framework established.
On the basis of the astronomical data the initial core of the MB belongs to the early 3rd millennium; the epic developed and grew in length in the subsequent 1000 years, when, c1800, perhaps, a new change of style, language and rearrangement of contents took place leading to the final form in the last centuries BCE. This is conjectural, of course.13
When, in 1996, I decided to abandon the mainstream view of the AIT and its chronology , I knew very little about astronomical data beyond the works of Jacobi and Tilak (both in the 1890s).
Naturally it is good to have confirmation from Archaeoastronomysince heaven does not lie.
~x~
Further References:
Ref#1
Excerpt from
"Date of Mahabharata War using simulations from Planetarium software"
The Mahabharata war is an important milestone event in the chronology of Bharata. The great epic tells us that the war was fought1 at the junction of the dvaapara and kali yugas.
There is an age-old tradition of celebrating certain events connected to the epic such as the Gita jayanti or Bhishmaashtami.
No Bharatiya ever doubted the historicity of the event. In spite of such longstanding traditions, the situation changed when Western (and some Indian too) scholars began to study the epic seriously from the 'rationalist historic' point of view.
Doubts were expressed about the war having been a historical event.
Even if the historicity of the war was conceded, the date of the event was deemed to be in doubt. The importance of determining the date of the Mahabharata war for ancient Indian chronology can hardly be overstated2.
A plethora of dates, derived on the basis of a number of diverse methodologies have been proposed and no consensus has been reached.
â¦
â¦
These simulations compel one to agree that the astronomical references in the epic Mahabharata form a consistent set, the events must have been observed and not put into the text by some later clever astronomer. These simulations also provide a basis for determining the date of the Mahabharata war.
The date of the events, 3067 BCE, is proposed on the basis of very stringent astronomical conditions that must be satisfied for the occurrence of the events described in the epic. It is based on the following facts:
there was an equinox near jyeÿstha; a solar eclipse occurred at jyeÿshha in an eclipse season with two lunar eclipses on either side; the final lunar eclipse occurred in less than fourteen days after the solar eclipse.
It is demonstrated conclusively by the simulations that the proposed date, which is identical to the one proposed earlier by Raghavan, provides the best agreement with the events described in the epic.
â¦
â¦
The problem was first suggested to the author by Dr. Kalyanaraman and the author started the project with an uncharacteristic naivete overflowing with confidence about applying the new tool to determine the date of the war.
However, soon he realized both the enormity and the complexity of the problem and that while he was among the first to use the Planetarium software, he was not the only one. He was amazed by the number of people, who have attempted to determine the date of the Mahabharata war.
He can echo the sentiments expressed by the fourteenth century Kannada poet, who under the penname kumara vyasa composed in verse form the epic Mahabharata in Kannada.
Kumara vyasa in explaining as to why he chose to compose the Mahabharata, instead of the Ramayana, says " tinukidanu phaniraaya ramayanada kavigala bharadali". [" even the great serpent, ËAdisesa groaned under the weight of the number of people who have composed Raamaayana".]
The present author can say " tinukidanu phaniraaya kelavaleva janara bharadali" [" the great serpent groans under the weight of the pandits who have tried to determine the date of the Bharata war".]
------------------------------
Ref # 2:
Nicolas Kazanas on himself (from Paper mentioned above) :-
I am a sanskritist with a little Greek and less Latin. I am of Greek nationality (but a British subject) and although I have twice visited India for extended periods I know very little about the modern religion(s) there and practically nothing about its politics (except the unfortunate conflict over Kashmir).
As an undergraduate and postgraduate at SOAS (London) in the 1960s I absorbed the mainstream "Aryan Invasion Theory" (AIT hereafter); for G Dalesâ s work that knocked down Sir M Wheelerâ s extravagant view had not yet percolated down to us.
In any case I was then, and continued to be for many years afterwards, interested in Sanskrit only, the dramatic works and the
Subsequently I taught the AIT with the South Russian Steppe as the locus of dispersal of the IndoEuropeans (IE hereafter) for 18 years and I wrote a Course of Sanskrit (in Md Greek) in which I actually concocted fictitious passages about the Aryans invading with chariots and subduing the natives who thought it prudent to accept them and cooperate!
In 1987, I began to wonder about the AIT.
In the same year I went to India and collected much material which took a few years to sort out and digest, since I had little acquaintance with Indian archaeology and early history. What became abundantly clear in the early 1990s (and filled me with incredulity) was the fact that there was
In 1996 I abandoned the AIT in all its forms and the mainstream chronology for Sanskrit literature. The experience was doubly painful:
first it was not easy to give up an idea I had taken for granted for more than 20 years;
Upanishads and Vedaanta; I had no interest at all in the early history of India. no evidence whatever for any invasion (which by that time was becoming "migration").
second I could not understand why mainstream indologists adhered to the AIT so passionately, since it was supported only by linguistic data that could, in any event, be interpreted in different ways.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Dig deep & find â No Aryan Phoren here! </b>
http://karigar.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/...ryan-phoren.htm
A little bit of Archaeology, & a bit of Fraud Psychobabble, or Freudian Psychoanalysis
Â
Confessions, Personal
[in the time tested traditions of "dig in, & spill your guts"]
(A) Bondage
Growing up In "Modern" India, I was as "cool" as they come. Going to the best schools in town (inevitably "convent" type, i.e English Medium, nuns and/or no nunsâ¦) I was pretty pleased, on top of the pile, so to speak. I could afford to be quite "superior" to the rest of the gang in the playground, in the cricket team, etc. Only 3-4 of us were "angrez" enough in this most Anglicized of games, & could pronounce all the propah words like "Howzat", & know that "Greg Chappell, re gadhe, not Chappal!". [And proudly knowing what the word "Chapel" meant]
Used to feel a kind of pity for the other kids who struggled when they encountered English in its pervasive forms, in words, style, manners, & ideas. It was a badge of "honour" when friends said "Saala! Angrez India chod ke gaya to is angrez ki dum ko chod gaya!" [i.e. When the English "dog", metaphorically of course, left India, he left this wagging tail behind.]. Glowed inwardly when dad said (after watching me go "English Only" in my entire personality, reading habits, music, arguments on "stupid customs", etc)
" Neenu Englandalle huttu bekagittu! Namma mele ishtu yaake kripa madidiyappa?"
[Why this great condescension, this great favour, o great English lord, of being born in this humble Indian family? You should have been born In England!]
Suffice it to say, I really had started feeling I was "being wasted" in dull India, & "truly" belonged in the West, England, America, even "lowly" Australia/NZ , sometimes even the "Gulf" seemed like a worthy place ["at least I can use a "lift" every day, drive a cool Toyota on the smooth highways"..]
Then I transited from just reading about the distant west, & wanting to be like âem, to seeing, really seeing my "kindred souls" from out âYonder, the Great Westâ. Boy they looked a lot "fairer" than I had imagined! Deathly Pale, actually.
Being "fair" [or "light skinned", depending on where you say it] was fine, easy on the eyes & all that, but this!? "Haven't seen too many Indians who look like this!" This was a time when book covers were being "upgraded" from simple line drawings or B&W pics, to color pics on glossy paper. Enid Blyton characters suddenly went "blond & blue eyed" on me, and was my hero James Bond [Roger Moore in the movies at that point] really sandy haired, & so "gora".
I mean, donât get me wrong, I had read & "intellectually understood" that according to prevailing classification, I was "Brown" & they were "White", but it is one thing to "know, & quite another to experience! One can {& still does} ignore others strangeness of appearance when reading about them, even thinking about them., but a living , breathing personâ¦
["Gawd, sheâs a Goddess!" my friends would say after spending a lot of time & money to just say "Hi!" to the girls in the Swedish students group camping one summer in our school dormsâ¦"Yup! What a Blond Bombshell", Iâd nod in agreement. "Kuch Hasee kyaa? Kuch Phansee kyaa?" All in fun of course, but oh...the longing..]
Many a time have I spent my teenage years looking at the mirror, under the brightest of lights, wishing my "nose were a little straighter & narrower" or that I were, oh about 5 inches taller, 4 inches wider in the shouldersâ¦you get the picture. All because I thought I looked "almost" like James Bond, if only the lights were bright enough, & the above alterations could somehow be made to happen.
I was "almost" like these wonderful guys that I wanted to emulate, & these girls that I admired. Coupled with all this usual teenage turmoil going on, I was also mad as to why India wasnât more like the West Iâd so come to admire, or to be more direct, why I wasnât more like the Westerners I so admiredâ¦
And only later did I realize the foolishness, the insidiousness of it all. I was comparing my physical "assets" to some "norm" of the "cool guy" from another culture, another genetic makeup. Why was I so caught up in trying to be someone I could never be? And- Whatâs so great about this "norm" anyway?
And I bet I was not alone in this, nor has much changed today.
Moving to the US in my mid twenties didnât change things much, although this thought pattern did recede into the background due to various factors, mainly about being busy setting myself up for the future. Other things helped too, like my "being in the same boat" as many buddies, establishing a career, having enough interaction with the opposite sex to get a healthy sense of self-respect.
But stillâ¦."Oh I wishâ¦." Wouldnât Quite go away.
(B) Salvation
[Fast Forward to AXT, {see my "Aryan Phoren part 1" }]
A couple of years ago, as part of a metaphoric "journey back to the roots, back "home", I started reading about the debates going on amongst Scholars, Linguists, Archaeologists, Geneticists, & the like on the concept of "Indo-Aryan". [A word most of us educated in India have absorbed without much thought, as it comes out of most school history books we study. {For this issue in US, see my blog Macacaâ¦.} ]
It took me quite a while to absorb the easily missed fact that "Indo-Aryan"or "Dravidan" or "Adivasi" the category most Indians are supposed to belong to, is a fairly recent 18-19th century construct of European vintage [Ahhâ¦I love French & Italian Wine, donât youâ¦??]. It is also based on quite dubious conjectures & analogies of linguistic similarities between Sanskrit based Indian languages & Central Asian & European languages.
The idea of us Indians being a hodge-podge unclear mixture of Conquering Aryans from (where else but) the North West, sometimes Europe, sometimes Central Asia, (depending on the scholar's whim & personal background) with some other distinct "local people" is also just a theory, without much evidence to support it.
Its main currency has been gained by constant repetition over the past 200 odd years.
Now let's look at what our culture, especially the "samskriti" or "high Culture", has to say. Indian samskriti has extensive "oral self-documentation" from the distant mists of time, i.e. Rgveda & beyond [again ref part 1].
There is not one word about foreign origins. {SeeSwami Vivekananda, Ref#3for his candid take on this.}.
Compare this with most other cultures. They remember their foreign origins (if any), thru legends, songs & such, which refer to rivers & mountains etc they left behind, songs of journey...remember the Biblical song "By the Rivers of Babylon"....the "Discovery of the new land" etc. [See Ref#4 excerpts, Ref#2 & Ref#1 for details of other cultures stories & myths]
So what's going on Today? Where's this "Salvation" that I "promised" coming from?
The answer lies in Genetics & Archaeology, for those who'd like to subject our own cultural memories, however well preserved, to the "sceptics searchlight".
Genetics & Archaeology are getting better & better, (& both are much more "hard science" than linguistics) and they are basically saying at every turn, that Indians have been basically the same from before the "Indus Valley Civilisation" onwards.
So, all these things (along with India & Indians changing position in the world) together kept fermenting in my mind for quite a while, & still areâ¦.But they definitely tell me one simple thing-
I am not an "almost gora" in looks, abilities. Nobody is an "almost somebody else". In fact , the very idea violates the whole notion of individuality.
I have no reason for being told what my origins are by a patently immature theory. My culture may have may foreign influences, but they are mere influences. At the core, my culture is mine, & foreigners didnât bring it here.
When I (the metaphoric "I", meaning any self-respecting desi) look a "Westerner" in the eye, I need to know, & have it be known, that I come from a culture that gave the world more than it took, & as much as (s)he defines him/her self, I define myself. I need self-respect, & hope for respect from others, for my culture. It defines who I am.
For a proper self-definition, of course, I need to know what my culture is, from as original a source as possible. I need to be deeply sceptical of much that passes as "scholarship" about India, & Indian culture.
Letâs discuss Archaeology for this time. The past few decades have bee very exciting ones in the "digging" of the Indian Subcontinent. RadioCarbon dating has advanced to reliably date matter found on buried sites.
Not being an "accredited scholar", Iâll just take help of the scholars own words, from here on.
Archaeology?
Howâll that increase my Self-Esteem ?
Now itâs the time for the experts. I give over the rest of this blog to the experts, the Archaeologists themselves. Notice please, the words NO EVIDENCE, & how often they crop up in the discussions below.
After reading thru, if the reader gets one thing, which is that todayâs Indian needs to radically take a good look at the misconceptions floating around about Indian & Indians, it will be worthwhile. Also, it may appear "dry" & "scholarly" but scholars are humans too, with pet biases, & we cannot let a scholarâs bias decide how we or our next generation (a) looks at themselves; (b) is looked at by others.
More on this in the next part of the Phoren Aryan (if there is oneâ¦)
QUOTABLE QUOTES [Ref by #s at very end]
(A)
Hereâs the words of Shaffer & Litchtenstien: [from Ref#1 Ananth Kumar ]
Besides other ideological motivations [43], racism, too, has played its part in IE studies and the framework it constructed, as has been noted by a number of scientists in the field. As recently as the late 90s, archaeologists Jim Schaffer and Diane Lichtenstein remarked:
As data accumulate to support cultural continuity in South Asian prehistoric and historic periods, a considerable restructuring of existing interpretative paradigms must take place. We reject most strongly the simplistic historical interpretations, which date back to the eighteenth century, that continue to be imposed in South Asian culture history. These still prevailing interpretations are significantly diminished by European ethnocentrism, colonialism, racism, and antisemitism. Surely, as South Asia studies approaches the twenty-first century, it is time to describe emerging data objectively rather than perpetuate interpretations without regard to the data archaeologists have worked so hard to reveal. [44]
[29] Archaeology:
In Migration, Philology and South Asian Archaeology (1999), archaeologists James Schaffer and Diane Lichtenstein conclude:
That the archaeological record and significant oral and literature traditions of South Asia are now converging has significant implications for regional cultural history. A few scholars have proposed that there is nothing in the "literature" firmly placing the Indo-Aryans, the generally perceived founders of the modern South Asian cultural traditions(s), outside of South Asia, and now the archaeological record is confirming thisâ¦. Within the context of cultural continuity described here, an archaeologically significant indigenously significant discontinuity was a regional population shift from the Indus valley, in the west, to locations east and southeast, a phenomenon also recorded in ancient oral traditions.
As data accumulate to support cultural continuity in South Asian prehistoric and historic periods, a considerable restructuring of existing interpretative paradigms must take place.
James Schaffer and Diane Lichtenstein, Migration, Philology and South Asian Archaeology, in "Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence, Interpretation and History," (University of Michigan Press, 1999).
(B)
Hereâs what other eminent Archaeologists have to say { from Ref#2 N Kazanasâ paper, mentioned widely in part 1}
Writes J.M. Kenoyer, specialist in the archaeology of the Indus Valley: "[T]here is no
archaeological or biological evidence for invasions or mass migrations into the Indus Valley between the end of the Harappan phase, about 1900 BC and the beginning of the Early Historic Period around 600 BC" (1998:174).
Shaffer and Lichtenstein confirm this emphasizing the continuity of the indigenous culture (1999).
The absence of archaeological evidence began to be noted in the late 1960s. Jarrige and Meadow established (1980) the indigenous Mehrgarh culture with cereal cultivation c6500 on the Bolan, north-west of Mohenjadaro and its gradual spread south-east to the Indus where it developed into the Harappan or ISC (=Indus-Sarasvati Culture) c3000.
Subsequent studies confirmed this: "The shift by Harappan groups and, perhaps, other Indus Valley cultural mosaic groups, is the only archaeologically documented west-to-east movement of human populations in South Asia before the first half of the first millennium BC" (Shaffer & Lichtenstein 1995:135).
Other investigators provide additional evidence from their own branches of research.
No
flow of genetic traits occurred from Bactria into Saptasindhu c1800:
"Parpolaâs suggestion of movement of Proto-R
rgVedic Aryan speakers into the Indus Valley by 1800 is not supported by our data. Gene flow from Bactria occurs much later and does not impact Indus Valley gene pools until the dawn of the Christian Era" (Hemphill & Christensen 1994).
K Elst, who quotes this passage, explains that the later flow is apparently that of the Shaka and Kushana invasions (1999:232; also Bryant, 231).
K Kennedy (in Erdosy, 1995) concurs with this view: "There is no evidence of demographic disruptions in the northwestern sector of the [Indian] subcontinent during and immediately after the decline of the Harappan culture" (again in Elst, 233; also Bryant, 231).
REFERENCES:
Ref#1:
Ananth
Kumar- The AIT : More than meets the eye
[
http://www.india-forum.com/articles/153/1/...n-meets-the-eye]
A really well written (& really loooong) comprehensive article.
Excerpts: (Opening Paras of the article)
There are some Indians today who are convinced that the subcontinent's population can be classified into Indo-Aryan and Dravidian ethnic groups. Ignoring the fact that Indo-Aryan and Dravidian are defined as being merely language families and so do not denote ethnicity at all, their conviction shows that it has now become a question of identity.
The Indo-European language family represents a model of the world which incorporates a view of history, of population dispersal and of language diffusion. Within its framework are to be found the now-familiar concepts of Aryan, Dravidian, Indo-European languages and their subfamilies, as well as the notion that at some point in its history, India accommodated entrants from Eurasia who supposedly brought with them India's first Indo-European language and an equally alien culture.
With these concepts having entered our everyday lives today (not just our vocabulary, but also our view of history), it is easy to forget how recent the Indo-European (IE) framework actually is. In a short span of time, just over two centuries, something has changed entirely.
Indians have started to identify themselves with terms defined within the IE framework and have internalised its views.
Language and thought
Today, the Indo-European world-view has very cleverly and dangerously reduced our choices to either Indo-Aryan orDravidian, thereby excising the valid third option of 'Indian'.
This might appear very trivial, but it is a form of language control. Language control is a means to alter and limit people's way of thinking. George Orwell's cautionary novel Nineteen Eighty-Four [1] describes a totalitarian dictatorship that systematically destroys language, thereby shaping the very thoughts and reality of its undermined subjects. [2]
Language is the means through which humans understand and formulate ideas, and by which we communicate and express ourselves.
Denying language is to deny thought; and controlling language is to control thought. Although this is what propaganda attempts to do in its own crude and overt manner, the subtlety of the IE world-view in imposing language control on Indians has mostly gone unnoticed by us.
Many Indians have subconsciously absorbed its views and can now only look at the world according to how the IE framework has defined it.
For a long time now, it has been shaping the reality of present-day India.
Consider that we have a political party (the DMK) whose name contains the term 'Dravidian', whilst history books have long been teaching children about Aryans who allegedly invaded India sometime around 1500 BCE. The IE world-view, through denying us access to the term 'Indian', has effectively started denying our thinking of ourselves as Indians. It is shaping our perceptions of our own identity.
A few other examples of language control that Indians are being subjected to today include how, through the media, the term 'Dalit' has slowly but consistently been replacing 'Harijan' [3]; the vague and merely geographic 'South Asia' has come to replace the historic entity of the 'Indian subcontinent'; and we are forced to use the Portuguese-derived word 'caste' which describes neither jati nor varna nor any other Indian word or Hindu concept. [4]
Though one may not immediately see it, these are impositions on our way of viewing and understanding history, our present world, and ourselves.
Another example: the Holocaust memorial in the US commemorates the genocides of the 'Soviets' and 'Yugoslavs' of World War II. Yet which nation today is called the Soviet Union? Where is Yugoslavia? There are no people and no nations today that go by these names. This is tantamount to an act of rewriting history: through calculated use of language, historic atrocities against the Russians and Serbs have been pushed to the background. Why? In order to prevent either from gaining public sympathy when the west intends to take action against them: Serbia during the Balkan Wars of the last decade; and Russia, because its imminent rise might come to pose a threat to the west. [5]
We return now to the Indo-European framework, which has attempted to explain (that is, to model) the observed linguistic similarities between European languages and India's Samskritam and northern languages. Like all models, it is based on some assumptions.
Retracing the history of how the IE linguistic family was formulated will uncover the assumptions underlying its world-view.
By re-examining their validity in light of what is known today, we can re-evaluate the IE framework and its applicability. And then perhaps, instead of passively accepting it, we may be in a better position to decide whether or not- its world-view should be considered so final as to determine our own.
REF#2: Nicolas Kazanas (Quoted extensively in part 1 i.e. "Mahabharataâ¦Aryan Phoren"
A survey of all "Current scholarship, & scientific info" on the issue.
A wonderfully revealing & interesting paper in itself, & worth reading. [V V loooooong]. Paper at -
http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/english/documents/IIR.pdf
REF#3:
Picked up from Sulekha blog Lies for children in indian text books by krisanu
The Myth of Aryans and Non-Aryans
By Swami Vivekananda
"The mind jumps back several thousand years, and fancies that the same things happened here, and our archaeologist dreams of India being full of dark eyed aborigines, and the bright Aryan came from - the Lord knows where.
According to some, they came from Central Tibet, others will have it that they came from Central Asia. There are patriotic Englishmen who think that they were all black haired. If the write happens to be a black haired man, then the Aryans were all black haired.
Of late there have been attempts to prove that the Aryans lived on the Swiss lakes. I should not be sorry if they had been all drowned there, theory and all. Some say now that they lived at the North Pole. Lord bless the Aryans and their habitations.
As for as the truth in these theories, there is not one word in our scriptures, not one, to prove that the Aryans came from anywhere outside of India, and in ancient India was included Afganistan. There it ends.
All the theory that the Shudras caste were all non-Aryans and they were a multitude, is equally illogical and equally irrational. It could not have been possible in those days that a few hundred Aryans settled and lived there with a few hundred thousand slaves at their command. These slaves would have eaten them up, made "chutney" of them in five minutes.
The only explanation can be found in the Mahabharatha, which says, that in the beginning of Satya Yuga there was only one caste, the Brahmanas, and then by difference of occupation they went on dividing themselves into castes, and that is the only true and rational explanation that has been given. And in the coming of the Satya Yuga all the other castes will have to go back to the same condition. The solution to the caste problem in India, therefore, assumes this form, not to degrade the higher castes, not to crush out the Brahmana."Â
REF # 4:
Historian Shrikant Talageri's contributions to Koenraad Elst's Online Book [Bharatvani Website].
[Note: "Urheimat" is repeatedly used here. Seems to be German, roughly translating to "our original home"]
4.6.5. Migration history of other IE tribes
Other branches of IE have a clear migration history, even if no literary record has been preserved. It is commonly accepted that the Celtic and Italic peoples were invaders into their classical habitats. The Celtsâ itinerary can be archaeologically traced back to Slovakia and Hungary, and Germany still preserves some Celtic place-names.
52
In France, Spain, and the British Isles, a large pre-IE population existed, comprising at least two distinct language families. Of the Iberian languages, only a few written fragments have been preserved. Etruscan is extinct but well-attested and fully deciphered, though we donât know what to make of the persistent claims that it was a wayward branch of the IE Anatolian family. The Basque language survives till today, but attempts to link it to distant languages remain unsuccessful. At any rate, this area witnessed a classic case of IE expansion, resulting in the near-complete celtization or latinization of western and southern Europe.
Germanic, Baltic and Slavic cover those areas of Europe which have been claimed as the Urheimat: Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, South Russia. In the case of the Germanic peoples, there is no literary record (but plenty of archaeological indications) of an immigration, nor of the replacement or assimilation of an earlier population.
The Baltic language group, represented today by Latvian and Lithuanian, once covered a slightly larger area than today, but there is no literary memory of a migration from another area. However, many Balts today will tell you that they originally came from India.
Before this is declared to be an argument for an Indian Urheimat, it should be verified that this belief really pre-dates the 19th century, when it was the prevalent theory among scholars throughout Europe.
The folklore avidly recorded by nationalist philologists in the 19th century could well contain not only age-old oral traditions of the common people but also some beliefs fashionable among those who recorded them. The Slavic peoples have expanded to the southwest across the Danube, and in recent centuries also (back?) to the east, across the Ural mountains. The farthest in time that human memory can reach, Ukraine and southern Poland seem to have been the Slavsâ homeland.
When scholars from the Germanic, Baltic and Slavic countries started claiming their own country as the IE Urheimat, this certainly was not in contradiction with facts known at the time.
But these Urheimat claims were only based on a weak argumentum e silentio: the first written records of these peoples are comparatively recent, several millennia younger than the break-up of PIE, and the true story of their migratory origins has simply been lost.
This is not to deny that they may have preserved traditions of their own migrations for as long as the Israelites, but apart from the erosion wrought by time, it is christianization which has generally put a stop to the continuation of the traditional tribal knowledge.
And where Christian monks stepped in to collect and preserve remnants of the national heritage (as in Ireland), it was too late: stories had gotten mixed up, the people who remembered the traditional knowledge were dying out, the thread had become too thin not to be broken,
That the Greekstook their classical habitat from an Old European population is not in doubt, but there is no definite memory of their immigration. Perhaps the myth of the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece, located in Georgia, should be read as a vague indication of a Greek migration from there, overseas to Thracia, whence the Greek tribes entered Greece proper in succession. But an actual immigration narrative is missing.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->