Book Review: The Rigveda and the Avesta - the final evidence,
By S G Talageri
Aditya Prakashan New Delhi 2008
Review by S Kalyanaraman
Part 1: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8116692/Talageri
Part 2: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8775936/witzel2 (with particular reference to critique of Witzel's unscholarly, unethical, dishonest, abusive, flip-flops)
==
Witzel is angry!
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->From: Michael Witzel <witzel@fas.harvard.edu>
To: Indo-Eurasian_research
Cc: Michael Witzel; mkelkar2003; kalyan97@
Subject: Re: Review of Talageri (2008) by S. Kalyanaraman
Dear List,
Our (former) list member Kelkar (who is "specializing" in cutting and pasting snippet from linguistic articles as to "prove" his Out of India theories) has sent us the message quoted below some 2 weeks back. I now have a moment to deconstruct it, for your late weekend delectation.
(More serious stuff to follow on Monday or so.)
This is a "book review" of a new book by the "Out of India" proponent S. Talageri by our old friend, the ardent Hindutva proponent, Dr. K.
From what appears in his copious quotations from the book, it is a continuation of the uninformed and hare-brained theories proposed by T. earlier (1993, 2000). And, as always, hailed and actually aided by the Belgian Hindutva fan K. Elst (who also had praised the Indus signs 'decipherment' by Rajaram, before we picked it apart on the old INDOLOGY list (Liverpool) in 2000.
The following quotes from T.'s new elaboratum, however, are enough to cast aside this book just like its predecessors. (I may, perhaps?, write something on it once I have received it.)
For the moment just a few remarks -- for a perfect end to this weekend. Have fun:
* The Rgveda in 3400 â 2200 BCE -- is of course impossible as it is full of horses and chariots, which were invented (in the Ural area, or Mesopotamia as some maintain) only around 2000 BCE. The steppe animal, the horse, was introduced into South Asia only around 1800 BCE (and similarly into the Ancient Near East)
That alone is enough to throw out T's dating of his three layers of the RV (which even *as such* are wrong: books 3 and 7 can by no means be shown to be early; they belong to the end of the Bharata conquests under Sudas and are preceded by the books mentioning his ancestors, such as books 4, 6).
* The funny thing about this book, just as about its predecessors (see quotes in EJVS 2001 @@) is the absolute certainty ("the only possible conclusion" ... ) with which T. makes his statements.
One may think of a 19th c. German professor, not a 21st c. writer <b>(who is, BTW, not a specialist but a bank clerk... What is it about Indian bank employees like Dr. (Manila) K. and retired mathematicians/science people like Rajaram to become 'historians' and 'linguists' at the drop of a hat?)</b>
If T. is that sure, why to write another book about the same subject matter as in his 1993 and 2000 elaborata?
It seems that the active help of K. Elst with this book has not helped T. to change his preconceived ideas about an origin of the RV and of all Indo-Europeans deep in the bosom of Mother India... This is AW. Schlegel of 1808, not the 21st century.
* As for our friend Dr K., opining his own views in the last few lines of this 'review.' We all know that he has deciphered the Indus signs several times over, and always they are about smiths and metals, notably: his ingenious identification of the Soma plant with ... electrum. Hard to swallow, that mineral...
He repeats the same below, and adds the long-refuted nonsense about Shivalingas etc. (well: small pillars between three bricks, for positioning cooking pots).
* All of that fantasy is crowned by his proposal of a mleccha vaacas (wrong for Skt. vacas or: vaak!) which somehow should explain the origin of Dravidian and Munda ... in a "linguistic area called Bharatam": idam bharatam janam of RV 3.53.12. Well, the author of that hymn (Vishvamitra, or rather his descendants) speaks about the tribe and king by whom he has been hired: Sudaas of the Bharata, a small tribe (that overcame others) and "settled" in the Kuruksetra area NW of Delhi. So Dr K.' linguistic area is confined to Haryana State, and not all of modern India (Bhaarat) + Pakistan + Bangla Desh, etc.
No end to Hindutvavadin fantasies... Nice, however, to see how hey disagree with each other.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
By S G Talageri
Aditya Prakashan New Delhi 2008
Review by S Kalyanaraman
Part 1: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8116692/Talageri
Part 2: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8775936/witzel2 (with particular reference to critique of Witzel's unscholarly, unethical, dishonest, abusive, flip-flops)
==
Witzel is angry!
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->From: Michael Witzel <witzel@fas.harvard.edu>
To: Indo-Eurasian_research
Cc: Michael Witzel; mkelkar2003; kalyan97@
Subject: Re: Review of Talageri (2008) by S. Kalyanaraman
Dear List,
Our (former) list member Kelkar (who is "specializing" in cutting and pasting snippet from linguistic articles as to "prove" his Out of India theories) has sent us the message quoted below some 2 weeks back. I now have a moment to deconstruct it, for your late weekend delectation.
(More serious stuff to follow on Monday or so.)
This is a "book review" of a new book by the "Out of India" proponent S. Talageri by our old friend, the ardent Hindutva proponent, Dr. K.
From what appears in his copious quotations from the book, it is a continuation of the uninformed and hare-brained theories proposed by T. earlier (1993, 2000). And, as always, hailed and actually aided by the Belgian Hindutva fan K. Elst (who also had praised the Indus signs 'decipherment' by Rajaram, before we picked it apart on the old INDOLOGY list (Liverpool) in 2000.
The following quotes from T.'s new elaboratum, however, are enough to cast aside this book just like its predecessors. (I may, perhaps?, write something on it once I have received it.)
For the moment just a few remarks -- for a perfect end to this weekend. Have fun:
* The Rgveda in 3400 â 2200 BCE -- is of course impossible as it is full of horses and chariots, which were invented (in the Ural area, or Mesopotamia as some maintain) only around 2000 BCE. The steppe animal, the horse, was introduced into South Asia only around 1800 BCE (and similarly into the Ancient Near East)
That alone is enough to throw out T's dating of his three layers of the RV (which even *as such* are wrong: books 3 and 7 can by no means be shown to be early; they belong to the end of the Bharata conquests under Sudas and are preceded by the books mentioning his ancestors, such as books 4, 6).
* The funny thing about this book, just as about its predecessors (see quotes in EJVS 2001 @@) is the absolute certainty ("the only possible conclusion" ... ) with which T. makes his statements.
One may think of a 19th c. German professor, not a 21st c. writer <b>(who is, BTW, not a specialist but a bank clerk... What is it about Indian bank employees like Dr. (Manila) K. and retired mathematicians/science people like Rajaram to become 'historians' and 'linguists' at the drop of a hat?)</b>
If T. is that sure, why to write another book about the same subject matter as in his 1993 and 2000 elaborata?
It seems that the active help of K. Elst with this book has not helped T. to change his preconceived ideas about an origin of the RV and of all Indo-Europeans deep in the bosom of Mother India... This is AW. Schlegel of 1808, not the 21st century.
* As for our friend Dr K., opining his own views in the last few lines of this 'review.' We all know that he has deciphered the Indus signs several times over, and always they are about smiths and metals, notably: his ingenious identification of the Soma plant with ... electrum. Hard to swallow, that mineral...
He repeats the same below, and adds the long-refuted nonsense about Shivalingas etc. (well: small pillars between three bricks, for positioning cooking pots).
* All of that fantasy is crowned by his proposal of a mleccha vaacas (wrong for Skt. vacas or: vaak!) which somehow should explain the origin of Dravidian and Munda ... in a "linguistic area called Bharatam": idam bharatam janam of RV 3.53.12. Well, the author of that hymn (Vishvamitra, or rather his descendants) speaks about the tribe and king by whom he has been hired: Sudaas of the Bharata, a small tribe (that overcame others) and "settled" in the Kuruksetra area NW of Delhi. So Dr K.' linguistic area is confined to Haryana State, and not all of modern India (Bhaarat) + Pakistan + Bangla Desh, etc.
No end to Hindutvavadin fantasies... Nice, however, to see how hey disagree with each other.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->