Info On Witzel Pronouncements

[ramana]

X-posted....

Shravan posted....

<b>Witzel conference on Rigveda in Delhi a farce</b>

Witzel needs an introduction: Witzel calls himself a ‘well-known scientist’ in press releases about his trips. In fact, he is a church agent, more specifically from Dalit Freedom Network of Colorado church (proved in the CAPEEM california textbook trial).

Witzel has admitted that he and his cohorts were part of White Nationalist Church in USA and in contact with one or more of Fetna's members in the California textbook (Harvard Donkey Trial) matter, just as with many other Indians/NRIs and members of many other Indian organizations. FETNA is a front for LTTE. It is extraordinary that a Harvard academic should be associating with members of such an organization. FETNA in their letter of Feb. 19, 2006 to California State Board of Education wrote thanking Witzel for the efforts in proposing edits in pursuance of the Colorado evangelical church agenda, denigrating the hindu heritage to promote Japhetic biblical creationism theories and to achieve conversions of poor people dubbed 'dalits' by the church.

Here is Anoop’s report of July 19, 2009 on the meet at IIC, Delhi on July 10, 2009:

<b>[quote]</b>

I attended the session, and I feel it was not exactly a good experience for Witzel there at IIC.

<b>The main points are:</b>

Kapila Vatsyayan, who chaired the talk, stated many views which were indirectly aimed at Witzel and his designs.

Kapila Vatsyayan gave her opinion after the question hour by taking atleast 10 minutes (very lightly with her trade mark pleasing smile). The main points she made were:

1. Witzel and all of the academic community working on the AIT are concentrating mainly on comparitive mythology. If myths are dissected for the purpose of finding parallels between civilizations, and historical conclusions are drawn out of them, then myths cease to be 'myths'.

2. The main background of RgVeda is subjects like cosmology etc.(do not confuse the word cosmology with religion!!). Your studies never highlight that aspect. To create a voluminous text and start a revolution of intellectual work based on very tough subjects like cosmology, just imagination is not enough. We have to accept that. We should study how the Vedic people were able to work in such a higher intellectual plain which can't be seen anywhere else.

3. RgVeda is poetry of very high level. And such a high level poetry, and that too with a very difficult subject as its base, cannot be made by a people who do not have a good intellectual lineage and practice.

4. It is not acceptable that history is tried to be proved just by using comparative mythology, linguistics or one or two other streams. There should be a multi-disciplinary approach towards learning history.
And the most interesting point she made was:

5. Everyone of us recites the Vedas to Upanishads daily without thinking who made it or where it originated. Whether it belong to Mesopotamia, or Greece or India, it never matters much to us..jo research ho raha hai..hone do..we never care for that. Because we understand the reason why we are reciting it. So please take note of this when you do the research.

People including Devendra Swarup ji, and many others attended the programme.

I felt from the audience that the people in India (the fence sitters) have started a general dissatisfaction with the repeated promotion of the Invasion theory by these academics. Kapila ji's opinions were well enough to boost them.

<b>Anoop [unquote]</b>

He wrote on 19 July 2009, about his ‘conference’ in IIC, Delhi and Dr. Bhagwan Singh’s questions as follows: ‘…Nothing untoward happened, except that the infamous Hindutvavadin Bhagwan Singh (who has identified the Indus and the Vedic civilizations) refused to give his name in the question period. He did so only after the chair, Kapila Vatsyayana, had insisted 3 times. His aim: he wanted me to publicly revoke a one line sentence in an old, 1995 paper. I merely referred him to a paper of mine of 2001, end of discussion. -- This talk at the India International Centre was well attended by the general public. However I saw a watchman there too.’
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Indo-Eurasia...h/message/12741
Now read on the exquisite report of Dr. Bhagwan Singh on Witzel’s pathetic plight in the IIC meet:

[quote]

Michael Witzel: rattled rat at IIC

Bhagwan Singh
22 July 2009

I was really sorry for Prof. Michael Witzel. After all, he was our honoured guest! Dr. Singh should not have pounced on him so mercilessly, playing the cat and the rat game – the cat looking ascetically resigned tossing the rat, the rat pretending to be dead, breathlessly looking from the corner of his eye to judge the cat’s next move, running for his life, only to be pounced upon and tossed up again. The Chair kept smiling all through at this plight of the powerful brainy Harvard Professor of Sanskrit!

Frankly, I enjoyed the wild play. Prof. Witzel was in a state of trauma: nervous, edgy, twitching his lips, dropping his eyelids recurrently, looking askance to avoid his interlocutor, constantly using his hanky to rub his nose, murmuring something inaudible to explain his errors, occasionally seeking help from his votaries who were present in good number, but more ignorant than their demi-god, and hence themselves dazed. Singh smiled all the way, his smile mischievous, eyes sadistically aglitter, untrue to his true nature, but true to the occasion.

Rgveda

The occasion was a lecture on the Rgveda by Prof. Michael Witzel, at the India International Centre, on 10 July 2009. Presided over by Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan, it was attended by scholars of different hues and expectations. No one suspected that Witzel with his claim to be a ranking Vedic scholar knew so little that he could not answer a single query. Indeed, he appeared blank as far as the Rgvedawas concerned. He rose nervously to speak on the Veda, but actually spoke on the Aryan migration from Afghanistan to Punjab!

The lecture merely reiterated what Prof. Witzel has written years ago: that north-western India was populated by Munda speaking people when Indo-Aryan speakers arrived on the scene. Old Indo-Aryan was influenced by the substrate Proto-Munda. He proposed a time bracket of 1500-1250 BC for composition of theRgveda and suggested Book IV and Book VI were the oldest, advantage Book IV.

Witzel painted Rgvedic society as nomadic pastoralist, illiterate and with little interest in agriculture and sedentary life. There was virtually nothing in his speech that was not lifted from nineteenth century archives. He showed no awareness of recent researches in archaeology, anthropology, literature or historical linguistics, and presented even Kuiper with his pathological distortions.

Many archaeologists and professors of history attended the lecture, including your writer, Vedic scholar Bhagwan Singh. When the floor was thrown open for discussions, Bhagwan Singh introduced himself as the author of The Vedic Harappans, and said that his data contradicted each and every statement made by Witzel; he sought permission to exchange notes on a few issues. With the Chair’s permission, Singh said:

- You have reordered the Rgvedic strata, rating IV and VI to be the oldest and the rest belonging to intermediate and late stages. I have no objection to your sequence, but find your chronology miserably on the lower side. There is a reference to white pottery in one verse in Book IV (4.27.5). White pottery is a distinctive feature of Hakra Ware dated to 3000 BC. This goes against your dating of 1500-1250 BC for the Rgveda.

Witzel was dumbstruck. He murmured something inaudible, avoiding the audience, looking sideways. He tried to explain that the sequence arranged by him was based on the number of verses in a book, the smallest being the oldest. It caused Kapila ji and others to smile openly. I could not make out the reason and reminded him that Book IV is shorter than Book VI; but the shortest book is Book II! So here again, he was caught on the wrong foot.

He hesitantly managed, “There is no evidence of chariot or horse in India earlier than the mid-second millennium.”

- But Professor, the aśva in Rgveda, whatever could it have been, was brought from sea bound areas, even the aśva in the horse sacrifice, mentioned in Book I, hymn 163.

Prof. Witzel had no choice but to bite his lips in desperation.

- You say that the wheel and chariot were invented by Aryans when they were in Central Asia, but in the Book IV itself, Bhr.gus are given the credit for manufacturing wheels (4.16.20). Chariot and wheel was therefore not Aryan, but a Dravidian invention.

Witzel pretended that the inventors might have been Aryans and manufacturers Dravidians! He now forgot the antiquity of Book IV, which according to his suggestion, could have been written in Central Asia, older even than Book VI, composed entirely in Northern Afghanistan; Dravidian speakers must have been there as well.

- You talk of substrate effect of Proto-Munda and suggest no role of Proto-Dravidian at the early stage. But Kipper had concluded that three ethnic groups participated in a cultural process. The three are conspicuously present in the Rgveda, Bhr.gus Dravidian, Angirasas Mundari, besides the Sanskrit speakers.

Prof. Witzel mumbled something for a minute; his nervousness was apparent in his evasive gestures.

Kapila ji must have taken pity at his visible discomfort. She invited others to raise doubts, if they had any. Someone at the extreme end of the hall asked a question on the distorted reading of the Sankhyayan Śrautasutra, which had exposed his culpability half a decade back. Witzel responded by referring to an article written by him, without telling us what his defence was!

After a few worthless queries, the debate shrunk back to Michael Witzel, Kapila Vatsyayan, and Bhagwan Singh.

- The problem with you, Professor, is that you are not familiar with the content of Book IV even. Hymn 57 of Book IV gives a graphic depiction of advanced agriculture, with a plough almost similar to the one that was common in India up to the mid-twentieth century, drawn by a pair of bullocks and driven by a ploughman in service. And in one of the Ŗics, the poet talks of milking the earth as a cow, year after year. It testifies to advanced agricultural activities with sedentary population and belies the myth of nomadism, pastoralism, and barbarity.

The Chair could not hold her laughter; Witzel shook in dismay.

The last nail was hammered by Kapila ji herself. In a jocular vein, she said, “The theme of the lecture was Rgveda. Vedic poetry is known for its sublimity and rare beauty. I expected Prof. Witzel to speak something on it, but he did not say even a word on the theme.”

Witzel agreed that the Hymns on Uşā are really beautiful.

I interjected, “not only Uşā Sūktas professor, the entire Rgveda. Some of it could never be surpassed, such as the Nāsdīya Sūkta, with such expression as tama āsīt tamasā gūlhmagre, darkness was entrapped within darkness.

All in all, it was an interesting evening, if not for the presentation by Prof. Witzel, then for his discomfiture.

Prof. Bhagwan Singh is a Marxist scholar who accepted the archaeological evidence against the theory of Aryan invasion of India

Kapila Vatsayan is a national treasure. Hope she will stay on in the Rajya Sabha and enhance it with her grace.