India/western Sociology

[acharya]

<b>Dr. Francesco: "Did Some Vedic People Emigrate Westwards out of India?" - by B.B. Lal


ON THE EMIGRATION OF A SECTION OF THE VEDIC PEOPLE FROM NORTH-WEST INDIA TO WESTERN ASIA</b>

B. B. Lal
Former Director General Archaeological Survey of India


My attention has been drawn to a review of Chapter 6 of my book, How Deep are the Roots of Indian Civilization? Archaeology Answers, by Dr. Francesco, posted on the Web-site “Indo-Eurasian_research@yahoogroups.com”, dated October 28, 2009. Dr. Francesco opens the review by quoting from his mentor, Professor Michael Witzel, wherein the latter says: “It is surprising how an established archaeologist [referring to me] can be so naïve, in his old age, about facts from outside his field (palaeontology, genetics, texts, linguistics) and still loudly proclaim his ‘revolutionary’ result (also in his latest book ‘The Sarasvati Flows On’.” To this Dr. Francesco adds his own flavor: “Indeed, this new chapter in Lal’s conversion to Hindutva-oriented historical revisionism betrays, at minimum, a very naïve approach to historical an linguistic facts …”.

Professor Witzel is well known for making such unsavory personal remarks. For example, at a seminar organized by UMASS, Dartmouth, in June 2006, when I drew the attention of the audience to the learned professor’s wrong translation of the a very crucial passage from the Baudhāyana S̄rautasūtra, which is the main subject of the discussion by Dr. Francesco, Professor Witzel shot at me by saying that I did not know the difference between Vedic and Classical Sanskrit. He had to be told that I had the privilege of obtaining in 1943 my Master’ Degree in Sanskrit, which course included a study of the Vedas, and that I had obtained a First Class First from a first class university of India, namely that of Allahabad. I have already referred to this incident in my Inaugural Address delivered at 19th International Conference on South Asian Archaeology, held at the University of Bologna, Ravenna, Italy, July 2-6, 2007, which is duly published.


I do not propose stooping down to the low level of these learned scholars. At the same time it must be said that this particular type of debating technique is adopted by these scholars with a view to intimidating the opponent on the one hand and, on the other, impressing upon the reader that the if the author concerned is ‘naïve’ and ‘old’ how can his conclusions be correct? However, it is a great satisfaction that by now the reader all over the world has become fully aware of their game-plan.

I now proceed to answer the various points raised by Dr. Francesco.

Since the passage from the Baudhāyana Śrautasūtra(18.44) forms the central piece in the debate, it is necessary to discuss it in some detail. The relevant Sanskrit text reads as follows:
Pra-n.a-yauh. pravavra-ja tasyaite Kuru--Pan~cha-la-h. Ka-śi- -Videha- ity etad A-yavam pravrājam. Pratyan. Ama-vasus tasyaite Ga-ndha-rayas Parśvo Ara-t.t.a- itya etad A-ma-vasavam

Dealing with this particular passage in his paper, ‘R.gvedic histor̄y: poets, chieftains and polities’, published in 1995 in a book edited by Erdosy, Professor Witzel, wrote, as follows:
Taking a look at the data relating to the immigration of Indo-Aryans into South Asia, one is struck by the number of vague reminiscences of foreign localities and tribes in the R.gveda, in spite of repeated assertions to the contrary in the secondary literature. Then, there is the following direct statement contained in (the admittedly much later) BŚS [Baudha-yana Śrauta-su-tra], 18.44: 397.9 sqq which has once again been overlooked, not having been translated yet: “Ayu went eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru-Pan~ca-la and Ka-śi- -Videha. This is the A-yava (migration). (His other people) stayed at home in the west. His people are the Ga-ndha-ri-, Parśu and A-rat.t.a. This is the Ama-vasava (group)". (Emphasis mine.)

To return to the Sanskrit text itself. It has two parts. In the first part, i.e. in ‘prāṅayuh … pravrājam’ the verb used is ‘pravavrāja’, which means ‘migrated’. In the second part, i.e. in ‘pratyaṅamāvasuḥ …. amāvasam’ the verb is not repeated. However, according to the well known rules of grammar, it has got to be same as in the first part i.e. it has to be ‘pravavrāja’. As a result, the second part would mean that ‘Amāvasuh migrated westwards and his descendants are the Gāndhārī, Parśu and Araṭ̣ṭa.’ (Although it is not necessary, yet I will give an example of how the ‘missing’ verb has to be inserted. Take, for instance, the following sentence: “Yesterday, in a match between India and Australia, the former scored 275 runs, whereas the latter only 230.” In the first part the verb has clearly been mentioned as “scored”, but in the second part it is not so mentioned. Nevertheless, it has got to be the same as in the first part, viz. “scored”. Ser

All this clearly shows that the learned professor had deliberately mistranslated the Sanskrit text in order to tell the unwary reader that while one lot migrated eastwards, the other ‘stayed at home’. In reality it is a case of two-way migration, viz. eastwards and westwards, from one central point. The area of parting is likely to have been somewhere between the Ga-ndhā-ra region on the west and the Kuru region on the east. Since the Ga-ndha-̄ra region is placed in eastern Afghanistan and the Kuru region (modern Kurukshetra) is in Haryana in India, the region from where these eastward and westward migrations took place is most likely to have been the (pre-Partition) Punjab.

There can, therefore, be no denying the fact that a section of the Vedic people did migrate to the west. The text also very clearly mentions the names of the destinations of this migration. These are, seratum: Gandhāra, Paraśu and Araṭta.

Although Dr. Francesco has raised certain objections in respect of the identification of these areas, these objections are meaningless. The term Gandhāra occurs in ancient literature and was doubtless a part of Afghanistan -- whether northern or southern it is of little consequence in the present context. Parśu, which is also referred to by the same name in an 835-BCE inscription of Shalmaneser of Assyria, is again very clearly Persia.(The name was changed to ‘Iran’ only in 1935.) As regards Aratta, most scholars hold it to be Ararata in the Armenian region, but Dr. Francesco, allergic to that identification, would like to take it all the way to Seistan. Says he: “Nowadays scholars … place Aratta somewhere in Iran; a consensus is slowly emerging on the tentative location of the land of Aratta in Seistan.” What is this ‘somewhere’? Evidently, because Dr. Fracesco does not know ‘where’. Again, what indeed is the value of a phrase like ‘a consensus is slowly emerging on the tentative location …’. Surely, this is yet another technique to avoid facing the reality. Truth is sometimes too bitter to swallow!

Now to the evidence of the inscribed clay tablets discovered at Bogazkoy in Turkey. Ascribable to circa 1380 BCE, these tablets recorded a treaty between a Mtanni king named Matiwaza and a Hittite king, Suppiluliuma in which the following gods were invoked as witnesses: Indara (=Vedic Indra), Mitras(il) (=Vedic Mitra), Nasatia(nna) (= Vedic Nāsatya) and Uruvanass(il) (=Vedic Varuṇa). Scholars agree that this treaty establishes the presence of the Vedic people in a part of Turkey. In fact, Dr. Francesco himself admits this reality when he says: “The (Indo-) Aryan deities mentioned in the 1380 treaty are likely to have been worshipped by the Mitanni king.” The only debating point left now is whether these Indo-Aryans were on their way to India or had come there from India. The reason for some scholars to have held the former view was that at the time of the discovery of these tablets, viz. at the beginning of the 20th century, the date of the Vedas, as per the fatwa of Max Muller in the 19th century, was taken to be 1200 BCE. (In this context it must not be forgotten that Max Muller had himself back-tracked by saying: “Whether the Vedic hymns were composed [in] 1000 or 1500 or 2000 or 3000 BC, no power on earth will ever determine.”) In Chapter IV, Section H, of my book under discussion I have given detailed evidence from archaeology, geology, hydrology, C-14 dating and literature, which clearly establishes that the Ṛ̣igveda is older than 2000 BCE. How much earlier is anybody’s guess. However, other scholars like Kazanas and Nahar Achar place the Rigveda in the fourth millennium BCE. The former uses the linguistic evidence, whereas the latter bases his dating on the astronomical data. This new evidence thus shows that the mention of the names of the Vedic gods on the Bogazkoy tablets in Turkey is the finale of the movement of the Vedic people from north-west India to that region. In this context one might as well pose a question: “Was there any country, other than India, in the entire world in the 14th century BCE, i.e. at the time of the Bogazkoy treaty, where the gods Indra, Varuṇa, etc. were worshipped?” The answer is an emphatic “NO”. Then why shy away from facing the reality? In fact, at one stage in his own review, Dr. Francesco admits: “the so-called Mitanni Indo-Aryans can be but a group of Vedic Aryans having migrated to Kurdistan from their supposed ancestral homeland in NW South Asia.”

Research is an ongoing process, not something static. With new evidence pouring in every day, paradigms have to be changed and one should not feel belittled if one’s earlier views have to be modified in the light of the new data. Let not an ostrich-like attitude blind us to the upcoming truth!

Subject title of posting by Dr. Francesco: "Did Some Vedic People Emigrate Westwards out of India?" - by B.B. Lal