Post 114 (rajesh_g): where do you find all this brilliant stuff and how did you know Lincoln's book even existed, especially since:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Lincoln became more or less persona non grata among the Indo-Europeanists of the United States, and references to his work declined.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Also, what is the source for the contents of 114? That is, who is the first-person character in this statement:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->[Lincoln's work] would have been very important to the ideas in my study had it been published before the Swedish edition<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Post 115 (acharya),
I also think asking why is very important - particularly because IE research and articles written in the US and Europe about India and related topics (articles which, in those countries, are seen as being no more than merely 'useful scholarship' and 'research') have great repercussions in India. In this way, foreign interests have immense leverage over events and thought processes in India. 'Distance manipulation', if such a term exists.
The whole thing about AIT and IE and the controversies surrounding them is that it stops us from asking why in the first place. Keeps us from seeing the forest for the trees. There are at least three stages we need to get through (or layers of the onion that need to be peeled off first, if you will):
(1) Uncritically accepting AIT (and IE). This keeps us occupied on arguing about petty things like the fictive Aryans supposedly having oppressed the other fictions (like Dravidians)
(2) Realising the AIT is a fraud and engaging the AIT proponents in arguments, in order to dispell the fiction from our lives
(3) Finding there are inconsistencies in IE (and expending efforts in futile arguments against infallibility of PIE) and discovering the more transparent ideological motivations holding up belief in IE
Even if we reach stages 2 and 3, we forget to follow through to wondering why it is that we've been made to put time and resources into this thing which some 'indologists' and 'researchers' at least must know has shaky foundations and a seriously suspect history. Yet these knowing scholars too do nothing about it, but continue working on in the field (Lincoln excepted). That really makes one start to think about why they would be doing this, what's in it for them, who they are working for, what they are working towards (their real purpose).
Acharya,
I wanted to ask you this: is the west hoping to do something similar in China or is that merely a dream of Eurocentrists who have nothing better to do?
If it's the former, then I think their present efforts at concocting a European ('Aryan') fable for China should be instructive; even if it will inevitably be different from 18th century Christo Europe's endeavours in India.
Are they hoping their work related to China will pay dividends in the future? This is something we need to pay attention to - witness what happens and how a new myth is built up (or, at least, an attempt at one). Hopefully the Taiwanese and Chinese will deflect it, because it won't just have political repercussions for them. Social and religious instability will also ensue in due time.
Also, Acharya, if the west merely wants to make India unstable, diminish chances of it becoming an economic and/or political centre (superpower), then why their strange interest in Samskritam? Is it a mix of (1) racist/fascist ideology that still makes them think they own Samskritam and (2) the aforesaid endeavours to put a stop to India's growth? Or is it much more?
You once alluded to (Samskritam thread) a 200-500 year plan of colonisation which the British had and which the Americans might have inherited. What would then be their gain? Just a billion workers doing the bidding of gawd and his chosen land of America? India could become the manufacturing/industrial plant of America merely by pumping dollars into the country and directing Indians to what they want done. Then why this elaborate game?
<b>EDIT:</b> Apparently, I have a short memory. I think your posts 244 and 246, and that of dhu ( 247 ) in the same Samskritam thread already covered the questions in my last paragraph.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Lincoln became more or less persona non grata among the Indo-Europeanists of the United States, and references to his work declined.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Also, what is the source for the contents of 114? That is, who is the first-person character in this statement:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->[Lincoln's work] would have been very important to the ideas in my study had it been published before the Swedish edition<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Post 115 (acharya),
I also think asking why is very important - particularly because IE research and articles written in the US and Europe about India and related topics (articles which, in those countries, are seen as being no more than merely 'useful scholarship' and 'research') have great repercussions in India. In this way, foreign interests have immense leverage over events and thought processes in India. 'Distance manipulation', if such a term exists.
The whole thing about AIT and IE and the controversies surrounding them is that it stops us from asking why in the first place. Keeps us from seeing the forest for the trees. There are at least three stages we need to get through (or layers of the onion that need to be peeled off first, if you will):
(1) Uncritically accepting AIT (and IE). This keeps us occupied on arguing about petty things like the fictive Aryans supposedly having oppressed the other fictions (like Dravidians)
(2) Realising the AIT is a fraud and engaging the AIT proponents in arguments, in order to dispell the fiction from our lives
(3) Finding there are inconsistencies in IE (and expending efforts in futile arguments against infallibility of PIE) and discovering the more transparent ideological motivations holding up belief in IE
Even if we reach stages 2 and 3, we forget to follow through to wondering why it is that we've been made to put time and resources into this thing which some 'indologists' and 'researchers' at least must know has shaky foundations and a seriously suspect history. Yet these knowing scholars too do nothing about it, but continue working on in the field (Lincoln excepted). That really makes one start to think about why they would be doing this, what's in it for them, who they are working for, what they are working towards (their real purpose).
Acharya,
I wanted to ask you this: is the west hoping to do something similar in China or is that merely a dream of Eurocentrists who have nothing better to do?
If it's the former, then I think their present efforts at concocting a European ('Aryan') fable for China should be instructive; even if it will inevitably be different from 18th century Christo Europe's endeavours in India.
Are they hoping their work related to China will pay dividends in the future? This is something we need to pay attention to - witness what happens and how a new myth is built up (or, at least, an attempt at one). Hopefully the Taiwanese and Chinese will deflect it, because it won't just have political repercussions for them. Social and religious instability will also ensue in due time.
Also, Acharya, if the west merely wants to make India unstable, diminish chances of it becoming an economic and/or political centre (superpower), then why their strange interest in Samskritam? Is it a mix of (1) racist/fascist ideology that still makes them think they own Samskritam and (2) the aforesaid endeavours to put a stop to India's growth? Or is it much more?
You once alluded to (Samskritam thread) a 200-500 year plan of colonisation which the British had and which the Americans might have inherited. What would then be their gain? Just a billion workers doing the bidding of gawd and his chosen land of America? India could become the manufacturing/industrial plant of America merely by pumping dollars into the country and directing Indians to what they want done. Then why this elaborate game?
<b>EDIT:</b> Apparently, I have a short memory. I think your posts 244 and 246, and that of dhu ( 247 ) in the same Samskritam thread already covered the questions in my last paragraph.