Unmasking AIT

[dhu]

<b>Myth of Aryan Invasion Update</b>
Written by Dr. David Frawley

2005 Edition Preface

The Myth of the Aryan Invasion was first written in 1994 in order to summarize important new information on the ancient history of India that refutes commonly held views on the subject inherited from the nineteenth century. It was a condensation of longer material from books of mine like Gods, Sages and Kings, Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization (with N.S. Rajaram) and In Search of the Cradle of Civilization (with Georg Feuerstein and Subhash Kak). The 2001 update reflected my recent book Rigveda and the History of India that pushed the Vedic horizon further into the South India.

[acharya]

ARYAN INVASION THEORY (AIT)

This is the opening post to unmask the AIT and the real purpose of
those theories and myths

X posted from the sanskrit thread - HUSKY

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
insane to describe a tamilian as an indo-aryan or a gujrati as a dravidian. neither by ethnicity, and even less by languistic category


This argument is useful for illustrative purposes.
When Indians are faced with such an argument they must note that it rests on the assumption of the IE worldview. It is from the IE worldview that the terms Indo-Aryan and Dravidian arose, and they apply only within the IE worldview.

But the matter as it stands is moot for those that do not subscribe to the IE view and the argument itself becomes a non-argument since the base assumption (the existence of IE and hence the acceptance of the IA-D dichotomy) is not shared.
I don't describe gujaratis or tamils or any other Indians with either of the terms Indo-Aryan or Dravidian; and I don't speak of languages as IA or D outside of the IE-related conversations on this forum (where the topic forces me to use them) - precisely because the basic premise doesn't take with me.

The cleverest and perhaps most dangerous thing that the IE worldview has done is this: they've made it a choice between Indo-Aryan and Dravidian; they've sneakily excised a third tickbox for 'Indian'. IE has essentially forced its base assumption on people and is now succeeding in making the unthinking choose one or other of their two constructs.
This is language control and it's being imposed on us here.

Other examples of language control that is being exercised on Indians today include the imposition of terms such as caste, South Asia, Dalit.

I am boycotting all of this now. The whole thing is that the west is forcing us to play the game. But just don't play it.

IE is nothing more than an assumption and a blind belief in it (although indologists question other parts of their framework, they never question their basic premise). It's built on (as mentioned by others in this thread) the idea that Europeans initially believed that as per the Bible, they and their language descended from the Jews. They were fervently convinced of this for a long time. But since they hated the Jews (because of the usual Christian nonsense), they desperately sought their origins elsewhere. They imagined up a whole different origin for themselves (and involved the poor ancient Greeks and Romans in everything, including unrelated matters), then found India and Samskritam - and realised they liked it better than their old worldview. So they dumped their whole biblical baggage to create a new one where they come up on top, and then forced it on us.

They invented the Aryans whom no one had heard of and of whom there is no evidence. (There is no historical marker anywhere in the world that states "here lie the Aryans"; there's only records of items and cultures that they find flattering enough to consider as 'Aryan'.)
The AIT was where their ancestors got to be some super-people who brought civilisation everywhere.
Then they thought that these Aryans probably would have had an original homeland, and hence was born the Aryan urheimat idea. And so they started frantically looking for the homeland which they assumed that the supposed Aryans (whom they'd invented) would have had. Thereafter they were also looking to rebuild the 'PIE' supposedly spoken by the supposed Aryans in their supposed Urheimat. If only the Fates (in the Greek sense) would have let them keep on wasting their time this way and stop bothering others. But no, their fetish has affected the view of world history and the histories, societies and politics of many countries.

Their AIT hinged on their methods of classifying languages. Their linguistics rules appear to be non-deterministic and I have serious suspicions that these rules are influenced by their biases in favour of their belief in Aryans. And since no one had a time machine to go back in time and check on the facts, they felt secure in their imperialistic position from where they got to dictate matters.

Coming to today, this new breed of believers got a bit more sophisticated: along with a new name (IE) and whole 'sciences' established to research into the Oryans, PIE and PIE Urheimat, they've also managed to get some Indians and others to swallow their whole premise, hook, line and sinker.
The present-day findings in genetics and Indian archaeology and that of the Tarim Basin did put a damper on things, but still - they still have their central linguistic model which by its very nature of non-determinism cannot be disproved (or proved). Because it's not very scientific, it does not lend itself to scientific scrutiny. That's probably the only reason why the AIT theory, which today survives partially as the IE framework, still holds (which in turn is trying to revive a mutated form of the AIT).

- No invasion, no migration, no influx of Oryans into India. No significant C Asian genetic input (such as it is could merely be from Shaka time, or it could be counter-indicative: what if a few small tribes of Indians settled all of W Asia and C Asia - this is also supported by the fact that the Tarim Basin dwellers were specifically not European but are the same as IVC instead).
- Therefore the method by which they'd imagined Indo-Aryan (and so Samskritam) was introduced into India has fallen through.
- Therefore the very nature of the link of Samskritam and European languages has to be re-investigated (but indologists don't do that). Possibilities for the link, as stated by others elsewhere on this forum, include a much earlier Indian contact with Europe, as opposed to the late 'first contact' Greece made with India.
The nature of the relation between Samskritam and ancient Avestan is not a mystery, of course, as our religious scriptures already clearly show how it came about.

Logically speaking, the rejection of the scenario (related to the AIT/AMT) where Caucasian IE-speakers came to India, should have made indologists take another look at their basic premise and the nature of the linguistic connections. But do the Indologists question their linguistic model, their central assumptions of Oryans, PIE and Urheimat? Oh no. Because their linguistic rules (which were themselves created by a belief in the AIT) says that PIE exists.
Therefore, they're either too conceited ('how can we possibly be wrong?') or too lazy ('200 yrs of 'scholarship' down the drain!') to bother. Or they're motivated by something else entirely - just like they were during the British Empire.

<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[acharya]

I have been reading posts on this forum, and I feel inputs like posted here are some of the most far reaching contributions behind busting the AIT, and especially in correcting public knowledge about it. Please don't stop untill the last nail is stuck in the coffin of the falsehood. Good luck!

Acharya Ji, Husky Ji, and others,

I am interested in reading / researching about the background and authentic history of AIT theory. Can you kindly help me/re-direct me reg where to start, and what are some of the key resources, dwelling light on:

- milestones of AIT theory over last 2 centuries
- how it got developed,
- who contributed to it and what were vested motives, if any?
- As of today, what are its unchallenged points?
- What is the most viable alternative theory(ies) to AIT? How matured?
- Who are the Key Indologists who have accepted/propogated this alternative theory, and who are the onese still supporting AIT?
- Why is Indian leftists so much stuck on this?

Please feel free to send me a personal message, if that would be more appropriate.

Thanks

[Guest]

Not directly related but an excerpt from Monier Williams Sanskrit Dictionary..

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In explanation I must draw attention to the fact that I am only the second occupant of the Boden Chair and that its founder Colonel Boden stated most explicitly in his will (dated August 15 1811) that the special object of his munificient bequest was to <b>promote the translation of the Scriptures into Sanskrit, so as 'to enable his countrymen to proceed in the conversion of the natives of India to the Christian Religion'.</b>

It was on this account that, when my predecessor and teacher, Prof H H Wilson, was a candidate for the chair in 1832, his lexicographical labours were put forward as his principal claim to election.

Surely then it need not be thought surprising, if following in the footsteps of my venerated master, I have made it the chief aim of my professorial life to provide facilities for the translation of our sacred scriptures into Sanskrit, and for the promotion of a better knowledge of the religious need of our great Eastern Dependency. <b>My very first Sanskrit lecture delivered after my election in 1860 was on 'The Study of Sanskrit in Relation to Missionary Work in India' (published in 1861).</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

Great resource..

http://www.sabha.info/research/aif.html

[Guest]

ok this was the thread i was calling for from day one when i asked for the "grand unified theory" in the original AIT thread.

tons of articles and posts have been made in the original thread trashing the AIT - i hope we use this thread not to trash the AIT - cos thats already been done, but to come up with a comprehensive alternative theory, that would answer all doubts. For remember, we will have managed to consign AIT to flames only when our counter theory can answer ALL questions (the same holds true for theories of physics or other subjects - the new theory has to better the old theory and answer questions the old one could not).

First question - i just want an objective answer.


If all people in india are of the same ethnicity and no aryan-tribal-dravidian divide exists, then how come we have 3 completely different families of languages produced by the same people. only rational answers solicited, no polemic replies and personal opinions.

[acharya]

THis is a linguistic question. This thread is only for unmasking AIT.

Please put it in the linguistic thread. Philology and linguistics are not exact science and the tradition and precedence of 100 years is still carried out in the linguistic community.

[acharya]

I am interested in reading / researching about the background and authentic history of AIT theory. Can you kindly help me/re-direct me reg where to start, and what are some of the key resources, dwelling light on:


<span style='color:blue'>
- milestones of AIT theory over last 2 centuries
- how it got developed,
- who contributed to it(AIT) and what were vested motives, if any?</span>


Argument
The First Pioneers of Indology
It may be surprising to learn that the first pioneer in indology was the 12th Century Pope, Honorius IV. The Holy Father encouraged the learning of oriental languages in order to preach Christianity amongst the pagans.

AIT is a culmination of study of Indian culture by orientalists for over 100 years.
For over 100 years the orientalists from Europe between the period 1700 to 1850 studied the texts and scriptures of Indian religions and interpreted it in thier own way and accroding to their understanding.

Fredrich Max Mueller (1823-1900) was born in Dessau and educated in Leipzig, where he learned Sanskrit and translated the Hitopadesa of Pandita Visnu Sarma before coming to England in 1846.

Mueller was first commissioned by the East India Company to translate the Rg Veda into English. The company agreed to pay the young Mueller 4 Shillings for each page that was ready to print. He later moved to Oxford where he translated a number of books on Eastern religion. His magnum opus was his series The Sacred Books of the East, a fifty volume work which he began editing in 1875. It goes without saying that by the end of his career, Mueller had amassed a comfortable sum of money.

At the time of his death he was venerated by none other than Lokamanya Tilak as ‘Veda-maharishi Moksha-mula Bhatta of Go-tirtha’ (Oxford).
Although Mueller is on record as extoling India’s ancient wisdom, his letters (printed in two volumes) tell an entirely different story.

When Duke of Argyll was appointed Secretary of State for India in December 1868, Max Mueller wrote to him-<i>
"India has been conquered once, but India must be conquered again and that second conquest should be a conquest by education…the ancient religion of India is doomed, and if Christianity does not step in, whose fault will it be?"</i>


Mueller may also be credited with the popularization of the aryan racial theory, Writing for the Anthropological Review in 1870, Mueller classified the human race into seven categories on an ascending scale - with the Aborigines on the lowest rung and the "Aryan" type supreme.
Max Mueller who, in 1853, introduced the word ‘Arya’ into the English language as referring a particular race and language. He did this in order to give credibility to his Aryan race theory .


AIT may not have been planned in the begining but colonial intellectuals have always wanted to create a class of natives who would look at the world as in the eyes of colonial rules. To rule a country they need an elite community among the natives who would have world view similar to them.

To have a world view similar to them(rulers) they either have to be of the same religion/race or have a history which would be common among them. In India they have a difficulty due to unique race and history and they would not find anything common.
The only thing that they found common is a caucasian features among natives in some parts of the country whom they found affinity with. After the discovery of Sanskrit in 1830s they figured out some common features with the European languages. From these two common features they have to create a common history which the natives would be able to identify with the white colonial rulers

If one reads Tilak and other pre-indepedence authors we see that they identified themselves as 'aryans or causcasians who are long lost brothers and found each other again.' This social affinity towards the white rulers was very crucial to the colonial powers to get support and helped them in creating an elite among the native population.
In 1863 the AIT was formed as historical narrative to 'explain' the various nature of the Indian subcontinent including the presence of various 'races' and their various religious customs. IT took from 20-30 years before an generation of native Indians started to beleive in it since it was the world view that the colonail masters looked at them. A system of research and scholarship was funded in Oxford/Cambridge and various universities in India ( 1850s -Madras/Bombay/Calcutta) which created scholars every decade who beleived in AIT. THis created an artifical academic world of AIT and indology who were looked upon as the intellectuals of Indian population and who could converse with the western elite with the same world view.

This worldview was encouraged by the western powers also in their universities so that they had similar social group of people who had similar view of AIT and world and were in search of the homeland of Aryans. Indology departments are still funded in western capitals for more than 100-200 years.


Germans got caught in this history creation to escape from their pre-aryan world view and made a mess of their adoption. In the process they discovered their nationhood.

Indian National Congress party is a class of elite Indians who were educated in the British system and were mostly lawyers. THey wanted to ape the British in their lifestyles and formed an political social group which had similar world view and vision for the country. It was helped by the British to establish and grow as a native elite class which could be used for proxy political governance. They created a political view point which the colonial rulers could manipulate without even being part of that political party. From 1885 when it was created the party took until 1940s to ask for purna swaraj!
INC is the party which continued even after independence with set of people who held the same view point about the world.

After Independence the propogation of AIT is another story for later post.
Education played an important part of the post independence control of the Indian elite along with media control.

Conclusion
AIT was a masterstroke in creating an alternate history for the European as well as a new class of Indian elite who could identify with this history and created a social group which could perpetuate indefinitely for more than 150 years.

The original purpose of AIT may not have been what we see today among the academic circles

Swami Vivekananda, who possessed both deep scholarship and true spirituality, said more than a century ago: “Study Sanskrit, but along with it study Western sciences as well. Learn accuracy, ...study and labor so that the time will come when you can put our history on a scientific basis. ...Now it is for us to strike out an independent path of historical research for ourselves, to study the Vedas and Puranas and the ancient annals (Itihasas) of India, and from them make it your sadhana (disciplined endeavor) to write accurate, sympathetic and soul-inspiring history of India. It is for Indians to write Indian history ... you never cease to labour until you have revived the glorious past of India in the consciousness of the people. That will be the true national education, and with its advancement, a true national spirit will be awakened”.

More than a century later, this is yet to happen though a few tentative steps are being taken. It will happen only when Indian scholars shake off their inferiority complex and the last vestige of colonial 'scholarship' is rooted out.

The sad fact is that after nearly two hundred years Western Indology has still failed to understand India, her culture, her soul or her history. It has progressed little beyond Eurocentric and missionary stereotypes, only adding Marxist, Freudian and other modern stereotypes to these, naively believing that these western ideologies are somehow dramatically enlightening to India and its profound spiritual culture, when they are usually irrelevant or inferior and have already failed in the West. Meanwhile it has discovered little more in the vast treasures of Vedic culture than any primitive culture.

Western Indology does not understand the philosophy of India, its emphasis on dharma and karma, liberation and enlightenment, or its great traditions of Yoga and meditation. It does not acknowledge the value of its rishi/yogi culture and its Vedic origin. Nor does it recognize any such higher yogic spiritual tradition as behind any ancient civilizations or behind humanity as a whole. From its perspective, Indian spirituality is a self-serving fantasy hiding what is unscientific, inhumane or archaic.

Western Indology and AIT has created a powerful political lobby in India and western country which do not want to leave their well funded domain and space forever.

Books/Reference:
Great resource..
http://www.sabha.info/research/aif.html
http://www.sabha.info/research/aif.html
http://www.sabha.info/books/NewHistory/Umm...erhapsPg24.html
http://www.sabha.info/books/ThreeLectures/...ciencePg34.html




Colonial Indology: Sociopolitics of the Ancient Indian Past (Hardcover)
by Dilip K. Chakrabarti
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>
Dilip Chakrabarti is one of India's pre-eminent archaeologists. Currently a professor at Cambridge University, he has tirelessly exposed the colonial and racist prejudices that plague Indian historiopraphy. This book presents a masterly overview of the politics of India's past and how it has been held hostage by Marxists in India and colonialist/racist scholars outside India.

The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies (Hardcover)
by Thomas McEvilley

This unparalleled study of early Eastern and Western philosophy challenges every existing belief about the foundations of Western civilization. Spanning thirty years of intensive research, this book proves what many scholars could not explain: that today’s Western world must be considered the product of both Greek and Indian thought—Western and Eastern philosophies.

Thomas McEvilley explores how trade, imperialism, and migration currents allowed cultural philosophies to intermingle freely throughout India, Egypt, Greece, and the ancient Near East. This groundbreaking reference will stir relentless debate among philosophers, art historians, and students.


The mastery this book shows of both primary and secondary sources in several languages is awesome. It is clear that it is the product of a life's work. Not only does it demonstrate an East-West connection that was previously almost unknown and that is terribly important for the future, it also presents a working-through of the most basic ideas of philosophy and the most basic mechanisms of human thought. These are topics that have been neglected heretofore as a result of political and social factors that this author seems above and beyond. It is an awesomely beautiful exposition of ancient thought and the origins of philosophy as a force in civilization.

Hari Smriti : Studies on Art Archaeology and Indology : Papers Presented in Memory of Dr. Haribishnu Sarkar/edited by Arundhati Banerji.Hari Smriti : Studies on Art Archaeology and Indology : Papers Presented in Memory of Dr. Haribishnu Sarkar/edited by Arundhati Banerji. New Delhi, Kaveri, 2006, 2 Vols., 680 p., figs., plates, $190 (Set). ISBN 81-7479-075-6.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1918/19180720.htm
The making of an Indologist
D.D. Kosambi: Combined Methods in Indology and Other Writings; compiled, edited and introduced by Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya; Oxford University Press, 2002; pages xxxvii+832; Rs.995.

Critiques of Eurocentrism Bibliography
by Rajiv Malhotra
http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/..._malho_euro.htm

LINKS
http://india_resource.tripod.com/britishedu.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indology

http://jsa.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/5/2/225
Orientalism, ideology and identity
Examining caste in South Asian archaeology

http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/Ant/074/0667/Ant0740667.pdf

Colonial Indology led to the. formation of this Indian identity

http://india.indymedia.org/en/2003/05/4747.shtml
http://www2.open.ac.uk/ClassicalStudies/Gr...ue1/rrmairs.doc

Indology: Skeletons in the closet
http://www.hvk.org/articles/1002/223.html

The Westernized side of my background

by: Rajiv Malhotra
http://rajivmalhotra.sulekha.com/blogs/blo....aspx?cid=17752

The Auto-Immunity of the Philosophy of Religion: Onto-Theology, Historical Difference, and the Construction of Indic Religions
Arvind Mandair, Hofstra University
The return of "religion" to the centre of politics in India and the diaspora may, it will be suggested, demonstrate a failing of the mainly secular discourses of modern Asian Studies and post-colonial theory. Through a rigid distinction between the religious and historicism, they continue to overlook the role of ontotheology in mediating key shifts in colonial Indology and the appropriation by the indigenous North Indian cultures of an ontotheological frame of thinking in responding to colonial rule. The paper explores a possible engagement between philosophy of religion and post-colonial theory by focusing on the relationship between "religion" and historical difference. A different version of this encounter occurs in Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. These illuminate the developing relationship and interdependence between the fledgling disciplines of philosophy of religion and Indology, and the continued lack of engagement between philosophy of religion and the history of (Indic) religions.

http://india_resource.tripod.com/colonial.html
http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/~dc129/dc129.pdf

The Discovery of Ancient India: Early Archaeologists and the Beginnings of Archaeology
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/2004091.../book7.htm

http://www.indologie.uni-bonn.de/english/start.htm
The Bonn School of German Indology

The 20th century

In 1921, Willibald Kirfel (1885-1964) was appointed as Jacobi's successor. His monumental habilitation on ancient Indian cosmography, published one year earlier in Bonn, compares Hindu, Jaina, and Buddhist cosmology, analyses the Mesopotamian origins and outlines the impact of the Indian cosmology in East and Southeast Asia. He also made substantial contributions to the study of the Puranas, developing a philological method to compare the texts of essential chapters of these rather elaborated texts, which until then had hardly been studied from the point of view of indology.

In 1955 the indology in Bonn became a department of its own, independently of the Orient Department, and moved into rooms in the University's main building in Regina-Pacis-Weg 7, where it still is. The departmental library (containing more than 30,000 items) contains one of the finest indological book collections in Germany.

Together with the establishment of the Indology Department in 1955 Paul Hacker (1913-1979) was called to Bonn as Kirfel's successor and director of the Department. Hacker had already been in Bonn as a young student, where he had also habilitated in 1949 with his study on the early history of Advaita-Vedanta, but had then left Bonn for the University of Münster and the Mithila Institute in Darbhanga (India). Hacker left Bonn once again in 1963 as the first professor of the newly founded chair of indology in Münster.

Frank Richard Hamm (1920-1973), professor in Bonn since 1965, was one of the initiators of Indo-Tibetan research in Bonn. After the establishment of the "Special Research Unit 12" (Sonderforschungsbereich) at the University of Bonn, supported by the German Research Council (DFG), he continued to be its vice-president for four years. With his contributions to Buddhist and Jaina studies he returned to the tradition of Middle Indo-Aryan studies at the University of Bonn.

Three years of vacancy followed Hamm's early and sad demise. In 1976 he was then succeeded by Claus Vogel (b. 1933). Vogel, who was previously in Marburg, took over as director and vice-president of the special research unit on Central Asia. The Indo-Tibetan orientation of the Indology Department was further strengthened by Michael Hahn (b. 1941) academic assistant since 1972, then junior and senior professor until 1988, and by Helmut Eimer (b. 1936) first as research assistant since 1968, then academic officer until his retirement in 2000.

New Indo-Aryan Languages

The German indology of the 19th and early 20th centuries was predominantly limited to the research of Sanskrit and its rich corpus of literature. This tradition is also true for Bonn, where new Indian studies developed only after the Second World War as an independent field of teaching and research.

In the "Preface to the second edition" (1866) of his Studies in Ancient India (1827-1862, see above), Lassen explains to the reader that, contrary to his original plan, he had decided not to include the "history of Mohammedans and Europeans" ( i.e., post-classical India) in his monumental account of the indological knowledge of his time. Nevertheless, he did publish some sporadic research on the construction of modern Indian languages, particularly Braj, Panjabi, Bengali and Marathi in his Institutiones Linguae Prakriticae (in Latin, Bonn 1837).

It took a long time until the awareness grew that Indology should not be restricted solely to the study of ancient literature. In 1945 the Grammar of the Hindustani Language (in German) by Otto Spies and Ernst Bannerth was published as the first meaningful publication on modern Indian languages in Bonn. Spies (1901-1981), head of the Orient Department for many years, had been professor at the Aligarh Muslim University (India) from 1932-1936 before his appointment in Bonn.

Together with his research in the field of classical Hindu religion and philosophy, P.Hacker (see above) had also contributed to questions of modern Hinduism and modern Indian languages and their literature. Already during Spies's eight years as professor in Bonn several important studies on grammatical and terminological questions were published. In this context his On the function of some auxiliary verbs in Hindi (originally in German, 1958) has to be mentioned as a specimen of extraordinary scholarship.

After the Second World War and until his retirement in 1962 Tarachand Roy taught Hindi and Urdu, first as a teaching assistant, then (in 1946) as academic assistant and finally (since 1956) as "Lektor". Tilak Raj Chopra was appointed as his successor for Hindi and Urdu in 1966, a position (as "Lektor") he held until 2000.


http://www.ranajitpal.com/index.html
Non-Jonesian Indology and Alexander (Paperback)
by Ranajit Pal

Publisher Photo Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and "The Mystic East (ISBN: 0415202582)
King, Richard

Western Indology versus the Indic Tradition:
By Bharat Kumar 19/03/2003 At 14:55
http://india.indymedia.org/en/2003/03/3809.shtml

http://www.studentorg.umd.edu/desi/article27.htm
Iyengar, P.T. Srinivas. "Did the Dravidians of India obtain their culture from Aryan immigrant?'' Anthropos, vol. 9, 1914, pp. 1-15.

Leach, Edmund. "Aryan invasions over four millennia.'' In Culture through Time, Anthropological Approaches, edited by E. Ohnuki-Tierney, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1990, pp. 227-245.

Pandit, Lalita. "Caste, Race, and Nation:History and Dialectic in Rabindranath Tagore's Gora". In Literary India: Comparative Studies in Aesthetics, Colonialism, And Culture." Eds. Patrick Colm Hogan and Lalita Pandit. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1995.

Shaffer, Jim and Lichtenstein, Diane. "Migration, philology and South Asian Archaeology.'' In Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence, Interpretation and Ideology, edited by J. Bronkhorst and M. Deshpande, CSSAS, Univ of Michigan, 1999.



Affiliation: May 1998 graduate (Ph.D. in History), Duke University
Description of work:
Dissertation: "Orientalism, the Construction of Race, and the Politics
of Identity in British India, 1800-1930."

EARLY INDOLOGISTS
http://www.gosai.com/chaitanya/saranagati/...indology_2.html
http://www.gosai.com/chaitanya/saranagati/...a-indology.html


Orientalism and Religion
By: Richard King
Orientalism and Religion offers a timely discussion of the implications of contemporary post-colonial theory for the study of religion. It draws on post-structuralist and post-colonial thinkers to reflect on Religion and Indology.

The History of Indology and Comparative Philology in Germany, 1750-1958
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/sardesa...chair/indology/




</span>

[acharya]

<!--QuoteBegin-k.ram+Jul 25 2006, 12:31 PM-->QUOTE(k.ram @ Jul 25 2006, 12:31 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->A quick crack:

The story goes something like this, with the discovery of sanskrit, Europe discovered its childhood. In other words, a self definition of themselves and their
past. Thus, William Jones and Muller's representation of  Hinduism has much to do with their own nostalgic search for the supposed lost origins of European culture. Thus India and Hinduism was important so far as it can teach Europeans about their “supposed” past. Ergo, India was necessary for Europe’s own self definition.

In seeing the glorious past of Hindus and seeking to connect with europe's glorious past, a theory of "Aryan race" had to be invented. Equating a linguistic affinity between Sanskrit and European languages with racial affinity, Müller looked in India for Aryan ancestors of Europeans. 

Then the task of discovering for Hindus, the “real” or “true” Hinduism which they locate in the Vedas. Then, looking vedas bereft any spiritual meaning and only as a historical document, they set out on civilizing hindus and reforming hinduism and embarked on a mission to construct a purified form of Hinduism modelled on Protestant Christianity.

Then comes along White man's burden in full blown form. Somwhere along the line, they want to destroy the culture. What's the best way to kill a culture? Take away the methods and means to express it - Language. So, Witzel like folks get appointed to Sanskrit Chairs, and Romila Rat Thapar becomes Historian, which brings to the last point. Leftists, such dumbasses they are, want to see and portray everything in "class struggle" mold, and Aryan Invasions gave them a ready made model, so why reinvent a class struggle? So, they run with it.

Biggest dumbasses are still "secular hindus" to fall for all this crap and not do their home work.

Story done, will wait for the experts to fill in the gaps.

<!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->
[right][snapback]54587[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[acharya]

I am interested in reading / researching about the background and authentic history of AIT theory. Can you kindly help me/re-direct me reg where to start, and what are some of the key resources, dwelling light on:
<span style='color:blue'>
- As of today, what are its unchallenged points?
- What is the most viable alternative theory(ies) to AIT? How matured?
</span>


Comments

There are unchallenged points. But a systematic scholarly well funded university program has be nurtured to really destroy AIT.

Language similarity between the European languages and Indian languages are major arguments for the supporters of AIT and the common origin. SInce philology and compartive lingiustics is an undefined science it will take several decades to descredit these unchallenged points.


Viable alternatives theories are in the initial formative stages. There are many but there is no unified theory yet.
The best theory is the genetic geographic mapping of genes from the southern asia to the eurasian and wider asian continent over the span of 100000 years.

Any new approach has to use this foundation and recreate the human civilization.

[acharya]

I am interested in reading / researching about the background and authentic history of AIT theory. Can you kindly help me/re-direct me reg where to start, and what are some of the key resources, dwelling light on:
<span style='color:blue'>
- Why is Indian leftists so much stuck on this?</span>

References in the first argument has material for this questions.
Kosambi is the first marxist historian who decided that Indian force of history will follw the Islamic path and there is no need for regeneration of the Hindu civilization after 1947.

WITHIN the first decade of India's Independence, studies on early Indian history moved away from the humdrum style of documenting political and dynastic events. Interest in the routine melange of dates and events, wars and conquests, and the "achievements and failures" of individual potentates started dwindling when two very significant works came out in the 1950s. A.L. Basham's The Wonder That Was India (1954) and D.D. Kosambi's An Introduction to the Study of Indian History (1956) epitomised this shift. The first one is the work of a professional historian and the second is from an "amateur Indologist".


A doyen among Indologists, Basham romanticised the vast sweep of India's history. He pleaded for a new emphasis on the cultural history of India. The Wonder... was written to interpret ancient Indian civilisation to the ordinary Western reader who had little knowledge but some interest in the subject. This kaleidoscope of early India's social structure, cults and doctrines, and arts and languages was such an engrossing venture that it won for Basham the love and appreciation of scholars and laymen alike, both in India and outside. It is regrettable, however, that his fascination for the inclusive aspects of Hinduism has been completely distorted and turned upside down to read like an account of "glorious Hindu India" by some self-appointed guardians of Indian cultural traditions.

Kosambi's Introduction is an iconoclastic Marxist critique of the undulating path of historical change. For him "the subtle mystic philosophies, tortuous religions, ornate literature, monuments teeming with intricate sculpture, and delicate music of India all derive from the same historical process that produced the famished apathy of the villager, senseless opportunism and termite greed of the 'cultured' strata, sullen un-coordinated discontent among the workers, the general demoralisation, misery, squalor, and degrading superstition. The one is the result of the other, the one is the expression of the other." <span style='color:red'>Such an understanding not only enabled Kosambi to question the stereotypes of the colonialist-imperialist and the so-called "nationalist" historiography but also focus on a more positive and constructive approach to comprehend the prime movers of history. </span>


http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1918/19180720.htm
The making of an Indologist
D.D. Kosambi: Combined Methods in Indology and Other Writings; compiled, edited and introduced by Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya; Oxford University Press, 2002; pages xxxvii+832; Rs.995.

It is perhaps not a mere coincidence that two of the most renowned living historians of early India, Professors R.S. Sharma and Romila Thapar, received their doctoral blessings from Basham (who had guided a generation of historians from India at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London in the 1950s and the 1960s) and were either closely associated with or inspired by Kosambi.

Known among professionals for his pioneering mathematical research (his formula for chromosome distance occupies a central place in classical genetics), Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi had developed serious interests in Indology, history, archaeology, anthropology and several other disciplines rather early in his life. He also had an amazing skill in languages. A polyglot, he knew well more than a dozen languages, both Indian and foreign, modern and classical. He died rather young, not quite 60. It is a measure of his intellectual impact that three commemorative volumes were issued within 10 years of his death.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+Jul 27 2006, 02:59 AM-->QUOTE(acharya @ Jul 27 2006, 02:59 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->THis is a linguistic question.  This thread is only for unmasking AIT.

Please put it in the linguistic thread. Philology and linguistics are not exact science and the tradition and precedence of 100 years is still carried out in the linguistic community.
[right][snapback]54648[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
true that mine is specifically a linguistic question.

but the AIT or its alternative has to explain a lot of things, linguistic or otherwise.
the horse thingie, the "sea" in the vedas, the real date of the writing of the vedas etc etc.
the linquistic part is also one of the main points that needs be resolved, along wit genetics based arguements, archeology based arguements etc etc. cant leave ANY loose strings.

[Guest]

AIT is actually a trick to make Hindus squander all of their energies attacking it. It's like this: you propose a certain theory, the onus is on you to substantiate it with facts. Until then, it remains a theory, nothing more. And since AIT proponents haven't proved anything yet, it's only a theory. But unfortuately, hindus waste time attacking it, doing which they give credibility to a false idea. That's how AIT has become popular.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-ben_ami+Jul 27 2006, 12:51 AM-->QUOTE(ben_ami @ Jul 27 2006, 12:51 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->but the AIT or its alternative has to explain a lot of things, linguistic or otherwise.
[right][snapback]54668[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I agree with ben_ami. AIT consists of multi-disciplinary assault - archeological, literary, hydro-archeorlogic, anthropic, and we like it or not - philological and linguistic. In order to totally blast AIT, we need to do two things:

- Blast AIT on all disciplines. Don't just target one or few dimensions of it, but all. Including linguistics.

- Provide a viable alternative theory, which would answer ALL questions. Including language links. If a succesful alternative theory can answer convincingly, AIT will automatically disappear. It is like this - we can not fight darkness. All we have to do it bring light, and darkness disappears.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-rajesh_g+Jul 27 2006, 12:44 AM-->QUOTE(rajesh_g @ Jul 27 2006, 12:44 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Great resource..
http://www.sabha.info/research/aif.html
[right][snapback]54643[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->It's brilliant. Everything is there: the motives of the initial formulators, their reasoning that lead them to believe in the IE and AIT and their admission of how all their beliefs were entirely rooted in the bible. The site does really well in highlighting all the incriminatory sentences in their works. Nice touch.
Who knew that Abbe Dubois and Max Mueller would have written so blatantly about how totally their belief in the IE language family (or Japhetic/Aryan language family as it was called then) was biblical in its basis. To think that these were the supposed fathers of the whole notion and gave rise to the fields of 'linguistics' and 'indology'.

And Stanley Wolpert - to think that his reasoning skills are really so basic as to jump from maybe to possibly to certainly (and in spite of counter evidence from the actual sciences too!) It's embarassing enough that supposed scientists of centuries back like Dubois and Mueller were anything but scientists, but Wolpert is respected in scientific circles today, isn't he? Can they get away with such infantile logic even in such a rule-of-thumb 'science' as indology?

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->AIT is actually a trick to make Hindus squander all of their energies attacking it.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->We should have attacked it much sooner (although we didn't always have the means), because our inability and inaction so far is what has caused a lot of troubles. Merely because it is a myth does not make it unharmful. On the contrary, it has done great harm.

[Guest]

Post 13:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Blast AIT on all disciplines. Don't just target one or few dimensions of it, but all. Including linguistics<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->But that's exactly it. No AIT according to the only sciences that can show presence of the Oryans in India: genetics, archaeology and genetic anthropology.
All that's left then is the connection between Samskritam and Avestan and the other IE languages.

(1) Did initial linguists and philologists assume invasion was from NW to SE (from Europe to Indian subcontinent)? Could this have affected the order of application of rules for converting from one language to another?
(2) Do the same linguistic rules always apply to convert one language from any language family into another from the same language family? For example, can I apply the rules used in IE to native American languages (that are known to be related) to prove they are related? Can I prove the order of their evolution from each other by using the rules?
(3) How can one verify the historical picture of language diffusion and dispersal that emerges by applying the linguistic rules (and applying them in the specific order they have been applied, to go from say Samskrit to Greek) Without external validation, we have circular reasoning: "the rules say that for example Samskritam and Greek are related"; and "since Samskrit and Greek are related they prove the rules are true"
(4) If I can apply rules x, y and z to, a selection of, say, Greek words to get to Samskritam words, it does not follow that that's how it happened in history.
(5) PIE is reconstructed - no evidence for PIE. That means, since it is itself unproved, it cannot be <i>used to prove</i> any connection between Samskrit and Greek and Latin and German, etc. Same for unattested parent or intermediate languages (like Indo-Iranian) that are purported to have existed according to IE.
(6) Are the rules consistently applied or is there fudging to make the model fit? How much fudging is allowed? Are there actually any inconsistencies that they are not willing to admit?
(7) Do the same rules always apply in converting various IE languages one into another? If certain rules show how Greek went to Latin and if these changes are attested by the historical record (of literature), do these rules automatically apply in converting say Armenian into Avestan? What if there is no historical record attesting to such changes? Where is the missing link that connects Samskritam or Avestan with say Greek? (The Hittite-Mitanni treaty is Indian, or at the greatest stretch Indian-Iranian, <i>not</i> European and therefore cannot be considered the missing link.) Where are the intermediate literary evidences in the historical record to show PIE's evolution into Samskrit and Greek?
(8) Where is Indo-Iranian? Why are both Samskritam and Avestan literate and why is Indo-Iranian and PIE such an illiterate language? Or how convenient that all these supposed parent languages have left no record if they were literate?
(Note: this is not the same as the Christo fundies of Intelligent Design asking for the intermediate fossils of half-fish half-amphibians. Such intermediate creatures might not have been viable lifeforms at all and therefore might never have existed. Languages can have intermediate forms, so since the linguists talk about Indo-Iranian - where's the proof of its existence outside the 'our linguistic rules say so' argument.)
(9) If there's no evidence for intermediate or ancestor languages, then isn't it an assumption that the rules are correct in showing causality (derivation)?

About number (3): the emerging historical picture of language diffusion according to linguistics is in stark contrast to and belied by the findings in the actual sciences.

I am very confused by linguistics, particularly what's used in IE. It obviously proves itself (like circular reasoning), but there appears to be no external proof of its validity. This might well be an outcome of Max Mueller's intentions ( http://www.sabha.info/research/aif.html ):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Discard all evidence except philological evidence
Philology better than other sciences<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->He appears to have set up and promoted linguistics as being a self-relying 'science'.

Note that many of the foundational rules of linguistics were developed during the establishing of IE as a family (came across one when looking at the Encarta '96 article on IE today). That means that if I study linguistics as it is today, I will be classifying languages according to the same rules, come to the same conclusion as IE and working out PIE according to the same rules.

So if we do study linguistics, we have to drop their assumptions by considering the case of no PIE and no Indo-Iranian parent language. Thus we need to consider how else language diffusion could have occurred.
What assumptions do <i>we</i> have to make? How do we validate these assumptions (yes, there's genetics and archaeology to back up the OIT, but still, it feels rather random to think about assuming something just to prove something we already have in mind - oh wait - that's what the European indologists, linguists and philologists did in the first place!)

I now strongly suspect that they (European linguists) <i>must</i> have assumed the general direction(s) of language diffusion to be able to even come up with their rules.

Sorry if I'm not being very clear or coherent, or if I've been repetitive.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-Husky+Jul 27 2006, 12:18 PM-->QUOTE(Husky @ Jul 27 2006, 12:18 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sorry if I'm not being very clear or coherent, or if I've been repetitive.
[right][snapback]54693[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Not at all, on the contrary. Thanks for the analysis. I still think we must study Philology and even disprove its present "rulebook" if needed. Remember - "Solution of a Problem is through it"?

Anyways dont you think we have got to follow Philology even to unearth the true evolution theory? like answering Sanskrit-Tamil-Eastern languages link. like answering howcome Greek-Sanskrit are having more similarities than Tamil-Sanskrit, and so on.

[Guest]

but i still havent got the reply i was hoping for??
what then is the objective of this thread, if not to piece by piece, provide all sorts of answers, which together will bury the AIT by comming up with a comprehensive alternate theory.

another question - if there is no difference of any kind between north indians and dravidians/south indians - then why is it that only the north indian languages and people have a connection with the children of parasu - both in their languages and feature/complexion. why isnt the agamas anything like the avesta, while the vedas and avesta are so similar.


see, you can answer or ignore these questions from me. but tommorow you will have to answer these same questions from the Witzelian fools. And if you dont hae a convincing enough answer at the ready, then AIT will be here to stay.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-Bodhi+Jul 28 2006, 12:02 AM-->QUOTE(Bodhi @ Jul 28 2006, 12:02 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->like answering howcome Greek-Sanskrit are having more similarities than Tamil-Sanskrit, and so on.
[right][snapback]54702[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
yeah, what explains that one??

if the tribals are the same people as the rest how come their language is similar to the natives of australia??


and these are just language based questions. we need to answer horse questions, dna questions, chronological questions etc etc.

[acharya]

<!--QuoteBegin-ben_ami+Jul 27 2006, 06:37 AM-->QUOTE(ben_ami @ Jul 27 2006, 06:37 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->but i still havent got the reply i was hoping for??
what then is the objective of this thread, if not to piece by piece, provide all sorts of answers, which together will bury the AIT by comming up with a comprehensive alternate theory.

[right][snapback]54703[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Why dont you do some google and put some links here. We need more people to do some research and explain. Put some links for your questions.