Unmasking AIT

09-14-2006, 01:22 AM

We need to get back to this topic. Will do so in the near future.

In meantime an interesting page on Wikipedia.

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States...gat_Singh_Thind

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luce-Celler_Act_of_1946

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/SSEAL/echoes/c.../chapter10.html

Judge's order

QUOTEIt is a matter of familiar observation and knowledge that the physical group characteristics of the Hindus render them readily distinguishable from the various groups of persons in this country commonly recognized as white. The children of English, French, German, Italian, Scandinavian, and other European parentage, quickly merge into the mass of our population and lose the distinctive hallmarks of their European origin. On the other hand, it cannot be doubted that the children born in this country of Hindu parents would retain indefinitely the clear evidence of their ancestry. It is very far from our thought to suggest the slightest question of racial superiority or inferiority. What we suggest is merely racial difference, and it is of such character and extent that the great body of our people instinctively recognize it and reject the thought of assimilation.

dhu · (This post was last modified: 09-14-2006, 04:27 AM by dhu.)

Rajesh,
The homogenizing tendency of the abrahamics resulted not only in a spiritual monotheism with all its attendant terrorisms but it also affected the particular histories of their languages. notice the radical impulse for homogeneic speech patterns in america and compare that to india where diversity is preserved at all levels by default. this was also effectively eluded to in Kalavai Venkat's conclusion regarding caste in his essay - a Pluralist's Encounter... Balagangadhara says that the Abrahamic Homogeneizing tendency is a result of normative ethics, which is a subset of the prevalent and endemic ethics of Asia. I do not think that this normative ethics was originated in a lone Bethelehem in Palestine. Rather, we should postulate a normative zone in the mediterranean of which Hammurabi, greeks, Romans, et al, partook to form their law governed cultures. This would solve Balagangadhara's dilemma regarding the presence of normative ethics in the pagan greeks. For some reason, it crystallized first in the Jews. At all times there is a specifically Indian implulse driving each further mutation in the normative ethics-- bginning with the Upanishidic influence of the mittanis on Egypt, resulting in judaism; Buddhist input into egypt resulting in christianity... Hindu influence on Arabia resulting in the But (Buddha) Shikans; and Finally the Buddhist influence imported by the Schopenhauers resulting in MArxism.

I do not thnk anyone can deny the truth of Nichol's analysis placing the center to the east of the Caspian and what Talageri does with her analysis. Frawley ties it all together with the proper time depths.

09-14-2006, 03:23 AM

QUOTERash of Indologists in Russia 

Study of Indian philosophy is a priority for Russian scholars and
some have set new benchmarks, says Alexander Dubyansky 

Russia should pay more attention to Indology, a science which studies
about India and different aspects of its culture. The biggest Russian
centres of Indology are in Moscow and St Petersburg. They work in
different directions, but traditionally both of them have
concentrated on Indian languages, primarily Sanskrit, the ancient
language of Indian culture. In Moscow, Sanskrit is studied at
Lomonosov Moscow State University, notably, at the Institute of Asian
and African Studies and the philology department, the Russian State
Humanitarian University, and the Institute of Philosophy at the
Russian Academy of Sciences.

Apart from Sanskrit and several other ancient languages, university
programme requires the study of living languages. Russian students
learn Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, and Punjabi. Indological
departments also teach disciplines bearing on India's history,
culture, literature and religion, and most faculty members are
involved in research.

Tatyana Shaumyan heads the Centre for Indian Studies at the Russian
Academy of Sciences' (RAS) Institute of Oriental Studies. It unites
scholars who focus on the current political, cultural, and religious
aspects of Indian life. The centre publishes comprehensive collective
works, such as Indiya segodnya, Spravochno-analitic heskoye izdaniye.

The Centre is going to issue a five-volume encyclopaedia on India.
This is well in line with the Centre's major goal - developing a
strategy for Russo-Indian relations. Scholars whose work involves
Indian spiritual culture are making a substantial contribution to the
promotion of bilateral ties. Their findings meet the interests of the
Russian readers, extending their knowledge of India, and receive
recognition in India.

The brightest example is the complete translation of the Rig Veda by
T Ya Yelizarenkova, for which she has received the Indian order of
Padma Shri. The Indians are avidly watching the Russian publication
of the great Indian epic Mahabharata, which is being translated by Ya
V Vasilkov, SL Neveleva, VG Erman. Moscow Indologist PA Grintser is
translating another epic poem, Ramayana.

Our scholars study a wide range of Indian cultural phenomena. In the
Soviet times, the emphasis was on modern Indian culture, particularly
literature, whereas now the interest has shifted to the middle and
ancient ages.

Study of Indian philosophy is a priority for Russian scholars. It has
a glorious tradition, which continues up to this day. In recent years
Russian Indologists have published major philosophical works
(Buddhist in St Petersburg, Hindu and Jaina ones in Moscow), and
books on different trends in Indian philosophy.

There is no doubt that cooperation with India is vital for the
successful development of Indology in Russia. The Jawaharlal Nehru
Cultural Centre at the Indian Embassy plays a major role in promoting
this cooperation. It regularly contributes funds for the publication
of books, joint conferences and other cultural events, and sponsors
Russian students who go to India for practical training.

Russia and India have exchange programmes for scholars, scientists,
professors and students. They have signed agreements for establishing
departments and centres for Indian studies at five major Russian
institutions. Agreements also link Moscow State University with JNU
in New Delhi, the MSU Institute of Asian and African Studies with the
Zarathustra College in Mumbai, and with the Osmania University in
Hyderabad.

(The writer is Assistant Professor at the Indian philology
department, Institute of Asian and African Studies, Moscow State
University)

Bodhi · (This post was last modified: 09-20-2006, 11:44 PM by Bodhi.)

Even before Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the leaders of Theosophical Soceity must be given due credit for continuousely having attempted to rebuke the orientalists like F Max Muller in mid to late 1800s, upon the question of ascertaining the vedic period.

The brilliant article of HP Blavatsky below, which appeared in Theosophist journal in October 1879. 

QUOTEAntiquity of the Vedas

A journal interested like the Theosophist in the explorations of archÃ¦ology and archaic religions, as well as the study of the occult in nature, has to be doubly prudent and discreet. To bring the two conflicting elements -- exact science and metaphysics -- into direct contact, might create as great a disturbance as to throw a piece of potassium into a basin of water. The very fact that we are predestined and pledged to prove that some of the wisest of Western scholars have been misled by the dead letter of appearances and that they are unable to discover the hidden spirit in the relics of old, places us under the ban from the start. With those sciolists who are neither broad enough, nor sufficiently modest to allow their decisions to be reviewed, we are necessarily in antagonism. Therefore, it is essential that our position in relation to certain scientific hypotheses, perhaps tentative and only sanctioned for want of better ones -- should be clearly defined at the outset.

An infinitude of study has been bestowed by the archaeologists and the orientalists upon the question of chronology -- especially in regard to Comparative Theology. So far, their affirmations as to the relative antiquity of the great religions of the pre-Christian era are little more than plausible hypotheses. How far back the national and religious Vedic period, so called, extends -- "it is impossible to tell," confesses Prof. Max MÃ¼ller; nevertheless, he traces it "to a period anterior to 1,000 BC.," and brings us "to 1,100 or 1,200 BC, as the earliest time when we may suppose the collection of the Vedic hymns to have been finished." Nor do any other of our leading scholars claim to have finally settled the vexed question, especially delicate as it is in its bearing upon the chronology of the book of Genesis.

Christianity, the direct outflow of Judaism and in most cases the State religion of their respective countries, has unfortunately stood in their way. Hence, scarcely two scholars agree; and each assigns a different date to the Vedas and the Mosaic books, taking care in every case to give the latter the benefit of the doubt. Even that leader of the leaders in philological and chronological questions -- Professor MÃ¼ller, hardly twenty years ago, allowed himself a prudent margin by stating that it will be difficult to settle "whether the Veda is 'the oldest of books,' and whether some of the portions of the Old Testament may not be traced back to the same or even an earlier date than the oldest hymns of the Veda." The Theosophist is, therefore, quite warranted in either adopting or rejecting as it pleases the so-called authoritative chronology of science.

Do we err then, in confessing that we rather incline to accept the chronology of that renowned Vedic scholar, Swami DayÃ¡nund Saraswati, who unquestionably knows what he is talking about, has the four Vedas by heart, is perfectly familiar with all Sanskrit literature, has no such scruples as the Western Orientalists in regard to public feelings, nor desire to humour the superstitious notions of the majority, nor has any object to gain in suppressing facts? We are only too conscious of the risk in withholding our adulation from scientific authorities. Yet, with the common temerity of the heterodox we must take our course, even though, like the TarpeÃ¯a of old, we be smothered under a heap of shields -- a shower of learned quotations from these "authorities." 

We are far from feeling ready to adopt the absurd chronology of a Berosus or even Syncellus -- though in truth they appear "absurd" only in the light of our preconceptions. But, between the extreme claims of the Brahmins and the ridiculously short periods conceded by our Orientalists for the development and full growth of that gigantic literature of the ante-MahÃ¡bhÃ¡ratan period, there ought to be a just mean. While Swami DayÃ¡nund Saraswati asserts that "The Vedas have now ceased to be objects of study for nearly 5,000 years," and places the first appearance of the four Vedas at an immense antiquity; Professor MÃ¼ller, assigning for the composition of even the earliest among the BrÃ¢hmanas, the years from about 1,000 to 800 BC, hardly dares, as we have seen, to place the collection and the original composition of the SanhitÃ¢, of Rig-Vedic hymns, earlier than 1,200 to 1,500 before our era!1

Whom ought we to believe; and which of the two is the better informed? Cannot this gap of several thousand years be closed, or would it be equally difficult for either of the two cited authorities to give data which would be regarded by science as thoroughly convincing? It is as easy to reach a false conclusion by the modern inductive method as to assume false premises from which to make deductions. Doubtless Professor Max MÃ¼ller has good reasons for arriving at his chronological conclusions. But so has DayÃ¡nund Saraswati Pandit. The gradual modifications, development and growth of the Sanskrit language are sure guides enough for an expert philologist. But, that there is a possibility of his having been led into error would seem to suggest itself upon considering a certain argument brought forward by Swami DayÃ¡nund. Our respected friend and teacher maintains that both Professor MÃ¼ller and Dr. Wilson have been solely guided in their researches and conclusion by the inaccurate and untrustworthy commentaries of Sayana, Mahidar, and Uvata, commentaries which differ diametrically from those of a far earlier period as used by himself in connection with his great work the Veda Bhashya.

A cry was raised at the outset of this publication that Swami's commentary is calculated to refute Sayana and the English interpreters. "For this," very justly remarks Pandit DayÃ¡nund, "I cannot be blamed; if Sayana has erred, and English interpreters have chosen to take him for their guide, the delusion cannot be long maintained. Truth alone can stand, and Falsehood before growing civilization must fall."2 And if, as he claims, his Veda Bhashya is entirely founded on the old commentaries of the ante-MahÃ¡bhÃ¡ratan period to which the Western scholars have had no access, then, since his were the surest guides of the two classes, we cannot hesitate to follow him, rather than the best of our European Orientalists.

But, apart from such primÃ¢ facie evidence, we would respectfully request Professor Max MÃ¼ller to solve us a riddle. Propounded by himself, it has puzzled us for over twenty years, and pertains as much to simple logic as to the chronology in question. Clear and undeviating, like the RhÃ´ne through the Geneva lake, the idea runs through the course of his lectures, from the first volume of "Chips" down to his last discourse. We will try to explain.

All who have followed his lectures as attentively as ourselves will remember that Professor Max MÃ¼ller attributes the wealth of myths, symbols, and religious allegories in the Vedic hymns, as in Grecian mythology, to the early worship of nature by man. "In the hymns of the Vedas," to quote his words, "we see man left to himself to solve the riddle of this world. He is awakened from darkness and slumber by the light of the sun" ... and he calls it -- "his life, his truth, his brilliant Lord and Protector." He gives names to all the powers of nature, and after he has called the fire "Agni," the sun-light "Indra," the storms "Maruts," and the dawn "Usha," they all seem to grow naturally into beings like himself, nay greater than himself.3

This definition of the mental state of primitive man, in the days of the very infancy of humanity, and when hardly out of its cradle -- is perfect. The period to which he attributes these effusions of an infantile mind, is the Vedic period, and the time which separates us from it is, as claimed above, 3,000 years. So much impressed seems the great philologist with this idea of the mental feebleness of mankind at the time when these hymns were composed by the four venerable Rishis, that in his introduction to the Science of Religion (p78) we find the Professor saying: "Do you still wonder at polytheism or at mythology? Why, they are inevitable. They are, if you like, a parler enfantin of religion. But the world has its childhood, and when it was a child it spake as a child, (nota bene, 3,000 years ago), it understood as a child, it thought as a child ... The fault rests with us if we insist on taking the language of children for the language of men. ... The language of antiquity is the language of childhood ... the parler enfantin in religion is not extinct ... as, for instance, the religion of India."

Having read thus far, we pause and think. At the very close of this able explanation, we meet with a tremendous difficulty, the idea of which must have never occurred to the able advocate of the ancient faiths. To one familiar with the writings and ideas of this Oriental scholar, it would seem the height of absurdity to suspect him of accepting the Biblical chronology of 6,000 years since the appearance of the first man upon earth as the basis of his calculations. And yet the recognition of such chronology is inevitable if we have to accept Professor MÃ¼ller's reasons at all; for here we run against a purely arithmetical and mathematical obstacle, a gigantic miscalculation of proportion . . .

No one can deny that the growth and development of mankind -- mental as well as physical -- must be analogically measured by the growth and development of man. An anthropologist, if he cares to go beyond the simple consideration of the relations of man to other members of the animal kingdom, has to be in a certain way a physiologist as well as an anatomist; for, as much as ethnology it is a progressive science which can be well treated but by those who are able to follow up retrospectively the regular unfolding of human faculties and powers, assigning to each a certain period of life.

Thus, no one would regard a skull in which the wisdom-tooth, so called, would be apparent, the skull of an infant. Now, according to geology, recent researches "give good reasons to believe that under low and base grades the existence of man can be traced back into the tertiary times." In the old glacial drift of Scotland -- says Professor W. Draper -- "the relics of man are found along with those of the fossil elephant"; and the best calculations so far assign a period of two-hundred-and-forty thousand years since the beginning of the last glacial period. Making a proportion between 240,000 years -- the least age we can accord to the human race -- and 24 years of a man's life, we find that three thousand years ago, or the period of the composition of Vedic hymns, mankind would be just twenty-one -- the legal age of majority, and certainly a period at which man ceases using, if he ever will, the parler enfantin or childish lisping. But, according to the views of the Lecturer, it follows that man was, three thousand years ago, at twenty-one, a foolish and undeveloped -- though a very promising -- infant, and at twenty-four, has become the brilliant, acute, learned, highly analytical and philosophical man of the nineteenth century. Or, still keeping our equation in view, in other words, the Professor might as well say, that an individual who was a nursing baby at 12 (noon) on a certain day, would at 12:20 P.M., on the same day, have become an adult speaking high wisdom instead of his parler enfantin!

It really seems the duty of the eminent Sanskritist and Lecturer on Comparative Theology to get out of this dilemma. Either the Rig-Veda hymns were composed but 3,000 years ago, and, therefore, cannot be expressed in the "language of childhood" -- man having lived in the glacial period -- but the generation which composed them must have been composed of adults, presumably as philosophical and scientific in the knowledge of their day, as we are in our own; or, we have to ascribe to them an immense antiquity in order to carry them back to the days of human mental infancy. And, in this latter case, Professor Max MÃ¼ller will have to withdraw a previous remark, expressing the doubt "whether some of the portions of the Old Testament may not be traced back to the same or even an earlier date than the oldest hymns of the Vedas."

References
(1) Lecture on the Vedas.
(2) Answer to the Objections to the Veda-BhÃ¡shya.
(3) Chips from a German Workshop, vol. 1, p68.

ramana · 09-26-2006, 12:15 AM

Book Review, Pioneer, 25 Sept. 2006

QUOTEInvasion that never took place

What NS Rajaram has done in this in-depth study is to hit a mortal blow to the Aryan invasion conjecture, using archaeology and pre-historic anthropology to establish the ancient roots of Indic civilisation, writes MV Kamath

SARASWATI RIVER AND THE VEDIC CIVILISATION, NS RAJARAM, ADITYA PRAKASHAN, RS 300

One of the biggest lies ever propagated by our foreign masters, the British, was that India was originally inhabited by a "rabble of aboriginal savages" and that civilisation was brought to India by so-called Aryans who invaded it from somewhere in Central Asia or Europe, while another branch of the same people migrated westward towards Europe to become ancestors of the modern Europeans.

This theory helped the British in two ways. In the first place, they could divide Indians into two parts: Successors to the so-called Aryans living in the north; and, the people who originally lived in the north but were driven away from their homes to migrate to the south (Dravidians). A north-south divide was thus created. In the second place, it gave the British a moral justification to rule India. 

As a BBC report (October 6, 2005) puts it succinctly, "If (the Aryan invasion theory) gave a historical precedent to justify the role and status of the British raj, they could argue that they were transforming India for the better in the same way that the Aryans has done thousands of years earlier." The idea mooted by the BBC had been propagated decades ago by the British not only to justify their role as conquerors but also give Indians a tremendous inferiority complex.

In the House of Commons in 1929, when Britain was at the height of its power, British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin observed, "Now after ages... the two branches of the great Aryan ancestry have again been brought together by providence... By establishing British rule in India, God said to the British, 'I have brought you and the Indians together after a long separation... It is your duty to raise them to their own level as quickly as possible... brothers as you are."

The myth of an Aryan invasion of India may have been originally propagated by a German-turned-Briton, Max Mueller, but the theory went unchallenged for a long time. For decades, Indians brought up under British rule accepted the insult until scholars - more objective and inquiring - began to look at Indian civilisation more scientifically and come to clear conclusions that dispelled myth imposed on Indians. One myth was that India had been invaded by Aryans.

The Aryan invasion theory was totally exposed as untrue. This made it clear that everything associated with India - whether in the realm of science, philosophy, language and civilisation - was cent per cent Indians. It was proved beyond doubt that the Harappan writing was more than a thousand years older than the oldest West Asian writings, that the Indian artist anticipated the Greek artist by more than 2,000 years, that Indian intellectuals were the first to conceive astronomy even earlier than the Greeks, that it was India which originated the concept of zero and the decimal system and that genetic evidence shows that the people of India lived by themselves within the Indian borders for tens of thousands of years and were not foreigners to the Indian soil. 

Conclusive scientific evidence has now been obtained to show that there never has been such a people as an "Aryan race", which is racist in conception. Besides, it is wrong to connect the Indian caste system to the concept of Aryan invasion that equated "upper caste'' Hindus genetically closer to west Europeans than lower caste Hindus - a theory not only unscientific, but also bordering on fabrication.

What NS Rajaram has done in this brilliant study is to hit a mortal blow to the Aryan invasion theory, using archaeology and pre-historic anthropology to push his argument through. In this, of course, he had to bring in the history of the river Saraswati and the origins of the Indus-Saraswati civilisation that was in existence for more than a thousand years before the supposed Aryan invasion.

What Western 'scholars' in their ignorance forget was that there is a not a single mention of any alien invasion or migration of 'Aryans' in ancient Indian literature; what has been noted instead is migration of Indians out of India. In other words, it was India that took civilisation to the west and not the other way round. Western scholars could not accept that the Sanskrit word 'Arya' merely meant 'noble' and had no association with race. Rajaram quotes the Sanskrit saying, Mahakula kulin arya sabhya sajjana sadhavah, that meant "an arya is one who hails from a noble family, is of gentle behaviour and demeanour, is good natured and of righteous conduct''.

But where does the river Saraswati come in the picture? It was alongside the river Saraswati that the great Harappan civilisation prospered. The end of that age occurred around 2000 BC with the final drying up of the river. It was the drying up of the river that caused the collapse of the Harappan civilisation and not any invasion.

The Rig Vedic people were in India as early as 4000 BC. They were not aliens and the decipherment of the Indus script clearly shows that Vedic Sanskrit Indian civilisation was more ancient than the Mesopotamian civilisation. This has been proved by recent finds of underwater settlements in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu dating to before 7000 BC.

The falsity of an Aryan invasion has been exposed before - as in 1993 by S Talgeri - but Rajaram has produced fresh evidence that is unchallengeable. It was not the so-called Aryans who brought civilisation to India but it was the Indian who took civilisation to the West.

The Vedic people were a maritime people who lived in the enormous riverine delta and it is now a scientific fact that biological connections between South-East Asia and India are much closer than that of India and central Asia or Europe. Also, Vedic India has a strong maritime component and recent research has shown that Indian cotton was exported to south and central America going back to 2000 BC. It was not Columbus who discovered a sea route to America but the Yadavs who excelled in boat building and navigational skills. Those are recent findings, scientifically proved.

Rajaram, in the circumstances, gives us a wholly now picture of ancient Vedic India that places his work in a class of its own, unsurpassed as of now, but made possible by recent scientific and historical discoveries. "Let us make the whole world aryan," says the Rig Veda. And it is about time, too.

10-05-2006, 07:31 AM

http://www.hinduwisdom.info/aryan_invasion_theory.htm

10-17-2006, 01:57 PM

QUOTE"Given the unhappy example of scholarship on myth, particularly that
on Aryan or Indo-European myth, is one forced to conclude that
scholarly discourse is simply another instance of ideology in
narrative form? The topic is a painful but important one for me, as I
continue my struggle to extricate from a discipline, a paradigm, and a
discourse that I adopted early in my academic career with insufficient
critical reflection. To a certain extent, writing this book has been
an attempt to undo my (Lincoln's) earlier lack of awareness and make
amends for it (Lincoln 1999, p. xii)."

"As a student of history of religions, I (Lincoln) was taught that
Fredric Max Muller inaugurated our discipline but his work on
"comparative mythology" foundered on his own incompetence, as did the
later attempt of Sir James George Frazer. The field was rescued, so
the narrative went, by Dumezil with the support of some talented
colleagues, Wikander, Otto Hoffer, Jan De Vries, and Emile Benveniste
among them. Older scholars also entered my awareness, including
Hermann Guntert, Herman Lommel, Walter Wust, Rudolf Much, Franz
Altheirm, Richard Reitzenstein, and Hans Heinrich Schaeder, and many
of these men were deeply involved with the Nazi movement. To that
side of their work, however, I was largely blind. Instead of
dangerous ideologues, I saw talented linguists, erudite Orientalist (a
word not yet suspect), and trailblazing students of myth. Whatever
questions I hadâand they were not manyâwere deftly deflected. The
"Aryan thesis" was fundamentally sound, I was told, although Hitler
and Co. had badly abused it. But no one spoke of "Aryans'" anymore
or located their (presumed) Urheimat in Scandinavia, Germany, or the
North Pole. Rather, the postwar discourse dealt with Indo-Europeans,
elided questions of race, and placed the origin of this sanitized
people off to the east, on the Russian steppes. IN THE PAGES THAT
FOLLOW, I (LINCOLN) HOPE TO SHOW THAT THINGS ARE NOT THAT SIMPLE AND
THE PROBLEMSâMORAL AND INTELLECTUALâ THAT ATTEND THIS DISCOURSE OR
DISCIPLINE ARE NOT SO EASILY RESOLVED (Lincoln 1999, pp. xii-xiv,
emphasis added)."

"Reading Jones with these preconceptions and interests, Germans
rapidly came to see themselves as a Volk with a much deeper, more
glorious, and more heroic past than anyone previously dared to
imagine. Germans were relieved of the need to compete with Greeks and
Romans, for they now discovered themselves part of the same primordial
group. Since India was assumed to be the oldest member of that group,
interest in Sanskrit burgeoned, as did the prestige for all things
ancient and Indic, particularly after publication of Friedrich
Schlegel's Uber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (1808), which made
the case for India as the Aryan homeland (Lincoln 1999, pp. 55-56)."

"One might think this position (that the English colonialist should
convert their Indian "brethren" to the Gospel) would have endeared Max
Muller to missionaries, but in fact it did not. Rather, they found
him entirely too sympathetic to the "heathen" and suspected him of
being insufficiently committed to the faith. Accordingly, in 1860 he
was passed over for Oxford's Boden chair in Sanskrit, which carried
responsibility for preparing the Sanskrit-English dictionary, both of
which were intended, under the terms of Lt-Col Boden's will, to
advance the conversion of Indians to Christianity, not to foster
English understanding or respect for India (Lincoln 1999, p. 68,
parenthesis added)."

"His accomplishments and large body of admirers notwithstanding,
Jones's reputation has slipped in recent years, particularly since
Edward Said traced the genealogy of Orientalismâthat is, an
acquisitive, dominating, classifying, and distorting exercise of
knowledge and power in the service of Western imperial
interestsâdirectly to Sir William's door (Lincoln 1999, p. 84)."

"Since the atrocities of the Nazis in the Second World War, the term
"Aryan" has virtually disappeared from polite conversation. Scholars
who wish to pursue the old discourse while marking their distance from
its less savory aspects now use the term "(Proto-)Indo-European," also
a coinage of the nineteenth century. In doing so, many sincerely
believe they have thereby sanitized the discourse and solved the
problems, but things are not so simple. Often such euphemizing
attempts are incomplete, superficial, evasive, and disingenuously
amnesiac (Lincoln 1999, pp. 94-95)."

"In specific, reconstructing a "protolanguage" is an exercise that
invites one to imagine speakers of that protolanguage, a community of
such people, then a place for that community, a time in history,
distinguishing characteristics, and a set of contrastive relations
with other protocommunities where other protolanguages were spoken.
FOR ALL THIS, NEED IT BE SAID, THERE IS NO SOUND EVIDENTIARY WARRANT
(Lincoln 1999, p. 95, emphasis added)"

"Scholars from Sir William Jones to the PRESENT imagined this group
(Aryans aka Indo-Europeans) as their most ancient ancestors and
created for them an account of origins that, in its many variants,
carried biblical, colonialist, racist, Orientalist, anti-Semitic,
anti-Christian, and militarist valences at one time or another
(Lincoln 1999, pp. 211-212, parenthesis and emphasis added).

"Conceivably, the Stammbaum theory is correct, although its logic
involves leaps that are open to question. First, it explains the
relation among the Indo-European languages as the result of divergence
from a hypothetical protolanguage, or Ursprache. In theory, however,
one can also explain this as resulting from processes of convergence,
rather than divergence, as N. S. Trubetzkoy argued in a famous article
published on the eve of the Second World War. Pace the Stammbaum,
Trubetzkoy offered a wave model, in which each group in a string of
peoples had its own language and interacted socially and
linguistically with its neighbors (Lincoln 1999, p. 212)."

"Other authors have challenged the Stammbaum model on other grounds,
observing that even if the historically attested Indo-European
languages did descend from a single proto-language, the existence of
this ancestral language by no means implies the existence of a single,
ethnically homogeneous people who spoke it. Thus Franco Crevatin
suggested that Swahiliâan artificial lingua franca, spoken across vast
portions of Africa as an instrument to facilitate long distance
tradeâmay be a better analogue than Latin for theorizing
Proto-Indo-European. His desire, like Trubetzkoy's, seems to be to
imagine a more irenic, more diverse past as a means to guard against
scholarly narratives that encode racism and bellicosity. In
Crevatin's view there was a Proto-Indo-European language and there
were people who spoke it for certain finite purposes, but no community
of Proto-Indo-Europeans. Similar is Stefan Zimmer's position,
intended as a rebuke of racist theories, hypothesizing a protolanguage
spoken not be an ethnically pristine Urvolk but by a shifting, nomadic
colluvies gentium, a "filthy confluence of peoples," (Lincoln 1999,
pp. 212-213)."

"And when the aggressive tendency to conflate the Aryan with the
Nordic caused alarm in the 1920's and the 1930's, scholars who had
their reasons for opposing the Nazis, like Sigmund Feist (1865-1943),
V. Gordon Childe (1892-1957), and Wilhelm Koppers (1886-1961)
advocated a homeland out on the Russian steppes. After the Nazis and
their views had been defeated, Marija Gimbutas won considerable
support for this thesis in a series of publications that began in
1956. As she fleshed out her ideas in later decades, however, it
became clear she had a more complicated story to tell. Her
invasionary narrative drew a sharp contrast between aggressive,
patriarchal, nomadic and artistically incompetent Indo-Europeans from
the "Kurgan culture" of the steppes and the pacific, matrifocal,
agricultural aesthetically sophisticated, much more ancient and
admirable Old Europeans of Mitteleuropa. The Soviet takeover of her
native Lithuania was a transparent subtext.

When Gimbutas' s views had become near hegemonic, Colin Renfrew
challenged them, arguing for a homeland in Anatolia at a much earlier
date than others had posited. This let him associate the
Indo-European dispersal with the slow, peaceful diffusion of
agriculture rather than a rapid expansion by military might. Other
theories have proliferated in recent year, most of them fueled by
parochial nationalisms. Georgians favor the Caucasus, Indian the
Hindu Kush, Armenians Armenia, and others imply insist on the
autochthony of their own people and reject any theory of dispersal or
invasions.

All of these exercises in scholarship (=myth+footnotes) suffer from
the same problem. They attempt to reach far back into prehistory that
no textual sources are available to control the inquiry, but where
archaeology offers a plethora of data. IN practice, all the remains
found throughout Eurasia for a period of several millennia can be
constituted as evidence from which to craft the final narrative, but
it is often the researchers' desires that determine their principles
of selection. When neither the data nor the criticism of one's
colleagues inhibits desire-driven invention, the situation is ripe for
scholarship as myth. Prehistory here becomes "preâ" in a radical
sense: a terrain of frustration and opportunity where
historians-cum-mythographers can offer origin accountsâcomplete with
heroes, adventurers, great voyages, and primordial paradise lostâall
of which reflect and advance the interests of those who tell them.
Ideology in narrative form (Lincoln 1999, p. 215)."

"The position I (Lincoln) urge is the following. First, we accept as
established the existence of a language family that included
Tocharian, Indic, Iranian, Armenian, Anatolian, Greek, Italic,
Phrygian, Thracian, Baltic, Slavic, Germanic, and Celtic. Second, we
acknowledge that the relations among these languages can be described
in several fashions. Of the available hypotheses, the Stammbaum model
is the most popular, but by no means the only one. It ought not to be
accepted as long as others exists, and we ought not discard these
others unless there is compelling reason to do so. In the absence of
such compelling reason, we can remain agnostic, recognizing the
existence of multiple hypotheses and maintaining a particularly
skeptical posture toward those with histories of subtexts of racism.
Third, we recognize that the existence of a language family does not
necessarily imply the existence of a protolanguage. Still less the
existence of a protopeople, protomyths, protoideology, or
protohomeland (Lincoln 1999, p. 216)."

Lincoln, Bruce (1999), Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and
Scholarship, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

**acharya** · (This post was last modified: 10-20-2006, 01:29 AM by acharya.)

QUOTE("ramana")
What is interesting is that the US elite had a deep study of India over the years since the British period. Google Books has scanned a treasury of books(~250) on India from the mid 19th century from the Harvard Library. What is interesting is a significant number are US published books selected by committees chaired by some of the most elite figures- eg. Lodge family, the original Boston Brahmins. And add to this the support that some of them gave to Indian freedom fighters of the early 20th century. To me what this indicates is there was an idea to succeed the Brits in India, in case an opportunity shows up.
We are now at a turning point in history where manifest destiny has reached is limits.

See the Stanley Kubrick Move 2001 - Space Oddessey
http://www.kubrick2001.com/
QUOTEStanley Kubrick
2001: A Space Odyssey may be Kubrick's most famous and influential film. Steven Spielberg has called it his generation's "Big Bang", focusing their attention on the race to space. The special effects techniques that Kubrick pioneered were later built upon by Ridley Scott and George Lucas for films such as Alien and Star Wars, respectively. 2001 is particularly notable as one of the few films in which space travel is presented in as realistic a manner as possible. 

This is To understand the evolutionary thinking in the west from 1700s. The discovery of sanskrit in the 1700s removed the myths of Hebrew being the root language of European languages and freed their mind from the biblical box in which the western thought process operated till that time. After 1830s the west left the arabic centric world view to the new 'aryan' centric world view to expand their horizon- intellectually and materially.

For widening their thought process they had to read the Indian texts and other translations of the Indic civilization literature and this fueled the scientific progress to the 20th century. US with their resources and the Boston Brahmins with their intellectual inquiry were the first to explore these deeply.
This is one of the reasons for the funding of study of Indic studies in the last 100 years the western universities. The idea to succeed the Brits in India came up after WWI when Brits over reached in that war.

10-19-2006, 09:57 PM

Edward Wadie Said was a Palestinian-American literary theorist, critic, and outspoken Palestinian activist. He was a University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and is regarded as a founding figure in post-colonial theory. His book "Orientalist" is an important study to gain insight about the linkage between European imperialists and Orientalists.

Although Said is more concerned about European study of Muslim world, it also has links to British/German study of India.

QUOTEâAll academic knowledge about Indiaâ, Edward Said wrote in the introduction to his book 'Orientalism', is âtinged and impressed with, violated by, the gross political factâ of Western colonialism. Reading these words recently, I was reminded of R. S. McGregor, who taught me Hindi when I was a Cambridge undergraduate in the early 1990s. McGregor was a tidy, inexpressive man whose desk was piled with pages in progress from the HindiâEnglish dictionary he went on to publish in 1993. He had not visited India in decades, and his interest in the here and now of South Asia was so slight that he greeted me on the morning after Rajiv Gandhiâs assassination by enquiring what I had understood of the Hindustani verses he had assigned me. If McGregor felt remorse that his long employment by the Faculty of Oriental Studies implicated him in a sinister enterprise that is aimed, in Saidâs words, at âdominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orientâ, he never let on.
.....
.....
In Saidâs view, the shared feature of all Orientalists is the âintellectual authorityâ â the italics are Saidâs; he is constantly wringing his hands as he writes â that they assume âover the Orient within western cultureâ. What Said seems to be saying is, it doesnât matter if you donât subscribe to the Imperialist mindset, or oppose it, or if you couldnât care either way, because you are completely occupied by what you imagine is a narrow and uncontroversial academic pursuit. By virtue of the fact that you are Western and have some expertise in an aspect of the East â and, crucially, that you presume to pronounce on this expertise, before a mainly Western public â you are of necessity tainted.
....
Unlike Said, who somersaulted into Orientalism from a career in comparative literature, Irwin is an insider. He teaches at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, has written books on Arabic literature and Islamic art, and is a member of prestigious bodies, such as the Royal Asiatic Society, that Said considered part of the whole invidious Orientalist superstructure.Â He rejects Saidâs belief that Western academics and artists looked at the East in an identical way. There may be an âoverlapâ, but he does not accept that, for instance, Flaubert and the Arabist and Islamicist Sir Hamilton Gibb were âcontributing to essentially the same discourseâ.
....
Where, then, do Orientalismâs origins lie? Not, Irwin convincingly argues, in ancient Athenian plays such as the Persae and the Bacchae, in which Said claims to detect early Orientalist twitches â claims that are based partly on his attribution of prophetic powers to Aeschylus and Euripides. Irwin traces Orientalism back to the half-millennium that followed the advent of Islam, when pious European churchmen acquainted themselves with Arabic in order to understand, and impugn more effectively, the rival faith, and scholars translated books by Arabs and Persians on medicine, philosophy and mathematics.

Through the Renaissance and beyond, Europeansâ scholarly interest in the East was oscillating and inconsistent, tending to rise whenever the Ottoman Turks, who three times threatened to take Vienna, seemed most threatening. Some Orientalists, such as Guillaume Postel, who wrote Europeâs first grammar of classical Arabic and procured Arabic manuscripts for the French Crown, admired many aspects of Islam and Islamic societies. Others were abusive, and still others indifferent.
.......
Irwin writes of the Revd Edmund Castell (1606â85), a holder of the Adams Professorship that Browne and Nicholson would later occupy, that he was ânot in the slightest interested in Islam. Rather, his chief enthusiasm was for trying to establish links with the Eastern Christian Churchesâ. Should we assume that these and other scholars had sympathy for what Said describes as âthe idea of European identity as a superior one in comparison with all the non-European peoples and culturesâ? Irwin doesnât clearly answer this question, perhaps because he feels that, in a world that was delineated along religious lines, it would have been odd if they had not. Certainly, feelings of cultural superiority were not confined to the Christian West. Irwin refers to Arab scholars who depicted Christian Europeans as smelly fornicators and polytheists. Well into the nineteenth century, aspiring Ottoman statesmen were drilled on the merits of their religion and society over those of Europe.
........
For all its errors and excesses, and its venerable age â it was first published in 1978 â Edward Saidâs book reminds us why this academic discipline, more than most, connects with profound emotions and memories, and why distrust of Orientalists is not altogether deluded, all of the time.

10-19-2006, 11:55 PM

X-posting....
QUOTERaju Rajagopal, Michael Witzel and Steve Farmer support the following biblical theory:

Statement of Aryan Invasion/Migration Theory - After the great flood described in the Bible that took place in 2048 BC, the descendents of Noah's son Japheth went to India and populated it. They took with them the language of the Tower of Babel that is described in the Bible. We all know that the whole world had one common language caled the Aryan language. How do we know this? Because the Bible says so!

Basis of this theory -

1) Tower of Babel story gave rise to the claim of one common language. In fact, the pseudo-science calledÂ philology was built to claim that the biblical events are true.
2) Belief that the whole world is descended from Noah made the advocates of the theory choose Japheth (one of Noah's sons) as the ancestor of Hindus.
3) Noah's blessing that Japheth will be enlarged made them come up with the idea of invasion. So the original inhabitants were supposed to be the descendents of Ham who were dark-skinned.
4) The choice of 1500 BC is based on the assertion that Hindus could not have existed before the flood described in the Bible.
5) The choice of Central Asia is based on the assertion that Noah ended up in Central Asia.

Raju Rajagopal also asserts that the following peopleÂ and their research output are part of a vast conspiracy hatched by RSS and VHP.

1) Prof. Kenneth Kennedy of Cornell University who analyzed bones from Indus Valley and found no discontinuity in the type of people who lived thereÂ during the period of alleged invasion by the Japhetic race.

2) The discovery of horse bones by various scientists like KR Alur and teams from Archaeological Survey of India before the era of so-called invasions by theÂ Japhetic race.

3) The mention of the horse in the Rig Veda that has 17 pairs of ribs unlike the Central Asian horse that has 18 pairs of ribs. Now, the authors of the Veda are also part of a conspiracy hatched by RSS and VHP!

4) All professors of logic and mathematics who point out that the burden of disproving is not on Hindus but the burden of proving AIT is on the bible-thumpers
like Rajagopal himself.

5) Scientists in various genetics departments around the world.
6) All editors and reviewers of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
7) All reviewers of American Journal of Human Genetics.
8) Toomas Kivisild who published the paper with genetic evidence. His partner Peter Underhill ofÂ Stanford University.
9) Indian Statistical Institute
10) Dr. Glenn Milne of the Department of Earth Sciences who concluded based on geological data that the excavations off the sea coast in India must be 7000 years old.

In other words, according to Raju Rajagopal, geology, genetics, fossil studies, radio carbon dating, archaeology, logic, science, mathematics, are all part of a vast Hindu conspiracy!

The only accurate field is the bible-based pseudo-science called philology. What does philology tell us? The Bible is correct and there must have been one common language for the whole earth. This must have of course come from the place where Noah landedÂ with his travelling zoo, i.e., Central Asia. All of the earth's inhabitants must be descended from one of Noah's sons. India must have been originally inhabited by the descendents of Ham who was dark-skinned.

Do you think IITians are dumb morons to fall for your poppycock? Let me tell you the truth why you and Michael Witzel support Aryan Invasion Theory.

Just as in India, where the brightest people go to IITs and medicine and only LOSERS go into humanities, so it is in the West. The brightest become businessmen, investment bankers, scientists, etc. Only LOSERS go into humanities. So Witzel is clueless about scientific methods and is probably learning about theÂ biblical origin of AIT from Hindus.

Steve Farmer is a Bible-thumper who insists that 2 is an evil number. There was someone who exposed him at Sacramento! So it is no surprise that he supports the
Bible. He is also a clueless and ignorant person whoÂ belongs to the humanities bunch of losers.

As for you, Raju, you seem to belong to the category of Indians who blindly accepts whatever White people tell you to believe. In fact, one person at Sacramento who supported Witzel and FOSA displayed this kind of inferiority complex when she pleaded to one of my friends, "Why do you oppose the Aryan Invasion Theory? We too want to identify ourselves with Whites and youÂ are opposing this." As you can see, she suffers from inferiority complex and doesn't care about science. In the process, she too ends up thumping the Bible.

10-20-2006, 12:57 AM

QUOTEwhen she pleaded to one of my friends, "Why do you oppose the Aryan Invasion Theory? We too want to identify ourselves with Whites and youÂ are opposing this." 

<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /> <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' />

**acharya** · (This post was last modified: 10-20-2006, 03:16 AM by acharya.)

QUOTEwhen she pleaded to one of my friends, "Why do you oppose the Aryan Invasion Theory? We too want to identify ourselves with Whites and youÂ are opposing this."

Mental slavery in fine form.
This has been part of the Indian elite for the last 200 years. It will not go away in a few years.

Bharatvarsh · (This post was last modified: 10-20-2006, 05:30 PM by Bharatvarsh.)

QUOTEonly LOSERS go into humanities, so it is in the West. The brightest become businessmen, investment bankers, scientists, etc. Only LOSERS go into humanities.
Well no wonder Hindus are getting nowhere, it's these same losers who go into Humanities that will author the text books that our children will read, so what we are doing is leaving the field completely open for them with none of our own people in there.

Not everyone would like to be a doctor or some science geek, it's better that there is a lot of variance within the community.

10-20-2006, 06:58 PM

An advanced society should be able to provide a decent livelihood in a complete range of endeavours.

In last few decades, Indian society has found that technical and medical fields provide the best jobs. Recent explosion in call-centers etc have provided jobs for people who have good command of english etc. Journalism and tv-program creation also has become a decent payer due to the explosion of TV channels. Arts & humanities are still much below the technical branches in providing good jobs, but this imbalanace will diminish as Indian society gets richer and has more money and time to spare on other aspects of life.

That should happen in next couple of decades. We just need to make sure that when that explosion in humanities research emanates from India, it is not dominated by macaulites etc.

10-20-2006, 07:43 PM

Closely on the heels of the Cambridge closing down sanskrit studies, & (bright) minds of India mocking humanities, and social "studies".

The point is now there is the expanding potential and influence for you know who, the "revolutionaries" once again, if bright hindu minds do not occupy those.

There are two large influences as we are seeing at present in the "studies"; one is the untimely return and affirmation of Marxism (at least in humantieis and "studies", in a post-Marxist world. The second is the application of the first one - cultural construction of knowledge, society, nation, and all the "LOSERS' areas".

The "bright" minds need to redefine "brightness"

10-20-2006, 08:38 PM

Exactly!

"Bright minds" gravitate towards technical and medical areas because there is currently more money and job security in those areas. Not that these areas are inherently more important than other areas. We need "bright minds" taking over Indian humanties studies too. Otherwise western Indologists will keep on defining the rules of the game in concert with homegrown leftists.

For all the growth India is seeing due to technical advancememnts, compare it to the depredations caused by western "Indologist" dominated humanities. Indian socierty has been damaged very deeply by these insidious humanities "experts".

**acharya** · (This post was last modified: 10-20-2006, 11:22 PM by acharya.)

QUOTE(Ashok Kumar @ Oct 20 2006, 03:08 AM)
"Bright minds" gravitate towards technical and medical areas because there is currently more money and job security in those areas.Â Â Otherwise western Indologists will keep on defining the rules of the game in concert with homegrown leftists.

For all the growth India is seeing due to technical advancememnts, compare it to the depredations caused by western "Indologist" dominated humanities.Â Indian socierty has been damaged very deeply by these insidious humanities "experts".



That is why the Humanities studies must be funded by Indians and not Maculytes.
There is urgent need of funding of large dept on Indian studies in India with well paying faculty for indigenous fields. We need well paying Indian teaching positions for these

Some millioniers can fund some 5M to start with in an university and this should be sustained for 20-50 years spreading to every universities in India.
Easy reference materials have to be available for the general public for discussion.

10-20-2006, 10:02 PM

QUOTE(acharya @ Oct 20 2006, 08:20 AM)That is why the Humanities studies must be funded by Indians and not Maculytes.
There is urgent need of funding of large dept on Indian studies in India with well paying faculty for indegenous fields. We need well paying Indian teaching positions for these


The model has to be scalable.

10-20-2006, 10:15 PM

IITs and IISc have already started having humanities departments. Some of the key initiatives which will go a long way in establishing a long-term sustainable superstructure of indegenous Indology - have also been happening in IITs. (like digitized online library of all rare archives and books; and indian-language automatic translation tools and dictionaries; bio-technology centers of excellence).
But scale of initiatives has to be moved upwards.

Also dont forget leftist-islamists NGOs like Asha/Aid too get enough support from IITs...Sandeep Pandey is ex-IITian... How will we control this?

10-20-2006, 11:08 PM

Bodhi,

The situation is that many of the technical people who are fighting the battle right now are doing it on their spare time. Their full time jobs are something else. Even with this they have made a dent. Such people working full-time should be able to turn the tide.

All the Indic research in IITs/IISC etc is still a labour of love rather than a full time pursuit.

It is still not rewarding enough in India for bright young folk to consider making this a career.

It is such a shame that even a century after original publication many of the original sanskrit works on astronomy, maths, tantra etc remain untranslated.

I remember reading history of maths where greeks were worshipped and even credited with "inventing" calculus because Archemedes had a limit procedure for getting area of a circle by summing up areas of small triangles. It was specifically mentioned, that there was no evidence that India ever thought of even most basic elements of calculus.

Now we know that it is fair to say that Calculus was invented in India by Madhava, Nilakantha etc. Taylor series, power series, idea of derivatives etc has been around in India for 100s of years before Newton & Leibnitz supposedly "invented" calculus. This realization dawned after a few Indians spent some time poring over Kerala maths texts.

Even now there is no systematic translation of these texts. You can't even buy them anywhere. They are tucked away in some old university libraries. When I check out many such old texts from a university library, I notice in most cases that I am the only person in the last 70-80 or even 100 years who has done that!

This is the conditions of sanskrit texts which actually got published. There are scores of manuscripts that haven't even been touched.

Recently I was trying to study a process in Samavedic texts called "Chala-prakriya", in which a letter (akshara) called chalAkShara is used as a error correction mechanism. For a R^icha there is a chalAkShara, same witha sAman, or even pada-pAtha. This error-correcting mechanism is much better than simple checksum and pretty ingenious. There have been sparse comments about it in few hard to get books. But it is too hard to get the original texts, because those manuscripts never got published. They are hiding in manuscript collections in England, or various locations in India. For one two page manuscript copy, the British Library London charged me 18 pounds! I see names of many manuscripts dealing with chalAkSharas in manuscript catalogues but have to put the effort and money to acquire them.

This is the state of affairs after half a century of independence, when leftist/marxist fatcats in JNU get paid handsomely to tarnish India, but no government agency would take upon itself to publish and translate these texts. NDA govt at least started the National Manuscripts Mission to preserve the scattered manuscripts. It took the bone-heads in the government this long to decide on even preserving the manuscripts.

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