Aryan Invasion/migration Theories & Debates -2

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97/sarasvati-hindu-civilization  Updated.

Hindu civilizational continuum (Book revie -2: Talageri's The Rigveda and the Avesta, 2008, with particular reference to critique of Witzel's unscholarly, unethical, dishonest, abusive, flip-flops)

Posted on the web at http://www.scribd.com/doc/8775936/witzel2

In my first review of the book published on Nov. 18, 2008 (http://www.scribd.com/doc/8116692/Talageri Annex 2 for ready reference), I had focused on the key points made by Shrikant Talageri in affirming the chronological sequence of Rigveda and Avesta.

I present a second review, pointing to the raison d'etre for Talageri's work: critiquing the 'scholarship' evidenced by Michael Witzel, a Harvard Professor.

I earnestly suggest that both Witzel and Hock should read Talageri's book (2008). If they need copies, I can have them couriered, provided I get the mailing addresses and a request. This suggestion is particularly directed to both Witzel and Hock whose false claims are shred by Talageri into pieces, with remarkable collation of evidence and scholarship.

If both Witzel and Hock do not read Talageri's work and do not respond to the specific points made by Talageri, I will have to continue Review 3 with particular reference to Hock's spurious linguistic arguments, also exposed by Talageri.

Shrikant Talageri has critically referred to Witzel throughout the book. Special sections dealing with him are chapter 1 (p.49-53), chapter 3 (p.117-129), chapter 5 (p.168-175), chapter 6 (290-307), chapter 8 (p.347-354). A few bon mots from these pages are annexed (Annex 1) so that the readers are encouraged to read Talageri's work in original. This is intended to show a flavour for the arguments of Talageri to fully expose the spurious scholarship of Witzel.

I strongly urge Witzel to read the above cited pages, and answer every point if he can; he also has the option to read the entire book. Of course, he will try to get away from this exercise as usual by breezy references to Talageri's profession as a bank employee and will avoid replying on the grounds that it is not necessary to do so! But other readers can draw their own conclusions.

Talageri has, demonstrated, with irrefutable evidence, Witzel, for example:

1. making up stories out of thin air (e.g., converting Vasistha into an Iranian and finding all kinds of evidence for this, p.50-52) ,

2. to be a confused 'scholar', forgetting on one page what he has written on another and therefore contradicting himself thoroughly (e.g., he makes Visvamitra the head of the coalition against Sudas in the Battle of the Ten Kings and has Visvamitra defeated and humiliated in this Battle, and then elsewhere he has the Visvamitras glorifying Sudas' victories in this very battle, p.52-53. Similarly, Witzel describes the Aryan incursion as the trickling-in of one Afghan Aryan tribe into the Indus area and emphatically rejects the idea of a violent military invasion, and then he himself describes a violent military invasion in detail, p.321-322), and

3. writing exactly the opposite after reading Talageri's book The Rigveda A Historical Analysis of what Witzel had written before reading it (for example on the Ganga, p.125-128, and on the Rigveda itself, p.348-353). 

Talageri's work is a veritable expose of Witzel's  'scholarship'. Is Talageri trying to pour water on a duck's back? The duck will swim away, the spurious Professor stays on with water wetting most of his slippery work and demonstrating an example of motivated, dubious scholarship.

Sotto voce

J'accuse Harvard University of retaining and encouraging an academic who is intent only on denigrating the world heritage represented by the cultural foundations provided by Samskrtam.

It is doubly shameful that the University has allowed the Prince of Wales chair to be sullied by acquiescing in gross violation of academic ethics by an occupant of the furniture. Many instances of conduct unbecoming of a Harvard University have been brought to the notice of Harvard Corporation and no action has been taken. (See Vishal Agarwal's critique, Shree Vinekar's critique available on Harvard U. files. I will be happy to provide the references, if asked for). It is time for the prestigious institution to review, de novo, the contribution to knowledge made by this chair on the lines of the reviews undertaken in German schools resulting in the closure of Sanskrit/South Asia studies. It is tragic indeed that an occupant of the furniture called Prince of Wales chair has insulted the institution's standards of ethics and academic standards of excellence bringing scholarship to a gutter level.

In the name of education, vidyadevi Sarasvati, I urge the Provost of Harvard U. to institute an inquiry and throw the chair and its occupant out and redeem the University's image in the community and demonstrate social responsibility. It is shameful that an academic indulges in general abuses without facing up to, reading critiques and respond if he can or acknowledge ignorant arrogance and crass academic incompetence. This academic is a blot on the academe and a danger to the present and future generations of students (exemplified by the intemperate and abusive response to Review 1 of Talageri's work so diligently, painstakingly put together with remarkable integrity in search of truth.

I suppose this is the hallmark of all seekers of knowledge, including Harvard University and standing the test of contributions made to the enlightenment of young students in their earnest quest for satyam and enhancing their full potential to make contributions to abhyudayam and dharma.

Kalyanaraman, Ph.D.
..

Annex 1 Ripping apart Witzel's work of dubious 'scholarship'

NB: All page references are to Talageri's book (2008).

Chapter 1G (pages 49-50)

"There has been a strange failure, on the part of the scholars examining the evidence, to reach the unavoidable conclusions we have reached in this chapter. The reason for this is of course the fact that they have always viewed the data through the blinker of the AIT. But the failure runs deeper: there has been a tendency to manufacture evidence and indulge in fraudulent scholarship in order to provide substance to the theories which run contrary to the data.

"The level of fraudulent and make-believe scholarship which dominates the Aryan debate today can be gauged from the following: Michael Witzel, throughout his various writings, from WITZEL, 1995b:334-335 to WITZEL, 2005:344, keeps insisting that Vasistha is an 'Iranian' or an 'immigrant from Iran', even a 'self-proclaimed' Iranian immigrant. In WITZEL 2005: 335, he even refers to 'the origins of the Bharatas and Vasistha in eastern Iran.' …By what statistical logic does Witzel decide that Vasistha, of Book 7, 'avoids' the use of absolutives, presumably in sharp contrast to all the other composers making lavish use of absolutives in their compositions? As we can see, there six occurrences of absolutives in Book 7, compared to, for example, only three in Book 6, and five each in Books 4 and 5."

Chapter 1G (pages 51-2)

"The way in which Witzel arrives at his conclusions is in itself enough to show up his fraudulent scholarship. But what is significant, in the light of our analysis of the Avestan names in this chapter, is that while the Late Books 5,1 and 8-10 are literally overflowing with compound names of the Avestan type, such names are completely absent in Book 7, the Book of Vasistha (and also in the Early and Middle Books, 2-4, 6-7, which are the Books associated with the Bharatas. Bharatas are in fact referred to by this name only in the Family Books 2-7: the owrd Bharata in this sense does not occur even once in the non-family Books). In fact, the only Iranian names, of persons and tribes, in the Book of Vasistha, the 'self-proclaimed Iranian', are the names of the enemies of Vasistha and the Bharatas in the Battle of the Ten Kings: Kai, Kavasa, Prthus, Parsus, Pakthas, and Bhalanas."

Chapter 1G (Page 53)

"In other words, according to Witzel's account of the events, Vasistha ousted Visvamitra as the priest of Sudas; and, in revenge Visvamitra led a coalition of tribes in the Ten Kings' Battle against Sudas and Vasistha, and was 'completely' defeated. And, later, the descendants of Visvamitra composed a hymn III.53, in 'praise' and glorification of the Bharatas, in fond memory of the asvamedha organized to 'commemorate' and celebrate the 'triumphs' of Sudas and Vasistha and the defeat and humiliation of their own ancestor visvamitra!"

Chapter 3 (p.117-129)

"As a crusader in the holy cause of the AIT, who has collaborated closely with many of the eminent leftist historians in anti-OIT campaigns in the Indian media, Witzel contributes his bit to this campaign…Witzel goes on to make the following juvenile comments: 'Incidentally, it is entirely unclear that the physical river Sarasvati is meant in some of these spurious hymns: in 6.49.7 the Sarasvati is a woman and in 50.12 a deity, not necessarily the river (Witzel 1984). (At 52.6, however, it is a river, and in 61.1.7 both a river and a deity – which can be located anywhere from the Arachosian Sarasvati to the Night time sky, with no clear localization' (WITZEL 2000b:7). These are clearly not the words of a scholar making serious statements on an academic subject: that the Sarasvati of VI.49.7 'is a woman' is ludicrous, to say the least! And if, in any reference, Sarasvati is the name of a deity or a woman, even an amateur student of the subject could tell Witzel that the circumstance presupposes the existence of a river named Sarasvati, since the word Sarasvati is clearly originally the name of a river: it means 'the one with many ponds' (WITZEL 1995a:105)…

"WITZEL.1995b:335, fn82). Here, he (Witzel) not only identifies the Sarasvati of the RIgveda with the Sarasvati of Kurukshetra which dried up progressively after 1500 BCE, but notes that it 'flows from the mountains to the sea' (a description now often sought to be transferred to the Harahvaiti of Afghanistan, with the Hamun-i-Hilmand being the 'sea' described in the verse), and accepts that it shows that the battle of ten kings took place prior to 1500 BCE. And nowhere, in that article or in his charts on the geographical data in the Rigveda, does Witzel talk about women and non-riverine deities, or about Arachosia or the Night time sky, in reference to the word Sarasvati in these Early Books…(WITZEL. 2000a: 6). Note what Witzel is writing shortly before reading TALAGERI 200: he repeatedly refers not only to Book 6 in general, not only to hymn VI.45 in general, but specifically to the verse in that hymn which refers to the Ganga, as pertaining to the 'early Rigvedic period' and as constituting part of the geographical data of 'the oldest books' and 'the oldest hymns', and he even takes up issue with other western scholars who think otherwise!"

Chapter 5 (p.168-175)

"WITZEL's FRAUDULENT ARGUMENTS. In a recent paper (WITZEL, 2005), Witzel argues, in some detail, a point frequently made by him earlier: that the Indo-Aryan elements in Mitanni indicate a pre-Rigvedic language, with linguistic features which necessarily rule out any idea that the Mitanni coluld have emigrated from India – that the Mitanni were in fact an offshoot of the pre-Rigvedic Indo-Aryans as yet on their way towards India…And all three points (of Witzel's arguments) are misleading or fraudulent:  1. The argument about 'retroflexation' is clearly fraudulent, since it is clearly impossible to know whether the Mitanni IA language had cerebral (retroflex) sounds or not. But, in either case, whether they had them or not, it constitutes no objection to their emigration from Rigvedic India…2. Witzel's second argument, about the absence of 'typical South Asian loan words' and 'local Indian words' in the Mitanni IA language is in the same fraudulent vein. The only Mitanni IA words in the record are the names of a handful of Vedic Gods, some numerals, some words connected with horses (their colours, chariots, racing, etc.), a handful of other words (e.g. mani), and, as Witzel aptly puts it, 'a large array of personal names adopted by the ruling class'…The limited available Mitanni IA wordlist can certainly be analysed, but how on earth can anyone presume to make categorical declarations about which words were absent in the Mitanni IA language?...3. Witzel's third argument is that the Mitanni words seem to preserve certain sounds which had been transformed into other sounds already in the RV language: the RV has edh, e and h where the reconstructed pre-RV forms (also in Iranian) were azd, ai and jh respectively, while the Mitanni IA words seem to preserve the original sounds. This argument is not necessarily fraudulent in its essence, but it is nevertheless as baseless and misleading as the others…Witzel, of course, usually refers to phonetic changes in 'minor details such as the pronunciation of svar instead of suvar, etc.', but (as in Deshpande, above) changes from azd to edh or ai/au to e/o could very logically have been among the changes affected in the phonetic redactions."

Chapter 6 (290-307) – 7G

"APPENDIX: WITZEL'S LINGUISTIC ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE OIT…we will examine the article presented by Michael Witzel (WITZEL 2005) in a volume edited by Edwin Bryant and Laurie Patton, published in 2005, which claims to present the linguistic case against the OIT…Witzel begins his linguistic arguments with an inadvertent admission that the AIT linguistic case is based on argumentative points rather than concrete evidence…Ironically, the case presented in Section 1 of this book (which I challenge Witzel to refute), for the Out-of-India scenario, is actually based on a combination of the Mitanni 'inscriptions' and the evidence of the Rigveda and Avesta, of which the material in the Rigveda has also frequently been referred to by Witzel as being 'equivalent to inscriptions' (see section 8C in the next chapter)… In sum, all of Witzel's linguistic arguments are basically directed against three hypotheses which are treated as the core of the OIT case, but which form no part whatsoever of the case presented by us: (1) the 'Sanskrit-origin' hypothesis…(2) the 'sequential movement of different groups' Out-of-India hypothesis (postulated by no-one, so far as I know) argued against by Hock (HOCK 1999a)…and (3) 'Misra's new dating of the RV at 5000 BCE' (WITZEL 2005: 358), from which Witzel decides: 'The autochthonous theory would have the RV at c. 5000 BCE or before the start of the Indus civilization at 2600 BCE', and 'according to the autochthonous theory, the Iranians had migrated westwards out of India well before the RV (2600-5000 BCE)' (WITZEL 2005: 369). Therefore, to sum up, there is no linguistic case at all, worth the name against the OIT case presented by us in our earlier books, and presented again with much more detail in this present book, especially in this chapter. The Indian homeland case presented by us answers all the linguistic requirements perfectly, while the AIT completely fails to answer any of them."

Chapter 8 (p.347-354)

"…the correctness of our classification (in TALAGERI 2000) of the Books of the Rigveda into Early, Middle and Late, and the fact that this is the 'right Rigveda', is established and proved by the way in which it 'predicted' the pattern of distribution of the Avestan names and name-elements (and other important words like ara, 'spokes') years before that distribution was demonstrated in this present book. A more fitting reply to Witzel's criticism could not have been found…As Witzel tells us elsewhere, 'we need to take the texts seriously, at their own word. A paradigm shift is necessary…' (WITZEL 2000b:332). Unfortunately, instead of taking the texts seriously at their own word, writers like Witzel have spent umpteen years and plenty of energy in producing voluminous piles of pure and incomprehensible nonsense based only on wild flights of their imagination, full of masses of chaotic details, wild speculations, mutually contradictory interpretations and conclusions, and ludicrous fairy tales, all of it leading nowhere."

Annex 2 Book review: S.G. Talageri, 2008, The Rigveda and the Avesta â€" the final evidence, Delhi, Aditya Prakashan interspersed with flippant, fraudulent comments by Witzel <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->AIT Club mutual admiration society member, Hock indulges in suggestio falsi, suppressio veri  on isoglosses

Hindu civilizational continuum (Book review -3: Talageri's The Rigveda and the Avesta, 2008, with particular reference to critique of Hock's 'evidence' of the isoglosses)

1. [After a detailed discussion of the evidence concerning the river Sarasvati, and of Witzel's 1995 papers on this point, on pages 111-112 and pages 115-121, Talageri makes the following observations:] "It is interesting to note that, in spite of the fact that Witzel's article actually only shows that the Sarasvati of the Rigveda is identical with the Ghaggar-Hakra, other AIT scholars lap up some other spurious and self-contradictory assertions from the article as evidence for the AIT<b>. Hock cites this very article by Witzel, which he claims is 'ignored or denied by Hindu nationalist authors', as 'evidence which suggests that some of the hymns in which the river Sarasvati is invoked (or the Goddess for that matter) may go back to a period before the arrival of the aryas in India and to an area outside India, in present-day Afghanistan and eastern Iran; </b>see Appendix A in Witzel 1995b:343 which distinguishes a 'western' Sarasvati (RV 2.41.6, 10.64.9) and a Sarasvati in Kurukshetra (3.24.3 and in book 7)' (HOCK 1999b Through a glass darkly: Modern 'racial' interpretations vs. textual and general prehistoric evidence on arya and dasa/dasyu in Vedic Society: 164). <b>Clearly the AIT club is an extremely closed mutual admiration society where one member's unsubstantiated speculative assertions, howsoever absurd, become another member's clinching evidence." </b>Talageri adds: "But, in spite of Hock's eagerness in grabbing at the straw of Witzel's suggestion about two different Sarasvatis in the Rigveda, the sum of Witzel's article is that all the references to the Sarasvati in the Early Books refer only to the Sarasvati of Kurukshetra: the Ghaggar-Hakra." (page 121).

2.[In chapter 7, <b>Talageri first shows how the theory of a homeland situated somewhere from East Central Europe to Eastern Russia does not help at all to explain the isoglosses, but that the theory of an Indian homeland explains all the isoglosses and all the other linguistic data. </b>In this context, Talageri writes as follows about Hock's arguments:] "<b>But most fatal to Hock's case is the fact that the evidence of the isoglosses, as presented by him, is deliberately partial and selective:</b> not only does Hock fail to take into account many important isoglosses linking together different branches, but he even pointedly excludes from his arrangement one crucial brahcn, Tocharian, on the plea that 'it is difficult to find dialectical affiliation' (HOCK 1999a:16) for it. Tocharian is important because it shares certain important isoglosses with the Anatolian (Hittite) branch and the Italic branch…In no reasonable dialectological arrangement of Indo-European dialects can these three dialects (Hittite, Tocharian and Italic) be shown to be sharing these important isoglosses with each other in contiguous areas and then 'maintaining their relative positions to each other as they fanned out from the homeland' to their respective earliest attested areas… <b>So Hock simply ignores the concerned isoglosses, and excludes Tocharian from his arrangement, and crosses his fingers in the hope that no-one notices. </b>It is therefore clear that the actual evidence of the isoglosses in fact shows quite the opposite of what Hock claims for it: <b>it in fact shows that the Indo-European homeland simply cannot be situated in any central area (such as the area from 'East Central Europe to Eastern Russia') </b>with the dialects simply 'maintaing their relative positions to each other as they fanned from the homeland; to their respective earliest attested areas." (p.221).

Can Hock read the whole chapter (Chapter 7. The Evidence of the Isoglosses, pp. 205-307) and point out any fallacies in Talageri's criticism of his (Hock's) arguments, or in Talageri's own arguments, to show that his theory of a homeland in the area East Central Europe to Eastern Asia is more plausible and simple than Talageri's theory of a homeland in northern India?

Between the self-professed linguists, Witzel and Hock, there should be some way to make both of them read Talageri's critique and respond, instead of being dismissive. <b>Hock, in particular, has to answer the serious charge of deliberate exclusion of Tocharian while spinning isogloss myths. </b>So, what else is new in I-E punditry?

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

Tocharian and Bangani in the East ( right in the middle of the Satem distribution ) is an insurmountable problem for AIT. The very fact that they survived only in remote mountainous regions argues for a prior more extensive presence, disrupted only by subsequent internal developments. Hittite/Italic thus must be viewed as migratory outliers retained as "Peripheral Archaisms".

Hocks's theory of concentric expansion (and trivialization of Kentum in the East) is <i>ad hoc</i>, designed only to minimalize chronological development.

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->May I take the liberty to point at some loopholes in the socalled linguistic approach of scholars like Telagheri, although I support and laud their efforts ?

A truly linguistic approach must produce an alternative comparative linguistics which could counter the ideas propounded in masterpieces of IE grammararians like Karl Brugmann. Telagheri and other persons of his school skipped this cardinal issue completely, and what you term his linguistic approach can be called philological, and not linguistic.

I wasted 12 years on IE linguistics and found irrefutable proofs in favour of the fact that the Vedic language was the source of all IE languages, but I was dismayed with the lack of any interest in real linguistics among Indian Homelanders, and found them to be guided more by nationalism rather than by real linguistics. Eurocentric scholars are even more chauvinist. Hence, I did not even care to get my findings written down properly, and thousands of pages of my notes lie scattered in my storeroom, which I do not try to look into, because no one is interested in this topic.

My most important finding was that 'all' roots of the PIE (Proto-Indo-European) language were not merely derived from the Vedic roots, but were exactly same as the Vedic roots, provided we give equal weight to all branches of the supposed PIE and take statistical averages for each phoneme individually to decide the structure of
primordial language, instead of imposing our own hypotheses for influencing the outcome of such inveigationsst, as the Europeanists have done all along.

Secondly, I would like to point out some shortcomings even in the philological line of reasoning put forth by Telagheri &c.

The idea that Saptasindhu signified Indus and its tributaries is a modern myth. Vyas jee has mentioned in MBh that Saptasindhu flowed eastwards, but adds figuratively that as a bad omen they started flowing westwards momentarily when Lord Krishna started his journey for Hastinapur to prevent a war, signifying an impending failure of peace talks. This east-flowing Saptasindhu is the cradle of Vedic civilization, esp of Aryavarta : Kaushiki, Gandaki(Sadaneeraa), Sarayu, Gomati, Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati. All these rivers are mentioned in the RV. Gayatri was revealed to Kaushika Vishvamitra on the banks of Kaushiki.

Gotam Rahugana, the priest of first king of Videha was the rishi of RV hymns dedicated to Svaraajya (ie, Videha) in first mandala 0f RV. Nyaaya philosophy was started by his descendants. The ashrama of one rishi of this lineage existed at modern Gotamkunda near Ahilyasthana in Darbhanga district.

White Yajurveda was revealed to Yajnavalkya. He was born in western UP but lived in North Bihar. It is an Eoropean propaganda that RV preceded other Vedas. Almost all hymns of Samaveda are found in RV. All four Vedas mention each other profusely. Morphological or semantic comparison of four Vedas do not suggest the type of dating we are taught by Europeans. This dating is based upon their hatred for yajna. Hence, Yajurveda had to be proven as a later invention of Indians after the immigrants settled in India. Europeanists deliberately forget that that Aristophanes explicitly mentioned in his comedy 'The Birds' that the ancestors gave oblations to fire which nourished the gods ; it is a clear evidence of ritualistic yajna among the ancestors of Greeks.

If we leave aside structural linguistics, which is boring topic for Indian scholars, and come to philology, we would be forced to arrive at conclusions which will not be palatable to neither Maxmuller's disciples nor Telagheri's. For instance, 'bhratr' occurs 33 times in the RV in all its declensions, and in 32 instances it has no connection with the popular meaning 'brother'. The latter meaning is probable only once, in the Yama-Yami dialogue in 10th mandala. There too, Yama is a descendant of Sun. Elsewhere, Bhratar is used for Sun. Hence, ancient grammarians deduced it from a root which meant "to shine". Some persons also tried to relate it to bhr, to bear. But the Sun shines as well as bears the world, while a brother neither shines nor bears. It is the father who nears, and later the husband (bhartr). Similarly, Agni is derived from a root which had no connection with any physical properties, but was related to the divine property of Agni-god.

This peculiarity of Vedic language was clear to all ancient scholars. Hence the differentiated Vedic language from Laukika Sanskrita, and devoted their lives to preserve a language which they believed to be divine. This belief was not an invention of priests, but has philological proofs, as I have indicated above. Had the Vedic language been invented by humans, it would have contained Laukika or worldly meanings even during the formative phase when words were being formed from roots.

But in an age of evolutionism, who will believe that the ancients were wiser than us? These evolutionists forget that evolution is never linear, that all species have come to become extinct, that no specie was permanent, that Homo Sapiens is not immortal, and the next higher/lower specie need not be a linear descendant of the present specie which has ethically degenerated into Homo Idiotes.

-VJ
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[dhu]

another Vijayvaani comment:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Good as it is, it should be "readable" and made easy for the masses to understand. What is the point of having great info if it can't be passed on to people ? One of the reasons why the invasion theory gets a lot of buy in is, its easy to understand. Its been repeated at every possible oppertunity and hence has acceptance as the "truth". One of the reasons why our research is not accpeted or know to the masses is, its bogged down in too much "technicality". We have not repeated it to enough people at enough oppertunities, and hence its still an alternative "theory" rather than the accepted truth. Our researchers in this field work in isolation and do not collaborate their work. Without a united front, we can't win this war. <b>We also have to teach this to our youngsters along with Hanuman Chalisa and bhajans. </b>We spend too much time teaching rituals and hymns, not enough on basics such as this.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[dhu]

Homer, Hesiod and the Mahaabhaarata

By Nicholas Kazanas

<img src='http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/images/nk_portrait_en.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The word ‘daughter’ also is orphaned in English, Gmc tochter, Lth duktea,
Gk ı˘Á¿ÙËÚ thugatear, etc; again S duhitrr alone has a root duh ‘milk’ (cf √jan ‘generate’ > janitrr, √van ‘win’ > vanitrr) and other cognates. link<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I take two very common examples the cognate stems of which are to be found in all IE stocks, except Hittite and Celtic: ‘daughter’ and ‘son’.The two are, in a sense, orphaned, without parentage, as it were, in all the branches, except Sanskrit.

Thus ‘daughter’ appears in Arm dustr, GÎ thugaztear , OItal futir, Goth dazuhtar, etc. <b>But, despite intensive searches, in no language is found a root or verb-stem to connect with this word. Only Sanskrit has the root duh from which not only duh-i-tÖ ‘daughter (milk-maid)’ but also several other nouns (dugha ‘cow’, duh ‘milking, granting’, doha ‘the milking, milk’, etc) and a fully conjugated verb </b>(dogdhi ‘milks’, duhiayÄt ‘may one milk’, du-doha ‘one has milked’ etc). Similar formations are found with √aö ‘eat’>aö-i-tÖ ‘eater’, √grah ‘seize’, grah-ia-tÖ ‘seizer’, √pua ‘purify’>pav-J-tÖ ‘purifier’, etc. (Two more feminines, maatÖ ‘mother’ and svasÖ ‘sister’ are inflected like the masculines pitÖ , bhraatÖ ‘brother’.) Some remotely possible cognates in other IE stocks have been proposed, like Gk tugh-aznoa ‘occur’, Olr duaal ‘suitable’, Goth dazng ‘useful’, etc but all are uncertain (Mayrhofer, under dogdhi).
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->And, to howsoever great or small an extent, this appears to strengthen the claims of India to be the location of the original homeland of the Indo-European family of languages.

This is corroborated by the fact that Sanskrit retains a distinctly different root word for “milk”, which appears to be older, and closer to the original Indo-European ethos, than the common word for “milk” found in almost all the other branches of Indo-European languages.

Many of the other branches have related words for “milk”: German milch, Irish mlicht, Russian moloko, etc.  And even where they appear to differ in the noun form, they share a common word for the verb “to milk”: Latin mulgere, Old High German melchan, Greek amèlgo, Old Church Slavonic mlešti, Lithuanian milZti, Albanian mjellë, Irish bligim, etc.

Only Sanskrit and Iranian stand out in not having any word related to the above.  Instead, we have Sanskrit dugdha, “milk”, derived from the root duh-, “to milk”, with related verbal forms duxtan, dušidan, “to milk” in modern Persian (though not in the Avesta).

The root duh-, found directly only in Sanskrit, and only secondarily in Iranian, appears to have deeper roots in the Indo-European languages.  According to many linguists (although many others dismiss the derivation as simplistic), the Indo-European words for �daughter� (Sanskrit duhitar, Persian dukhtar, Gothic dauhtar, Lithuanian dukte, Old Church Slavonic dU�ti, Greek thugater, etc.) are derived from the same root, so that the word basically means �milkmaid�, indicating that cattle-breeding was a primary occupation among the Proto-Indo-Europeans.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

there is a coloquial hindi word, dukaria (old woman), which expands both the indic semantic and linguistic fields.

[Bodhi]

<!--QuoteBegin-dhu+Jan 13 2009, 12:14 PM-->QUOTE(dhu @ Jan 13 2009, 12:14 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->there is a coloquial hindi word, dukaria (old woman), which expands both the indic semantic and linguistic fields.
[right][snapback]93060[/snapback][/right]
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dhu, while it can very well be as you propose, I think "DokarI" and its forms "DokariyA" in braja and western hindI might have to do with "duShkarI", "duShkarA" meaning: of miserable, arduous, difficult life/work -- since that word DokarI I have seen used in that sense... so guessing.

[dhu]

Bodhi, thanks for the correction. Take a look at this:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->dug 1 Pronunciation (dg)
n. An udder, breast, or teat of a female animal.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->and we have Spenser's expression-- "from the tender <i>dug </i>of common nurse."link<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

So there is indeed a relationship between dughdha and duhitar/dukhtar- much decayed towards the west.

[Bodhi]

dhu, that is of course very unambiguousely attested by traditional continuity too. In old as well as later literature you see words that very unambiguosely identify female with the functions related to milk and breast. One of the terms in poetical saMskR^ita for a woman of course is payodharI or its derivatives: paya means milk/drink and dhara means keeping/bearing.

[Hauma Hamiddha]

Bodhi - in devabhASha we have duShkara= experiencing difficulties.
That indeed seems to be root for Dokari but why is the aspirate kh not used? From very early one Sh->kh was common transition in the easter Indo-Aryan dialects e.g. puruSha->purukha. The modern mAdhyandina reciters have his transform.

[Bodhi]

HH, I would think the derivation might be from 'duH-' rather than 'duSh-', and if that be the case then it becomes the typical habit of prAkR^ita-s dropping the visarga.

[Bodhi]

HH - also do notice the tendency of apabhraMsha to treat 'Sh' differently when it comes as a part of a saMyukta-vya~njana as opposed to a full akshara.

As you pointed, puruSha -> purukha; doSha -> dokha, meSha -> mekha, R^iShi -> rikhi, santoSha -> santokha etc.

But look at the examples when Sh cames in a saMyuktAkshara:

ruShTa -> rUTha
kuShTha -> koDha
puShTa -> poDha
dR^iShTi -> dITha
turuShka -> turuka
aShTa -> aTTha / ATha
kAShTha -> kATha

here 'Sh-' just disappears making a vistAraNa of the previous mAtrA...

some more:

muShTi -> muTThI
ShaShTha -> cHaTTha
kR^iShNa -> kAnha

But exceptions where kh aspirate is indeed foundto replace Sh:
puShkara -> pokhara
shiShya -> sikha

[dhu]

from rajeev2004 site:

<b>Dr. Koenraad Elst's review of Talageri's new book

</b>

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>IRANIAN PEOPLES Aryans' Immigration</b>
By: Dr Reza Moradi Ghiasabadi

[ From the website of The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies]

The overwhelming majority of historical sources regard the people of present Persia (Iran) descendants of Aryans who are thought to have migrated from some far northern land towards south including the present land of Persia, destroyed native people and civilizations and replaced them. The date of this great migration is speculated to be sometimes between 3000 to 5000 years ago. Similarly, speculations on the point of origin of this great history-making shift includes a vast area from west, north and center of Europe to east of Asia, Baltic Sea, Scandinavian peninsula, north plains of central Asia and Caucasus, Siberia and even the north pole. This very disagreement and lack of unquestionable evidences on the exact geographical homeland of these Aryans point to the soundlessness of such speculations. Most of contemporary historical texts end the account of the land of origin and this great migration with a few short obscure and inexact statements without giving any sound reasons for such an important move. They usually suffice to present a map with a few large arrows drawn from Siberia to Caspian Sea and central plains of Persia.

The persistence of above dubious speculations is very interesting because it is now a known historical fact that the basic underlying reason for any human migration and shift of civilization is always a quest to find `better living conditions' and in antiquity this `better living conditions' basically meant more water and fertile land. Therefore, if on one hand we manage to prove that natural and climatic environment of Iranian Plateau was one of the most suitable one for human settlements at that time and on the other hand show that life conditions on far northern regions of this plateau (i.e. the hypothetical origin of Aryans) were far away from what is called `suitable environment,' then not only we can seriously question the validity of the above theories in relation to the path and direction of the above migration, but show that it most probably took place in the opposite direction, that is from Persia (Iran) to other parts of the world.

As any population increase can only occur under most suitable ecological conditions, the first urgent question is how could this occur under such harsh freezing cold conditions as Siberia to give rise to the idea of migration to a climatically more favorable environment such as Persia? More interesting is the fact that this unsound undocumented theory is continuing to perpetuate while none of the archaeological and geological field studies carried out in the region in question (i.e. the hypothetical original land of Aryans) show traces and signs of the presence of any significant settlements there.

In this article we put forward a more documented hypothesis that Persians or Iranians did not migrate to Persia with Aryans, but it was Aryans, including native people of Persia or Iran that migrated `in Iran' and `from Iran' to other parts of the world.

Climatological Evidences

The last ice age on earth began approximately 14000 years ago and ended around 10000 years ago. These ice ages led to formation of hugeglaciers and icebergs in poles and rainfall in mid altitudes including Persia. Sedimentations of inner craters reveal that during warm periods between ice ages, Persia witnessed intense rainfalls that resulted in the emergence of humid climate and forestation on the Iranian plateau and during the cold time of ice ages welcomed cold dry weather. Archaeo-geological evidences show that around 10000 years ago and with the termination of the last ice age, warm humid climatic started to rule Iran. They also show that with the onset of warm humid period and retraction of icebergs to the north pole, the amount of rainfall gradually increased until it reached 4 to 5 times of its present amount around 5500 to 6000 years ago. Subsequently the water level of regional seas rose and reached its highest level filling up all the hollows, deserts, valleys and waterways. This is the period that in various mythologies is referred to as Jamshid's era and Noah's Flood. An increase in rainfall and floods occurred once more around 4500 years ago, but it soon started to decline and a drought and hot dry climate started to emerge around 4000 years ago reaching its climax about 3800 years ago. This coincided with the great shift of civilization in the Iranian plateau and decline and disappearance of many of ancient settlements, cities and villages in Persia.

The warm humid climate that occurred 4000 to 1000 years ago led to emergence of lush vegetation and massive forests all over Persia and even on present dry barren deserts. In that period of tremendous forestation and regression of deserts, a green flourishing land emerged in great Persia and northern regions of present Afghanistan were covered with vast savannas and humid lush meadows. Abundant forests in north of Afghanistan and particularly its west side called Badgheys (Vaiti gaes in Avesta) is referred to in Pahlavi version of Bundahisn (primal creation or cosmology) as follows: "Vatgisan is a place full of trees." This climatic situation of north of present Afghanistan is described in historical texts of middle ages. In his moruj ol-zahab, Massudi speaks of the beautiful city of Balkh (Bactria) with its lush vegetations and numerous fields.

Vaez Balkhi speaks of hundred thousand trees of Balkh in his Virtues of Balkh and
quoting Shahriyar Samanid, Nezami Arouzi regards it a superior heaven due to its flourishing green land and Farih Sayah, considers meadows of Badgheys the best in Asia. Today, large parts of Badgheys and Balkh consist of dry sand deserts. They are particularly seen around Kerman and Sistan with far greater vastness, while in historical texts of two millennia ago refer to the presence of forests and meadows in these areas. At that time, Persia possessed rich meadows and wild animals. Many ponds, marshes and lakes with sweet water which were the dwelling place of aquatic animals and birds and many vast lush forests and reedy lands existed there. According to the above data, the warm rainy climate ruled all over Persia from 4000 to 10000 years ago. In addition, the surface of the earth, rivers and their springs was lower and that of lakes and ponds higher than today. Consequently all main craters, hollows and low lands on the shores of lakes, valleys and deserts and present dry rivers were filled with abundant sweet water and Persia was entirely covered with flourishing vast meadows and possessed rich animal and plant products, thus a suitable place for human life.

Archaeological Evidences

Archaeological findings and indications also affirm the presence of warm humid climatic conditions throughout Persia from 4000 – 10000 years ago. On one hand a great part of local ancient hills and old settlements studied so far belong to the same period of 6000 years of warm rainy climate, dispersed along barren deserts, dry rivers and salt marshes which points to the existence of better climatic conditions at the time of their emergence and persistence. Establishment of these civilizations along dry salty deserts indicate that there must have been abundant amount of sweet water with present dry rivers next to those hills providing sufficient amount of drinking water for the inhabitants of nearby cities and villages. On the other hand, there is no sign of ancient hills by the shores of present seas. Ancient hills located in the south or by the shores of the Persian Gulf are separated by hundred kilometers which indicates that during the ice ages, the water level of south seas must have been lower than today and with the increase of the water level, all human settlements were sunk. Meanwhile, in between the ice ages when the water level of south seas was higher and the surface of the earth was lower and sedimentations resulting from the three rivers, Tigris, Euphrates and Karoon were less, the Persian Gulf extended to Susa and Sumeria. Sumerian inscriptions deal with the penetration of water into Mesopotamia and refer to the city of Erido as a city located by seashores. Ancient settlements in the north were only a few kilometers away from the shores of Caspian Sea which shows that its water level must have been higher than today.

In addition, the remainders of ancient dams, including those over valleys and waterways of Khajeh Mountain in Sistan indicate the presence of higher amount of rainfall at that time. Those dams provided the required water for temples and other buildings located on top of the Khajeh Mountain. Today, not only those waterways, but also the Hamoun Lake have dried up. Recent short periods of drought in Persia showed that even a short period of decreased rainfall is enough to dry out lakes, ponds and large rivers and consequently lead to rapid destruction of animal and vegetation life. Drying out of the Arjan Lake in Fars and the Zayandeh Rud River in Esfahan are prominent examples of such threatening phenomenon. Archaeological indications and existing sedimentations prove the occurrence of numerous floods around 5500 years ago. An example is the findings derived from excavations of Qarah Tapeh by Mir Abedin Kaboli in Qomrud region carried out with the goal of recording changes resulting from those floods. On the basis of Mir Abedin Kaboli's findings, a tremendous flood occurred around 5500 years ago that led to abandonment of Qomrud region and immigration of people to higher neighboring regions.


In addition, images of gazelle, elephant, deer and aquatic birds and animals including even turtles, fish and crabs point to favorable climatic conditions in those areas at the flourishing time of corresponding civilizations. Here it is necessary to refer to a vital point. Up to now, with the exception of some dispersed scant evidences (such as collective or hill graves) found on the northern parts of the Aral Lake, scientists have found no evidence for the presence of any significant human settlement in any of those regions regarded as the original Aryan home land – that is Siberia, north of central Asia and Caucasus – during the time when favorable climatic conditions for the growth of human societies ruled over the Iranian Plateau. What has been found in those areas so far have just been cold non-inhabitable weather and icebergs remaining from ice ages and any trace of civilization found there, usually belong to later ages and as the result of migration of Iranians and other tribes to those regions.

Mythological Evidences and Old Texts

From the mythological point of view, the famous story of the great flood – found in various forms in almost all major cultures of the world - is a reminder of the existence of some actual humid rainy period on earth in the past. In Pahalvi texts, including Bundahisn, we read that Tishtar (star of rain) produced such tremendous amount of rain that later gave rise to all seas and consequent rise of water on earth led to division of dry lands into seven regions or countries.

A demon (div) called Mahrak Usha in Vidivdat (pronounced as Vandidad in Persian, old Zoroastrian text), Malkush in some Pahlavi Epistles and Malkus in Menok i Xrat (Minu-ye Kherad, heavenly reason) is a terrifying demon who brings tremendous amount of rain, snow and hail for years on earth. According to Vidivdat, Ahuramazda warns Jamshid about it and orders him to make a shelter called Var to tend a pair of all creatures of the world, from humans to birds and animals and plants and seeds, also fire and all other useful things under it until the defeat of that demon when the flood subdued and favorable life conditions started to re-appear again. Similarly, Hindus believe that Manu was caught in a great storm, but Vishnu who had turned himself into a fish with a large horn, led Manu's ship to land on northern mountains. Vishnu had warned Manu about the storm before and had ordered him to be prepared for it. When the ship safely landed on those mountains Manu ordered the seven scientists the pair of all living creatures of the earth on board leave the ship and populate the earth again. Manu had seeds of all plants with him too. The phrase `northern mountains' often found in legends of Indians living along the shores of Sand and Punjab Rivers is a clear allusion to their migration from Pamir and Badakhshan mountains in present Afghanistan which were important regions of Persia once.

Another version of the great storm is the Noah's Flood whose oldest account belongs to Sumerians. Later, it was adopted by Babylonians and Acadians and finally appeared in the Testament. The story of flood is also found in ancient Chinese texts. According to Books of Bamboo written under the reign of Yu, the founder of Shia dynasty, a great flood seized the entire Chinese empire up to highest hills. Yu competently managed to subdue it in a period of thirteen years.

References to ancient seas that no longer exist are also found in the works of famous Persian scientist, Abu Reyhan Birooni. In his book called tahdid nahayaat ol-amaaken, when writing about the construction of the Suez Channel by Persian kings, Birooni speaks of a sea in the place of Egyptian low lands; a sea whose description is also found in Herodotus' writings. Birooni believed that this sea used to be so vast that ships not only traveled on the Nile River, but on present dry lands surrounding the Pyramids which they passed when heading for Memphis. Oral legends and stories narrated by the people living in the central dry land of Iranian plateau today, approves of the existence of a huge sea instead of the present deserts. I have listened to various stories in cities of Damghan, Saveh, Kashan, Zavvareh, Meybod, Naa-inn, and Yazd which refer to a large sea, numerous islands, seaports and harbors and even to pharos.

Finally, we should point out two other facts. The first is the account of the second fargard of Videvdat and expansion of land and population increase under the reign of Jamshid and their migration toward Nimrouz (midday) and the path of sun. To me the phrase toward Nimrouz or south is an allusion to hot midday sun and the temperature increase and not to a new dwelling land. The supplementary phrase `the path of sun' clarifies the direction of dispersion which is from east to west. The other fact is the story of Fereydoon in Ferdosi's Shahnameh and division of kingship between his three sons, Iraj, Salm and Tur which is an allusion to Iranian migration from the heart of Persia to eastern and western lands and the subsequent war that Salm and Tur waged against their small brother is an allusion to inhabitants of eastern and western regions of Persia waging war against their original homeland.

However, after this golden age, that is around 3800 to 4000 years ago, a great drought and famine occurred and the warm humid period is followed by a hot dry age. At that time the water level lowered rapidly and smaller lakes and rivers dried out creating a great crisis for human settlements. The crisis that started with water shortage rapidly led to shortage of food, stagnation and destruction of agriculture, expansion of deserts, destruction of meadows and natural environment with numerous grave consequences. The drought drove people, who had descended from heights after the flood and brought about prosperity to their previous lands, to search for more suitable living places and migrate in spite of their will. This of course led to disputes, struggles, wars on the existing scarce resources and subsequent evident destructions and ruins proved by archaeological excavations of nearly all ancient Persian hills as `the end of human life around 4000 years ago together with a layer of ruins and ash.'

This layer of ruins and ash is not the result of Aryan attack, but the result of struggles and wars on limited human resources which lasted until 3500 years ago. This is a period that we scarcely find any traces of life in ancient hills, except in a few site situated in the western south regions and Mesopotamian cities. These years of relative silence in the history of Persia is very similar to the reign of Zahak
in Ferdosi's Shahnameh.

At the end of this period and concurrently with the onset of Iron Age, that is around 3500 years ago, the weather gradually started to ameliorate and prepared the grounds for expansion and prosperity of new Persian civilizations which regained their previous favorable climatic environment around 2800 years ago.

On the basis of above facts, the theory of Aryan migration from north toward the present Persia and Asia Minor does not seem feasible. What is more probable is that Aryans are native people who lived on this land due to its most favorable living conditions since antiquity. This is supported by abundant traces of civilizations found while there is no trace of any similar settlements in any nearby places. Cultural and civil changes of the Iron Age are indeed the rational development of the Bronze Age and not the result of the arrival of another tribe to the region. These native Aryans migrated to the high lands during the intense increase in rainfall and returned to their previous lowlands after the intense decrease in rainfall. They migrated from the heart of Persia at least twice after the great flood:

1- Once after regression of seas and lakes and drying out of marshes remaining from the great flood when they descended from neighboring mountains and migrated to fertile lands and sedimentary plains which was naturally a vertical migration from high to low lands. The onset of these shifts was in the middle of the humid warm period and after the intense rainfalls known as the storm of Jamshid's reign or the Noah's Flood in 5500 years ago. Two great migrations are two examples of this kind of migration: first the Aryan Indian migration from the Hindukoush Mountains to newly dried out lands of Panjab and shores of the Sand River recorded in Rig Vedas. The second is the Elamite and Sumerian migration from western mountains of Persia to newly dried marshes of Khuzestan and Mesopotamia. There are clear references to the Sumerian migration from `the east' to Sumeria or Shinar in the Old Testament (Genesis, chapter one).

They brought the idea of establishment of a new civilization to the Nile valley and Egypt. There are also hypotheses about Phoenician migration from shores of the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean shores. On the other hand, we know Sumerians were physically very similar to present inhabitants of Baluchestan and Afghanistan and the Sand Valley. Their artistic and architectural works testify that the Sumerian civilization and the north west Indian civilization were similar to eastern Persian civilization and perhaps undoubtedly originate from the same source. Recent excavations by Yusef Majidzadeh in Jiroft are additional proof for such hypothesis.

2- Once again, there were migrations during the drought occurring 3500 to 4000 years ago in search of more suitable dwelling places from Persia or in Sumerian words from "Sacred motherland" to other lands, abandoning living places prepared 5500 years ago and in which they lived 1500 years due to climatic unpleasant events.

3- Various tribes and peoples lived in the ancient land of great Persia; one and perhaps the general cultural name of all of them was Aryan. All present Persian tribes and people are offspring of those old tribes and people, including Aryans who migrated many times in harmony with climatic changes from high to low lands and vice versa. It is not possible to attribute the beginning of Persian history to the idea of a migration in an unknown time, from an unknown place, to an un destination and through unknown path and only regard them as the ancestors of present Persians.

4- In ancient Persian beliefs, `North' or "Apakhtar" is the headquarter of Ahriman (devil), the dwelling place of div-s (demons) and evil-doers on the entrance way to Hell. If the northern lands were Persian original motherland, they would never talk about it in this way. On the basis of all the above facts discussed here briefly, it seems that Persians (Iranians) did not migrate with Aryans to Persia (Iran), but migrated `in Persia' and `from Persia' and moved to other places.


For further detail and bibliographical sources refer to "Aryan Migrations and the Climatic State of Ancient Persian Seas" (Sec. Edition, Tehran, 2005) by the author of this article.

Ref:
http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Anthropology...AN%20PEOP\
LES<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Pandyan]

<img src='http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3340/3266054834_29b060dd9a_o.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

PIE tree.

[dhu]

The "Archaism of the periphery" argument is simply unassailable.

The "Tree" model could never explain the observed phenomenon. It was more of a volcano with continuous lava flows punctuated by periodic explosions.

Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->




<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Hittite, Tocharian and Italic are the dialects which, in any generally accepted schedule of migrations, were the first, second and third, respectively, to migrate from the original homeland; and the fact that they share a few isoglosses almost exclusively with each other (in spite of being found at opposite corners of the earliest attested dialectological arrangement), makes it likely that these isoglosses were formed due to interaction between these three dialects in an area near a common exit point from this original homeland as they moved away from that homeland.  [The idea of the existence of a common exit point is also necessitated by the linguistic isolation of Hittite from all other branches.  According to all the suggested migration schedules, Hittite was the first branch to separate completely from the rest, and all the other branches together developed certain fundamental features in common which are missing from Hittite.  Any isoglosses shared by Hittite with some, but not all, of these other branches, are formed only after this initial separation, and could therefore only have been formed outside this common exit point when those branches were also moving out of the common homeland].

The homeland, in fact, must therefore be situated in an area either to the north (the Artic Homeland?) or to the south (the Indian Homeland, or the Anatolian Homeland) of the general Indo-European world: the exit point, leading away from the other dialects, led into the Eurasian zone, from where the three dialects migrated or expanded into their earliest attested areas.

<b>But this cannot be to the north, since the last dialects </b>in the homeland (see earlier), Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Armenian, Greek, and also Albanian as we shall see, <b>are all found in their earliest attested stages, as the southernmost dialects of Indo-European.</b>

<b>The Anatolian Homeland theory, likewise, fails to explain the isoglosses </b>shared by the last branches in the Homeland: Winn points out that <b>the Anatolian theory fails to explain “the Indo-Iranian problem. </b>..<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[HareKrishna]

Bactria(tadjik)-Himalaya economic complex;origin of aryans? <!--emo&:o--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ohmy.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<img src='http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/9927/indoeuropeaninvasion.th.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

[HareKrishna]

Got it from email-

For 2-3 years i try to find the origin of R1a and IE languages.
From what i read until now will result this picture:
R1a originated in ex-Yugoslavia
in neolithic one group of R1a migrated from Yugoslavia in Ukraine stepe but it didnt find any good land there so he travel further for 300 days until they reach Afganistan ,Tadjikistan and Kashmir and finaly find some good agricultural land.
There formed a R1a nucleous and forming Bactria-Kashir economic complex .They either have the IE language from Balkans or learned this language from native populations(from near-by indians for exemple).
Then they spread east to India and west to Ukraine and Europe.
Is intersting that the newest theory about IE expansion is called Bactria theory.Bactria is a region from Afganistan and Tadjikistan.AMAIZING coincidence.

In Europe ,IE invaded first the Balkan area and next the Poland and Scandinavia following the climatic lineages of warm which go up to Scandinavia.The reason that Poland and Sweden have so much R1a is because it was sparsely populated comparatively whit Germany (as today Germany have a huge density population in Europe),it was at the border whit the stepe and it was in the plain.
The IE people have some problem to travel south trough Alps and Carpatian mountains so we observ a drop of R1a just like the iranian desert and big density of elamite populatin in west Iran stoped further advances of R1a in Iran.
Im not agree that is a sudden big drop o R1a in western Europe ,10-20 % of population whit R1a is still a big number .It look more like a step by step drop.

So what do you think? answer to all your questios?

[acharya]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KD30Df01.html

<b>
Indus Valley code is cracked - maybe
By Raja Murthy</b>

MUMBAI - A 4,500-year-old mystery has been revived, with Indian-American scientists claiming on April 23 that the puzzling symbols that were found on Indus Valley seals are indeed the written script of a language from an ancient civilization.

But skeptics, such as historian Steve Farmer and Harvard University Indologist Michael Witzel, say that claims of the Indus Valley civilization having a written language, and therefore a literate culture, are generally created by pseudo-nationalists from India, Hindu chauvinists and right-wing political frauds who wish to glorify the existence of an ancient Hindu civilization.

The civilization on the banks of the 2,900-kilometer long Indus, one of the world's great rivers with a water volume twice that of the Nile, is said to have flourished between 2600 BC to 1900 BC.

Unlike its river valley contemporaries in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and China, very little is known about the Indus Valley civilization, largely because its "script" is yet to be deciphered, even though ruins were excavated 130 years ago.

There appears little doubt that a reasonably advanced civilization thrived in the Indus Valley before mysteriously vanishing. But for the past decade, scholars and scientists worldwide have argued whether engravings found on hundreds of Indus Valley objects, such as seals and tablets, are a mysterious script of a language - like the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics - or whether they are merely non-lingual signs or pictograms.

On April 23, the US-based Science journal published a paper by an Indian and Indian-American team of scientists and researchers that claimed patterns of symbols found on Indus objects had the definitive linguistic pattern found in written languages. Such a pattern is different from non-linguistic signs.

The paper, titled "'Entropic Evidence for Linguistic Structure in the Indus Script”, featured the findings of Indian-born researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai [1].

It claims computer analysis revealed comparative "entropic evidence" that Indus signs have a linguistic order similar to some of the world's oldest languages, such as Sumerian from Mesopotamia, classical Tamil and Sanskrit from the Indian sub-continent.

Comparative entropy involves a mathematical process by which an unknown variable can be theoretically determined using known related variables. In this case, researchers say they used computer analysis to compare the pattern of Indus symbols with the patterns of known spoken and mathematical languages. This is the first time that such a process has been used to determine whether unknown symbols are the written script of a language.

"The findings provide quantitative evidence suggesting that the people of the 4,500-year-old Indus civilization may have used writing to represent linguistic content," said project leader Rajesh Rao, a computer scientist at the University of Washington.

"If this is indeed true," Rao told Asia Times Online, "then deciphering the script would provide us with unique insights into the lives and culture of the Indus people."

The 130-year-old excavations in the Indus Valley, covering areas in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, have revealed evidence of an urban civilization. Ruins of excavated Indus Valley cities such as Mohenjadaro and Harappa have revealed elaborate urban infrastructure such as well-planned streets, brick houses, sophisticated drainage and water-storage systems, trading, use of weights, jewelry, knowledge of metallurgy and tool-making. Archaeologists say many more Indus Valley cities are yet to be excavated.

The problem is that any new "path-breaking" Indus Valley research findings have to pass credibility tests. The Indus Valley puzzle took a more crooked dimension in the past decade. India's right-wing political outfits that grew in this period, such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have been known to make clumsy, ridiculously amateurish attempts to "rewrite" over 5,000 years of Indian history.

Such fake coloring of authentic Indian and Hindu religious history was to feed a narrow-minded sectarian, political and chauvinistic agenda. The BJP has denied such history-faking tricks. But a senior BJP worker in Kolkata, an art critic by profession, told this correspondent in 2003 that he was engaged in rewriting history textbooks. The BJP was then heading India's central government.

This history tomfoolery included attempts to portray the Indus Valley culture as a Hindu civilization. Some fraudsters have even produced fake Indus seals as "proof" of an advanced society with rich, as yet undiscovered, literature.

But the genuine Indus symbols are merely simple non-linguistic signs common in the ancient world, according to a controversial paper in 2004 titled "The Collapse of the Indus-Script Thesis: The Myth of a Literate Harappan Civilization". The paper was written by comparative historian Steve Farmer; Richard Sproat, a biomedical computer scientist at the Oregon Health and Science University, Portland; and Michael Witzel, an Indologist from the Department of Sanskrit and Indian studies at Harvard University.

Five years later, in 2009, Rajesh Rao and his colleagues' year-long study claimed to have debunked the debunkers Farmer, Sproat and Witzel. The California-based Packard Foundation and Mumbai-based Sir Jamsetji Tata Trust sponsored the project. The global media reported on Rao's April 23 Science Journal paper supporting claims that the Indus symbols are the written script of an ancient language.

However, the original Indus script debunkers refuse to be debunked. In a quick counter response dated April 24, Farmer and Co rubbished the Washington University study. Their two-page answer was cheekily titled, "A Refutation of the Claimed Refutation of the Nonlinguistic Nature of Indus Symbols: Invented Data Sets in the Statistical Paper of Rao et al. (Science, 2009)". Farmer and Co argued that Rao and Co had compared the Indus sign sets with "artificial sets of random and ordered signs”.

They said the Rao study proved nothing that is not known - that is, "the Indus sign system has some kind of rough structure, which has been known since the 1920s”, said their rejoinder.

"Indus Valley texts are cryptic to extremes, and the script shows few signs of evolutionary change," Farmer and Witzel wrote in October 2000. "Most [Indus] inscriptions are no more than four or five characters long; many contain only two or three characters. Moreover, character shapes in mature Harappa appear to be strangely 'frozen', unlike anything seen in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia or China."

The left-leaning Indian news magazine Frontline carried Farmer's and Witzel's article in a cover story titled "Horseplay in Harappa - In the 'Piltdown Horse' hoax, Hindutva propagandists make a little Sanskrit go a long way”. The article debunked sensational claims in 1999 that the Indus script had been "deciphered" by N S Rajaram and Natwar Jha.

The motive of this fraud was to prove that the Indus civilization was an early Hindu civilization. As proof, Rajaram and Jha produced an Indus Valley "horse" seal as evidence that the Indus people used horses, an animal commonly mentioned in the Vedas, the ancient Indian texts dating to the 2nd millennium BC - over 2,000 years later than the earliest dated Indus Valley seals. But no images of horses were found in the Indus Valley excavations, until Rajaram and Jha produced their horse seal.

Farmer and Witzel proved that the horse seal was a fraudulent computerized distortion of a broken "unicorn bull" seal. The fake horse seal was derided as the "Piltdown Horse", an imaginary creation to fill the gap between the Harappan and Vedic cultures, just as the famous "Piltdown Man" did in 1912. That year, skeletal remains of the "missing link" between ape and man were "discovered" in Piltdown, a village in England. They were later found to be fake.

In their April 23 paper, Rao's team said they compared statistical patterns in sequences of Indus symbols with sequences in known ancient and modern spoken languages, computer language and natural sequences such as in human DNA.

While Farmer and Co claim in their April 24 rebuttal that Rao's team used limited and artificial comparative language tools, Rao's team says the comparative computer analysis included:
# 1,548 lines of Indus text and 7,000 signs, from veteran Indus scholar Iravatham Mahadevan's 1977 compilation from the Archaeology Society of India.
# 20,000 sentences from The Brown University Present Day Standard Corpus of Present-Day American English - a well-known dataset compiled from a wide range of texts including press reports, editorials, books, magazines, novels, scientific articles and short stories.
# 100 Sanskrit hymns from Book 1 of the Rig Veda, said to be composed between 1700-1100 BC.
# "Ettuthokai", or "Eight Texts", anthologies of poems in classical Tamil from the Sangam Era, circa 300 BC to 300 AD.
# Sumerian - nearly 400 literary compositions dated between 3 BC and 2 BC.
# DNA - first one million nucleotides in the human chromosome 2, obtained from the Human Genome Project.
# Protein - the entire collection of amino acid sequences from the Bacteria Escherichia Coli, more famous as E coli.
# Programming Language - 28,594 lines of code from FORTRAN.

Both camps are adamant they are right. But both could be wrong, given how vested interests and human egos often stubbornly cling to inaccurate views by seeing what they want to see, instead of reality as it is.

If the Indus Valley has an equivalent to the sensational 18th-century discovery of the Rosetta Stone, considered one of the greatest-ever historical finds, that would indeed confirm whether the Indus symbols are a written language - one possibly opening the doorway to an unknown civilization. An officer in Napoleon Bonaparte's invading French army, Captain Pierre-Francois Bouchard, found a grey-pinkish granite stone in an Egyptian village called Rosetta on July 15, 1799.

Dating to 196 BC and displayed in the British Museum since 1802, the Rosetta plaque carried a royal decree in Egyptian and Greek in three scripts - Hieroglyphic, Demotic Egyptian and Greek. Since Greek was a known language, stunned scholars could use the translation to decipher the 3,500-year-old hieroglyphics. The doorway to ancient Egypt was opened to the modern world.

Even if the Indus Valley symbols are indeed a written script, there is little chance of deciphering them unless a Rosettta Stone equivalent is available. Archaeologists from India and Pakistan continue to work at Indus Valley sites, unearthing new discoveries each year.

Note
1. The April 23, Science journal paper "Entropic Evidence for Linguistic Structure in the Indus Script" was by:
# Rajesh P N Rao - Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
# Nisha Yadav, Mayank N. Vahia - Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai 400005, India.
# Hrishikesh Joglekar - 14, Dhus Wadi, Laxminiketan, Thakurdwar, Mumbai 400002, India.
# R. Adhikari - The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai 600113, India.
# Iravatham Mahadevan - Indus Research Centre, Roja Muthiah Research Library, Chennai 600113, India.

[acharya]

<img src='http://atimes.com/atimes/south_asia/images/symbols290409.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

[acharya]

A Myth Or A Reality
Rig veda mentions about a legendary river system that ran from the Himalayas to the gulf of Khambat in the Indian subcontinent. Modern technologies and tools have been able to prone that this was by no means a Myth but a reality. If so then the very chronology of the vedic civilization shifts much much earlier than what it is thought to be…
The major rivers of the north west of the Indian subcontinent (Punjab, Sindh, Rajasthan, and Gujrat ) were : Saraswati, Sindhu (Indus ), Shatadru (Sutlej ) Vipasa (Beas), Parushni (Ravi ), Asikni (Chenab), Yamuna, Drishadwati ,and Lavanavati. All these rivers have changed their courses since vedic times. Of these, three rivers: saraswati, Drishadwati, and Lavanavati no longer exist.

In vedic times the rivers Beas Jhelum, Ravi and Chenab joined the Sindhu to form one channel from Himalayas to the Arabian sea. Saraswati and her tributaries: Yamuna sutlej Drishadwati and Lavanavati formed the other channel from Himalayas to the Arabian Sea. Saraswati was a huge river. Her bed was as vast as 10 km in some places. In the early days, Saraswati river met the Arabian sea at the Rann of Kachh. After the level of Rann increased, she crossed the Rann to join the Arabian Sea at the gulf of Khambat. It was on the banks of this vast river system that the vedic ashrams thrived .It was the waters of the saraswati that gave rise to vedic culture. Thus Saraswati was called the goddess of knowledge. The epitome of knowledge. Something like the Havard or the Oxford of modern times.

During the late vedic period tectonic movements pushed up the Aravali hills, in northern Rajasthan, changed the drainage pattern of the Northwest India dramatically. Saraswati lost her major tributaries ie Yamuna and Sutlej. Sutlej turned west and joined the Beas-Sindhu system. Yamuna started migrating east to join Ganga. Yamuna now was basically caring the saraswati water and bringing it to the Ganges. Because the Yamuna was bringing the water of Saraswati to the Ganges, it was now becoming the confluence of the three rivers namely Yamuna, Ganga, Saraswati and hence the term "Tribeni Sangam"

Rig veda, the oldest of the Vedas mentions about the river Saraswati in many of its verses. The one that is very pertinent here is as follows: "ambi tame devi tame nadi tame Saraswati………" which means that: You are the mother. You are the goddess. You are the river –Saraswati. If the Indians specially the Hindus just try to find a synonymous situation today they will find that Ganges fits the verse very perfectly as of date. Today Ganges has the same status that Saraswati had many many years ago. Ganges is the life line today of the entire country. Its fertile banks and the navigability have sustained human settlements for ages. The delta that the river makes before going into the sea has helped to maintain a healthy population of flora and fauna through out the Gangetic West Bengal, The Sundarbans, and the south of Bangla Desh. The river and its major tributaries like the Hooghly are the life line of many inhabitants in and around them as they are highly navigable and perennial in nature. The Saraswati was a similar but very much on a large scale, river some 9000 yrs to 11000 yrs before present. The very mention of this river in the rig Vedas at least proves that a intelligent civilization did exist during that period of time who knew about the river and its tributaries, and the civilization which thrived along its bank enjoyed all the benefits of being on the vicinity of the mighty river. In fact if we plot the various archaeological sites like the Lotahl, Kalibangan, Dwarka,and about 23 other archaeological sites on the map of undivided India Or the Indian Subcontinent we will see that these sites are mostly on the either banks of the legendary river Saraswati. Even today there is a channel which at places is more than a kilometer wide in Haryana which is severely cultivated and the locals call it the Saraswati. During monsoon this channel carries a small amount of water which is mostly captured for irrigation—The river per-se is not dead. We will see some of the Rig Vedic shlokas on the river Saraswati which will give us some idea about how the river was in its hay days.

1."maho arnah sarasvati pra cetayati ketuna dhiyo visva virajati" means sarasvati like a great ocean appears with her ray, and she rules all inspirations.

2."ni tva dadhe vara a prthivya ilayspade sudinatve ahnam;

Drsadvaty am manuse apayayam sarasvatyamrevad agne didhi" Means we set you down, oh sacred fire at the most holy place on earth, in the land of Ila, in the clear brightness of the day. On the drishadvati, the apaya and the Sarasvati River, shine out brilliantly for men.

3."ayasi puh visva apo mahina sindhur anyah,sucir yati girbhya a samudrat" means sarasvati is like a bronze city surpassing all other rivers and waters, pure in her course from the mountain to the sea.

From this one thing is for certain that the honor of the greatest and the holiest of the rivers was not bestowed to Ganga but upon Saraswati ,in fact the name of Ganga appears only once in the Rig Vedas. Saraswati features about sixty times.

The hymns in Rg veda also describes the lives of people residing in the saraswati valley and there are many Indian literature that contains references of many places of learning all along the banks of this mighty river. Therefore in Rg veda, which is the earlier part of the vedic literature we see that the river has been immortalized by the very sholka "ambitame naditame devitame saraswati" because this was the very river which nurtured the people who lived along the banks of this river and supported a very vibrant intellectual society with its places of learning, having their own resident scholars sages and seers. It is highly possible then that the very vedas were written, at least the Rg veda, along the banks of this river.

But the later part of the vedic literature, to be more precise the Mahabharat, refers to the saraswati as the dying river. It describes balarams pilgrimage from Dwarka to Mathura along the drying river. There are references to balaram"s visit to various rishi ashrams along the banks of the once great river but dying at the time of the Mahabharat. There were references to large fissures and fault in the ground of the dry bed of the river Saraswati. This has been confirmed by Landsat imagery which has found large numbers of fissures and faults in the earthquake prone Northwest India that constituted the saraswati--Sindhu Valley. Such ground faults caused the seepage of water of the saraswati into under ground channels thus referring to the saraswati as the dying river.

Refer to the map that is shown below. This map shows the River Saraswati in its full glory. The dotted lines are the later changes that came about in the river due to plate techtonic movements in the earths crust, changing the courses of many tributaries and causing ground fissures and faults, there by robbing the river of its water which came from the tributaries feeding the river and the disappearance of the water in the underground channels. More than 1400 sites have been discovered of the IVC. Most of these sites are on the Indian Territory and only a few about One third are on the Pakistan side. Important among them is the site at Guneriwala in pakistan. Manda in J&K, Ropar in Punjab, Banawali and Rakhigarhi in Hariyana, Alamgirpur near Meerut, Kalibangan in Rajasthan, Lothal, Dholavira, and Surkotada in Gujrat and Daimabad in Maharashtra. When these are plotted along the map these sites seem to crowd along the dry bed of the river Ghagger in Punjab Hariyana, and Rajasthan and river Hakra and Nara in Bhawalpur and sind in Pakistan and ending in the Rann of Kutch in Gujrat. Ghaggar is the same river which is called the Hakra when it enters Bhawalpur in Pakistan and continues as Nara in the Sindh Province. Dr. Naresh Gupta in his book "Sarasvati: Legend or History" has described the find in details and I would request my readers to read that book to get a thorough insight into the legendary river. The demise of the Saraswati, was near fatal to the people and civilization thriving on the banks of the river. The scarcity of water forced the people to migrate. Saraswati-Sindhu civilization did not vanish but there was shift of population after the economy around the river collapsed. The civilization moved to the east to the Ganga Yamuna Plains, west northwest and south to Godavari plains. The Mittani and the kassites are probably the Saraswati civilization of west. They also worship vedic gods.

At lothal site a huge dock capable of handling ocean going and river navigable ships have been excavated. Also dough nut shaped anchors have been found at this site and other sites indicating internal and external maritime trade and also that rivers were used to navigate large ships to and from sea. Therefore the river used for this purpose have to be huge and should be perrenial and should have the capacity to displace a huge quantity of water. Saraswati was a similar type of river. This river was more than seven kilometer wide.

In 1980 the palaeochannels of Saraswati was discovered by Professor Yashpal using landsat imagery. In 1996 professor Valdiya traced the course of river Saraswati from west garhwal in the Himalayas to the Gulf of Khambat in Gujarat using Hydro-geological studies. These two sources come to the same conclusion regarding the course of this mighty river. According to this the river Saraswati followed the course of the mordern rivers Ghaggar, Hakra and Nara where most of the IVC sites are located. In 1997 Hindustan times dated Feb 17 carried the research result of Dr S.M. Rao and Dr.K.M.Kulkarni of Bhaba Atomic Research Center. They tracked the course of the old Saraswati from its source in the Himalayas and its flow through Rajastan Bhawalpur and Sindh to the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat by using the same landsat imagery. They undertook what is known as isotope hydrology study wherein using low levels of Tritium, which is a naturally occurring radioactive isotope they collected evidence to prove that waters trapped in the underground channels below the ancient course of the river Saraswati belonged to that river itself. Times Of India dated 02.05.2001 carried an article regarding the research which has been on the past so many years roughly 15 years ago. The concerted efforts of about 200 scientists brought back this legendary river to life. Reality. Rig Vedic river Saraswati "ambitame, naditame devitame saraswati" was no cock and bull story but a ground reality. This river originated from Har-ki-dhun Glacier in the west Garhwal, Bandarpunch massifs in the Himalayas along with river Yamuna. The two rivers flowed parallel for some distance later joined together and then proceeded south as the vedic mighty river Saraswati. Seasonal rivers and rivulets including Ghaggar, joined Saraswati as it followed the course of the present river Ghaggar through mordern punjab and Haryana. The Sutlej and the Shatdru, another vedic river, joined Saraswati as a tributary at shatrana approximately 25 kilometers south of patiala. Saraswati then followed the course of the Ghaggar through Rajasthan and Hakra in Bhawalpur before emptying into the Rann of Kutch Via Nara in the Sindh province running parallel to the Indus river. Therefore this river which carried the waters of three perennial rivers and numerous seasonal rivers was a mighty river indeed "naditame" which means 'the greatest river'.

I have reproduced an article verbatim which was published in the Indian Express of 5th April 1999 to the give an idea to my readers, as to why such a huge civilization perished. We are so feudalistic that we still teach our students that it was the Aryan Invasion that destroyed IVC ( Indus Valley Civilization ) which the British imperialists imposed upon us, the unsuspecting and the gullible lot. Conclusively this pushes the date of the vedic civilization to 6000 years or more, back from the present.

Indus Valley civilization destroyed by tectonic changes: Scientists

PRESS TRUST OF INDIA HYDERABAD, APRIL 4: Contrary to popular belief that the Indus Valley civilization was destroyed by invading Aryans, archaeological and paleoclimatic studies reveal that tectonic upheavals led to the destruction of Mohenjodaro settlements, according to a scientist with the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) here. Environmental changes, marked by shifting river courses, changing drainage patterns, tectonic disturbances, earthquakes, floods and monsoon fluctuations, had resulted in the disappearance and reconstruction of Mohenjodaro several times between 7,400 BC and 1800 BC, Dr J G Negi, emeritus professor at NGRI, told PTI here.

The geomorphological and temperature changes had led to cyclical increase or decrease of rainfall, which had a profound impact on ascent and decline of human civilizations and migrations in different parts of the world, he said. It was evident from pollen grain studies of Sehwan lake (in Rajasthan) that there were at least 10 cycles of floods preceded by earthquakes and other tectonic disturbances in the region around the Indus Valley civilization during which Mohenjodaro was destructed and reconstructed, the geologist pointed out.

The movement of rivers away from the towns or destruction of vegetation due to monsoons might have ravaged the Harappan Township around 1500 BC, Negi said.

The long-held belief that the Dravidian cultural sites of Harappa and Mohenjodaro were destroyed by Aryans from the North-West stands demolished with the increasing archaeological and climatological studies worldwide, Negi said.

The growing evidence suggests that the Indus Valley civilization was destroyed not by invaders but by environmental changes, the most important of them being the drying up of the Saraswati River which found prominent mention in the Rig Veda, the geologist said.

The Rig Vedic description of Saraswati as a massive river and a source of livelihood matches well with the highest rainfall period around 3,800 BC but by 1,800 BC, the rainfall had almost stopped in the region followed by a dry period which led to migration to the banks of the Ganga, he said.

Quoting from extensive studies on pollen remains of the lakes of North-West India to gauge monsoon fluctuations in the last 10,000 years, Negi said there was a massive earthquake around 2,000 BC, obstructing the course of the Indus River, thereby leading to major geographical changes.

The tectonic disturbances at that time had created Sehwan Lake extending upstream to Mohenjodaro by more than 140 kilometers, he said.

There were evidences of repeated destruction and reconstruction of Mohenjodaro (at least five cycles) due to the appearance and disappearance of Sehwan Lake, the geologist observed.

Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.

The exact epoch in which Saraswati stopped flowing, into Arabian Sea, and began to loose her way in the thirsty sand of the desert of Rajasthan, is not very clear. Nevertheless, Ramaswamy, bakliwal and Verma are quite satisfied that it was not in the "Holocene" but in the late Pliocene-about 12000 years. The same approximate date has also been suggested by Bimal Ghose, Anil Kar and Zahrid Jussain in a study for the central Arid Zone Research Institute Jodhpur. If all these scientist are interpreting the data correctly Rig veda was a reality and saraswati was a reality and not a myth. The vedic civilization was therefore a civilization much earlier than thought.

Bibliography:
1. Mysterious origin of Civilization------Graham Hancock
2. The Celestial key to the Veda---------Dr. B.G.Siddharth
3. www.sawf.org/newedit
4. www.geocites.com/narenp/history/info/river
5. www.india.mapsofindia.com/culture/indian-river
6. www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia

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