Why a Faulty “OIT”
Case Can Be More Deadly Than a Direct AIT Case
Shrikant G.
Talageri
Recently, I have been asked by
many people why I am so strongly critical of the writings of Jijith Nadumuri
Ravi, the writer of the book “Rivers of the Rigveda”, who, apart from
the fact that both of us are on the same “side” of the “AIT-vs.-OIT”
divide, regularly refers to my books, asks others to read them, features my
books on his website, and regularly refers to me (or, at least, has done so
till very recently) in public as his “mentor” and “guru”.
Before going into more detail,
let me point out why I consider Jijith’s writings more lethal to the OIT
than the writings of out-and-out staunch AIT supporters (including the
Hindu Invasionists, and particularly the Racist-Brahminist sections among them,
about whom I have already written more than enough) or of those other anti-AIT
groups among Hindus who attack me and my OIT case for their own reasons.
It is not because, as Jijith seems to assume and has on occasion claimed, I
feel apprehensive (or possessively jealous) about others intruding on what he
claims I consider to be my own personal and private turf (the field of OIT
Rigvedic analysis). It is because, all the Hindu − and presumably anti-AIT − groups, or all the
different multitudes of AIT-supporting writers (who also fall within
many distinct categories) represent distinctly different groups who can in
no way be identified with my OIT case, and can in no way subvert my OIT
case from within, since none of them claim to be, or are
believed by others to be, representing a developed form of the OIT case
presented by me. Even when any of them, like Nilesh Oak himself,
openly expresses his support, approval and acceptance of most of the other
aspects of my OIT case (other than, in his case, the aspects of Absolute
Chronology), no-one would actively describe his writings as an extension
of, or improvement over, or the “next stage” of, my OIT
case: everyone would agree that he represents a totally different
perspective not to be confused with mine, and his supporters openly
criticize me for my views on ancient chronology. So there is no possibility of any
confusion between what he writes and what I write, or of the views of one of us
being confused (by intelligent people) for those of the other. Everything
is open and above-board.
There is nothing personal in
what I am writing here in this article, howsoever it may appear to the reader. I
have nothing personal against anyone. But yes, I have everything personal in
defending the OIT from attacks. The OIT is my life’s work.
Whenever I face the totalitarian stonewalling of the OIT in the academic
and media world, I always have only one real and genuine comfort in my mind (as
I have repeatedly stated in many articles): if not now, then at least a hundred
years from now, people will examine (or will have already examined by then) my
case as well as the cases of all the different AIT groups and the (opposed
to me) anti-AIT groups; and I know for a fact that my OIT
case will stand completely vindicated and all the rival cases
will stand exposed and rejected. I have dealt with every
aspect of the debate raised before me, and answered each aspect in full, and am
fully ready to leave the verdict to the future. But for that, the first and
primary requisite is that my OIT case (as well as the opposing
ones) should naturally be available for comparative examination in future.
But, Jijith’s writings represent
an insidious attempt (whether intended to be so or not is irrelevant) to
destroy my case from within (a really masterful strategy of internal sabotage)
and supplant it completely, so that when the OIT case is
compared to the AIT and the other (opposed to my OIT) anti-AIT
cases, it will be his distorted and metamorphosed version of the OIT
(since it will be assumed that his version represents a fuller and more
complete logical development of my case) which will be compared and not mine
(since it will stand supplanted by an “improved” and more “complete”
version): the OIT will be judged by his faulty reasoning and
logic and fictitious data, and the OIT will lose:
1. Jijith, as I wrote above, does
not position himself openly as the formulator of a completely rival case. He
regularly refers to my books, asks others to read them, features my books on
his website, and regularly refers to me (or, at least, has done so till date)
as his “mentor” and “guru”, only suggesting that there are minor differences.
But his entire analysis is based on extremely faulty methods
and logic, and he regularly claims that his analysis is
based on the same methods and logic used by me, and even an extension of those,
thus adding insult to injury.
2. What the common internet
warriors and trolls say, or what the (generally ignorant on such matters) lay
public (whether AIT-supporting or OIT-supporting) says, is not
important; but warning bells ring (for me) when I see what seasoned and
influential supporters of the OIT are saying:
Jataayu,
in “Book Review: A journey Into The Rigveda With The Rivers as Signposts”
in Swarajyamag, 8 March 2022:
“A
few years later, I had felt a thrill reading the path breaking book The Rigveda: Historical analysis of Shrikant Talageri (2000),
impressed by its original research, insights and refreshing perspectives that
had the power to act as the last nail in the coffin of the already crumbling
Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT). Through this book, Jijith has taken the
research to the next level, building a comprehensive, convincing and
compelling narrative”.
Koenraad Elst in an email dated 3 Jan 2023,
addressed to Jijith and myself, wrote:
“Dear Jijith,
Am in the train from Coimbatore to the south,
and reading your Ramayana book. Amazing!
You candidly admit that you are building on
Talageri's work and taking it further. Here and there you disagree with
him, but in full consciousness of his findings. Here you don't just praise his
work, as I regularly do, but treat it as a base camp that allows you to
climb even farther. You are the first one to treat his findings as
established, no longer in need of proof yet being proven further by its newer
applications.
So I
trust that in your new book on MBh geography, you will provide even more
spectacular information.”
No, this is not petty resentment or paranoia: it is my
reaction to a full-fledged Trojan Horse attack on my OIT case. My
writings have never been based on the principles recommended by people who
presume to teach us how to make friends and influence people. It is based
solely on the principle of presenting the Truth (and, whenever an error in my
data or logic is brought to my notice, I check it out and correct myself
accordingly, since it is not my ego or my popularity which has to win out, but
the Truth). So, I honestly do not care how anyone chooses to interpret my
criticism of Jijith’s writings −
he himself, in an email thread, expressed his belief that I think Rigvedic
analysis is my personal turf and I resent intrusion on my turf by others, which
is why I criticize him! Whoever chooses to believe that is free to do so,
though it is not true.
If either Jataayu, or
Koenraad, had pointed out, item by item, how, and on which points,
Jijith’s writings represented a “furtherance” or “next level” by listing out
where his version differs from and improves upon mine and is more
correct than mine, and therefore if they had openly proclaimed that
they find his version different and better than mine, I would
genuinely have had no objections: after all, everyone has the right to their
opinions.
The fact is that,
without openly expressing their agreement on the very numerous specific
issues where his views clash with mine (and thereby escaping having to
take on the onus of having to answer for the correctness of his views against
mine), his praisers praise his version as being a new and improved
version of mine, thereby, without stating it in so many words, giving the
go-ahead for his version to supplant mine. It is like a silent coup; or,
intellectually, in the same category as Bibek Debroy’s endorsement of both Tony
Joseph’s book as well as Jijith’s book, on the respective blurbs of the two
books, when the two books actually represent diametrically opposite
conclusions.
The main battle, of course, is
between the OIT and the AIT. Other viewpoints (see Appendix) are
not important, and, even if they have millions of adherents and fans, they will
never stand serious scrutiny. So the AIT cannot win the battle against
the OIT in the long run, unless my OIT case is
completely supplanted and replaced by this pseudo-OIT
(AIOIT) case put forward by Jijith and already praised by intelligent OIT
supporters as an improved version. Hence, whatever interpretation may be
put on my opposition to Jijith’s writings, I find his writings to be more
lethal to the OIT than the writings of the (AIT or anti-AIT)
others.
I already listed the
major flaws in my review of Jijith’s book. If I go through the full book in
detail, I can come up with a long list of fabricated stories, whimsical and
arbitrary identifications, wrong interpretations, fictitious (geographical and
other) entities, events and migrations, etc. But I think my earlier review of
the book is sufficient in itself:
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/03/a-review-of-rivers-of-rgveda-by-jijith.html
Also the following
article which puts things in perspective:
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/03/rigvedic-vis-vis-epic-puranic-geography.html
Further, recently, a
tweet by Jijith, and the map he put up along with it, exposed him as a
full-fledged supporter of the Dravidian Invasion/Immigration
Theory (DIT), and, more basically, showed what results when
fabrication and fiction are substituted for facts and data, leading to greater
and greater distortions:
Here not only does he
support the Dravidian Invasion/ Immigration Theory (DIT) out of a
mistaken belief that it somehow helps in disproving the AIT, but, in the
process, he goes even further than full-fledged AIT supporters like Witzel
and Hock (who now at least agree that Brahui in the NW of India
was a migrant from the Dravidian south) by making Brahui a
remnant and piece of evidence of the Dravidian Immigrants from NW
Iran passing through Baluchistan and Gujarat on their way
towards South India. Further, he thereby also indirectly deprives
the Dravidian language speakers of the South of the credit for
having developed the oldest Iron Technology in the world!
See the above map: IE
languages originated in the NW of India, and Dravidian languages
in far-off SW Iran. The whole of India proper was
linguistically colonized by these two families of languages! And all this when
the DIT is actually even more untenable than the AIT:
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2024/12/the-dravidian-invasionmigration-theory.html
My criticism of what
I have described in the second of my above two articles as the AIOIT (Aryan-Invasion+Out-of-India
Theory) is not something new arising from a reaction to Jijith’s book.
Before this, I have criticized in detail a similar stand by Narahari Achar:
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/07/a-reply-to-prof-narahari-achars.html
Even before that, in
my very first book, “The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism” (1993),
I had similarly criticized in detail a similar AIOIT theory (though
obviously I had not coined this term then) by P.L.Bhargava: TALAGERI 1993:
302-307, etc.
And even earlier, when
I was still in the process of writing my first book, Sita Ram Goel had sent me
a copy of K.D.Sethna’s “Karpāsa”. in my correspondence with him, I had
criticized Sethna’s similar AIOIT theory. While I do not have my own
correspondence of that time, I have preserved Sita Ram Goel’s inland letters of
the time. In his inland letter dated 19 August 1991, he writes
(underlining as in his original letter):
“Coming to your comments after
reading Karpasa, I agree with you wholeheartedly that locating
the Aryans in the Punjab, even though autochthonously, and then spreading them
east and south, is only a footnote in the invasion theory. You have got to the
bottom of it. I published this book because it at least places the Rigveda
prior to the Harappan culture, and makes the Aryans autochthonous. You go on
from there. [....] I agree
with you that a Rgvedic-centred view of Hinduism is narrow and leaves loopholes
through which the invasion theories pour in.”
So I certainly do not
want my OIT case to be supplanted by an AIOIT case (described by
responsible people as an “advancement” and “next level” of
my OIT case), which is based almost entirely on large-scale fabrication
of fictitious personalities, tribes and events, on whimsical and arbitrary
identifications of rivers, and fictitious migration stories (based on misinterpreted
Puranic-Epic references) and utter chronological confusion.
Sadly, one fictitious
creation and fabrication in this AIOIT case seems to lead to another,
and yet another, in a continuous chain. Thus, the need to locate the Ikṣvākus
in the northwest (Sarasvati region) leads to the creation of three new
fictitious Sarayu rivers in the area: two of them as alternative names
for the Sarasvati and the Dṛṣadvatī, and one as the real
Rigvedic name for the present-day Haro. So (since the Haro is
already correctly identified with the Rigvedic Ārjīkīyā), a new
identification for the Rigvedic Ārjīkīyā is required: so it is now
identified with the present day Sil river. But, cannot the Sil
river actually be the Rigvedic Sīlamāvatī? To avoid that, the Rigvedic Sīlamāvatī
is now identified (for no logical reason) with the present day Zanskar
river in Ladakh!
Then, to locate the Ikṣvākus
in Kurukṣetra, the “capital” of the mythical Manu Vaivasvata
and his mythical daughter Iḷā is located in Kurukṣetra (on the
basis of the place names Mānuṣa and Iḷāspada in that region).
This location then automatically stands proved as the capital of his “son” Ikṣvāku,
and even proves that the original Ayodhya was in Kurukṣetra!
Further, even the exact archaeological culture which represented the alleged
earliest Ikṣvākus in Kurukṣetra is proved to be the “pre-Harappan
Hakra-Ware culture”!
Then, to somehow
bring the Ikṣvākus into Sudās’ battles in the Rigveda (and also
to account for the Vasiṣthas being the family priests of the Ikṣvākus
in the Epics and Puranas when the Rigveda gives nothing to indicate this), a new
battle is concocted, “the battle of Asiknī”, in which the protagonists
of the dāśarājña battle become the enemies, to account for the Vasiṣṭhas
“switching over” in the Rigvedic period and area itself from Sudās
to his “enemies” the Ikṣvākus. In this melee, “the battle of
Asiknī” becomes earlier to the dāśarājña battle in one
description, but, in another description, takes place later
at the time of “Kalmāṣapāda Saudasa”, (according to some
Epic-Puranic genealogy) the “son of Sudās”. In the
process, a long list of Epic-Puranic figures of the Solar dynasty enter
the story in different ways.
Since the Ikṣvākus
cannot be brought directly into Rigvedic battles (since there is no mention of
them anywhere in the Rigvedic descriptions of these battles), a fictitious
second group of protagonist Bharatas is concocted (the “Saṁvaraṇa
Bharatas”) as the allies of the Ikṣvākus, and therefore the
enemies of the “Tṛtsu Bharatas” represented by Sudās. This
brings another long list of Epic-Puranic figures into the story in
different ways.
The main thrust is of
course the long list of Epic-Puranic Ikṣvāku kings brought into the
story, highlighting stray and innocuous references to these kings in connection
with some river or the other, all of this interpreted as evidence of the
west-to-east migration of the Ikṣvākus from Kurukṣetra to the Avadh
region actually associated with them.
And, to fit into the Ikṣvāku
agenda, Trasadasyu and his father Purukutsa (who are kings in the
period of the New Rigveda) are made older or earlier
than Sudās, a king from the earliest period of the Old Rigveda.
This completely smashes the internal chronology of the books of the Rigveda,
which is a fundamental factor in the analysis of Rigvedic history.
And then, the
crowning glory is that this is an AIOIT case which supports a Dravidian
Invasion/ Immigration Theory (DIT)!
Obviously there are
many opportunities for further research in the matter of the Indian (PIE)
Homeland in the context of the Rigveda. But not in the senseless
way done in the book “Rivers of the Rigveda” by trying to force-fit odd
pieces of Epic-Puranic data into Rigvedic modes in pursuit of pre-decided
agendas. In the field of Linguistics alone, there can be much further
research. For example, as I have researched into the new words
which appear only in or from the New Rigveda, there could be
research into old words already fading away in the Vedic texts,
which have counterparts in other branches of ancient IE (like Hittite, Tocharian,
Mycenean Greek, etc.). Or into foreign words (other than
the two Babylonian words bekanāṭa and manā
in the Rigveda) connecting Vedic with other ancient cultures.
There could also be a more honest, rather than dishonest
AIT-agenda-based, investigation into possible Dravidian, Austric,
Burushaski, Sino-Tibetan, etc. words in the Rigveda.
Or, in the opposite direction, into Vedic words found in other ancient
languages outside India pertaining to the Vedic-Harappan period.
Or there could be more detailed studies (again not as part of a dishonest
AIT-agenda) of the development of new words in later
Vedic texts, perhaps influenced by other non-IE languages. Also,
there can be honest and rational investigation of genuine
astronomical references, if any, in the ancient texts. And. yes,
there may actually be many more (and more genuine) real
clues in the Epic-Puranic texts to further fill in details
of Vedic, Indian, Indo-Iranian and Indo-European
history. The key word is genuine.
APPENDIX: The
Anti-AIT critics of my OIT Case.
In the attacks on my OIT case, three
of the groups from (presumably) the anti-AIT “side” are most
prominent.
The first group
consists of those who reject Linguistics, PIE, the IE language
family, etc. I have replied to them in my following articles (though let
me clarify that Michel Danino, referred to in the second article, is not really
a “critic” but a highly respected scholar):
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2017/11/are-german-and-french-closer-to.html
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/08/examination-of-indo-europeancloudland.html
In the second group, there
are the Hindu counterparts of Abrahamic fundamentalist people like Zakir Naik
and Billy Graham, who attack me for not treating the Vedas as an
eternal “revealed” text which cannot possibly contain such a mundane and
transient subject as human history. Recently, in an article, I referred to the
tweet of one such person (not criticizing me as such, but expressing such
fundamentalist views):
This original tweeter https://x.com/adithya had tweeted as follows:
https://x.com/adithya/status/1898635930283704352
“"Appa, how old are the
Vedas?" "They are older than you can ever imagine. They have veen
existing since time immemorial" "Oh! Did they exist even before
dinosaurs?" "Yes!" "Did they exist before the big bang
also?" "Yes, Vedas existed even before the creation of this universe
and even before the Pralaya or the dissolution of the earlier universe! Vedas
are the breath of the eternal Brahman and were discovered (not invented) from
the cosmos by the Rishis through their special ears. Hence the Rishis are called
Mantra Drashta (discoverers of Veda Mantras) and not Mantra Karta (inventor or
composer). The only thing that is ALWAYS there and has stood the test of time
are Vedas. Can you imagine that the Rudram you are learning now was chanted in
the exact same way by our ancestors thousands and thousands of years ago?"
"WOW! THIS IS AMAZING Appa!"”
But, shortly after that, I have
received two comments on my articles from such people. The first comment (which
was deleted after someone else counter-commented against his comment) was a
particularly abusive comment by someone named “Jeshthadeva” to my article “Pointless
Discussions on the Nature of the Mitanni Data”:
“It is
quite easy to falsify your fake data of "new words" (many of which
are demonstrated to be descended from the so-called PIE) in the so-called New
Rigveda. For example, if I take a random chemistry book and a random physics
book, there will be some vocabulary present in the physics book which would be
absent in the chemistry book and vice versa, even if the physics book and the
chemistry book are written and published in the same year. Similarly, there are
massive amount of vocabulary in the so-called Old Rigveda that is absent in the
so-called New Rigveda and vice versa. So, you cannot say that the so-called New
Rigveda is later in time than the so-called Old Rigveda. You will even find the
same thing if you do your modernist analysis with any two books of the Rigveda.
See how easy it was for me to falsify your work
of more than one decade. That is what happens when a nastika like you tries to
attack the apaurusheya nature of the Veda (which includes the Samhita,
Brahmanan, Aranyaka and Upanishad). Now, mend your ways or else, good luck in
your journey to hell.”
The second comment, in Hindi by a
“Ravi Kumar Verma”, was less abusive, but equally stupid:
“ऋग्वेद आदि 4 वेद इतिहास के ग्रंथ नहीं हैं...लेखक की यह सबसे बड़ी मौलिक गलती है”.
I think this second group does not even require to be answered by me.
The kind of points they raise are not ones on which I can debate them.
They must debate issues of this kind with Abrahamic fundamentalists, who hold
views of this kind on matters of religions and religious texts, like Zakir Naik
and Billy Graham, and countless of their followers and imitators.
The third group, needless to say, is the Nilesh Oak school of
historical chronology which dates ancient Indian historical events back to
fantastic dates. I have written a lot about them. Just one article will do:
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/03/dating-ancient-indian-history.html
Usually, I would prefer to allow the countless fans of these latter two
Hindu schools of thought to be contented and happy with their ideas and views,
and only react when I am personally attacked or criticized in terms relevant
enough to make me want to reply. They cannot be taken seriously, and are self-evidently
wrong.
Jijith Nadumuri Ravi is a great authority on the Epics (Ramayana and
Mahabharata) and has a huge database of the data in the two Epics. If he
had chosen to write detailed analyses and descriptions of the data in the two
Epics, it would have been a really immense contribution to ancient Indian
studies.
Unfortunately, he prefers instead to pursue an agenda: an AIOIT
agenda. And in pursuit of that agenda, he chooses to pick out stray references
from the Epics (finalized in their present form in the Mauryan and post-Mauryan
eras) and misinterprets them to produce fictitious personalities,
tribes, wars, rivers and events, all of whom and
which he transports to the Rigvedic (and even pre-Rigvedic)
period and into the geographical area of the Rigveda.
His AIOIT is now a done deed. He will not, and perhaps cannot,
retract the massive misinformation that he has put out; and certainly not with
all kinds of people egging him on. If he meets with success in acquiring a
huge following, I definitely have no objections. See the massive success of AIT
writers worldwide. Or the massive popularity and success of Nilesh Oak’s
chronological arguments among lay Hindus. Like them, Jijith also deserves to
have his own massive fan following of like-minded people.
I only object to his AIOIT being confused with my OIT, and
to the possibility of my OIT being disastrously supplanted in the AIT-vs.-OIT
debate by his AIOIT (or even being judged on the basis of his AIOIT,
and the methods employed by him in expounding that AIOIT). And I have no
compunction in being frank about it.
