Witzel
and the AIT-vs.-OIT Linguistic Debate
Shrikant
G. Talageri
A tweet, by a tweeter
with the twitter handle Ugraschrawas@Ugrashravas has been brought to my
notice (and, typically for his kind of anti-Hindu/leftist/sepoy type, his twitter
handle name is ultra-Sanskrit, and his profile picture depicts what is supposed
to be Naimiṣāraṇya, the congregation meeting place of India’s ancient
sages and rishis – remember how the “art-film”
leftist Bollywood productions of the sixties and seventies always had
ultra-Sanskrit names?):
How many OIT scholars have published papers
making an OIT case for linguistics, archaeology or genetics? Talageri did smth
half decent for linguistics, got disproved by Witzel; Shinde & Rai keep
OITshilling in media and support AIT in their own papers. Just admit that OIT
is ded.
2:33 AM · Jan 4, 2025
Did my “half
decent” OIT work in linguistics get “disproved” by Witzel (so
that the OIT is now “ded”)? Typical of all sufferers of the
compulsive-liar disease that always has these leftist/Brahmin-supremacist-AIT-supporting/sepoy
anti-Hindus (especially those masquerading under ultra-Sanskrit names) in its
grip, this neo-rishi specimen also provides (for his admiring fans) zero
evidence for his claim.
It will be
noticed that after my replies to his “review” of my 2000 book (both his review
and my replies in 2001) wherein he had claimed to be exposing the Vedic
peoples’ “wanderlust” as allegedly depicted in my writings, Witzel has declaredly
and determinedly refused to cross swords with me again. In any case, his swords
have always consisted only of lies, innuendo and personal attacks, ignoring or
occasionally misrepresenting whatever I had to say. But to the doormat-minded
sepoys (especially the ultra-Sanskrit-named variety of anti-Hindu “Hindu”
sepoys), just the mention of Witzel’s name constitutes an automatic “disproval”
of my case, even if Witzel, in the last more than twenty years has not dared
to even write about me, much less try to present any kind of “evidence” or
“argument” to“disprove” anything written by me!
[To be honest,
I feel in a sense that I am flogging a dead horse by continuing to write about
him. And I always believe in reciprocal behavior; so, seeing that (so far as I
know) he does not refer to me anymore, I should also avoid criticizing him. But
then, it becomes necessary to keep exposing a popular myth: no-one bothers to
expose myths already accepted as myths by everyone. People, as above, still
keep quoting his name against the OIT (and personally against me), so I have to
answer. But, so that this becomes a final answer and I can then
stop writing about him, I will try to put everything written so far in one
place in (as far as possible) a nutshell: who, between Witzel and I, has
disproved the other in the AIT-vs.-OIT Linguistic debate?],
Before
starting the article, I want the reader to first note three necessary or
fundamental aspects of the debate:
1. The subject
is detailed and tedious, but a very logical one based on linguistic data and
their real logical linguistic interpretation. The reader should go through it
in detail if he has the interest, the patience, the ability
to appreciate logic, and the honesty to accept
the truth.
2. The whole
issue of the AIT-OIT (or the PIE Homeland) issue is
purely a Linguistics issue. In addition, two other
academic disciplines play an equally important role: Archaeology and Textual
Exegesis. But both Archaeology and Textual Exegesis
are relevant only when they have the backing of a Linguistic background:
Any archaeological
site which has no definite recorded clue about the family-identity
and the state-of-development of the language spoken
by the ancient inhabitants of the site cannot serve as a definite basis for
providing archaeological clues relevant to the AIT-OIT
debate. The archaeology of the site becomes relevant to the discussion only
when there is definite recorded evidence about the family-identity
and the state-of-development of the language
spoken by the ancient inhabitants of the site.
Likewise textual
exegesis becomes important only when there is a text (or inscription)
which can be dated to a definite period so that the state-of-development
of the language (when the text is in an IE language).
in addition to the historical data present in the text (regardless of the language),
provides clues relevant to the AIT-OIT debate.
A new academic
discipline sought to be brought into the debate (often even with total
disregard to the linguistic, archaeological and textual
evidence) is Genetics. But Genetics in the matter of language spread
is nothing but the old “science” of Racism in a new and more
technologically sophisticated form. Genetics is
totally and utterly irrelevant to the debate.
Max Muller
himself (accused of being the prime original proponent of the AIT) had declared
(seeing the excesses of racist scholars) that “an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan
blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a
dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar”. Today, he
would have said: “a geneticist who speaks of IE genes and Dravidian haplogroups is
as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a R1a dictionary or a M1 grammar”. [To find out about the movement of languages, you
have to study Linguistics, not Genetics (which can perhaps tell
you about your various ancestral genetic/racial components and where each of
them came from, but not about the languages any particular ancestral
component spoke, or the point of time at which they spoke or started to
speak any particular language).]
3. This
article covers the linguistic arguments of both sides (as far as
possible) in full: the linguistic evidence for the OIT as
presented by me, and the linguistic arguments for the AIT
as presented by Witzel in an article published in 2005. I
deliberately use the word “evidence” for the OIT as opposed to “arguments”
for the AIT: I have demolished and disproved all of Witzel’s
arguments (see below in Section I); but no-one can demolish or disprove the
evidence given by me: I welcome efforts to try to do so.
So this
article is a final word on the subject of the linguistic
evidence in the AIT-OIT debate.
Just for
the record, I am partially-copy-pasting the essence of some selected
paraphrased extracts from my exposures (from my earlier writings)
of his linguistic and literary exegetic gaffes and lies: i.e. my irrefutable
(how I love that word!) demolitions of Witzel’s extremely-special-pleading
linguistic (and literary) arguments and fake or false claims, from my books “The
Rigveda – A
Historical Analysis” (2000) and “The Rigveda and the Avesta – The Final Evidence”
(2008), followed by some more extracts from my later blogs. I will start,
naturally, with the linguistics aspect, to make it clear who (whether
Witzel or myself) has “disproved” the other’s linguistic case.
But first,
what is my linguistic case? Here it is set out in full in
the following article on my blogspot as well as in academia.edu, and in the
three-part talks (long and boring perhaps, but necessary) on youtube:
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-complete-linguistic-case-for-out-of.html
https://www.academia.edu/51666864/THE_COMPLETE_LINGUISTIC_CASE_FOR_THE_OUT_OF_INDIA_THEORY_OIT_Versus_The_totally_Fake_and_Fraudulent_Linguistic_Case_for_the_Aryan_Invasion_Migration_Theory_AIT_AMT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VrqClBvLso
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIUfgZbRSW8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_tAL9mmLdw&t=4789s
I would really
be interested in knowing where or how anyone (Witzel or anyone else) has “disproved”
this case, and on exactly which of the countless points which make up this
case. The only AIT response to all the linguistic (as
also the textual) evidence for the OIT has been doggedly
determined stonewalling. But I have long ago (in 2008)
already examined Witzel’s linguistic case for the AIT (and against the OIT),
section by section and point by point of his article (published 2005),
as follows in Section I below:
CONTENTS:
I. Witzel’s
Linguistic Arguments against the OIT (TALAGERI 2008:290-307).
I-A:
“Substrate” words: section 11.5.
I-B. The
Uralic Evidence: section 11.13.
I-C:
Relationship Between Indo-Aryan and Dravidian: section 11.14.
I-D: Hock’s
case for the IE Isoglosses: section 11.15.
I-E: The
Mitanni Evidence: section 11.16
I-F: Absence
of Retroflex Sounds and “Indian Plants and Animals” in the other IE languages: section,
11.17-18.
I-G: IE
Features in Iranian missing in Vedic: section 11.19.
I-H:
Chronology of OIT vs. Chronology of Chariot: section, 11.20.
I-I: Iranian
Chronology: sections 11.21-22.
I-J: IE Plant
and Animal Names: section, 11.23
II. An
Examination of Witzel’s Vedic Scholarship (TALAGERI 2000:423-476).
II-A. Condemnation
of a book unread and even unseen.
II-B. Carelessness
in Describing the Arrangement in the Rigveda.
II-C. Carelessness
in Identifying the Rigvedic Tribes and their Relations.
II-D. Carelessness in Identifying the Families of Rigvedic
composers.
II-E. Blaming Rigvedic Composers for his Own
Misinterpretations.
II-F. Witzel’s Weird Directional Logic to show west-to-east
migration.
II-G. Motivated Misidentification of Indus to show
West-to-East Migration
II-H: Blatant misrepresentation of geographical data to
show West-to-East movement
III. Some Other
Cases of Confused Analysis and Conclusions, or Witzel vs. Witzel.
III-A: “Evidence”
for Vasiṣṭha Being an “Iranian”.
III-B: Viśvāmitras
“Celebrating” the Defeat and Humiliation of Viśvāmitra.
III-C: Indo-Aryan
“Invasion” vs. “Immigration/Trickling-In”.
III-D: The
Identity of the Rigvedic Sarasvati with the Ghaggar-Hakra.
III-E: The Chronology
of the Ganga Reference in Book 6 of the Rigveda.
III-F: The Harīyūpīyā/Yavyāvatī
in the Rigveda.
III-G: The
Iranian Tribes
Appendix
added 15-1-2025: “BMAC Words”.
I.
Witzel’s Linguistic Arguments against the OIT (TALAGERI 2008:290-307) (Chapter
7G of the book)
We will
examine, in this section, the article “Indocentrism: autochthonous visions
of ancient India” presented by Michael Witzel (WITZEL 2005),
in a volume “The Indo-Aryan Controversy — Evidence and Inference in Indian
history” edited by Edwin Bryant and Laurie Patton,
published in 2005, which claims to present the linguistic case
against the OIT.
Note the
academic manipulation indulged in by the editors of this volume: This
volume includes an article by this writer (TALAGERI 2005b), written and
presented to the editors in 1998. After delaying the publication for so
long, it was sent to me for final correction in 2004, and I was
told not to make any changes beyond correcting printing errors, etc. Naturally,
I received the impression that all the other articles would be similarly (out)dated.
However, Witzel’s article was apparently allowed to be updated: he refers
repeatedly not only to my book printed in 2000 (TALAGERI 2000), but even
to his “review” of that book on his internet site in 2001(WITZEL
2001b). The footnote to the Introduction to the volume by the editors (p. 17),
likewise, refers directly, and in detail, to this “review”, and only
very indirectly to my very detailed reply to it (TALAGERI 2001, which, of
course, Witzel himself does not refer to at all in his article). This is the
“objective” western academic world for you!
Here, however,
we will only examine the purported linguistic
arguments against the OIT in the article by Witzel, ignoring not only
personal comments but also his arguments based on textual references, which are
dealt with elsewhere, and which are irrelevant
after the evidence presented in Section I of my third book (TALAGERI 2008).
But note
that Witzel begins his linguistic arguments with an inadvertent admission that
the AIT linguistic case is based on argumentative points rather than concrete
evidence: “The direction of the
spread of languages and linguistic innovations cannot easily be determined, unless we have written materials (preferably
inscriptions). Therefore, theoretically,
a scenario of an IE emigration from the Panjab is possible. But some
linguistic observations such as the distribution of languages, dialect
features, substrate languages, linguistic paleontology, words for cultural and
natural features in the languages concerned, etc. all argue against the Out of
India scenario” (WITZEL 2005:355).
We will
examine his “linguistic” arguments (or “observations” as he calls
them) section by section:
I-A: “Substrate”
words: section 11.5 (WITZEL 2005:344-346):
Witzel’s first
linguistic arguments, in section 11.5 (WITZEL 2005:344-346) have to do with
what he calls “Linguistic substrates”. This issue has been discussed in
great detail in TALAGERI 2000:293-308 (and earlier in TALAGERI 1993:197-215).
We will not repeat all the arguments and counter-arguments here, except for
stressing the difference between “substrate” words and “adstrate”
words (elaborated in section 6B of chapter 6 of TALAGERI 2008). In fact, let us
accept that there may be some adstrate
words of Dravidian or Austric origin in “Indo-Aryan”. The word kāṇa “one-eyed”, in the RV, for
example, is obviously derived from the Dravidian word kaṇ “eye”. But this does not excuse the mad hunt for Dravidian
and Austric words in the Vedic language: the word paṇi/vaṇi,
for example, is cognate to Greek Pan
and Teutonic Vanir (see TALAGERI
2000:477-495), but it is regularly portrayed as a “non-Indo-Aryan” word. Witzel,
in some of his articles, goes completely berserk identifying
Rigvedic words as “non-Indo-Aryan” (either “Munda” or “language
X”): e.g. in WITZEL 1999, WITZEL 2000a.
In fact, even if
Witzel’s claims that these “non-Indo-Aryan” words include the names of
Vedic “noblemen and chiefs (Balbūtha, Bṛbu)
and occasionally of poets (Kavaṣa, Kaṇva, Agastya, Kaśyapa)” (WITZEL
2005:343) are accepted, it only shows that the Vedic Aryans were very much
an integral part of the Indian scene, and adds a multiplier effect to the force
of the case presented by us: the Pūrus,
who expanded from the areas to the east of the Sarasvatī to the areas further
west, leading to the westward expansions of the Anus (the proto-Iranians),
were already an integral part of the interior areas of India to its east
long before the development of the joint Indo-Iranian culture of
the Late Rigvedic period (from which the Proto-Iranians and Mitanni
migrated out). These Dravidian and Austric
elements did not spread to the Iranians to the west (except for the pronoun tanū common to “Indo-Iranian”
and proto-Dravidian?), much less to the other IE Dialects to the
west, since these were particularly eastern
and southern developments in
the speech of the Pūrus.
Even if
we accept some or many of these words as being of Munda origin
or influenced by Munda in any way, it does not show that the Indo-Aryans
came from outside India: it only shows that they were acquainted with (and to
some extent perhaps even slightly influenced by) their neighbors within India
to their far east.
And in
fact, it proves the OIT instead of the AIT. For example, Witzel tells us
that the name of the “non-Aryan” language from which Vedic allegedly got these
words or names can be given “the provisional name, Para-Munda (or simply,
Harappan). Indeed, a number of prefixes in the loan words of the RV look
exactly like those prominent in Munda (and also in the rest of the
Austro-Asiatic family, which includes Khasi in Assam, Mon in S. Burma, Khmer in
Cambodia, Nicobar and some other smaller S.E. Asian languages). Furthermore,
even the meaning of these prefixes seems to agree: of interest in the RV
substrate are especially the prefixes ka-, ki, kī-, ku-, ke-, which
relate to persons and animals (Pinnow 1959: 11; cf. p. 265 §341a).” (WITZEL
2000:§7).
If we
accept this, it does not prove that the Indo-Aryans came from outside India: but
it does show that Ki-kkuli, the writer of the famous 14th c. BCE Mitanni
treatise on horse-racing, was an emigrant from India who carried this
Munda-influenced name all the way to Syria-Iraq!
I-B: The
Uralic Evidence: section 11.13 (WITZEL 2005:356-358):
Witzel’s next
section on specific linguistic arguments, section 11.13 (WITZEL 2005:356-358)
criticizes S.S.Misra’s case for dating the Rigveda to 5000 BCE on
the basis of Indo-Iranian loan words in Uralic
languages. Witzel also insists that the Uralic evidence shows a Indo-Iranian
movement from Eastern Europe to Indo-Iran.
We have
already dealt with the Uralic evidence earlier, but postulating concrete
dates for the borrowed words is definitely not part of our case,
so we will ignore that part of it. To restate the case:
The common
Indo-Iranian and Uralic data is summed up as follows:
“The earliest layer of Indo-Iranian
borrowing consists of common Indo-Iranian, Proto-Indo-Aryan and Proto-Iranian
words relating to three cultural spheres: economic production, social relations
and religious beliefs. Economic terms comprise words for domestic animals
(sheep, ram, Bactrian camel, stallion, colt, piglet, calf), pastoral processes
and products (udder, skin, wool, cloth, spinner), farming (grain, awn, beer,
sickle), tools (awl, whip, horn, hammer or mace), metal (ore) and, probably,
ladder (or bridge). A large group of loanwords reflects social relations (man,
sister, orphan, name) and includes such important Indo-Iranian terms like dāsa ‘non-Aryan, alien, slave’ and asura ‘god, master, hero’. Finally a
considerable number of the borrowed words reflect religious beliefs and
practices: heaven, below (the nether world), god/happiness, vajra/‘Indra’s weapon’, dead/mortal,
kidney (organ of the body used in the Aryan burial ceremony). There are also
terms related to ecstatic drinks used by Indo-Iranian priests as well as
Finno-Ugric shamans: honey, hemp and fly-agaric” (KUZMINA 2001:290-291).
The very first
point which should have been taken into consideration by the scholars and
non-scholars when drawing their conclusions is that all this evidence is one-way
evidence: i.e. all the borrowings are in only one direction:
from "Indo-Iranian" to Uralic, and decades of intense diligent
search have failed to yield a single credible borrowing in the opposite
direction: i.e. from Uralic to "Indo-Iranian".
Such a
situation occurs only when some of the speakers of one language
A have migrated into the areas of the second language
B. Both the languages in contact with each other borrow words from each
other. But while the native language B as a whole
borrows words from language A, only the migrated
speakers of language A borrow words from language B:
the original speakers of language A back home do not
borrow words from language B. Thus:
a) People who
spoke Sanskrit or had it as their literary language were migrating into Southeast
Asia since the last 2000 years, and the Southeast Asian
languages have borrowed heavily from Sanskrit. The Sanskrit spoken by
the emigrants from India in Southeast Asia also obviously borrowed words from
these Southeast Asian languages, but this Sanskrit became
extinct in the course of time, and the Southeast Asian words did
not penetrate back into the Sanskrit spoken in India.
b) People who
spoke Arabic or had it as their literary language were migrating into
(or invading) India since the last 1400 years, and the Indian languages
have borrowed heavily from Arabic. The Arabic spoken by the
emigrants from West Asia in India also obviously borrowed words from all the
local languages, but this Arabic became extinct in the course of time, and the Indian
words did not penetrate back into the Arabic spoken in West Asia.
The situation
in these two cases was that the migrants (or invaders) into new lands settled
down there and did not continue to be administratively linked to the original
mother area of the language and so did not carry words back into the mother
language as spoken in the mother area.
c) The same
logic applies to Indo-Iranian and Uralic: People who spoke
Indo-Iranian migrated into Eastern Europe (into the Uralic
areas) in ancient times. And the Uralic languages borrowed heavily from Indo-Iranian.
The Indo-Iranian immigrants in the Uralic areas also
obviously borrowed words from the Uralic languages. But these migrant Indo-Iranian
languages became extinct in the course of time, and the Uralic
words did not penetrate back into the Indo-Iranian languages
spoken in Indo-Iran in the east.
Surprisingly,
as we saw above, Kuzmina tells us "The
name and cult of the Bactrian camel were borrowed by the Finno-Ugric speakers
from the Indo-Iranians in ancient times (Kuzmina 1963)" (KUZMINA
2001:296), and Lubotsky also notes about all such evidence showing a movement
of words from Central Asia to Eastern Europe rather than vice versa: "Another problem is how to account for
Indo-Iranian isolates which have been borrowed into Uralic […which form
part of…] the new vocabulary, which most probably was acquired by the
Indo-Iranians in Central Asia […]" (LUBOTSKY 2001:309); but they both
fail to accept the logical conclusion that the evidence shows
a movement of languages (and language speakers) from Indo-Iran in the
east to Eastern Europe in the west, and not vice versa!
I-C: Relationship
Between Indo-Aryan and Dravidian: section 11.14 (WITZEL 2005:358-360):
In section
11.14 (WITZEL 2005:358-360), Witzel refers to various Indian writers who insist
on treating Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages as related
language groups within one family. Again,
as such an erroneous plea has never been part of our case, we can likewise ignore the discussion.
I-D: Hock’s
case for the IE Isoglosses: section 11.15 (WITZEL 2005:360-361):
Witzel next,
in section 11.15 (WITZEL 2005:360-361), refers to Hock’s case (HOCK 1999a) for
the evidence of the isoglosses as proving the AIT and disproving the OIT.
This fake
claim has been fully dealt with in detail in TALAGERI 2008:205-307 (and in
fact, I had already dealt with the evidence of the isoglosses in my earlier book
TALAGERI 2000:266-282, long before I saw Hock’s 1999 article and shown that it
conclusively proves the OIT and disproves the AIT).
As I showed
(TALAGERI 2008:205-307), Hock presents a fraudulent case for the evidence of
the Isoglosses. To begin with:
1. Hock
assumes that the OIT requires all the Isoglosses to have developed within the
Homeland (i.e. within India) before the various branches started moving out, and
provides a table to show that, if we have to accept the OIT, “What would have to be assumed is that the
various Indo-European languages moved out of India in such a manner that they
maintained their relative position to each other during and after the
migration. However, given the bottle-neck nature of the route(s) out of India,
it would be extremely difficult to do so. Rather, one would expect either
sequential movement of different groups, with loss of dialectological
alignment, or merger and amalgamation of the groups, with loss of dialectal
distinctiveness. Alternatively, one would have to assume that after moving out
of India, the non-Indo-Aryan speakers of Indo-European languages realigned in a
pattern that was substantially the same as their dialectological alignment
prior to migration ― a scenario which at best is unnecessarily complex and, at
worst, unbelievable.” (HOCK 1999a:16-17)
He insists
that the AIT explains all the isoglosses: "if we accept the view that
Proto-Indo-European was spoken somewhere within a vast area 'from East Central
Europe to Eastern Russia' (HOCK & JOSEPH 1996:523), […] all we need
to assume is that the Indo- European languages by and large maintained their
relative positions to each other as they fanned out from the homeland. In
that case, however, the speakers of Indo- Aryan must have migrated out of an
original Eurasian homeland and into India." (HOCK 1999a:16-17).
However, the
OIT case for the evidence of the Isoglosses does not show the various IE
branches trooping out of the bottle-neck exit from northwestern India after all
the isoglosses were formed within India. The OIT case envisages a primary
homeland in northwestern India (the Harappan area) and a secondary homeland in
Afghanistan and Central Asia, and “The expansions and migrations of the
different Indo-European branches took place in different stages, and the
different isoglosses were formed in the course of these expansions and
migrations as the Druhyus expanded northwards and westwards and the Anus
expanded westwards. The migration schedules explain the presence of the
different branches in their earliest attested areas in a more logical manner,
taking almost every relevant factor into consideration, than any other homeland
theory and migration schedule could do. [….] The isoglosses can be
explained very logically as having been formed during different stages in the
expansions and migrations of the Indo-European branches, as they moved out of
the homeland area in two major waves of movement: the Druhyu dialects (Hittite,
Tocharian, Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic) in a slow movement
northwards from Afghanistan, and the Anu dialects (Albanian, Greek,
Armenian/Phrygian and Iranian) in a slow movement westwards and northwestwards
from present-day Pakistan.” (TALAGERI 2008:224-225).
And, in fact,
this OIT case explains the formation of all isoglosses in a logical and
complete way, and it also fits in with Gamkrelidze’s model that postulates “"two
major dialect areas: Area A, comprising Anatolian-Tocharian-Italic-Celtic, and
Area B, comprising Indo-Iranian-Greek-Balto-Slavic-Germanic" (GAMKRELIDZE
1995:346) in the Homeland area, Area A being Central Asia
and Area B (the original homeland) being northwestern
India, while Hock’s AIT case. where “the Indo- European languages by
and large maintained their relative positions to each other as they fanned out
from the homeland” in all directions, leaves many important isoglosses
unexplained and has a single original dialect area.
2. Hock also
offers a half-witted argument against the OIT: “it would be considerably simpler to envisage only one migration into
India (of Indo-Aryan) rather than a whole series of migrations out of India (of
all the other languages)” (Hock 1999a:16).
This is an
example of the kind of simplistic arguments made by western AIT writers in the
smug confidence that no-one is likely to question their logic. The question
here cannot be one of “one migration into India” versus “a whole
series of migrations out of India”, since this would apply equally to any other proposed homeland theory: every one of the Indo-European branches has its own earliest
attested area, and every proposed
homeland theory must necessarily place the proposed homeland in the territory
of any one particular branch, and,
consequently, any homeland
theory will necessarily postulate
“a whole series of migrations” out of that area of all the
Indo-European branches other than the branch attested in that area.
In fact,
according to the accepted linguistic theory, “After the dispersals of the early PIE dialects […] there were still those who remained […]
Among them were the ancestors of the
Greeks and Indo-Iranians […] also
shared by Armenian; all these languages it seems, existed in an area of mutual
interaction.” (WINN 1995:323-324). So this means that the Slavic
branch had also left the Homeland leaving only the Greeks, Indo-Aryans
and Armenians (and also the Albanians) still within the Homeland.
If we are to locate the Homeland in the Steppes, where Slavic languages
are spoken today, then Hock’s AIT case in fact, requires that every single dialect, not even excepting
one, emigrated out from the original
homeland, and then one of the earlier emigrant dialects (Slavic, in
whose earliest attested area Hock would place the location of the original
homeland) actually immigrated back into that area. To paraphrase Hock, “it
would be considerably simpler to envisage a whole series of connected migration
out of India, in broadly one direction, of all,
but one, branches rather than a whole series of independent migrations of every single Indo-European branch, in
every conceivable direction, from a homeland somewhere in the area from East
Central Europe to Eastern Russia, followed by a re-immigration, later, of one
of the earlier emigrating branches”.
3. But most
important of all is the fact that, in order to show that the AIT case, as
presented by him, is deliberately
partial and selective: 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 branch, Tocharian, on the plea that “it is difficult to find dialectal affiliation” (HOCK 1999a:16) for
it.
Tocharian
is important because it shares certain important isoglosses with the Anatolian
(Hittite) branch and the Italic branch. Now, the Tocharian branch
is found at the north-eastern corner
of the Indo-European world and Italic at the opposite south-western corner. Hittite is at the south-central edge, but separated from Italic
(even if we treat the landscape as a flat piece of paper) by the Greek
and Albanian branches; and, in any case, since neither Italic,
nor Hittite, is alleged to have immigrated into its earliest attested
areas from south-eastern Europe, the paths of the two branches are obviously
divergent. 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. So Hock simply ignores the
concerned isoglosses, and excludes Tocharian from his arrangement, and
crosses his fingers in the hope that no-one notices.
It is
therefore clear that the actual
evidence of the isoglosses in fact shows quite the opposite of what Hock claims for it: 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”) with the
different dialects simply “maintaining their relative positions to each
other as they fanned out from the homeland” to their respective earliest
attested areas.
I-E: The
Mitanni Evidence: section, 11.16 (WITZEL 2005:361-363):
In the next
section, “Mitanni Evidence”, section 11.16 (WITZEL 2005:361-363), Witzel
presents the AIT take on the Mitanni evidence. 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 could have
emigrated from India — and
that the Mitanni were in fact an offshoot of the pre-RV IAs as yet on their way towards India.
Witzel notes that the
Mitanni IA language “is attested by a
number of OIA loan words (Mayrhofer 1979, EWA III 569 sqq.) in the non-IE
Hurrite language of the Mit. realm of northern Iraq/Syria (c.1460-1330 BCE).
The loans cover the semantic fields of horses, their colors, horse racing, and
chariots, some important ‘Vedic’ gods, and a large array of personal names
adopted by the ruling class” (WITZEL 2005:361).
[About the Kassites: “The Kassite conquerors of Mesopotamia
(c.1677-1152 BCE) have a sun god Šuriiaš, perhaps also the Marut
and maybe even Bhaga (Bugaš?), as well as the personal name Abirat(t)aš
(Abhiratha); but otherwise the vocabulary of their largely unknown
language hardly shows any IA influence, not even in their many designations for
the horse and horse names (Balkan 1954)” (WITZEL 2005:362).]
After this brief and reasonably accurate summary of the Mitanni (and Kassite) evidence, Witzel gives his
arguments, about the pre-Rigvedic character of Mitanni, as follows:
“[…] absence of typical Indian features and grammatical innovations in Mit.
IA [....] the Mitanni documents do not show any
typical South Asian influence [....] absence of retroflexion” (WITZEL 2005:361).
“the
vocabulary does not yet show signs of typical South Asian influence: for
example, there is no retroflexation in mani-nnu [....] But retroflexation is precisely what is
found once OIA enters South Asia: RV maṇi ‘jewel’” (WITZEL
2005:361-2).
“without
any of the local South Asian innovations (no retroflex in mani-, etc)
that are already found in the RV” (WITZEL 2005:363).
“Mit.
IA also does not have typical South Asian loan words such as āṇi ‘lynch
pin’” (WITZEL 2005:362).
“without
any particularly local Indian words (lion, tiger, peacock, lotus, lynch pin āṇi)”
(WITZEL 2005:363).
“These
remnants of IA in Mit. Belong to an early, pre-Rgvedic stage of IA, seen in the
preservation of IIr –zdh- > Ved. –edh-, IIr. ai >
Ved. e” (WITZEL 2005:361).
“the
Rgvedic dialect features (ai > e, zdh > edh) not
yet in place” (WITZEL 2005:363).
“sazd-
> sed [....] post-Mitanni,
which keeps the sequence azd. In other words, Rgvedic is younger than
the Mitanni
words preserved at c.1450-1350 BCE” (WITZEL 2005:364).
“note
–zd- in Priyamazdha (Bi-ir-ia-ma-as-da) [....] retention of IIr ai > Ved. e
(aika: eka in aikavartana) [....] retention of j’h > Ved. h in vasana(s)saya of
‘the race track’ = [vazhanasya] cf. Ved. vahana-” (WITZEL
2005:389, note 112).
This — three basic points, repeated
again and again — constitutes the sum total of Witzel’s arguments in
support of his claim that the Mitanni IA language is pre-Rigvedic:
1. Mitanni does not have retroflex
sounds.
2. Mitanni does not have “typical”
“local” words like lion, tiger, peacock, lotus, lynch-pin.
3. Mitanni has older pre-Rigvedic
sounds such as azd instead of Rigvedic
ed, ai instead of Rigvedic e, and jh>s
instead of Rigvedic h..
And all three points 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, even
if it did not, it does not prove that they did not emigrate from India: the Romany
(gypsy) language, which no-one doubts is an Indo-Aryan
language which emigrated from India just 1000 years ago according to Witzel,
also does not have cerebral sounds. Observe also the speech of many
post-second generation NRIs when they speak their ancestral Indo-Aryan
languages.
2. Firstly, the Romany (gypsy)
language also does not have “particularly
local Indian words (lion, tiger, peacock, lotus, lynch pin āṇi)”. Secondly,
there is no way anyone can categorically declare that the Mitanni language did
not have a particular word: there is no such thing as a recorded Mitanni
IA language: we have only a few handfuls of words (and many
more personal names in dynastic lists and historical records) recorded as “loan-words”
in the “non-IE Hurrite language”
of “c.1460-1330 BCE”.
Significantly, the very word cited by Witzel in his arguments about “retroflexation”,
the word maṇi “jewel”, proves the Late Rigvedic
provenance of the Mitanni IA language (see later).
3. Even if the Mitanni language is
supposed to have preserved “older” forms of certain sounds than the Rigvedic
language –
doubtful since the Mitanni language is recorded in what Witzel himself admits
that Mitanni sounds are not exactly identifiable due to “the peculiarities
of the cuneiform writing system” (WITZEL 2005:362)− this does not prove anything:
a) Witzel’s argument is like
that of an armchair layman claiming that modern Lithuanian is older
than ancient Latin because it has, to this day, preserved certain
Indo-European archaisms lost in Latin, such as the dual
number, or that modern Konkani is older than Classical
Sanskrit because it has, to this day, preserved the pitch accents
of Vedic Sanskrit lost in Classical Sanskrit.
Different dialects preserve different archaisms for different periods of time.
It may be noted that Mitanni already
showed a few signs of “Prakritization” or “Middle-IA”ization
in the forms of a few words like satta (“seven”, for sapta)
(a circumstance which need not necessarily show that it was chronologically
close to the Prakrit period, as argued by some OIT writers — the RV language
itself also contains a few “Prakritizations”, and the emigrating Mitanni
could have developed a few others around the same time during their migrations)
[In this case, Witzel tries to take the
utterly impossible escape route of pathetically
claiming that Mitanni satta is not a “Prakritization”
but a form that “has been influenced by
Hurrite šinti ‘seven’” (WITZEL 2005:362)].
b) Moreover, a
comparison of the sounds in Vedic and Mitanni is not
an acceptable guide for judging which of the two represents an older
stage: only a comparison of the words in Vedic and Mitanni
is a valid guide:
Thieme puts it
as follows: “The fact that proto-Aryan *ai and *au are replaced in
Indo-Aryan by e and o, while in Iranian they are preserved as ai
and au and that ai and au regularly appear on the
Anatolian documents (eg. Kikkuli’s aika), is unfortunately inconclusive.
It is quite possible that at the time of our oldest records (the hymns of the
Rigveda) the actual pronunciation of the sounds developed for *ai and *au
spoken and written by the tradition as e and o, was still ai
and au. The e and o can be a secondarily introduced change
under the influence of the spoken language or the scholastic recitation”
(THIEME 1960:301-2).
According to
Madhav Deshpande: “While The Mitanni
documents, the Old Peṛṣian documents and the Asokan edicts, coming from
inscriptions as they do, are frozen in time, that is not the case with the
Rgveda or the Avestan texts. These have been subject to a long oral tradition
before they were codified, and the texts available to us represent a state of
affairs at the end of this long oral transmission, rather than at the starting
point of their creation” (DESHPANDE 1995:68). [Deshpande, in this article, even suggests
that the cerebral/retroflex sounds in the Vedic language may not have existed
at the time of actual composition of the hymns, and retroflexion must have been
a later phonetic development which influenced the pronunciation of
pre-retroflex hymns as well: “the time
gap between the composers of the hymns and the collectors, editors and
collators was quite large. This gap must have been quite enough to lead to a
kind of homogenisation.” (DESHPANDE 1995:69)]
Most relevantly, Witzel
himself, in many of his articles, points out that, as in “an ancient inscription”, the words of the RV “have not changed since the composition of
these hymns c.1500 BCE, as the RV has been transmitted almost without any
change”, but in certain “limited
cases certain sounds — but not words, tonal accents, sentences
— have changed” (WITZEL 2000a:§1).
As Witzel makes very clear, the
final redactions resulted in changes in the sounds in the original
hymns, but not changes in the words.
So any comparison of the Vedic and Mitanni IA data to locate older forms should
be on the basis of words and not sounds.
And on the basis of words,
the Mitanni IA language is clearly not pre-Rigvedic
but Late Rigvedic (corresponding to the vocabulary of the New
Rigveda):
Mitanni
names contain the following elements in common with the Rigveda: -aśva,
-ratha, -sena), -bandhu, -uta, vasu-, ṛta-,
priya-, -atithi and –medha. Also, as
per P.E.Dumont (DUMONT 1947) bṛhad-, sapta-, abhi-
, uru-, citra-, -kṣatra and yam/yami-.
These are found as follows in the Rigveda:
In the Names of
Composers of the hymns (108 hymns):
In the New Rigveda:
V. 3-6, 24-26, 46, 47, 52-61, 81-82 (21 hymns).
I. 12-23, 100 (13 hymns).
VIII. 1-5, 23-26, 32-38, 46, 68-69, 87, 89-90, 98-99 (24 hymns).
IX.
2, 27-29, 32, 41-43, 97 (9 hymns).
X.
14-29, 37, 46-47, 54-60, 65-66, 75, 102-103, 118, 120, 122, 132, 134-135, 144,
154, 174, 179 (41 hymns).
In Names in
References (in 116 verses):
In Redacted Hymns:
IV.30.18
VII.33.9
In the New Rigveda:
V.
19.3; 27.4-6; 33.9; 36.6; 44.10, 52.1;
61.5,10; 79.2; 81.5.
I.
35.6; 36.10,11,17-18; 38.5; 45.3-4; 83.5; 100.16-17;
112.10,15,20; 116.2, 6,16; 117.17-18; 122.7,13; 139.9;
163.2; 164.46.
VIII.
1.30,32; 2.37,40; 3.16; 4.20; 5.25; 6.45;
8.18,20; 9.10; 21.17-18; 23.16,23-24; 24.14,22-23,28-29;
26.9,11; 32.30; 33.4; 34.16; 35.19-21; 36.7;
37.7; 38.8; 46.21,23; 49.9; 51.1; 68.15-16;
69.8,18; 87.3.
IX.
43.3; 65.7.
X.
10.7,9,13-14; 12.6; 13.4; 14.1,5,7-15; 15.8;
16.9; 17.1; 18.13; 21.5; 33.7; 47.6; 49.6;
51.3; 52.3; 58.1; 59.8; 60.7,10; 61.26;
64.3; 73.11; 80.3; 92.11; 97.16; 98.5-6,8;
123.6; 132.7; 135.17; 154.4-5; 165.4.
So, the evidence which is
relevant in comparatively dating the languages of the Rigveda
and the Mitanni records shows that the Mitanni IA language
is clearly not pre-Rigvedic but Late Rigvedic
(corresponding to the vocabulary of the New Rigveda).
Significantly, the only
general Rigvedic word in the Mitanni records, and cited above by
Witzel for its lack of retroflexion, maṇi = maini, "bead, jewel", is a very late
New Rigvedic word found just twice (I.33.8;
122.14) in the latest parts of the New Rigveda, 78
times in the Atharvaveda, and countless times
throughout the subsequent Vedic and Sanskrit literature; and is
an extremely common and popular word in all modern Indo-Aryan
languages, and in all non-IE languages influenced by Sanskrit. It is completely missing in
the Old Rigveda.
I-F: Absence
of Retroflex Sounds and “Indian Plants and Animals” in the other IE languages:
sections 11.17-18 (WITZEL 2005:363-366):
The next
section, 11.17 (WITZEL 2005:363-364), deals with the absence of retroflexes
west of India, which Witzel treats as evidence that the other branches of Indo-European
outside India could not have emigrated from India since they do not have retroflex
(cerebral) sounds. This argument is a representative of Witzel’s
arguments, where any Indian or Sanskrit element missing in the Indo-European
languages outside India is automatic proof of those Indo-European languages not having originally emigrated from
India.
t is
incredible that Witzel can seriously present such an argument when we have the
living example of the Romany language of the Gypsies of Europe
who are known and officially accepted as
emigrants from India, who left from deeper
inside India at a later point of time
when retroflex sounds were much more
integral a part of the Indian languages than they were even in the language
of the Rigveda, and yet who have not preserved even a trace of retroflex sounds
in their speech. The other Indo-European Dialects were
spoken well outside the borders of present day India
already by the Early Rigvedic period, and even the proto-Iranians,
who were in the areas of northern Pakistan
in the Early Rigvedic period, had already shifted their centre to
Afghanistan
well before the Late Rigvedic period. How can the absence of
retroflex sounds in the later historical descendants of these Dialects in
distant lands constitute even an argument,
let alone evidence, against their ultimate
origin in India?
Further,
Madhav Deshpande’s 1995 article, already referred to earlier, points out: “My own conclusion regarding retroflexes in
the Ṛgveda is that the original compositions were either free from retroflexion
of fricatives, liquids and nasals, or that these sounds had only marginal
retroflexion. The retroflexion we see in the available recension of the Ṛgveda
is a result of the changes which crept into the text during centuries of oral
transmission.” (DESHPANDE 1995:70).
Far from
proving that the other IE branches did not emigrate from India, doesn’t all this in fact explain how they
could indeed have emigrated from India
without taking retroflex sounds with them? Witzel’s next words explain what
he is arguing against, not only in this section, but in the article as a whole:
“In other words, Vedic Sanskrit does not represent the oldest form of IE, as
autochthonists often claim.” (WITZEL 2005:364). In other words, all of
Witzel’s arguments are basically directed against the “Sanskrit-origin”
hypothesis which is the favourite of most linguistically unsound Indian
writers, and not against the “PIE-in-India” case presented by us. Witzel
is a past master of the tactic of attacking soft targets: “prove the “Sanskrit-origin”
hypothesis wrong, and claim to have disproved the “PIE-in-India” case”!
In the next
section, 11.18 (WITZEL 2005:364-366), Witzel argues that if the other
Indo-European branches had their origins in India, they should have preserved
traces of the local words for specifically Indian plants and animals not found
outside India.
But, again,
when even the Romany language has not
preserved local names of Indian plants and animals not found outside India,
although the Romany originally migrated from areas inside
India where those plants and animals were common, and spoke Indo-Aryan
dialects of the late 1st millennium CE which are known to have
had words for these plants and animals, why should the Indo-European
dialects, which developed their earliest isoglosses, thousands of years
ago, in areas outside the northwestern borders of India, have preserved traces
of such names?
But Witzel indulges
in blatant verbal trickery here, and tells us that the Gypsies have indeed
preserved such names: “The hypothetical emigrants from the
subcontinent would have taken with them a host of ‘Indian’ words ― as the
gypsies (Roma, Sinti) indeed have done. But we do not find any typical Old
Indian words beyond South Asia, neither in the closely related Old Iranian, nor
in Eastern or Western IE […] In an
OIT scenario, one would expect ‘emigrant’ Indian words such as those for lion,
tiger, elephant, leopard, lotus, bamboo, or some local Indian trees, even if
some of them would have been preserved, not for the original item, but for a
similar one (e.g. English [red] squirrel > North American [gray] squirrel)”
(WITZEL 2005:364-365).
But, Witzel
does not tell us that the Romany also have not taken “‘emigrant’ Indian words such as those for lion, tiger, elephant,
leopard, lotus, bamboo, or some local Indian trees”. Instead, Witzel tells
us: “The Gypsies, after all, have kept a
large IA vocabulary alive, over the past 1000 years or so, during their
wanderings all over the Near East, North Africa and Europe (e.g. phral ‘brother’, pani ‘water’, karal ‘he
does’)” (WITZEL 2005:366).
And here we
have the totally unscrupulous
nature of Witzel’s arguments in a nutshell: he asks us to reject the IE migrations from
India by pointing out the failure of the IE languages to preserve Indian
words for lion, tiger, elephant, etc; and asks us to accept the Gypsy migrations
from India by pointing out the preservation in the Romany languages of Indian
words for brother, water, and certain verbal forms.
But, actually,
the IE languages have also preserved cognate words of this
nature, e.g. the English brother
(Skt. bhrātar), water (Skt. uda-,
Sinhalese watura), most of the basic
verbs, etc., while the Gypsy languages have also not
preserved Indian words for lion, tiger, elephant, etc., although Witzel
dates their departure from India to just over a thousand years ago. What the
whole thing shows is that Witzel himself is aware of the hollowness of his
argument, and therefore employs this unscrupulous jugglery to try to push the
argument through.
What is
even more ironical is that the IE languages have
indeed preserved words for the elephant and the ape, two animals
typical not of the area from “from East Central Europe to Eastern Russia”,
but of either Africa or India
(and areas further east), although Gamkrelidze somehow argues them into his
Anatolian homeland. The Vedic ibha
(elephant) is clearly cognate to the Greek el-ephas (elephant), Hittite lahpa (ivory) and Latin
ebur (ivory or
elephant-tusks), and kapi
(ape/monkey) is cognate to English ape
and Irish apa (ape); and
perhaps pṛdāku (spotted
animal/leopard) to Greek pardos
and Hittite parsana (leopard)
(GAMKRELIDZE 1995:420-426, 442-444, TALAGERI 2000:311-313). But Witzel’simply
dismisses them, with specious objections, as “rather dubious cases” (WITZEL 2005:365, 391).
I-G: IE
Features in Iranian missing in Vedic: section 11.19 (WITZEL 2005:366-368):
In the next
section, 11.19 (WITZEL 2005:366-368), Witzel takes up linguistic features where
Iranian has preserved certain original IE linguistic features which have
already disappeared in the Vedic language due to linguistic innovations. He
tells us that “Avest. often is quite
archaic, both in grammar and also in vocabulary, while Ved. seems to have
progressed much towards Epic and Classical Sanskrit (loss of injunctive, moods
of the perfect, aorist, etc.) The Avest. combination of neuter plural nouns
with the singular of the verb is hardly retained even in the other older IE
languages. The Old Avest. of Zaraθuštra, thus, is frequently even more archaic
than the RV and therefore simply too old to have moved out of India after the composition of the
RV (supposedly 2600-5000 BCE). In other words, Iranian simply lacks the many
innovations that characterize Ved., innovations that are not found among the
other IE languages either” (WITZEL 2005:367). He concludes: “In one phrase, the Iranian languages simply miss the Indianization of IIr, with
all its concurrent innovations in grammar and vocabulary” (WITZEL
2005:368).
Witzel’s
argument is again like that of a lay polemicist non-linguist claiming that modern
Lithuanian is older than ancient Latin because it has, to
this day, preserved certain Indo-European archaisms (such as the dual number)
lost in Latin. Of course Avestan has
preserved certain archaisms that are lost in Vedic. But, as, Witzel himself
notes: “Old Iranian preserved some
archaic features while also developing innovations of its own” (WITZEL
2005:367). Iranian and Vedic “Indo-Aryan”
were two different branches of IE languages, and naturally, each would preserve
archaisms of its own, while developing innovations of its own. So naturally, in
some respects, Iranian would be more archaic, and in others, Vedic would be
more archaic. Again, we see that Witzel is basically arguing against a “Sanskrit-origin” hypothesis, where
innovations in Sanskrit must necessarily be found in its daughter languages
(which would then include Avestan, ancient Greek, Latin,
etc.), and archaisms in other Indo-European languages must
necessarily have been preserved in Sanskrit as well.
As already
pointed out, the other Indo-European Dialects were different from the Vedic
dialect (and not descended from it),
and had already moved out into the northwest in the pre-Rigvedic
period, and proto-Iranian by the Middle Rigvedic
period. Just as there were different isoglosses developing between different
sets of Indo-European Dialects, there were innovations developing
in individual Dialects, which were unique to them. So why should innovations
developed by the Vedic Dialect within itself, or isoglosses developed in
common with the Other Dialects to its east and south, be
necessarily found in the Dialects to the west and beyond?
I-H: Chronology
of OIT vs. Chronology of Chariot: section, 11.20 (WITZEL 2005:368-370):
The next
section, 11.20 (WITZEL 2005:368-370), deals with the supposed anomaly between
the chronology of the departure from India (in the OIT scenario) of Iranian and
the chronology of the invention or adoption of the chariot by the
“Indo-Iranians”. Witzel gives the chronology of the chariot around “c2000 BCE, in Ural Russia and at Sintashta”.
Witzel’s question is: “The autochthonous
theory would have the RV at c5000 BCE or before the start of the Indus
civilization at 2600 BCE […] If
according to the autochthonous theory, the Iranians had emigrated westwards out
of India well before the RV (2600-5000 BCE), how could both the Indians (in the
Panjab) and the Iranians (from Ukraine to Xinjiang) have a common, inherited
word for the ― not yet invented ― horse-drawn chariot as well as a rather
ancient word for the charioteer?”
Here, again,
Witzel is not arguing against the OIT scenario put forward in our
books: he is arguing against a make-believe OIT scenario which includes
“Misra’s new dating of the RV at 5000
BCE” (WITZEL 2005:358), and, which not only has the Iranians migrating out
from India “well before” 2600
BCE, but, curiously, seems to have the Iranians out of touch with India,
and already spread out all over the area “from
Ukraine to Xinjiang”, by 2000 BCE. Certainly not the
chronology of the OIT!
About the
chariot, there is nothing in the Rigveda to indicate that the word ratha originally indicates a
horse-drawn spoked-wheeled vehicle: cognate words in other IE branches, as
Witzel points out, mean “wheel”, and it is only in the Indo-Aryan
and the Iranian branches that it acquired the specialized meaning “wheeled
vehicle”. In the Late Rigvedic period, spoked-wheels
were introduced, and the word ratha
became even more restricted in its meaning: it now came to mean the spoked-wheeled horse-drawn chariot, and became
an important part of the joint “Indo-Iranian” culture of the Late
Rigvedic period. It is only in the New Rigveda, and in
the Avesta and the Mitanni records, that we find references to spokes
or to a large array of names ending in -aśva
and -ratha; and in fact, the
new chariot may have been the catalyst in the Kassite-Mitanni migrations to
West Asia. By this time, all the other IE branches had moved out of the
sphere of Central Asia, and were exposed to spoked-wheeled chariots from
different sources: “On lexical ground
there is no convincing evidence for the assignment of the spoked-wheel to PIE;
the earliest terms for ‘spoke’ in the various IE stocks are at least metaphoric
extensions of other words […] there
is no close connection between the Greek and Old Indic chariot terms although
both stocks attest chariotry from the second millennium BC” (MALLORY
1997:627).
The Iranians
certainly did not leave India in a pre-Rigvedic
period: they expanded westwards from the areas of present-day northern Pakistan
towards the end of the Early Rigvedic Period; but
were centred in and around Afghanistan in the Late Rigvedic Period,
which is when the Avesta was composed and the common “Indo-Iranian”
culture was developed. So naturally, the Vedic “Indo-Aryans” and
the proto-Iranians (before
they spread out all the way “from Ukraine
to Xinjiang”) had “a common,
inherited word for the [― by then
invented ―] horse-drawn chariot as well
as a rather ancient word for the charioteer”.
I-I: Iranian
Chronology: sections 11.21-22 (WITZEL 2005:370-372).
In the next
two sections, 11.21-22 (WITZEL 2005;370-372), Witzel again takes up, this time
in relation to the other IE branches beyond Iranian, the question of linguistic
innovations found in the Rigveda and common technological developments.
According to him: “The date of dispersal
of the earliest, western IE languages […] can be estimated in the early third millennium BCE. Further dates can
be supplied by a study of important cultural features such as the common IE
reconstructed word for copper/bronze, or the vocabulary connected with the
heavy oxen-drawn wagon […] They
point to the end of the fourth or the beginning of the third millennium as a
date ad quem, or rather post quem for the last stage of commonly shared PIE”
(WITZEL 2005:370). He also points out (WITZEL 371-372) how different
linguistic innovations among different Indo-European branches, many shared by
the Vedic language also, can only have taken place after just before
or around 3000 BCE. All this is absolutely correct.
Then where is
the problem? The problem lies in Witzel deliberately picking up the chronology
of one particular OIT scholar: “Misra’s new dating of the RV at 5000 BCE” (WITZEL 2005:358), and
then unilaterally deciding that the chronology in my OIT case is also the same, and then systematically
showing how that chronology cannot be correct, In addition, he cites and
repeats Hock’s deliberate misattribution to me of an OIT scenario
where all the cultural features and innovations of IE must have taken
place “after the IE languages would have
left the subcontinent”, and so these features and innovations “would have to be re-imports from their
focus in Eastern Europe/Central Asia back into India ― all convoluted cases of
very special pleading.” (WITZEL 2005:370).
Here, Witzel,
like Hock, makes a basic mistake: he argues against an alleged OIT
scenario where the IE Dialects developed all their isoglosses within
India, in a one-time development, and then marched out one by one out of the
bottle-neck passes leading out of India, more or less never to come into
contact with each other again until later historical times. He even has the
Iranians in his make-believe OIT scenario completely “out” of India
and out of touch with the Vedic Indo-Aryans “well before” 2600 BCE. Witzel
repeats this alleged OIT chronology with each argument, and
writes:: “According to the autochthonous
theories the various IE peoples (the “Anu,
Druhyu” of Talageri 1993, 2000) and
their languages hypothetically left India (c.5000-4000
BCE).” (WITZEL 2005:371)!
But nowhere
have I ever suggested that the IE branches left India 5000-4000 BCE or
have ever objected to the
chronological estimates put forward by Witzel for the migrations of the IE
Dialects, which are reasonably
logical. In our scenario, the different Indo-European Dialects were moving
out into Afghanistan and later into Central Asia while the hymns of the Old
Rigveda were being composed in the eastern areas around the Sarasvatī
river. And the different isoglosses, including the “common IE reconstructed word for copper/bronze” and “the vocabulary connected with the heavy
oxen-drawn wagon”, and the different cultural features and innovations, were
being developed in common among all, or most, or many, or different
permutations and combinations, of the Indo-European Dialects,
in slow, gradual (“complex”) stages
over a period of time over a large area spreading from northwest India to
Central Asia. There is no question of “re-imports”
of features from distant areas.
I-J: IE
Plant and Animal Names: section, 11.23 (WITZEL 2005: 372-375):
In the next
section, 11.23 (WITZEL 372-375), Witzel takes up the question of animal and
plant names common to different IE branches, a study of which, he claims,
disproves the Indian homeland case:
The first
argument in this context is: “the search
for Indian plant names in the west, such as lotus, bamboo, Indian trees (aśvattha, bilva, jambu, etc.),
comes up with nothing. Such names are simply not to be found, also not in a new
meaning” (WITZEL 2005:373). But this is basically a repeat of his argument
in section 11.18 (see above).
a) As we have
already seen, the search for such names in the Romany language of the gypsies
also “comes up with nothing”. This
is because there is a simple logic behind this: languages which left one area
in ancient times, and settled down in other distant areas, tended naturally, in
the course of time, to forget plants and animals of their earlier areas not
found in the new areas, unless active links were maintained with the earlier
areas. Therefore arguments based on this premise prove nothing. Witzel himself,
ironically, tells us, on the next page, when he wants to explain the same point
in the context of the AIT (i.e. why the names of
specifically Steppe or European animals are not found in India, “also not in
a new meaning”), that since “most of
the IE plants and animals are not found in India”, therefore their names “have simply not been used any longer and
have died out” (WITZEL 2005:374)!
b) Witzel here
introduces the corollary about words being found “in a new meaning”. In section 11.18, he also gives the example of
how the name of an animal or plant could “have
been preserved, not for the original item, but for a similar one (e.g. English
[red] squirrel > North American [gray] squirrel)”. But in such a case,
how does one decide whether the original word referred to the red squirrel or the gray squirrel, unless one already knows the direction of movement as one does in this particular
example? Armed with this ambiguity, when such a word does turn up, Witzel treats it as evidence in the opposite
direction: to argue that the Indian name is the later one, and
that it represents a transfer of name of a non-Indian animal or
plant to an Indian one, and is evidence for the AIT. Witzel
thus, for example, repeatedly cites the name of the non-Indian beaver
(Old English bebr, beofor, Latin fiber,
Lithuanian bēbrus, Russian bobr, bebr, and Avestan
baβri) with the name of the Indian mongoose (Sanskrit babhru) as evidence for the AIT
(WITZEL 2005:374). But, as Gamkrelidze points out, after a short discussion: “It is notable that the Indo-Iranian
languages are split by this isogloss: Sanskrit shows the more archaic
situation, while Avestan displays the innovation” (GAMKRELIDZE 1995:448).
c) Witzel’s
primary argument in this context is based on the fact that “Generally, the PIE plants and animals are
those of the temperate climate” (WITZEL 2005:372). Only some of them are
found in Indo-Aryan. About these words, Witzel writes: “It is theoretically possible
that these words belonged to the supposed
original IE/IA vocabulary of the northwestern Himalayas.
Even if we take into account that the Panjab has cool winters with some frost
and that the adjoining Afghani and Himalayan mountains have a long winter
season, neither snow nor birch are typical for the Panjab or the Indian plains.
Therefore, words such as those for ‘wolf’ and ‘snow’ rather indicate
linguistic memories of a colder climate than an export of words, such as that
for the high altitude Kashmirian birch tree, to Iran, Central Asia and Europe”
(WITZEL 2005:373).
The point
about linguistic memories is obviously ridiculous: when the Rigveda refers to wolves
or snow, it is not referring to wolves and snow of distant
lands of “linguistic memory”, but wolves
and snow in their contemporary Indian surroundings. And snow
appears in the Rigveda only in the New Rigveda after the Vedic
Aryans expanded westwards and northwards, while the birch is mentioned
only in post-Rigvedic texts: rather too late for the
awakening of memories of names from distant lands which were forgotten even
before the composition of the Rigveda.
Witzel asks: “how did
the IE tree names belonging to a cooler climate ever get exported out of India
where those trees do not exist?
[…] some of the typical temperate PIE
trees are not found in the South
Asian mountains. Yet they have good Iranian and IE names, all with proper IE word formation. […] In other words, these cool climate, temperate trees and their names are
already PIE”.
But obviously they
did not “get exported out of India”. The name of the birch did not
originate even in the high altitude area of Kashmir inside India (let alone in “the
Panjab or the Indian plains”) and spread westwards; it developed in the
broad area (including the high
altitude areas of Kashmir) from northwestern India to Central Asia, which was
the area over which the isoglosses were developed, and was taken westwards by
the emigrating IE Dialects. Most of the words, for trees, animals or
natural phenomena of the more western parts of this broad area, developed among
groups of Dialects which did not
include “Indo-Aryan”, but a few of them (of which the name bhūrja for the birch, or parkaṭī for the oak, may be
examples), again, may have entered Sanskrit as substrate words after the emigration of the major IE Dialects
of the northwest and the subsequent “Indo-Aryanization” or “Sanskritization”
of the remnants of these Anus and Druhyus.
Again, Witzel
shows a confused understanding of the OIT: he writes: “According to the autochthonous theory, these temperate climate,
non-Indian plant and animal names would have to be new words that were coined
only when the various IE tribes had already migrated out of India. However,
again, all of them are proper IE names, with IE roots and suffixes, and with
proper IE word formation. It would require extraordinary special pleading to
assume that they all were created independently
by the various emigrant IE tribes, at different times, on different paths, but
always from the same IE root in
question and (often) with the same
suffixes. How could these ‘emigrants’ know or remember exactly which roots/suffixes
to choose on encountering a new plant or animal?” (WITZEL 2005:374-375). But
they were not created “independently” by the various branches: they
were created by the IEs when they were still in contact with each
other in the area from northwestern India to Central Asia.
d) Among the
common IE words not found in Indo-Aryan, Witzel cites, as
if it somehow (it is not explained how) proves the AIT, when actually it fits in with the OIT: “early IE loans
from Semitic somewhere in the Near East such as **wVjñ, IE *woin (Nichols
1997:143), words that are not found in India.” (WITZEL 2005:360). Obviously,
since they were borrowed into the western IE languages as
they moved away from India.
In fact, this particular word, borrowed from Semitic, is found in three
grades, according to Gamkrelidze, which, in fact fit in with the three
OIT migrations from India:
di) the word
is not found in Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Tocharian, which
remained in the east;
dii) it is
found in the Early Dialect migrating northwards, Anatolian
(Hittite), from “PIE *wi(o)no-,
with zero grade”;
diii) it is
found in the Middle (i.e. European) Dialects migrating northwards
and then westwards (Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Slavic)
from “PIE *weino- with e-grade vocalism”;
div) it is
found in the Late Dialects migrating westwards (Greek,
Albanian, Armenian), from “PIE
*woino- with o grade”
(GAMKRELIDZE 1995:557-558). It is not found in the three eastern Dialects which
dd not migrate westwards in that period: Tocharian, Iranian, Indo-Aryan.
In sum, all of Witzel’s linguistic arguments are
basically directed against a make-believe OIT case which is not the case
presented by us.
Since all
these easily-disproved linguistic arguments, which we have just seen, make up the
whole of Witzel’s linguistic case for the AIT, clearly there
is no linguistic case at all, worth the name, against the OIT case
presented by us. The Indian homeland case presented by us
answers all the linguistic requirements perfectly, while the AIT
completely fails to answer any of them.
II.
An Examination of Witzel’s Vedic Scholarship (TALAGERI 2000:423-476)
(Chapter
9 of the book)
II-A. Condemnation
of a book unread and even unseen (TALAGERI 2000:430-433):
One of the tests of
true scholarship is the treatment of rival theories. There are two
possible ways in which one, as a propounder or protagonist of a theory, can
deal with a rival theory:
The first is to
ignore the rival theory and behave as if it does not exist, and to go on
propounding one’s own theory in isolation.
The second is to
examine the rival theory and to show how that theory is logically wrong, and
one’s own theory, by contrast, is correct.
Erdosy and Witzel,
however, follow a third course altogether: they refer to the rival theory and
condemn the propounders of that theory in very strong terms, without
bothering to examine the theory or justify this condemnation.
The rival theory,
and there is only one, is the theory of an Indian homeland.
Erdosy, in his
editorial preface, describes the political implications of the Aryan invasion
theory in India, and refers to “spirited opposition which has intensified
recently - cf. Biswas 1990; Choudhury 1993; Telagiri 1993.
Unfortunately, political motivations (usually associated with Hindu revivalism,
ironic in view of Tilak’s theory of an Arctic home) renders this opposition
devoid of scholarly value. Assertions of the
indigenous origin of Indo-Aryan languages and an insistence on a long
chronology for Vedic and even Epic literature are only a few of the most
prominent tenets of this emerging lunatic fringe.” (ERDOSY 1995:Preface.
p.x, footnote).
Witzel, referring to
Biswas (1990:44): “The ulterior political motive of this ‘scientific piece’
is obvious. Cf. Choudhury 1993; Telagiri 1993, etc.” (WITZEL 1995a:111)..
And: “there are
also pronounced and definite South Asian biases to hold us back: […] the
contrary view that stresses the Indian home of the Indo-Aryans. Even
Indo-Iranians, not to mention all Indo-Europeans (!), are increasingly located
in South Asia, whence they are held to have migrated westward, a clearly
erroneous view that has nevertheless found its way into even otherwise
respectable scholarly publications (eg. Biswas, quoted above, in Ray and
Mukherjee, 1990) […] Such speculations further cloud
the scientific evaluation of textual sources, and can only be regarded as
examples of Hindu exegetical or apologetic religious writing, even if they do
not always come with the requisite label warning us of their real intentions.”
(WITZEL 1995a:116-7).
The footnote to the
phrase “erroneous view” above, clarifies: “More recently propagated
by Choudhury (1993), whose books also include The Indian Origins of the
Chinese Nation, and Telagiri (1993).” (WITZEL 1995a:116 fn.).
It may be noted that
in all the three references, our earlier book is firmly categorised together
with the books by Paramesh Choudhury, and Choudhury’s theory about the Indian
origins of the Chinese is stressed and highlighted.
And the irony of the
whole exercise is that it is very clear that the scholars concerned (George
Erdosy and Michael Witzel) have not only not read our earlier book, but they
have probably not even seen an actual copy of the book which they condemn so
categorically.
The references
to our book consistently misspell the name as Telagiri instead of Talageri,
and the bibliography even gives the initials as S.K. Telagiri instead of
S.G. Talageri. What is more, the bibliography lists our book as follows:
“Telagiri S.K., 1993. Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism,
Delhi, Aditya Prakashan” (WITZEL 1995a:123).
Now it so happens
that our earlier book was published in two editions: the one published by Aditya
Prakashan was entitled The Aryan Invasion
Theory: A Reappraisal, and the one published by Voice
of India was entitled Aryan Invasion Theory
and Indian Nationalism.
The confusion
between the title and the name of the publisher originally occurred in Shri
Girilal Jain’s review of the book which was published in The Times of India
dated 17.6.93; but, in that case, the confusion was explainable: the Voice of
India edition was already printed and read by Shri Jain, and formed the basis
of his review, the Aditya Prakashan edition was still in print and it was to be
the official edition, and Shri Girilal Jain was clearly not aware that the book
still under print was to have a different title.
In the case of
Erdosy and Witzel, this confusion can have no explanation, other than that
their acquaintance with our book is a second-hand or third-hand one, based on
some third party’s comments on Shri Girilal Jain’s review.
And it is on such
acquaintance that these scholars have condemned our book in strong terms,
decided that it is “devoid of scholarly value”, and
consigned it to the “lunatic fringe”.
Clearly this strong
condemnation of a book, unread and unseen by them, is both unacademic and
unethical.
II-B. Carelessness
in Describing the Arrangement in the Rigveda (TALAGERI 2000:442):
In referring to the books (ie. Maṇḍalas) of the
Rigveda, Witzel tells us that “books 2 to 7 (usually referred to as the
‘family books’) […] have been ordered according to the increasing number
of hymns per book” He calls it a “very important principle in their
arrangement” (WITZEL 1995a:309).
Is this a fact? The numbers of hymns in books 2 to 7
are as follows: 43, 62, 58, 87, 75, 104. Clearly this is a zigzag
pattern; perhaps an ascending zigzag pattern, but the books are certainly not
arranged “according to the increasing number of hymns per book”.
It must be noted that this wrong statement has no bearing
whatsoever on Witzel’s theory and conclusions: it does not help him to prove,
or claim to prove, what he intends to prove (i.e. the movement of the Aryans
from west to east). In fact, it is a pointlessly wrong statement.
But it serves to show that Witzel, for whatever reason,
does not deem it necessary to be too careful in making sweeping statements
about the data in the Rigveda.
II-C. Carelessness
in Identifying the Rigvedic Tribes and their Relations (TALAGERI 2000:430-433):
Witzel correctly reiterates the generally accepted
identification of the “Five Peoples” in the
Rigveda, when he states that these five peoples “include the Yadu,
Turvaṣa, Anu, Druhyu and Pūru” (WITZEL 1995a:326), or that “the Turvaṣa and Yadu
[…] are frequently associated with the Anu,
Druhyu and Pūru, thus making up the
‘Five Peoples’.” (WITZEL 1995a:328).
But, elsewhere, he words his statements so carelessly that
it results in confusion:
At one place, he refers to “the Bharata [...] and
their battle with the ‘Five Peoples’ and the Pūru” (WITZEL 1995a:337), as if the Pūrus are separate from the
five peoples. This is even more glaring when he refers to “the older
‘Five Peoples’ as well as the newcomers, the Pūrus and Bharatas” (WITZEL 1995a:327): in this statement, are the Pūrus counted among the “older”
five peoples or among the “newcomers”?
II-D. Carelessness in Identifying the Families of
Rigvedic composers (TALAGERI 2000:446-449):
Witzel concedes that the identity of the authors
(composers/ṛṣis) of the hymns is a very important factor in the analysis of
Rigvedic history.
However, his treatment of the information with regard to
these authors is completely casual, careless and slipshod:
1. Speaking about Maṇḍala VIII, he tells us: “With
regard to the order of Book 8 (Oldenberg 1888: 254-264), it is not the metre
but the authors that are more important. There are two groups, the
Kaṇva in hymns 1-66 and the Aṅgirasa in
the rest” (WITZEL 1995a:310).
What is the actual case? The first 66 hymns of the Maṇḍala
include five hymns by Kaśyapas (27-31), four by Atris (35-38) and
seven by Aṅgirases (23-26, 43-44, 46); and the rest include one hymn by
an Agastya (67), seven by Kaṇvas (76-78, 81-83, 103), three by Atris
(73-74, 91), three by Bhṛgus (84, 100-101), and one by a Kaśyapa (97).
But Witzel’sweepingly declares that all the first 66 are by
Kaṇvas and the rest by Aṅgirases. And that, too, while
emphasizing, in italics, that the identity of the authors is the more
important aspect of the hymns in this Maṇḍala!
Here, again, we find an illustration of Witzel’s unwritten dictum that it is
not necessary to be too particular while making statements about the Rigveda: either
no one will notice or no one will care!
2. Witzel is equally careless in identifying the different
families of ṛṣis in the Rigveda.
At one point, he tells us: “Most of the poets are
counted among the Aṅgiras, only the origin of the Kuśika-Gāthin-Viśvāmitra (book
3) and of the Atri Bhauma (book 5) remains unclear” (WITZEL 1995a:316). This appears to imply that except, perhaps, for the Viśvāmitras
and Atris, all the other ṛṣis, and groups of ṛṣis, belong to the Aṅgiras
family.
But, elsewhere, he tells us: “Viśvāmitra is, via his teacher Gāthin, a Jamadagni, ie. a Bhṛgu” (WITZEL 1995a:334).
And, in referring to Maṇḍala VIII, as we have seen, he
divides the hymns into two groups: “the
Kaṇva in hymns 1-66 and the Aṅgirasa in
the rest” (WITZEL 1995a:310).
These two statements would now imply that the Bhṛgus
(whom he counts as one family with the Viśvāmitras) and the Kaṇvas
are also not Aṅgirases.
In referring to the Vasiṣṭhas, Witzel tells us: “Vasiṣṭha and his descendants […] count themselves among the Aṅgiras. (7.42.1;
7.52.3)” (WITZEL 1995a:334). But an
examination of the two verses clearly shows that the Vasiṣṭha composers
of VII.42.1; 52.3, only refer to Aṅgirases, they do not claim
that they (the composers) are themselves Aṅgirases.
And when, in a like manner, the Viśvāmitras
(III.53.7) and the Atris (V.11.6) also refer to Aṅgirases, Witzel
does not treat this as evidence that the Viśvāmitras and Atris
also “count themselves among the Angiras”.
Ultimately, it is impossible to know exactly how many
families of composers there are in the Rigveda according to Witzel.
The actual facts are not difficult to elucidate: the
Rigveda has ten AprI-sūktas, and these clearly indicate
that there are ten different families of composers in the Rigveda:
the Kaṇvas, Aṅgirases, Agastyas, Gṛtsamadas, Viśvāmitras,
Atris, Vasiṣṭhas, Kaśyapas,
Bharatas and Bhṛgus.
But Witzel’s analysis of the text does not appear to
uncover these basic facts.
His careless interpretations, naturally, lead to wrong conclusions.
Having arbitrarily decided that the Viśvāmitras are Bhṛgus, he
treats the references to Bhṛgus in the Dāśarājña hymns as
references to Viśvāmitras, and concludes: “there
is even the possibility that it was Viśvāmitra who - in an act of revenge - forged the
alliance against his former chief. Whatever the reason, however, the
alliance failed and the Pūru were completely ousted (7.8.4, etc) along with Viśvāmitra
(=Bhṛgu, 7.18.6).” (WITZEL 1995a:334).
Thus Sudās’ battle with an Anu-Druhyu
confederation whose priests were the (non-Jamadagni) Bhṛgus, is misnterpreted
by Witzel as a battle with the Pūrus whose priest was Viśvāmitra!
3. The names of the authors (composers) of the hymns
consist of two parts: the actual names, and the patronymics.
Witzel’s understanding, and use, of these names and patronymics
is characterized by characteristic carelessness.
In one place, he tells us: “Gārtsamada Śaunaka is made a
Bhārgava” (WITZEL 1995a:308 fn.).
Incidentally, a Saunaka cannot be “made” a Bhārgava;
Saunakas are (a branch of) Bhārgavas. The proper
description of Gṛtsamada in the Anukramaṇīs is Gṛtsamada Śaunahotra Āṅgiras
paścāt Śaunaka Bhārgava: ie. “Gṛtsamada, a Śaunahotra
Āṅgiras, became (or was adopted into the family of) a Śaunaka Bhārgava.”
But, to return to the main point, Witzel refers to the eponymous
Gṛtsamada as Gārtsamada, ie. as a “son or
descendant of Gṛtsamada” (WITZEL 1995a:315)!
A ṛṣi belonging to a particular family can be referred to either
by the patronymic form, or by the name of the eponymous
ṛṣi whose name forms part of the patronymic: thus, a ṛṣi
belonging to the Viśvāmitra family can be called “a Vaiśvāmitra”
(ie. “son or descendant of Viśvāmitra” by patronymic)
or “a Viśvāmitra” (by the name of the eponymous ṛṣi),
but the eponymous Viśvāmitra himself
cannot be called Vaiśvāmitra (by patronymic).
The failure on the part of Witzel to distinguish between names
and patronymic forms leads him into another mistake: in
referring to the genealogy of the Kaṇva composers of Maṇḍala VIII, he gives us the
following lineage: “(Pras-?)Kaṇva /Kāṇva - Kāṇva Ghora – Pragātha Ghaura − Pragātha Kāṇva […]” (WITZEL 1995a:315).
Thus, Witzel misreads the name Kaṇva Ghaura, “Kaṇva, son of
Ghora” as Kāṇva Ghora,
“Ghora, son of Kaṇva”! He then goes on to
extend the confusion to the other members of the family.
The actual lineage is as follows: “Ghora Āṅgiras
- Kaṇva Ghaura - Praskaṇva
Kāṇva and PragāthaKāṇva/Ghaura”.
Thus far, Witzel’s carelessness reflects the attitude of a
person who does not feel it is necessary to be too finicky about details.
But this carelessness, naturally, leads to a wrong picture of the Rigveda.
II-E. Blaming Rigvedic Composers for his Own
Misinterpretations (TALAGERI 2000:443-446):
Another mistake made by him very much affects his
historical analysis (though not in a manner calculated to prove his immigration
theory): he counts Pūrukutsa and Trasadasyu and
their entire Ikṣvāku clan among the Pūrus. He refers
repeatedly to “the Pūru king Trasadasyu”; and even draws up parallel
family trees entitled “Bharata” and “Pūru” in which he depicts
the lineages of the Divodāsa-Sudās clan and the Pūrukutsa-Trasadasyu
clan respectively (WITZEL 1995a:319).
At the same time, Witzel makes another mistake: he decides
that “the Pūru […] were the leaders in a coalition of the Five
Peoples, and some other tribes, against the Bharata chief Sudās in the dāśarājña
battle.” (WITZEL 1995a:337).
The combination of these two mistakes leads him to conclude
that the leader of the coalition against Sudās the Bharata,
in this battle, was Trasadasyu the Pūru.
Firstly, let us examine whether this identification of Pūrukutsa
and Trasadasyu as Pūrus is right:
Many scholars have identified Trasadasyu (and
therefore his father Pūrukutsa) as a Pūru on the basis of Rigveda
IV. 38.1. But, in fact, this verse itself clearly proves that Trasadasyu
is not a Pūru: the verse refers to the help given by Trasadasyu
to the Pūrus (Griffith’s translation: “From you two
came the gifts in days aforetime which Trasadasyu granted to the Pūrus.”).
Witzel tries to drum up one more reference in the Rigveda: “In
1.63.7, Pūrukutsa himself is clearly related to the Pūrus, not to mention the
Bharatas: ‘You Indra broke seven forts for Pūrukutsa; as you, Indra, lay down
the (enemies) for Sudās like offering grass, you created for Pūru liberation
from distress’” (WITZEL 1995a:329).
What is one to make of this kind of careless
interpretation? The two lines of the verse (Witzel himself
separates them by a semi-colon) obviously refer to two separate cases where
both Pūrukutsa and Sudās are described as liberators (by the
grace of Indra) of the Pūrus; and if any one of the two is to be
identified as a Pūru (named in the second line), Witzel’s own
translation makes it clear that it is Sudās (in the second line) and not
Pūrukutsa (in the first line).
Nevertheless, Witzel identifies Pūrukutsa as
a Pūru, and Sudās as his Bharata rival.
Witzel’s misidentification of Pūrukutsa and Trasadasyu
as Pūrus has two aspects:
1. While other scholars have identified Pūrukutsa
and Trasadasyu as Pūrus before, there is a difference in Witzel’s
identification: the other scholars either decided that these two kings were Pūrus
and not Ikṣvākus (and therefore that the Puranas are wrong in
identifying them as Ikṣvākus), or else that the Pūrukutsa and Trasadasyu
of the Rigveda, being Pūrus, are different from the Pūrukutsa and
Trasadasyu of the Puranas who were Ikṣvākus.
Witzel, however, identifies these two kings in the Rigveda
as Pūrus, even while accepting them as Ikṣvākus, and therefore
treats the Ikṣvākus as a whole as a branch of the Pūrus.
It is clear that he himself is not confident of this
identification: he places a question-mark when he makes the connection between Pūru
and Ikṣvāku (WITZEL 1995a:319)..
In spite of this doubt, however, he treats his
identification as a settled fact when it comes to citing the “complete
separation in the Purāṇas of the Ikṣvāku dynasty from the Pūru” (WITZEL 1995a:90) as one of his criteria for dismissing the dynastic lists in
the Puranas as unreliable!
2. The misidentification of Pūrukutsa and Trasadasyu
as Pūrus, and the postulation of Pūrus and Bharatas as two
related but rival groups led by Trasadasyu and Sudās
respectively, leads to some confusion in Witzel’s interpretations.
Whenever the word Pūru occurs in the Rigveda, Witzel
takes it as a reference to Trasadasyu’s dynasty and tribe, when, in
actual point of fact (as we have seen in the course of our analysis of the
Rigveda), almost all such references are to the Bharatas themselves.
And the result is that Witzel himself ends up
thoroughly confused: “Although book 7 is strongly pro-Bharata, it provides several,
conflicting, glimpses of the Pūru […] (in) 7.5.3, Vasiṣṭha himself
praises Agni for vanquishing the “black” enemies of the Pūrus
- this really ought to have been composed for the Bharatas. Inconsistencies
also appear in hymn 7.19.3, which looks back on the ten kings’ battle but mentions
Indra’s help for both Sudās and Trasadasyu, the son of Pūrukutsa, and also
refers to the Pūrus' winning of land.” (WITZEL 1995a:331).
The confusion is not due to “inconsistencies” in the
Rigveda, but due to a wrong identification by Witzel. But instead of
seeking to find out the cause for the confusion, and correcting it, Witzel
chooses to decide that the Rigveda “provides several conflicting
glimpses” and contains “inconsistencies”! Thereby, he
blames the composers for his own misinterpretation!
How far does this fit in with Witzel’s own principle that “the
writing of Rgvedic history” should be on the basis of an analysis where “the
various points support rather than contradict each other” (WITZEL 1995a:304)?
II-F. Witzel’s Weird Directional Logic to show west-to-east
migration (TALAGERI 2000:470-471):
A classic piece of Witzel’s logic: in an incidental
reference to a verse, II.11.18, which contains the phrase “on the left”,
Witzel tells us: “on the left […] can also mean ‘to the north’, and
indicates that Vedic poets faced the east - their presumed goal - in
contemplating the world.” (WITZEL 1995a:470).
In short, since “left” can also mean “north”
in the Vedic language, it means that the Vedic people were facing
the east, and therefore, that they migrated into India from
the west.
At another point, Witzel seems to make the same inference
when he refers to ”Mānuṣa, a location ‘in the back’ (west) of Kurukṣetra”
(WITZEL
1995a:335): i.e. “back” for a person moving from west to
east is “west”!
If we reject conventional logic that directional words in
most languages are naturally oriented towards the east (since the sun rises in
the east), and accept Witzel’s superior logic, we can arrive at the following
solution to the problem of the location of the original Indo-European homeland:
[…] The Irish people also have common words for “left”
(tūath) and “north” (tūascert), and likewise for “right”
(dess) and “south” (descert). This proves that the
direction of their migration into Ireland was also from west to east: ie.
across the Atlantic. […] The Irish are the westernmost of the Indo-European
groups. All other Indo-European groups are located to their east.
If the Irish migrated into Ireland from the west, the original homeland of
the Indo-Europeans as a whole must be located to the west of Ireland: ie across
the Atlantic, in America! Any takers for this kind of logic?
II-G. Motivated Misidentification of Indus to
show West-to-East Migration (TALAGERI 2000:457-460):
Witzel intends to show that the Aryans migrated from west
to east, ie. from Afghanistan to India. Witzel sees the crossing of the Indus
as a specific historical incident in the migration from Afghanistan to India,
and he finds this crossing recorded in two Maṇḍalas: in Maṇḍala II,
at the time the first crossing actually took place; and in Maṇḍala VII,
which carries out a nostalgic and summational review of the migration of the
Bharatas, the Vedic Aryans proper.
The first migration, according to Witzel, is
recorded in II.15.6 when “the Sindhu is crossed” (WITZEL 1995a:322
fn.).
Later, Maṇḍala VII records the full migration story of
the Bharatas and their priest Vasiṣṭha who “came from across the Sindhu,
ie. from eastern Iran (7.33.3)” (WITZEL 1995a:334). As Witzel describes it : “The geography of the battle
hymn (and later summaries as in 7.33) clearly reflects a look back at the
immigration of the Bharatas […] The process began behind the Sindhu,
which Vasiṣṭha crosses in 7,33.9.[misprint for 7.33.3] Then came the
battle of the ten kings on the Paruṣṇī (the modern Ravi in Pakistan), near Mānuṣa,
a location ‘in the back’ (west) of Kurukṣetra […] Their eventual arrival on the Yamunā and the defeat of
the local chief Bheda are finally chronicled in 7.18.19. The whole process
refers to the origins of the Bharatas and Vasiṣṭha in eastern Iran; their move
into the Subcontinent is also reflected elsewhere in book 7 (7.5.3, 6) and
summed up in 7.33.3: ‘thus he (Indra) transgressed with them (the Bharata) the
Sindhu, thus he soon killed Bheda in (the Yamunā battle), thus, he helped Sudās
in the Ten Kings’ Battle’ […] Although they
reached as far east as the Yamunā, however, their epi-centre was in the area
around the Sarasvatī, previously occupied by the now defeated Pūru” (WITZEL 1995a:335).
An exciting story, which starts with the crossing of the
river Indus: the crossing by earlier waves of Aryans in II.15.6;
and the historical crossing by the Vedic Aryans proper, the Bharatas, in VII.33.3.
But a simple question arises: do these two verses, II.15.6
and VII.33.3, actually refer to crossings of the Indus at all, in
the first place? As we have seen in
our analysis of the Rigveda, Maṇḍalas II and VII do not refer to the
Indus river at all. An examination of the two verses shows that these
verses not only do not refer to the Indus at all, but, while
they do refer to rivers, they do not even refer to the crossings
of these rivers! The word Sindhu basically means “river”, and
that is what it means in both these verses.
In II.15.6, the reference is to a mythical clash
between Indra and Uṣas on the banks of a river. And
which is this river? The Rigveda refers to this myth in one more hymn, VI.30.11,
as well (Griffith’s translation: “So there this car of Uṣas lay, broken to
pieces, in Vipāś, and she herself fled away”).
And in VII.33.3, Griffith translates the verse as
follows: “So, verily, with these he crossed the river, in company with
these he slaughtered Bheda”. About “the river”, he clarifies in his footnote
that it means “the Yamunā”, and refers also to VII.18.19: “Yamunā
and the Tṛtsu aided Indra. There he stripped Bheda bare of all his treasures”.
Witzel takes up two verses which clearly refer to eastern
rivers (Vipāś and Yamunā respectively), misinterprets
them as references to the Indus, further
misinterprets them as references to crossings
of the Indus river from west to east,
and then reconstructs an entire saga of the immigration of the Rigvedic Aryans
into India on the basis of these misinterpretations. He
even pinpoints the exact area “eastern Iran” from which specific immigrants, “the
Bharatas and Vasiṣṭha”, led this historical exodus across the Indus!
II-H: Blatant misrepresentation of geographical data
to show West-to-East movement (TALAGERI 2000:461-470):
The sole aim of Witzel’s papers is to show that the
Aryans migrated from west to east, ie. from Afghanistan to India.
Hence everything in his writings is slanted to produce this
picture before the mind’s eye of the reader, either through direct statements,
insinuations, or subtle nuances of expression and description. The following
examples will suffice to illustrate his general method:
1. Witzel’s geographical analysis is supposed to encompass “geographical
features, especially rivers and mountains” (WITZEL 1995a:308). However, mountains figure in the Rigveda in
a general, rather than a specific sense. That is, specific mountains,
geographically identifiable, such as Mūjavat, etc., appear only in the
late books. The Family Books do not refer to a single mountain by name.
But Witzel, far from being put off by this, finds this very
convenient from the point of view of his own particular method of geographical
analysis: every single, direct or indirect, reference to a mountain, or
mountains, anywhere in the Rigveda, is treated by him as a reference to
Afghanistan. Thus: “They have ‘crossed many
rivers’ and ‘have gone through narrow passages’, which once again indicates the
mountainous terrain of Afghanistan” (WITZEL 1995a:322).
Likewise, in his Appendices A and B, the following references
to mountains constitute some of his “Geographical Data in the Rgveda” indicating
the West and Northwest: 2.12.1, 6.24.8, 8.31.10, 8.38.13, 8.88.3;
8.94.12, and so on. It would appear there are no mountains in India, so
any reference to “mountains” can only mean Afghanistan! Surprisingly
and significantly, the only reference located by him in the east
is “Sarasvatī from the Mountains to
the Sea. 7.95.2” (WITZEL 1995a:344,349).
Other words that he treats as “geographical data” automatically indicating the West and Northwest
include names like Ūrjayantī, Āyu, Turvīti, Uśij, Krivi,
Suyamā, etc., but then he often loses track of his own arbitrary
geographical placements: “Suyamā” indicates the Northwest in one
place (WITZEL 1995a:345), and Kurukṣetra in another (WITZEL 1995a:352); and the same reference “Rivers, Mountains, Sea
8.6.28-29” indicates the Punjab in one place (WITZEL 1995a:344), and the Northwest in another (WITZEL 1995a:350)!
2. But the grossest misrepresentation is in
his summarization of the geographical data in the Rigveda to show a
west-to-east movement of the composers of the hymns:
In one place, he tells us: “the world of the Rgveda
contains the Panjab and its surroundings: eastern Afghanistan, the valley of
the Kabul (Kubhā, Greek Kophen), Kurram (Krumu), Gomal (Gomatī), Swat (Suvāstu), and […] probably
Herat (Sarayu, Avestan Haraiiou) rivers; also the valley of the
rivers of Sistān: the Sarasvatī (Haraxvaiti/Harahvaiti) and
the Helmand (*Setumant). In the east, the Gangā and the Yamunā
are already mentioned […]”(WITZEL 1995a:317).
Elsewhere, he describes “the famous nadistuti of
the late book 10” (X.75) as follows: “in this relatively late hymn, the
Rgvedic territory covers only the area between the Gangā and S.E. Afghanistan (Gomal and Kurram rivers) and between the Himalayas and the
northern border of the modem province of Sind. Most of Afghanistan,
including Bactria and Herat (Arachosia), is already out of sight” (WITZEL 1995a:318).
Are these misleading descriptions in tune with the
geographical data in the Rigveda?
Calling it “the world of the Rgveda”, Witzel
practically gives a description of Afghanistan, after mentioning the Punjab in
passing; and in the end, he adds: “In the east, the Gangā and the Yamunā
are already mentioned”. And when describing the geography of a “relatively
late hymn” in “the late book 10”, he tells us that, now, “most of
Afghanistan, including Bactria and Herat (Arachosia) is already out of
sight”.
Note the clever misuse of the word “already” in both
the above descriptions. The impression given is
that the areas of Afghanistan constitute the core and original areas of
the Rigveda, which are slowly moving out of its ken, while
the areas of the Gangā and the Yamunā are slowly moving into
its ken: “the newly emerging Gangā Valley” as he puts it elsewhere.
The actual facts: The Gangā
and the Yamunā are definitely mentioned (not “already mentioned”):
four of the six Family Maṇḍalas (Maṇḍalas III, V, VI and VII) mention them;
while only two (Maṇḍalas IV and V) mention the rivers of Afghanistan, and about
one of the two (Maṇḍala V), Witzel himself admits that
the rivers named are not necessarily indicative of the core area of the Maṇḍala:
“all these geographical notes belonging to diverse hymns are attributed to
one and the same poet, Śyāvāśva, which is indicative of the poet’s
travels” (WITZEL 1995a:317).
At the same time, no part of Afghanistan is “already
out of sight” in “the late book 10”. Practically every
single river of Afghanistan named in any Family Maṇḍala is named in Maṇḍala X
as well: Sarayu (X.64.9), Rasā (X.75.6; 108.1,2; 121.4), Kubhā
(X.75.6) and Krumu (X.75.6); along with many others not named in
the Family Maṇḍalas: Tṛṣṭāmā, Susartu, Śveti, Gomatī
and Mehatnu (all named in X.75.6)!
3. Witzel is not satisfied with identifying “the world
of the Rgveda” with Afghanistan. He tries to take the Rigveda as far
west as possible, at least in the form of “vague reminiscences of foreign
localities and tribes in the Rigveda” - even as far west as the Urals:
among other things, he discovers, among many other similar things, that the
river-name Rasā (Iranian Raṅhā) is a “vague reminiscence”
of the river Volga, and “Rgvedic rip-” of “the Rhipaean
mountains, the modern Urals (Bongard-Levin 1980)” (WITZEL 1995a:320-22).
III.
Some Other Cases of Confused Analysis and Conclusions, or Witzel vs. Witzel:
III-A: “Evidence”
for Vasiṣṭha Being an “Iranian”:
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 Vasiṣṭha 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 Vasiṣṭha in eastern Iran”.
And this is how
he arrives at the conclusion that Vasiṣṭha and the Bharatas are
from Iran: he takes up the Rigvedic verse VII.33.3, which refers
to Sudās’ battle with Bheda on the banks of a river. This river is the Yamunā,
as per Griffith’s
footnote to the verse, and as per another direct reference to this incident in
another Rigvedic verse VII.18.9. But Witzel unilaterally
decides that this river is the Indus. Then he further decides that
this verse refers, not just to a battle, but to a migratory
movement of Vasiṣṭha and the Bharatas across the Indus,
the direction being from west to east. Finally, he
concludes that the west of the Indus can only mean “eastern Iran”.
On this basis, Witzel decides that Vasiṣṭha is a “self-proclaimed
immigrant” from Iran, and this becomes an article of faith in
every Witzelian veṛṣion of the Aryan invasion or immigration.
Witzel even
produces “linguistic” proof of Vasiṣṭha being an Iranian: “[…] new grammatical formations such as the
absolutives in –tvā, -tvī, and –ya for verbs with preverbs (Tikkanan
1987). Absolutive formation corresponds, among others, to Drav. verbal
structure, but absolutives are not
found in Iranian. Significantly, Vasiṣṭha,
the self-proclaimed (Iranian?) immigrant author of much of book 7, avoids them”
(WITZEL 2005:344). That is: according to Witzel, Vasiṣṭha, being a “self-proclaimed
immigrant” from Iran, avoids the use of absolutives since absolutives
are lacking in Iranian.
The following
is a list of the occurrences of absolutives in the Family Books of the
Rigveda:
II. 12.1; 15.9; 17.6; 20.8; 30.9-10; 35.10; 37.3 (two abs.); 38.4,6;
43.1. [Total 12].
III. 21.1; 26.1; 32.1 (two abs.); 34.9; 35.6,8; 40.7; 42.7; 48.4 (two abs.); 50.1; 54.15; 60.3. [Total 14].
IV. 4.12; 18.12; 26.6,7; 32.10; 41.5. [Total 5].
V. 2.7;
4.5; 40.4; 53.14 (2 abs).
[Total 5].
VI. 40.1; 50.5; 59.6. [Total 3].
VII. 6.5; 21.7; 36.3; 80.2; 103.3; 104.18. [Total 6].
By what
statistical logic does Witzel decide that Vasiṣṭha, of Book 7,
“avoids” the use of absolutives?
As we can see,
Book 7 has six
occurences of absolutives while Book 6 has only three in Book 6, and Books 4
and 5 have five each.
So, in fact, the Vasiṣṭhas make more use of absolutives
than the Bharadvājas, Vāmadevas and Atris.
Thus, he
produces fake “linguistic” support for his fairy tale.
[Significantly,
as per our analysis of the common name types in the Rigveda and the Avesta,
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 Vasiṣṭha]
III-B: Viśvāmitras
“Celebrating” the Defeat and Humiliation of Viśvāmitra:
Witzel does
not brand Viśvāmitra as an Iranian, but he does place Viśvāmitra at the head of
the Iranian coalition (of Kavi, Kavaṣa, Pṛthus, Parśus, etc.) ranged against
the Bharatas under Sudās and Vasiṣṭha. The logic on the basis of which he
arrives at this conclusion is based on the fact that the Battle hymns refer to a “Bhṛgu” in the
coalition against the Bharatas. On the basis of senseless assertions (see
TALAGERI 2000:447-448), Witzel decides that Viśvāmitra is a Bhṛgu, that the “Bhṛgu”
referred to in the Battle hymns is Viśvāmitra himself, and that Viśvāmitra
therefore actually led the coalition against Sudās. Again, apart from the
gratuitous manner in which Witzel arrives at his conclusions, it is significant
that Book 3, the Book of Viśvāmitra, is as completely lacking in Avestan-type
compound names, or indeed any Iranian names, as Book 7.
At this point,
it may be noted that Witzel, like all liars, gets so entangled in his own lies
and fairy tales that he loses track of what he is writing: On the one hand, he
writes: “the other tribes began to unite
against them [the Bharatas], either due to the intrigues of the ousted
Viśvāmitra, or simply because of intratribal resentment. This led to the famous
battle of the ten kings which, however, is not mentioned by Book 3, as
Viśvāmitra (its author) had by then been displaced by Vasiṣṭha as the purohita of Sudās. There is even the
possibility that it was Viśvāmitra who ― in an act of revenge ― forged the
alliance against his former chief. Whatever the reason, however, the alliance
failed and the Pūrus were completely ousted
(7.8.4 etc) along with Viśvāmitra (=Bhṛgu, 7.18.6)” (WITZEL 1995b:334).
This fairy tale becomes a staple in all of Witzel’s veṛṣions of the events in
subsequent papers and articles.
But, in the very same above article, on the previous
page, Witzel writes about Book 3: “This
book was composed by Viśvāmitra (and his clan), the purohita of Sudās until his ouster by Vasiṣtha, the reputed author
of much of book 7. It praises the dominant position of the Bharata in an area
more or less corresponding with the later Kurukṣetra, culminating in an aśvamedha by Sudās to commemorate his
triumphs in a late hymn ([footnote] i.e. 3.53.11-14)” (WITZEL 1995b:333).
In his critique of my earlier book, Witzel elaborates this further: “RV 3.53.14 clearly speaks of Kurukṣetra and
surroundings, some 750 miles to the west. It refers to the performance of the
aśvamedha (3.53.11) after Sudās’ victory in the Ten Kings’ Battle (7.18: cf. Witzel 1995)” (WITZEL
2001b:§8).
In other
words, according to Witzel’s account of the events, Vasiṣṭha ousted Viśvāmitra
as the priest of Sudās; and, in revenge, Viśvāmitra led a coalition of tribes
in the Ten Kings’ Battle
against Sudās and Vasiṣṭha, and was “completely” defeated. And, later, the
descendants of Viśvāmitra composed a
hymn, III.53, in “praise” and
glorification of the Bharatas, in fond memory of the aśvamedha organized to
“commemorate” and celebrate the “triumphs” of Sudās and Vasiṣṭha and the defeat
and humiliation of their own ancestor
Viśvāmitra!
The above
instances are not isolated ones: Witzel’s writings on the subject of Vedic
history are full of baseless fairy tales and cock-and-bull stories; and every
word written by Witzel can be contradicted and disproved by other words written
by Witzel himself. Yet, there is still no shortage of writers who regularly
quote Witzel’s pronouncements (including those on Viśvāmitra’s role in the
battle) as if they are some kind of
Final Judgement, even when those pronouncements have been repeatedly,
completely and conclusively exposed and discredited.
III-C: Indo-Aryan
“Invasion” vs. “Immigration/Trickling-In”:
The earlier
versions of the manner in which this transformation took place (outright
old-fashioned invasion and conquest) have been progressively watered down in
the face of the open rejection by archaeologists and anthropologists: from
invasion to immigration, and from immigration to “trickling in”.
Where Witzel
Rubbishes the Idea of “Invasion”:
The
archaeological situation (from any and every point of view) clearly does not
reflect the situation one would expect to see in case of an “invasion”,
as Witzel is compelled to note.
Witzel, in a
separate paper elsewhere, has to say on the matter: “To begin with, the details
for the import of IA language and culture still escape us […] None of the archaeologically identified
post-Harappan cultures so far found, from Cemetery H, Sarai Kala III, the early
Gandhara and Gomal Grave Cultures, does make a good fit for the culture of the
speakers of Vedic […] At the present
moment, we can only state that linguistic and textual studies confirm the
presence of an outside, Indo-Aryan speaking element, whose language and
spiritual culture has definitely been introduced, along with the horse and the
spoked wheel chariot, via the BMAC area into northwestern South Asia. However,
much of present-day Archaeology denies that. To put it in the words of Shaffer
(1999:245) ‘A diffusion or migration of a culturally complex ‘Indo-Aryan’
people into South Asia is not
described by the archaeological record’ […] [But] the importation of their spiritual and material culture must be explained. So far, clear
archaeological evidence has just not been found” (WITZEL 2000a:§15).
George Erdosy,
in his preface to an earlier volume co-edited with Witzel, stresses that this
is a subject of dispute between linguists and archaeologists, and that the
idea of an Aryan invasion of India in the second millennium BCE “has recently been challenged by
archaeologists, who ― along with linguists ― are best qualified to evaluate its
validity. Lack of convincing material (or osteological) traces left behind
by the incoming Indo-Aryan speakers, the possibility of explaining cultural
change without reference to external factors and ― above all ― an altered
world-view (Shaffer 1984) have all contributed to a questioning of assumptions
long taken for granted and buttressed by the accumulated weight of two
centuries of scholarship” (ERDOSY 1995:x).
To explain
this total lack of archaeological evidence for the OIT, and in fact
the actual archaeological testimony against the AIT, Witzel
dismisses altogether the idea of an “invasion” (which would have left archaeological
clues), and in fact attributes the idea of an “invasion” to the imagination
of OIT-supporters (as a kind of straw man set up by them).
He rejects the
idea of “a massive invasion of outsiders” as an “old, nineteenth century idea” which he claims is held only by “revisionists and autochthonists” (WITZEL
2005:347). In his much earlier paper in 1995, also, he tells us that the “idea of a cataclysmic invasion has, in
fact, been given up long ago by Vedic scholars […] In view of these facts, it would not be surprising if physical
anthropologists failed to unearth any ‘Aryan skeletons’ […]” (WITZEL
1995b:323)
[In the
process, the conclusion that “there is
no evidence of demographic discontinuity in archaeological remains during the
period from 4500 to 800 BCE, and that an influx of foreign populations is not
visible in the archaeological record”,
which is the the unanimous scientific observation of Indian
and western archaeologists
and anthropologists (see above) is also described by him as the
view of “Autochthonists” (WITZEL
2005:347)].
Instead of
“a massive invasion of outsiders”, he postulates, and describes in
great detail, “small-scale semi-annual
transhumance movements between the Indus plains and the Afghan and Baluchi
highlands” (Witzel 1995:322, 2000),
and alternately suggests a situation where “Just one ‘Afghan’ IA tribe that did not return to the highlands but
stayed in their Panjab winter quarters in spring was needed to set off a wave
of acculturation in the plains by transmitting its ‘status kit’ (Ehret) to its
neighbors” (WITZEL 2005:342). [He refers here to “Ehret’s model (1988, derived from Africa, cf. Diakonoff 1985) which
stresses the osmosis (or a ‘billiard
ball’, or Mallory’s Kulturkugel)
effect of cultural transmission”
(WITZEL 2005:347).]
Where Witzel
Graphically Describes a Full-fledged invasion:
But certain
things cannot be explained by “small-scale
semi-annual transhumance movements between the Indus plains and the Afghan
and Baluchi highlands” (Witzel
1995:322, 2000), or a situation where “Just one ‘Afghan’ IA tribe that did not return to the highlands but
stayed in their Panjab winter quarters in spring was needed to set off a
wave of acculturation in the plains by transmitting its ‘status kit’ (Ehret) to
its neighbors” (WITZEL 2005:342).
For example,
the names of the rivers of the Rigvedic area do not
reflect the result of such milk-and-water “small-scale
semi-annual transhumance movements” or of a situation where “Just one ‘Afghan’ IA tribe that did not
return to the highlands but stayed in their Panjab winter quarters in spring”:
Instead they show what Witzel describes as “an almost complete Indo-Aryanization in
northern India [which…] leads
to the conclusion that the Indo-Aryan influence, whether due to actual
settlement, acculturation or, if one prefers, the substitution of Indo-Aryan
names for local ones, was powerful enough from early on to replace local
names, in spite of the well-known conservatism of river names” (WITZEL 1995a:106).
[As Witzel notes: “In Europe, river names were found to
reflect the languages spoken before the influx of Indo-European speaking
populations. They are thus older than c. 4500-2500 B.C. (depending on the date
of the spread of Indo-European languages in various parts of Europe).”
(WITZEL 1995a:104-105). But, in sharp contrast, “in northern India
rivers in general have early Sanskrit names from the Vedic period, and names
derived from the daughter languages of Sanskrit later on.” (WITZEL
1995a:105)].
Witzel makes
the situation very clear: “To sum up,
what does the evidence of hydronomy tell us? Clearly there has been an almost
complete Indo-Aryanization in northern India […] This is especially surprising in the area once occupied by the
Indus Civilisation where one would have expected the survival of older
names, as has been the case in Europe and the Near East. At the least, one
would expect a palimpsest, as found in New England with the name of the state
of Massachussetts next to the Charles river, formerly called the Massachussetts
river, and such new adaptations as Stony Brook, Muddy Creek, Red River, etc.,
next to the adaptations of Indian names such as the Mississippi and the
Missouri”.
What is
more, the transformation is not restricted to language (as reflected by the river-names) alone: “What is relatively rare is the
adoption of complete systems of
belief, mythology and language from neighbouring peoples […] Yet, in South Asia we are dealing precisely
with the absorption of not only new languages but also of an entire complex of
material and spiritual culture, ranging from chariotry and horsemanship to
Indo-Iranian poetry whose complicated conventions are still actively used in
the Ṛgveda. The old Indo-Iranian religion, centred on the opposition of Devas
and Asuras, was also adopted, along with Indo-European systems of ancestor worship.”
(WITZEL 1995a:112).
It must be
kept in mind that this total transformation is alleged to have
taken place in ways where Witzel himself, see above, repeatedly describes
different aspects of it as “surprising”,
“relatively rare” and against what “one would have expected” in such cases! And the attempt to foist “Erhet’s
model” (as described by Witzel) on the change from an allegedly
non-IE Harappan area to a completely IE Vedic area runs into various
difficulties:
[Erhet’s model
as per Witzel: “Ehret (1988) underlines
the relative ease with which ethnicity and
language shift in small societies, due to the cultural/economic/military choices made by the local population in
question. The intruding/influencing group bringing new traits may initially be
small and the features it contributes can be fewer in number than those of the
preexisting local culture. The newly formed, combined ethnic group may then
initiate a recurrent, expansionist
process of ethnic and language shift. The material record of such shifts is
visible only insofar as new prestige equipment or animals (the ‘status kit’,
with new intrusive vocabulary!) are concerned. This is especially so if pottery
― normally culture-specific ― continues to be made by local specialists of a
class-based society […] the
descriptions given just now fit the Indus/Ved. evidence perfectly.” (WITZEL
2005:347)].
But the
descriptions don’t “fit the Indus/Ved. evidence” on a
single point!
(a) The
Harappan civilization was not a “small
society” as in Erhet’s model.: it was a densely
populated civilization, covering a larger
area, and remaining unchanged over a longer
period of time, than any other
contemporary civilization of the time.
(b) The “local population”, inhabitants of one
of the world’s largest, most organized and advanced civilizations of the time,
would be extremely unlikely to have made conscious “choices” to replace their culture and language with the culture and
language of miniscule (invisible to the
archaeological record) intruding groups of a pastoral, illiterate, nomadic
people “on the move”.
(c) The total replacement of the “preexisting local culture” and language
with the new culture and language (so total that not a shred remains of the earlier culture or language), which is alleged
to have taken place in the Harappan areas, clearly cannot be analogical to a
situation where an “intruding/influencing
group” brings “new traits [which] may initially be small and [where] the features it contributes can be fewer in number than those of the
preexisting local culture”.
(d) When
Witzel himself repeatedly accepts that the horses and chariots of the “Aryans”
are yet to be found in the archaeological record, how is it analogical to a
situation where apparently “the material
record of such shifts is visible only insofar as new prestige equipment or
animals (the ‘status kit’, with new intrusive vocabulary!) are concerned”?
(Note, also, that here Witzel cites the evidence of horses and chariots, when
admittedly not found, as “visible” evidence, while explaining
away the actually visible evidence
found, of continuation in pottery types, as culture-irrelevant in this case
even when he admits it to be “normally
culture-specific”).
Realizing that
such a total transformation can only happen if there was a “massive
invasion”, Witzel is forced to indulge in contradictory claims:
When he is
analyzing the textual data to try to
find evidence for the AIT, in typical Witzellian style, i.e. in the very same pages where he is
disowning the idea of a “cataclysmic
invasion”, Witzel presents us with a full-fledged “massive
invasionist” account of the Aryan intrusion in the Harappan areas: as
per this account, the Indo-Aryans fought their way through the
mountains of Afghanistan, storming innumerable mountain fortresses, sometimes
after long and bitter 40-year campaigns, and finally reached the Harappan
areas: Book 2 shows them “fighting
their way through the NW mountain passes” (WITZEL 1995b:331) in their
alleged movement from west to east. After reaching the plains: “On the plains of the Panjab, the
Indo-Aryans had further battles to fight”, with numerous “explicit descriptions of campaigns”,
recorded in the Rigveda, in which the “Indo-Aryans” “destroyed” hundreds of forts and, on different occasions, “put to sleep”, “put down” or “dispersed”
30,000, 50,000 and 100,000 natives (WITZEL 1995b:322,
324). He even describes the terror that the inhabitants of the Harappan cities
must have experienced when invading Indo-Aryans on horse-drawn
chariots launched their invasionist attacks on them: “The first appearance of thundering chariots must have stricken the
local population with a terror, similar to that experienced by the Aztecs and
Incas upon the arrival of the iron-clad, horse riding Spaniards.” (WITZEL 1995a:114): in the footnote he again refers to “this fear of the horse and of the thundering chariot, the
"tank" of the 2nd millennium B.C.” (WITZEL
1995a:114, fn). Ultimately, there was a total “social and political collapse experienced by the local population”
(WITZEL 1995a:106-107).
[Equally
interesting is the way Witzel tries to cover up one of the above invasionist
descriptions, in a reprint of this 1995 paper in 2001,
after it was publicly criticized. He now adds words into the sentence to
indicate that he was not referring to an initial invasion from outside,
but to a much later internal battle between by-now-settled-lomg-after-immigration
Vedic Aryans and local “descendants” of the original local
inhabitants. The new sentence is: “The first
appearance of [quickly moving] thundering chariots must have stricken the [sparse]
local [remaining, post-Harappan peasant] population [in the Indus area] with a
terror, similar to that experienced by the Aztecs and Incas upon the arrival of
the iron-clad, horse riding Spaniards.” (WITZEL 1995/2001:114) However, this clumsy re-editing is clearly
self-defeating and transparently a cover-up attempt, since the original
description obviously refers to the original alleged invasion
event rather than to a battle long after that event: Witzel only adds words, he
does not dare to remove the original words “first appearance” and
“similar to that experienced by the Aztecs and
Incas upon the arrival of the iron-clad, horse riding Spaniards.”!]
In short: when
trying to explain away the total lack of archaeological evidence for the
AIT, Witzel completely rejects, rubbishes and stigmatizes the idea of
a massive “invasion”. In the very same papers, when
trying to explain away the totally Indo-Aryan nature
of North India, he finds he cannot do so without postulating a massive “invasion”,
so he (mis)interprets the Rigvedic verses to produce detailed textual
references to a massive “invasion”.
III-D: The
Identity of the Rigvedic Sarasvati with the Ghaggar-Hakra:
I have dealt with subject
repeatedly in my books and articles. Here I will only quote Witzel (before
my books) against Witzel (after my books). Suffice it to say
here that almost every single western, Indian and Pakistani scholar from day
one has always identified the Rigvedic Sarasvati with the Ghaggar-Hakra.
Witzel (before my books):
In this paper on Rigvedic
history written in 1995, Witzel categorically tells us “Sarasvatī = Sarsuti; Ghaggar-Hakra” (WITZEL 1995b:318). He
concludes the paper/article with a summary of the “Geographical Data in the Rigveda” in detailed charts covering ten
pages (WITZEL 1995b:343-352), giving the geographical data classified into
columns as per five areas (which he classifies as West, Northwest,
Panjab, Kurukṣetra, East) from west to east.
In these charts, he specifically
locates every single reference (mentioned by him) to the Sarasvatī
in Books 6, 3 and 7 exclusively in Kurukṣetra:
VI.61.3,10 (WITZEL 1995b:343, 349), III.23.4 (WITZEL
1995b:343, 347), VII.36.6 (WITZEL 1995b:344, 349), VII.95.2 (WITZEL 1995b:344, 349) and VII.96.1,2 (WITZEL
1995b:344, 349). Further, wherever, in the main body of the article, he gives
geographical areas in sequence from west to east in these three Books, the Sarasvatī
is inevitably to the east of the Punjab (WITZEL 1995b:318, 320).
He does locate some of the
references to the Sarasvatī, in three of the other Books (2, 8 and 10), to the West (i.e. Afghanistan): II.41.6
(WITZEL 1995b:343, 346), VIII.21.17-18 (WITZEL 1995b:344, 350) and X.64.9
(WITZEL 1995b:345, 352). But:
a) In doing so, he creates an
uncalled for dual entity in the Rigveda, a Sarasvatī in Kurukṣetra
as well as a Sarasvatī in Afghanistan: to use his favourite
phrase, "Occam's razor applies" and cancels out his argument.
b) And even then, it may be
noted that the references to the Sarasvatī in Kurukṣetra appear
exclusively in the earlier Books, and the alleged references to
the Sarasvatī in Afghanistan appear exclusively in the later Books!
But a closer look at each of the
three truant references:
1. II.41.6:
a) He places a doubtful question mark after his
location of the Sarasvatī of Book 2 in the West (Afghanistan), in both
the places where he locates it there on his charts: “Sarasvatī? 2.41.6” (WITZEL 1995b:343, 346); and, in the main text
of his article, he uses the word “probably”
when suggesting, without any particular reason to do so, that the Sarasvatī
of this Book, in II.3.8, could refer to “the Avestan Haraxvaiti rather than […] to the modern Ghaggar-Hakra in the Panjab” (WITZEL 1995b:331).
b) Then he vaguely admits, in a
footnote, that “since Gārtsamāda Śaunaka
is made a Bhārgava, he could be later than Book 6” (WITZEL 1995b:316): that
is, since Gṛtsamada, the rishi of Book 2, was originally a descendant of
Śunahotra Āngiras of Book 6, Book 2 could be later than Book 6.
Since the earlier Sarasvatī of
Book 6 is placed by Witzel himself in Kurukṣetra, the later Sarasvatī of Book 2 could
hardly be the river of Afghanistan.
c) Moreover the references to
the Sarasvatī in Book 2 are clearly associated with Kurukṣetra
and not with Afghanistan: in II.3.8, which Witzel, above, suggests
could refer to the river of Afghanistan rather than the Ghaggar-Hakra
of Kurukṣetra, the Sarasvatī is actually mentioned alongwith the
other two great goddesses of Kurukṣetra,
Iḷā and Bhāratī, and, the previous verse II.3.7 refers to “the
three high places” of these three goddesses “at the centre of the earth”.
And Witzel himself points out, in the course of his description of Kurukṣetra,
that it “became the heartland of the
Bharatas well into the Vedic period. it is here that 3.53.11 places the centre
of the earth” (WITZEL 1995b:339).
2. VIII.21.17-18:
Likewise, Witzel’s location of
the Sarasvatī of Book 8 in Afghanistan is neutralized by the fact
that he locates the same verses, VIII.21.17-18, on the same
page (WITZEL 1995:350), once in Iran (i.e. “eastern Iran” = Afghanistan)
and once also in Kurukṣetra. And, for what it is worth,
the location in Afghanistan is followed by a speculative question mark,
but the location in Kurukṣetra is not!
3. X.64.9:
That leaves only Witzel’s
speculative location of the reference to the Sarasvatī in Book 10 in Afghanistan.
Book 10 is undoubtedly the last Book in the Rigveda, and there is no logical
reason why it should be supposed that the Sarasvatī referred to in X.64.9
should be a different one from the Sarasvatī referred to in the rest of
the Rigveda. Also note, the reference which specifically states that the Sarasvatī
is in Kurukṣetra (X.75.5) in the vicinity of the Gangā
and Yamunā, is in the same book of the Rigveda.
See also the following straight
statements by Witzel in 1995:
“[…] since the Sarasvatī, which dries up progressively after the mid-2nd
millennium B.C. (Erdosy 1989), is still described as a mighty stream in the Ṛgveda,
the earliest hymns in the latter must have been composed by c.1500 B.C.”
(WITZEL 1995a:98).
“Prominent in book 7: it flows from the mountains to the sea (7.59.2) ―
which would put the battle of ten kings prior to 1500 BC or so, due to the now
well documented dessication of the Sarasvatī (Yash Pal et al. 1984) […]. Two hymns (7.95-96) are composed solely in
praise of the Sarasvatī.” (WITZEL 1995b:335, fn 82).
Here, Witzel not only identified
the Sarasvatī of the Rigveda with the Sarasvatī
of Kurukṣetra which dried up progressively after 1500 BCE
(i.e. The Ghaggar-Hakra), but noted that it “flows from the mountains to the sea”.
Witzel (after my books):
“The River Sarasvati found in book 6 (T.
p.102) may be discarded just like T.’s Gangetic Jahnavi ... 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 localisation)” (WITZEL 2001b:§7)
[As I pointed
out in my reply to this fake review of my book, TALAGERI 2000,: “if we are to believe him, in 6.49.7, the
Sarasvati is a woman (named in a list of deities!) and in 6.50.12 a
deity (having nothing to do with the river of the same name!), and both
the verses fail to give evidence of acquaintance with “the physical river
Sarasvati”! So are we to assume that both this “woman” and this deity belong to
a period when the Vedic Aryans were still unacquainted with any river of that
name (and, therefore, presumably, when they finally did discover this
river, they named it after this woman or this deity)? And that when other
verses do refer to a river of that
name, this river may be “anywhere” from Arachosia to the “night time sky”? Anything but the Haryana river
– the “sky” is the limit!” TALAGERI 2001.
Further, if,
in any reference, Sarasvatī 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 Sarasvatī, since the word Sarasvatī is clearly originally
the name of a river: it means “the one with many ponds” (WITZEL
1995a:105). The deity came into existence as a riverine deity, and women
came to be named Sarasvatī after the name of the river/deity. So,
ultimately, all the references show the existence of the river Sarasvatī.
And the claim that the Sarasvatī in VI.52.6 and VI.61.1-7 is a river “which can be located anywhere from the
Arachosian Sarasvatī to the Night time sky, with no clear localization” is
nothing but a piece of unscholarly
and juvenile temper].
After writing,
in 1995, that the Sarasvati “flows from the mountains to the
sea (7.59.2) ― which would put the battle of ten kings prior to 1500 BC or so,
due to the now well documented dessication of the Sarasvatī (Yash Pal et al.
1984)” (WITZEL
1995b:335, fn 82), Witzel, in 2001 executes an about turn, and calls it
“the indigenist contention of a 'sea-going' Sarasvatī” (WITZEL 2001a:§9, fn.38) and in 2005 he again writes that the “autochthonous
proposals […] have the Rgvedic Sarasvatī flowing to the ocean”
(WITZEL 2005:376-7).
After
identifying the Rigvedic Sarasvati everywhere in 1995 as the Ghaggar-Hakra,
in 2001 he identifies it as “Sarasvatī (=Haraxvaitī,
Helmand)” (WITZEL 2001a:§12.3, fn.89)
and in 2005, again calls it “the Sarasvatī in Arachosia” (WITZEL
2005:392, fn. 153).
III-E: The
Chronology of the Ganga Reference in Book 6 of the Rigveda:
The Gaṅgā is the easternmost
river mentioned in the Rigveda. It is found mentioned twice in the Rigveda as Gaṅgā
(VI.45.31; X.75.5), and twice as Jahnāvī (III.58.6;
I.116.19).
It is significant that while the
oldest Books of the Rigveda (6,3,7) do not refer to any river
west of the Asiknī, including even the Sindhu (Indus), all
three of them refer to the easternmost rivers: Gaṅgā (VI.45.31), Jahnāvī (III.58.6) and Yamunā
(VII.18.6).
The sore point for Witzel is the
fact that the oldest book of the Rigveda, Book 6,
refers to the Gaṅgā. That is, it became a sore point after my
books. Again, we will quote Witzel (before my books) against Witzel
(after my books).
Witzel (before my books):
1. In his 1995
article, he refers to this reference as follows: “BOOK 6 […] mentions even the
Gangā
in an unsuspicious hymn (though in a tṛca
section)” (WITZEL 1995b:317).
[Just above this, he also notes
that “Book 5 […] even knows, in a hymn not suspected as
an addition, of the Yamunā”].
Although he notes that it is in
a “tṛca
section”, Witzel does not see it as an obstacle to the Gangā being
counted as part of the geography of Book 6 proper. He not only notes that this
hymn is an “unsuspicious hymn”
meaning "a hymn not suspected as an
addition", he regularly counts the Gangā among the geographical
data in the Rigveda for Book 6 (WITZEL 1995b:318, 320, 343, 345, 348,
352).
2. Two years later, in
1997, Witzel classifies the Rigvedic hymns into six levels of
composition. The first two levels, without specifying any particular hymn, he
names the “Indo-Iranian level” and
the “Pre-Ṛgvedic level”. Thus he
takes care of the assumed earlier stages of the Indo-Iranian period when the
common Indo-Iranian poetic traditions are assumed to have been first
formulated. The next four levels classify the actual Rigvedic hymns into
the “Early Ṛgvedic level”, “Later Ṛgvedic level”, “Late Ṛgvedic ritual compositions” and “Early Mantra type compositions”. In the
last category, he places Books 9 and 10, and in the second-last level, he
places most of Book 1. In the fourth level, he places Books 3 and 7.
In the “Early Ṛgvedic level”, he
names only the following: “Śamyu
Bārhapatasya 6.45.1 [sic], some
early Kaṇvas (in book 8)” (WITZEL 1997b:293). Thus, however vaguely (and
with Bārhaspatya mis-spelt as Bārhapatasya), he categorically
classifies hymn VI.45 in the “Early Ṛgvedic level”.
3. By 2000, Witzel
is even more categorical, and much more systematic and specific in his
classification. At around the time of publication of TALAGERI 2000 itself,
Witzel writes as follows:
“Even now, however, three RV periods can be established, as follows:
1.
early Ṛgvedic period: c.1700-1450
BCE: RV books 4, 5, 6.
2.
middle, main Ṛgvedic period :
c.1450-1300 BCE: books 3, 7, 8.1-47, 8.60-66 and 1.51-191, most probably also
2; prominent: Pūru chieftain Trasadasyu and Bharata chieftain Sudās and their
ancestors, and
3.
late Ṛgvedic period: c.1300-1200 BCE:
books 1.1-50, 8.48-59 (the late Vālakhilya hymns), 8.67-103, large sections
of 9, and finally 10.1-84, 10.85-191;
emergence of the Kuru tribe, fully developed by the time of Parīkṣit a
descendant of Trasadasyu.”
(WITZEL 2000a:§6).
Witzel not only provides us with
tentative dates for the different periods, but he systematically places Book 6 distinctly and categorically before at
least Books 1-3 and 7-10.
Is hymn VI.45
excluded from this classification? Far from it, in his footnote to the “early Ṛgvedic period: c.1700-1450 BCE”,
he writes: “With Indo-Aryan settlement
mainly in Gandhāra/Panjab, but occasionally extending upto Yamunā/Gangā, e.g. Atri
poem 5.52.17; the relatively old poem 6.45.13 [sic] has gāngya […]” (WITZEL
2000a:§6).
Later, he reiterates: “Even the oldest books of the RV (4-6)
contain data covering all of the Greater Panjab: note the rivers Sindhu 4.54.6, 4.55.3, 5.53.9 ‘Indus’; Asiknī 4.17.5 ‘Chenab’; Paruṣṇī 4.22.3. 5.52.9 ‘Ravi’; Vipāś 4.30.11 (Vibali) ‘Beas’; Yamunā 5.52.17; Gangā 6.45.31 with gāngya
‘belonging to the Ganges’ […].”(WITZEL
2000a:§6).
Finally, he leaves no room for
any doubt as to what he is saying: “G.
van Driem and A. Parpola (1999) believe that these oldest hymns were
still composed in Afghanistan
[…]. This is, however, not the case
as these books contain references to the major rivers of the Panjab, even the
Ganges (see above).” (WITZEL
2000a:§6).
Witzel (after my books):
In his review of TALAGERI 2000, Witzel
angrily dismisses " river names ...
found in what T. claims, on flimsy grounds, is the RV’s ‘oldest book’, RV6” and tells us: “One can immediately throw out the reference to the Ganges that appears
at RV 6.45.31 (Gāngya). […] Applying the principles pioneered by
Oldenberg, RV 6.45 can be shown to be a composite hymn built out of tṛcas at an
uncertain period. The ordering principle of the old family books clearly points
to the addition of all these hymns in mixed meters at the end of an Indra
series. Such late additions must not be used as an argument for the age of the
bulk of Book 6” (WITZEL 2001b: §7).
In later writings, he is even
more categorical: “The Ganges
is only mentioned twice in the RV, once directly in a late hymn (10.75.5), and
once by a derived word, gāngya in a
late addition (6.45.31). This occurs in a tṛca
that could be an even later addition to this additional hymn, which is too long to fit the order of arrangement
of the RV, see Oldenberg 1888” (WITZEL 2005:386, fn 76).
Before reading TALAGERI 2000: 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 Gangā, as pertaining to
the “early Ṛgvedic 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!
He categorically places the
reference to the Gangā in VI.45.31 (as well as the reference to the Yamunā
in V.52.17) before
Books 1-3 and 7-10: i.e. before
the Battle of the Ten Kings on the Paruṣṇī (in VII.18, 83), before the
crossing of the Vipāś and the Śutudrī (in III.33), and before the
establishment of the sacred fire at “the centre of the earth” in Kurukṣetra by
the ancestors of Sudās (in III.23);
and naturally long before the
introduction of camels to Vedic ṛishis by kings with proto-Iranian
names (identified by himself as such) (in VIII.5, 6, 46).
But immediately after reading
the analysis of the Rigveda in TALAGERI 2000, there is a magical transformation
in Witzel’s attitude: suddenly, he realizes that this reference “occurs in a tṛca that could be an even
later addition to this additional hymn” and finds this revelation so
compelling that he has no alternative except to “immediately throw out the reference to the Ganges that appears at RV
6.45.31 (Gāngya)”!
Can there be a more brazen and
unscholarly flip-flop than this?
III-F; The
Harīyūpīyā/Yavyāvatī in the Rigveda:
The Hariyūpīyā and Yavyāvatī in hymn VI.27 are two other rivers which
are usually considered to have a question mark, since the two words are
almost non-existent outside this hymn (only the second name being found
once in the Panchavimsha Brahmana). The context of the reference to the
two rivers in the hymn is a historic battle fought on their banks in the oldest
book of the Rigveda, Book 6, and it is clear that they are two
eastern tributaries of the Sarasvati.
However,
faced with what seemed to be a blank wall, many of the Indologists assumed it
to be a river of Afghanistan, and arrived at the Zhob as the closest
phonetic equivalent of the word Yavyāvatī, and some of them then identified the Hariyūpīyā
with the Ariob or Haliab river not far from it. However,
Edward Thomas, as far back as 1883, and even as he was describing an
invasionist scenario, recognized the two words as referring to "a tīrath
in Kurukṣetra" (THOMAS 1883).
The Hariyūpīyā
is clearly the name of a tributary of the Sarasvati, and in fact another
name for the Dṛṣadvatī: while the name Hariyūpīyā is a
one-time word not found anywhere outside hymn VI.27, the Dṛṣadvatī
is known in later texts (e.g. the Mahabharata III.129.7) as Raupyā= the
silver-golden one. The name is clearly a derivation of the word Hariyūpīyā
both phonetically (which is obvious) and meaning-wise: Witzel
points out that "hari 'tawny, etc' = raupya 'golden'" (WITZEL
2000b:§7).
Note that
while the two rivers are mentioned in such an important context in this hymn in
Book 6 which is located entirely in the area in the extreme east
of the Rigvedic horizon, there is absolutely no mention of them anywhere in
later Books and hymns where the westward expansion has been
completed, not even in the nadī-sūkta (X.75)! Book 6, which
refers to these two rivers in hymn 27, is not familiar with the areas
west of the Sarasvati: not even with the areas of the Punjab. If these two
rivers referred to western rivers, it would present an inexplicable
contradiction. The entire geographical horizon of the six Family Books (2-7),
as we have seen in detail in my books and articles, shows that the east
is the habitat of the Vedic Aryans, who expanded westwards only in the
time of Sudās.
Again, we
will see Witzel
(before my books)
against Witzel (after my books):
Witzel (before my books):
Witzel does not directly identify the two rivers as eastern tributaries
of the Sarasvati, and just goes with the general flow. But very clearly, he
does not find it convincing: about
the only other
reference anywhere to
the Yavyāvatī (in the Pancavimsha Brahmana 25.7.2), he
writes in 1987: “it has been identified with the Zhob in E.Afghanistan.
At PB 25.7.2, however, nothing
points to such a W. localisation.
The persons connected with it are known to have stayed in the Vibhinduka
country, a part of the Kuru-Pancala land” (WITZEL 1987: 193).
Even in his 1995 papers, he
categorically locates the Pancavimsha Brahmana in the "Kuru country, near
Kurukṣetra" (WITZEL 1995a) and mentions the alleged western location of the river with a
doubtful “may be” and a question mark: “may
be the Zhob river in N. Baluchistan?” (WITZEL 1995b: 317).
Witzel (after my books):
Now Witzel
becomes very categorical about the “W. localisation” of the river: in his review of my 2000 book, Witzel
insists that they are “western” rivers which “point to Eastern Afghanistan,
to the river Zhob, and (perhaps) the Hali(-Ab)” (WITZEL 2000b:§7).
[Note: He
places the (-Ab) in brackets because otherwise it would give the
impression that Witzel is endorsing a connection between Rigvedic -ūp-
and -āb, which is obviously not there, since the -āb stands for
"water" or "river". As a linguist, Witzel should also answer this question: is Vedic “hari”
phonetically equivalent to an Iranian “hali” (Vedic r=Iranian l,
when it is known that Iranian in fact regularly converted IE l to
r)? And is there any point of comparison in the meanings of the two
words? On the other hand, the later name Raupya (Drshadvati) is clearly
a phonetic corruption of Hariyupiya, and the meaning, as Witzel himself
notes (“hari ‘tawny, etc’ = raupya ‘golden’”) is more or less similar.].
III-G: The
Iranian Tribes:
The names of
the enemy tribes of Sudās in the Battle of Ten
Kings described in the Rigveda, can be identified with the names of Iranian
tribes (also with the Proto-Greeks, Proto-Armenians
and Proto-Albanians). I have dealt with this subject in my books
as well as in innumerable articles. The evidence is unchallengeable:
1. I it is based wholly on names
mentioned in just four verses in two hymns,
out of the 1028 hymns and 10552 verses in the
Rigveda, and all pertain to one single event.
2. The historical Iranian
tribes and other (Armenian-Greek-Albanian) people with
these names are found in later historical times in a continuous belt covering
all the areas from the Punjab (the scene of the battle) to southeastern and
eastern Europe:
Afghanistan: [Avesta: Sairima,
Dahi] (and NW
Pakistan): Pakhtoon.
Iran: SE (and SW Pakistan): Baluchi, NE: Parthian, SW: Persian, NW:
Mede.
Uzbekistan: Khiva.
Turkmenistan: Dahae.
Turkey: Phrygian.
Greece: Hellene.
Albania, Slovenia: Sirmio.
Romania, Bulgaria: Dacian.
Ukraine,
S. Russia: Alan, Sarmatian.
3.
The names correspond to the names of ancient tribes or people belonging to exactly
those four branches―Iranian, Armenian,
Greek, Albanian―of Indo-European languages which,
according to the linguistic analysis, were (along with Indo-Aryan)
together in the IE Homeland after the departure of the other seven branches.
Again
we will see Witzel
(before my books)
against Witzel (after my books) in respect of the more obvious,
relevant and important of the names:
Witzel (before my books):
"Parśu ~ Old
Pers. Pārsa 'Persian', Paktha 8.22.10 (mod. Pashto, Pakhto)"
(WITZEL:1999a:24, 2000a:§11).
“the Persians (Pārsa)
have the same name as the Parśu” (WITZEL 1995b:fn.118)
"the Bhalānas
tribe took part in the Ten Kings Battle (RV 7.18) that settled the suzerainty
of the Bharata chieftain over the Panjab tribes. The Bhalānas are
identified with the Bolān pass and river near Quetta in Baluchistan"
(WITZEL:1999a:24).
"The southernmost tribe
mentioned in the RV are the Bhalānas took part in the Ten Kings Battle
(RV.7.18) and are certainly to be located near the Bolān pass and river
near Quetta" (WITZEL:2000a:§11).
"the IA Bhalānas"
(WITZEL 1999a:37).
“The Bhalānas tribe, which
may represent the Bolān area in modern Baluchistan” (WITZEL 1995b:102).o
may be identified with the
"Śiva
(= Śibi?)" (WITZEL:1995b).
Witzel (after my books):
"The eager efforts made
by many Indian scholars of various backgrounds to rescue these lists as
representing actual historical facts173" [fn.173:
"The latest example is Talageri (1993, 2000) who builds a whole
imaginative prehistory of South Asia on such 'data': with an early emigration
of the Druhyu branch of the Aryans to Iran and Central Asia in the 5th
millennium BCE, including such fantastic etymologies and identifications as
Bhalānas = Baloch (who only appear on the scene after
1000 CE!), Bhṛgu = Phrygians, Madra = Mede (Māda), Druhyu = Druids, Alina =
Hellenic people, Śimyu = Sirmio (Albanians), etc. -- these are Oakish cases
where even Elst (1999: 192 sq.) does not always follow him"]
(WITZEL:2001a:57).
Here he clearly seems to reject linguistically
confirmed identifications: that Vedic bhṛgu = Greek phleguai
= Phrygian phryge is an accepted linguistic case. In fact, this identification,
even without the help of modern Linguistics, was made as long ago as in the
ancient Greek records of Herodotus. The Wikipedia entry on an ancient tribe
called Bryges tells us: "The earliest mentions of the Bryges are
contained in the historical writings of Herodotus, who relates them to Phrygians,
stating that according to the Macedonians, the Bryges 'changed their name'
to Phryges after migrating into Anatolia".
Also, see Witzel here superiorly
telling us that the Baluchis "appear on the scene after 1000 CE" in sharp contradiction to his
own identifications published just two years, and one year, earlier, and in
fact even as early as 1995 (WITZEL:1995b).
I could go on
and on, giving examples of Witzel’s false and fraudulent claims disproved by me
with solid data from the original sources (or,
ironically, from other writings of Witzel himself!). But I think
the above should be enough.
By contrast,
Witzel’s writings against me only contain name-calling and ad hominem
concerning my person, or my academic status or (real or alleged) political
motives; and criticisms on the (often misguided) ground that I have not used
the accepted (as decided by him and his crony Big Brothers of Academia)
table-etiquette rules of academic writing. At the same time, he publishes
grossly erroneous articles with outdated and disproved conclusions on the subject
in his Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies,
organizes pressure campaigns against western academics whose writings may have
inadvertently provided evidence for the OIT, and spreads personal lies
about myself (such as that I insulted his wife, or that I have postulated
Maharashtra as the location of the PIE Homeland).
According to
me, this article is a final answer in the AIT-vs.-OIT
linguistic debate. Will it convince everyone who reads it?
It should, but then who can say? I started this article in response to a
tweet by an Indian Hindu sepoy who claimed that Witzel has “disproved”
the “half-decent” “smth” that I did “for linguistics”.
I am sure sepoys of his ilk will continue to claim to remain unconvinced and
continue to claim that “OIT is ded”. I remember when Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in July 1969, and the whole world
was agog with the news. I was in the sixth standard in school when it happened.
I still remember a classmate (I don’t even remember his name now), even many
months later, insisting that it was all a lie, and was done with the effect of
trick photography. “No-one has landed on the moon. My pappā said it
is all a lie by Americans. He said it is just trick photography.” Now who,
in the eyes of this child, could be in a position to argue against his “pappā’s”
words? To juvenile sepoys like this Ugraschrawas@Ugrashravas, western
academics and academic journals represent “pappā”.
That is their level, and if they are happy to remain at that level, so be it:
what can be more important than being happy?
Appendix
added 15-1-2025: “BMAC Words”:
This is an
important part of Witzel’s “linguistic evidence” showing that the Vedic
Aryans entered India from the northwest after a joint sojourn with the Iranians
in central Asia, from where they both (the Indo-Aryans and the Iranians) borrowed certain words from some (unknown, affiliation-unknown,
and unrecorded) “BMAC language” in Central Asia in a
definitely pre-Rigvedic period. This should have
been included in Section I above, but was not because that
section dealt with the linguistic case presented by Witzel in his article “Indocentrism:
autochthonous visions of ancient India” presented by Michael Witzel (WITZEL
2005), in a volume “The Indo-Aryan Controversy — Evidence and
Inference in Indian history” edited by Edwin Bryant and Laurie
Patton, published in 2005, and Witzel wisely avoided including
this “BMAC evidence” in that article. However, it is an intrinsic part of
Witzel’s linguistic case for the AIT, and is as illustrative of his
faulty logic as the rest of the case. So I add it here in this appendix.
Witzel claims
that The pre-Rigvedic and pre-Avestan speakers, before
they entered their historical habitats and composed the Rigveda and the Avesta,
had a joint sojourn in Central Asia, where they borrowed many
words in common from a non-IE “BMAC” language (these words
being found only in these two branches of IE, and not in any of the
others):
In his review
of my book TALAGERI 2000, Witzel wrote about “the substrate words common to both Indo-Aryan and Iranian (Witzel
1999a, Lubotsky forthc.) [...]
such common non-Indo-Iranian words differ from the typical Rgvedic and
post-Rgvedic substrate and indicate that both the proto-Indo-Aryans and
proto-Iranians, perhaps even the speakers of proto-Indo-Iranian, entered a
Central Asian/ Afghan territory that was also occupied by a previous population
speaking non-Indo-European language(s) (pace J.Nichols!) — most probably the
language(s) of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC)”
(WITZEL 2001b:§7). “The evidence suggests the various Indo-Iranian tribes
entered a non-Indo-European speaking area, Bactria-Margiana, and brought new
local loan-words taken over there with them into Iran and the Greater Punjab”
(WITZEL 2001b:§9).
Witzel, in his
EJVS article “Substrate Languages in Old Indo-Aryan” (WITZEL
1999:54-55), gives a list of 18 such words.
However, as I pointed out
in my reply to his review, all these 18 words are late words in the Vedic or Sanskrit language as a whole. If these words were pre-RV
loan words, they would already have been found throughout the Rigveda.
However, while all these are very common words in later texts, seven words (iṣṭi, godhūma, ṣaṇa, sasarpa, khaḍga, vīṇā and khara) of these eighteen
are post-Rigvedic words, not found in the RV at all
(and the same is the case with another word, linga, named by him
in another article). Another ten words (uṣṭra,
kadrū, kapota, kaśyapa, parṣa, prdāku, bīja,
bhanga, yavya and sthūṇā) are found only
in the New Rigveda (the Late Books 5,1,8,9,10),
as follows:
V. 45.2; 53.13; 62.7.
I. 30.4; 59.1; 138.2, 173.12.
VIII. 5.37; 6.48; 17.14-15; 45.26; 46.22,31; 98.8.
IX. 61.13; 114.2.
Only one word
(bhiṣaj/bheṣaj), although it is a late word, is so
important (having to do with medicine) that it has seeped into two hymns
in the Old Books, but otherwise only in the Redacted Hymns
and the New Rigveda:
Old Rigveda:
VII. 46.3.
II. 33.1,2,4,7,12,13.
Redacted Hymns:
VI. 50.7;
74.3.
New Rigveda:
V. 42.11;
53.14.
I. 23.19,20,21; 24.9;
34.6; 43.4; 89.4;
114.5; 116.16; 157.6.
VIII. 9.6,15;
18.8; 22.10; 20.23,25; 29.5;
72.17; 79.2; 86.1.
IX. 112.1,3.
X. 9.5,6,7; 39.3,5; 59.9; 60.12;
97.6; 100.10; 137.3,6; 175.2;
186.1.
[But note:
it is found in Book 2 because, as I have pointed out in my
article on the Gṛtsamadas, the Gṛtsamadas of Book 2 were the
pioneers of the Vedic system of healing and medicine, which originated in Book
2. So, the only older hymn into which this late
word has seeped is VII.46]
So, on the whole, Witzel not only invents an imaginary (and unaffiliated to
any other known tongue) “BMAC” language not found recorded
anywhere in the world, and attributes all kinds of Vedic-Avestan
words to this imaginary “language”, but all the words in the Rigveda
that he attributes to this “language” and classifies as pre-Rigvedic
words are actually post-Rigvedic or New
Rigvedic.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
DESHPANDE 1995: Vedic Aryans, non-Vedic Aryans, and
non-Aryans: Judging the Linguistic Evidence of the Veda; Deshpande,
Madhav. pp. 67-84 in “The Indo-Aryans of
Ancient South Asia”, ed. George Erdosy. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin, 1995.
DUMONT 1934:
A Parallel between Indic and Babylonian Sacrificial Ritual, W.F.Albright
and P.E.Dumont, JAOS, Vol.54, No.2 (June 1934), pp.107-128.
DUMONT
1947: Indo-Aryan Names from Mitanni,
Nuzi and Syrian Documents, P.E.Dumont, JAOS, Vol.67, No.4 (Oct-Dec 1947),
pp.251-253.
ERDOSY
1995: Preface to “The
Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: language, material Culture and Ethnicity”,
edited George Erdosy, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin-NY, 1995.
GAMKRELIDZE
1995: Indo-European and the
Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language
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Gruyter, 1995, Berlin, New York.
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Out of India? The linguistic evidence. Hock, Hans H. pp.1-18, in “Aryan
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Parpola, Koskikallio. Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura, Helsinki, 2001.
LUBOTSKY
2001: The Indo-Iranian Substratum.
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Linguistic & Archaeological Considerations”, Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura,
Univ. of Helsinki, Helsinki, 2001.
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1997: Encyclopaedia of
Indo-European Culture. Mallory J.P. and Adams D.Q. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. London and
Chicago, 1997.
TALAGERI
2000: The Rigveda: A
Historical Analysis. Talageri, Shrikant G. Aditya Prakashan (New Delhi),
2000.
TALAGERI
2001: Michael Witzel: An
Examination of his Review of my Book, Talageri, Shrikant G. in
http://shrikanttalageri.voiceofdharma.com
TALAGERI 2008: The Rigveda and the Avesta―The Final
Evidence. Talageri, Shrikant G. Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 2008.
THIEME 1960: The ‘Aryan’ Gods of the Mitanni Treaties. Thieme, P. in JAOS (Journal of the American Oriental
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THOMAS
1883: The Rivers of the Vedas, and How the Aryans entered India. Thomas,
Edward. The Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1883 (p.357-386).
WINN
1995: Heaven, Heroes and Happiness: The Indo-European Roots of Western
Ideology. Winn, Shan M.M.
University Press of America, Lanham-New York-London, 1995.
WITZEL
1995a: Early Indian History: Linguistic and Textual
Parameters. Witzel,
Michael. pp. 85-125 in
“The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia”, ed. by George Erdosy. Walter de
Gruyter. Berlin, 1995.
WITZEL
1995/2001 (Revised version of WITZEL 1995a): Early Indian History:
Linguistic and Textual Parameters. Witzel, Michael. pp. 85-125 in “The Indo-Aryans of Ancient
South Asia”, ed. by George Erdosy. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin, 1995, revised
2001.
WITZEL
1995b: Rgvedic History: Poets,
Chieftains and Politics. Witzel, Michael. pp. 307-352 in “The
Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia”, ed. by George Erdosy. Walter de Gruyter.
Berlin.
WITZEL 1997b: The
Development of the Vedic Canon and Its Schools: The Social and Political
Milieu. Witzel,
Michael. in “Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts”, ed. by M.Witzel, Cambridge
1997 (being the proceedings of the International Vedic Workshop, Harvard univ.,
June 1989).
WITZEL 1999: Substrate Languages in Old Indo-Aryan.
EJVS 5-1, 1999.
WITZEL 1999a: Early Sources for South Asian Substrate
Languages. Witzel, Michael. in MOTHER TONGUE, Special Issue, 1999.
WITZEL 2000a: The Languages of Harappa.
Witzel, Michael. Feb. 17, 2000.
WITZEL 2000b: The Home of the Aryans.
Witzel, Michael. in “Anusantyai, Fest schrift fur Johanna Norten zum” 70,
Geburtstag. Ed. Almut Hintze, Eva Tichy, JH Roll, 2000.
WITZEL 2001a: Autochthonous Aryans: The Evidence from
Old Indian and Iranian Texts. Witzel, Michael. (EJVS)7-3(2001)
WITZEL
2001b: WESTWARD HO! The Incredible Wanderlust of the Rgvedic Tribes
Exposed by S. Talageri, at
http://users.primushost.com/~india/ejvs/ejvs0702/ejvs0702a.txt
WITZEL
2005: Indocentrism: autochthonous visions of ancient India. Witzel,
Michael. pp.341-404, in “The Indo-Aryan Controversy — Evidence and
Inference in Indian history”, ed.Edwin F. Bryant and Laurie L. Patton,
Routledge, London & New York, 2005.
