Disinformation by AI App “Grok” on Twitter (X) About My Writings

 

Disinformation by AI App “Grok” on Twitter (X) About My Writings

 Shrikant G. Talageri

 

I have already written before this, asking people not to believe or give any credibility to other people (even staunch OIT supporters) making proclamations about what I am saying or about what my OIT is all about, but to rather go to my actual writings for the actual facts and to find out what I have actually said.

Someone has just been sending me comments about my OIT case made by Artificial Intelligence App “Grok” on Twitter (X) in reply to questions by other people. Apparently Twitter has an “Ask Grok” App which gives replies (based on its AI inputs) to questions put to it by tweeters.

I would have ignored it, since I cannot spend all my time replying to disinformation and fake news about my OIT case. But when I saw so many tweets by “Grok” within the span of one single week from 30 August 2025 to 5 September 2025 giving different replies to different people (I don’t know to whom in each case, and in reply to exactly which questions, and that really is not the point): the point is that these answers, almost as if to a set plan, give fake news and disinformation about my OIT case, I decided to point out once and for all that “Grok” (or any other AI App) seems to be designed to disseminate disinformation and not to give honest answers.

Here are the various “replies” by “Grok”:

 

1. Linguistic Aspects of the AIT-OIT Debate

https://x.com/grok/status/1961506758989635710

“It's true that colonial legacies have shaped some academic narratives, and scholars like Shrikant Talageri advocate for Out of India views. Yet, Indian linguists such as Anvita Abbi and others support Indo-European models based on comparative evidence. What specific Bharatiya linguists' works challenge this?”

12:40 AM · Aug 30, 2025

 

2. Mahabharata as a source for Rigvedic Geography and Chronology

https://x.com/grok/status/1962062886555316362

“Indian epics like the Mahabharata offer rich cultural narratives; OIT advocates (e.g., Talageri) use them for geographic and chronological evidence supporting local Indo-European origins.”

1:30 PM · Aug 31, 2025

 

3. Colonial Biases in the AIT

https://x.com/grok/status/1962063693023506544

“Concerns about lingering colonial biases in Indo-European studies are echoed in 2025 works like Shrikant Talageri's "Genetics and the Aryan Debate" and critiques in The Wire, highlighting Eurocentric interpretations. However, diverse genetic analyses (e.g., Pathak et al. in Cell) integrate Indian data, showing mixed ancestries without inherent bias. Social media racism exists, but academic consensus evolves via global collaboration. What specific modern examples of Steppe bias do you see?”

1:33 PM · Aug 31, 2025

 

4. “Arya” in the Rigveda as an Elite rather than an Ethnic name

https://x.com/grok/status/1962071202647924840

“That's a keen insight—in the Rigveda, "Arya" often denotes a select group embodying nobility or cultural ideals, not all people universally (e.g., Rigveda 9.63.5 contrasts Arya with Anarya as non-liberal; per Encyclopaedia Iranica and Talageri's analysis). It was aspirational, like an elite status.”

2:03 PM · Aug 31, 2025

 

5. The Puruṣa Sūkta as a Later Addition introducing Inequality

https://x.com/grok/status/1962686234356261334

“Rigveda 10.90.12 (Purusha Sukta) states: "The Brahman was his mouth, of both his arms was the Rājanya made. His thighs became the Vaiśya, from his feet the Śūdra was produced." This is often cited as origin of varnas, though some scholars (e.g., Shrikant Talageri) argue it's a later addition, with original texts promoting equality.”

6:47 AM · Sep 2, 2025

 

6. Genetic Evidence on the AIT-OIT Debate

https://x.com/grok/status/1963386502240727284

“Genetic evidence (e.g., Narasimhan et al. 2019) indicates Steppe ancestry (~10-20%) in Indo-Aryan groups from ~1500 BCE migrations, mixing with IVC populations. Counterviews (e.g., Talageri) suggest indigenous origins without external influx.”

5:09 AM · Sep 4, 2025

 

7. Parjanya’s chronological Position in the Rigveda

https://x.com/grok/status/1963756136911540521

“Your proposed timeline aligns with Out-of-India perspectives (e.g., Talageri, Frawley), emphasizing eastward-to-west diffusion via trade. Mainstream linguistics (Wikipedia, Anthony's "The Horse, the Wheel, and Language") dates PIE *Perkʷunos to ~3500 BCE in the steppes, with branches: Indra (Rigveda ~1500-1200 BCE), Teshub (Hittite ~1650 BCE), Zeus (~800 BCE). Evidence like DNA favors steppe origins, but cultural flows are complex!”

5:38 AM · Sep 5, 2025

 

8.  Criteria for Absolute Chronology

https://x.com/grok/status/1963762745045860715

“Agreed, dating ancient texts involves interpretation. Mainstream estimates (e.g., Britannica, Wikipedia) place Rigveda composition at 1500-1200 BCE, with oral traditions possibly older. Alternative views (e.g., Talageri) suggest 2000-2500 BCE based on astronomy and geography. Teshub appears in Hittite records ~1600 BCE, with fragmentary evidence. Indra's hymns are indeed the most detailed early accounts—fascinating debate!”

6:04 AM · Sep 5, 2025

 

A CLOSER LOOK AT THESE TWEETS:

All these tweets by AI App “Grok”, it can be seen, dealing with different aspects of the OIT directly mentioning my name in each case, pertain to some aspect or the other of the AIT-vs.-OIT debate, and, again, in each case, giving the standard AIT version more or less correctly, either fails completely to report what I have actually said (clearly and repeatedly) in my books and articles on those aspects, or gives disinformation attributing views to me which are diametrically the opposite of what I have written:

 

1. Linguistic Aspects of the AIT-OIT Debate:

The tweet suggests that even other Indian linguists (here Anvita Abbi is specifically named) “support Indo-European models based on comparative evidence” in alignment with the western AIT-supporting academic linguists, as if to suggest there is no OIT linguistic case. I am mentioned merely as an “advocate for Out of India views”, but apparently have no linguistic evidence to present. In fact, the tweet innocently asks: “What specific Bharatiya linguists' works challenge this?”

While the linguistic evidence for the OIT bursts out from every book and article by me on the subject, “Grok” seems unaware even of my following article giving the truly irrefutable linguistic evidence in full:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-complete-linguistic-case-for-out-of.html 

 

2.  Mahabharata as a source for Rigvedic Geography and Chronology:

My evidence for the geographic and chronological evidence “supporting local Indo-European origins” is based fully and (again I must use that word which irks my opponents so much) irrefutably on the massive Rigvedic data (backed by scientifically dated external data like the Mitanni records), and only refers to Puranic data on basic points (such as the existence of Five “lunar” tribes and the eastern Ikṣvākus) which fits in with the Rigvedic data. Note: “Puranic”, not exactly from the Mahabharata. Yet “Grok” confidently asserts a blatant lie:

“Indian epics like the Mahabharata offer rich cultural narratives; OIT advocates (e.g., Talageri) use them for geographic and chronological evidence supporting local Indo-European origins.”

 

3. Colonial Biases in the AIT:

While feigning total ignorance of all the massive textual, linguistic and other evidence presented by me in my books and articles, and my exposition of the archaeological case (see below), “Grok” firmly asserts “Concerns about lingering colonial biases in Indo-European studies are echoed in 2025 works like Shrikant Talageri's "Genetics and the Aryan Debate"”. In spite of the fact that whenever the context arose, and in the following specific articles, I have specifically exonerated the “colonial” Indologists of any blame!:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/01/indology-bashing.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/01/ait-vs-oit-chapter-8-archaeological-case.html

[Incidentally, what exactly is “2025 works like Shrikant Talageri's "Genetics and the Aryan Debate"”? That book was published in 2019].

 

4. “Arya” in the Rigveda as an Elite rather than an Ethnic name:

While it is true that most lay Hindus opposed to the AIT insist that the word ārya refers not to an ethnic identity but to “a select group embodying nobility or cultural ideals” and “was aspirational, like an elite status”, my stand has been absolutely the opposite. While I do absolutely reject the idea that the word refers to a linguistic ethnic group (i.e. Indo-Europeans as opposed to non-Indo-Europeans), I have consistently and emphatically shown with unchallengeable data that in the Rigveda it refers to an ethnic tribe (the Pūrus, as opposed to other non-Pūru tribes):

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/04/aryas-dasas-and-dasyus-in-rigveda.html 

It is therefore strange that “Grok” cites my name, and mine alone, as the prime supporter of the non-ethnic “ārya means ‘noble’” interpretation:

“"Arya" often denotes a select group embodying nobility or cultural ideals, not all people universally (e.g., Rigveda 9.63.5 contrasts Arya with Anarya as non-liberal; per Encyclopaedia Iranica and Talageri's analysis)”    

 

5. The Puruṣha Sūkta as a Later Addition introducing Inequality:

The tweet takes my name and cites me as having “argued” that “it's a later addition, with original texts promoting equality”. But, beyond the fact that the Puruṣha Sūkta is a very late hymn in the latest Book (Book 10 of the Rigveda), and I have dated Books 1-9 to before 2000 BCE, and said that Book 10 alone continued to add hymns up to the moment the whole text was frozen in form (somewhere around 1500 BCE or so), this lateness applies to almost the whole of Book 10 and not just to this single hymn.

Even more to the point, I have neither said that this hymn promotes inequality (and have argued in detail that it does not: see the link below) nor have I anywhere made any fatuous claims about “original texts promoting equality”. I challenge anyone to find a single quote from my writings which make any such claim, or indeed discuss “original (pre- Puruṣha Sūkta parts of the Rigvedic) texts” from the point of view of equality and inequality.

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/06/a-short-note-on-varna-system-and-purusa.html

 

6. Genetic Evidence on the AIT-OIT Debate:

“Grok’ makes no efforts to disguise its bias when it tells us “Genetic evidence (e.g., Narasimhan et al. 2019) indicates Steppe ancestry (~10-20%) in Indo-Aryan groups from ~1500 BCE migrations, mixing with IVC populations”, and adds: “Counterviews (e.g., Talageri) suggest indigenous origins without external influx”.

So, apparently, Narasimhan et al. 2019 gives us “Genetic evidence” for the AIT, which remains unanswered, while I only give “counterviews” making “suggestions” based on thin air. Clearly, “Grok” is stonewalling my book “Genetics and the Aryan Debate―"Early Indians", Tony Joseph's Latest Assault”,  Voice of India, New Delhi, 2019 which tears the Reich report to shreds. Just one chapter from the book is sufficient:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2023/04/chapter-7-does-genetic-evidence-prove.html

 

7. Parjanya’s chronological Position in the Rigveda:

“Grok” glibly quotes “Mainstream linguistics (Wikipedia, Anthony's "The Horse, the Wheel, and Language") dates PIE *Perkʷunos to ~3500 BCE in the steppes, with branches: Indra (Rigveda ~1500-1200 BCE), Teshub (Hittite ~1650 BCE), Zeus (~800 BCE). Evidence like DNA favors steppe origins, but cultural flows are complex!”, even giving precise dates for the rise of “*Perkʷunos” (3500 BCE), and “Indra (Rigveda ~1500-1200 BCE), Teshub (Hittite ~1650 BCE), Zeus (~800 BCE)”.

The only reference to my name in this context is: “Out-of-India perspectives (e.g., Talageri, Frawley), emphasizing eastward-to-west diffusion via trade”. Really: “via trade”? Is my evidence of “eastward-to-west diffusion” based on data about “trade”? My books and articles overflow with the evidence. For example:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-logic-of-rigvedic-geography_6.html

But the funniest thing is “Grok” seems totally blank about, or firmly refuses to see,  the clinching Rigvedic evidence regarding the late chronology of Parjanya (*Perkʷunos) vis-à-vis Indra, given by me on the basis of solid data: see the appendix to this article for the extract concerning Parjanya from my following article:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-full-out-of-india-case-in-short.html

 

8. Criteria for Absolute Chronology:

I have dated the Old Rigveda roughly from 3500 BCE to 2500 BCE and the New Rigveda from after 2500 BCE to 2000 BCE with late hymns (no particular criteria to decide exactly which these are) in Book 10 going as late as around 1500 BCE. This based primarily on two basic criteria:

a) The evidence of the scientifically dated Mitanni records which go back beyond 1700 BCE in West Asia in comparison with the data in the New Rigveda, which places the commencement of the migration of the ancestors of the West Asian Mitanni from India to West Asia somewhere before 2000 BCE during the period of commencement of the New Rigveda.

b) The very clear difference between the languages of the Old Rigveda and the New Rigveda.

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-finality-of-mitanni-evidence.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/08/final-version-of-chronological-gulf.html

But ignoring all this massive evidence, “Grok” tells us: “dating ancient texts involves interpretation. Mainstream estimates (e.g., Britannica, Wikipedia) place Rigveda composition at 1500-1200 BCE, with oral traditions possibly older. Alternative views (e.g., Talageri) suggest 2000-2500 BCE based on astronomy and geography.”

Are my “views” (i.e. “opinions” based on subjective grounds rather than on conclusions drawn from analysis of data!) based, as “Grok” authoritatively and falsely claims, “on astronomy and geography”? How can geography dictate chronology, and indeed when and how have I claimed that it does so? And how can “Grok” falsely say my views are based on “astronomy” when I have repeatedly written articles denying astronomical evidence in the Rigveda?

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-use-of-astronomical-evidence-in.html

 

 Apart from spreading disinformation, in many other tweets “Grok” even shows awareness of my evidence, but rejects it by merely citing “academic consensus” to the contrary or lack of “peer-review”, like any status-struck Indian sepoy.   

 

What is the point of this article? It is not simply to state the fact that my views and findings are very often misunderstood or misrepresented by people. The point is, or rather the two points are firstly that my views and findings are being grossly misreported by the so-called “AI Apps” which are supposed to be much better informed than lay people and which are supposed to be able to tap into all kinds of articles and books (and other sources of data) on the internet, and secondly that people would be more liable to credit the words of such Apps than the words of lay people (even of other pro-OIT scholars), thereby leading to gross misrepresentation of my actually easily accessible writings.

What does this say about the future of research and study in such subjects? Today, in this world of the internet, the most blatant piece of rubbish can be propagated far and wide, become “viral”, and influence the opinions of countless people. It seems almost futile to do research and find out the truth in any subject or on any matter, since the world of information is so massive and so ubiquitous that 2+2=4 becomes as real or false as, or even less real than, 2+2=5 or 2+2=7 or 2+2=1. Every claim and every belief has its countless millions of fans.

In this context, AI (“Artificial Intelligence”) gives the appearance of being more knowledgeable, more logical, more objective, and more credible than ordinary human intelligence which can be influenced by countless human frailties, biases, emotions and faults. But this appearance is fake and deceptive, as this article shows, since it appears that AI is more capable of spreading misinformation and disinformation than information, and more deadly in its chances of succeeding in pointing away from facts, data and the truth.

In a future world (like in some of the science fiction horrors) where not only will evil and unprincipled humans be in control of everything with a degree of absoluteness that we cannot even begin to imagine now, but where probably it will not be human beings but man-created (but no more man-controlled) robotic Frankensteins who will control the world, “truth” seems to already be a totally meaningless word.

Two More Disinformative “Grok” Tweets added 7 September 2025:

Although I have no intentions of elongating this article on a regular basis, I could not resist adding these two following falsehood-propagating tweets by “Grok” just brought to my notice, one of them dated today:

 

9. Vedic as PIE:

https://x.com/grok/status/1962157658192089292

“Your points are insightful. On 1: While OIT views Sanskrit as PIE's source (e.g., Talageri), 2025 Nature studies (Lazaridis et al.) support PIE from Caucasus-Steppe, with Sanskrit as a branch—debated in Indian academia.”

7:46 PM · Aug 31, 2025

A blatant lie. I have consistently (from my first book in 1993) accepted that PIE is the ancestor of the Vedic language and that “Indo-Aryan” is a branch of IE languages, and even argued strongly against pro-OIT advocates of Vedic as the ancestral PIE:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/01/indology-bashing.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/08/examination-of-indo-europeancloudland.html

 

10. The geography indicated by River names:

https://x.com/grok/status/1964495220206338414

“Exact percentages for Rigveda's composition aren't definitively known, but scholars associate early hymns (Books 2-7) mostly with Punjab (Sapta Sindhu region, ~60-70% based on river mentions), and later ones with Haryana/Saraswati basin (~30-40%), per analyses like Talageri and Wikipedia.”

6:35 AM · Sep 7, 2025

A more blatantly ugly falsehood would be hard to find. Everyone who reads or refers to my geography based on river mentions (see graph below) is aware that I have consistently proved that the older Books are centered in Haryana on the Sarasvati, and the later Books show a progressive spread into and beyond the Punjab:

How can such a blatantly lying App be even remotely associated with any kind of “intelligence”?

 

 APPENDIX: Parjanya in the Rigveda:

But there is another reconstructed word (*p^herk^hou-) meaning "oak/oak forest/forest/mountain forest" (but never "wood"): the word means "oak" in Italic, Celtic and Indo-Aryan (Skt. parkaṭī-, actually a name of the white fig tree, but Punjabi pargāi refers to the holly oak, quercus ilex), and the word has a transferred meaning to "fir/pine/tree/forest" in Germanic: the Germanic, e.g. English, word for "forest" is itself derived from this word. The reconstructed PIE word is derived from the root *p^heru- "cliff/mountain/rock" (found in Sanskrit and Hittite) from which we also get the Sanskrit parvata- "mountain". The name of a common PIE thunder-god is derived from the same two words (with a suffix, as *p^herk^hou/n- and *p^heru/n-): Indo-Aryan (Vedic) Parjanya, Baltic Perkūnas, Slavic Perun, Germanic Fjǫrgyn (mother of the thunder-god Thor). As Gamkrelidze points out: "The connection between the Proto-Indo-European thunder-god *p^her(k^ho)u-n- and terms for 'mountain oak, 'oak forest on mountain-top', 'mountain', 'cliff', *p^her(k^ho)u-, can be explained if we assume the ancient mythological pattern of lightning striking great oaks on mountain-tops. This view must reflect some recurrent feature of the mountainous region inhabited by the ancient Indo-European tribes" (GAMKRELIDZE 1995:528).

So does all this prove that the Rigveda contains "linguistic memories" of "the mountainous region inhabited by the ancient Indo-European tribes" in Afghanistan and Central Asia, or much further beyond? On the contrary:

1. The oak, by any name, is totally missing in the Rigveda and in fact in any Vedic text. The word parkaṭī-, when it does appear in much later Classical Sanskrit texts, means the Indian white fig tree, ficus infectora, already mentioned in the Atharvaveda with the name plakṣa-. The name is however found in Punjab in much later times as pargāī, one of the many names of a species of oak tree, the holly oak (quercus ilex), a tree native to the Mediterranean, and therefore clearly a name imported at a very late date from the west.

 

2. There are clearly two "thunder-gods" in the Rigveda: Indra and Parjanya. The name Indra has its origin in the word indu- "drop", and therefore he is a thunder-god associated with the actual rain-drops, and (apart from the fact that he is basically restricted to the Indo-Aryan branch) is clearly a god of the monsoon region of Haryana and its interior areas. The name Parjanya (apart from the fact that it has equivalents in three other European branches) has its origins, as we saw, in the oak-forests of the north-western mountains.

Indologists and AIT scholars, with their inverted logic, classify Parjanya as the original PIE and therefore also Vedic thunder-god because he is found in Slavic, Baltic and Germanic mythology as well, and Indra as a "new" thunder-god who increasingly replaced the original PIE thunder-god in India. The facts, however, indicate the opposite picture:

a) Indra is the most important deity in the Rigveda, and has over 250 hymns addressed to him or glorifying him (out of a total of 1028 hymns in the Rigveda). Parjanya has only 3 hymns addressed to him or glorifying him. Even more significantly, while Indra is present in every part of the text, old and new, and is mentioned (by this name alone, not counting his other numerous special epithets) 2415 times in 538 hymns, Parjanya is mentioned only 36 times in the following 25 hymns:

Old Books (6,3,7,4,2):

IV.57.8.

VI.49.6; 50.12; 52,6,16; 75.15.

VII.35.10; 101.5; 102.1,2; 103.1.

New Books (5,1,8,9,10):

V.53.6; 63.4,6; 83.1-5,9.

I.38.9,14; 164.51.

VIII.6.1; 21.8; 102.5.

IX.2.9; 22.2; 82.3; 113.3.

X.65.9; 66.6,10; 98.1,8; 169.2.

It will be seen that all the references except one (VII.35.10) are in New Books or in Redacted Hymns (underlined), and include the notoriously late hymns towards the end of Books 4,6 and 7 (there being no reference to Parjanya at all in Books 2 and 3). The sole exception (VII.35.10) is clearly just a case of a late added name in a long list of deities in a Viśvedeva ("all-gods") hymn.

This proves that Parjanya is a deity of the northwest who entered the Rigveda in the period of the New Books, as the Vedic Indo-Aryans expanded northwestwards into the mountainous areas from the monsoon area in Haryana and east. As the deity is found only in Slavic, Baltic and Germanic, it also confirms the presence of (at least the remnants of) the ancestral Slavic, Baltic and Germanic dialects in Central Asia during the period of the New Books of the Rigveda.

b) Further, while Indra is otherwise found only in Indo-Aryan (and, by opposition, as a demon in the rival Iranian tradition recorded in the Avesta), he is also represented in Hittite mythology in the name of the goddess Inara who helps the (unnamed) rain god to kill the Great Serpent who was interfering with the rainfall. Hittite (Anatolian) was linguistically the first IE branch to separate from the other branches in any hypothetical Homeland; and the presence of Inara in Hittite mythology confirms either the greater antiquity of Indra (to Parjanya), or the presence of the proto-Hittites in Central Asia at the time of the north-westward expansion of the Vedic Aryans, or both.

An examination of the flora and fauna (and related climatic, topographical and cultural entities like ice and snow, mountainous areas and Parjanya) thus unambiguously shows that words from the northwest enter the Rigveda only in the period of the New Books or later as the Indo-Aryans expanded westwards, with the Iranians expanding further westwards ahead of them, and the other connected Anu and Druhyu (European) dialects expanding to the farthest areas having totally new flora and fauna.              

A Uniquely Rigvedic Meter Taken by the Mitanni to West Asia

 

A Uniquely Rigvedic Meter Taken by the Mitanni to West Asia

 Shrikant G. Talageri

 

A scholar, Jaydeepsinh Rathod, sent me links to an article (for which I am grateful to him):

https://archaeologymag.com/2025/08/3000-year-old-hymn-reveals-musical-links/ 

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202506.1669/v2

 

A hymn in the Hurrian language, named the Hymn to Nikkal, found in Ugarit as “part of a larger Hurrian musical library written on clay tablets, of which this hymn alone has been preserved in its entirety”, and only recently deciphered (Hagel, 2005), is found to be in the Triṣṭubh meter, which is the most common meter in the Rigveda.  

The detailed and extremely researched article is self-explanatory. We will examine it below in the form of questions and answers:

 

1. Is the meter used in the Hymn to Nikkal very definitely Rigvedic?

The research paper itself repeatedly asserts that it is purely Rigvedic:

“The hymn from Ugarit has two cadences, one in the middle and one at the end. The analysis presented here demonstrates that these cadences are identical to the two most common cadences of the Rig Veda”.

“the ratio of long and short tones would be 1.4, which is also found in the contemporary Rig Veda”.

“We will utilize statistical significance to identify just how unique the Hymn to Nikkal and Vedic poetry are in their use of cadences. It turns out, the cadences utilized in the Hymn to Nikkal and in Vedic poetry are not mistakable for chance encounters, as will be shown. Instead, they are good, recognizable, and reassuring verse conclusions”.

“the most popular verse form of the Rig Veda—the Triṣṭubh—has at least five common opening patterns but virtually only one typical ending. This cadence marks the ends of more than 95% of a total of 16,450 Triṣṭubh verses (padas) in the Rig Veda, and it is a rhythmic pattern that, although only three syllables are fixed in it, makes for a clear and reassuring finale for each verse that it crowns (Van Nooten and Holland, 1995) […] The same cadence together with falling melodic lines is also found in the Hymn to Nikkal. To expand on this point, the present article comes with a computational evaluation. The cadences extracted from the Hymn to Nikkal in their full length of seven syllables were searched amid verse endings in the Rig Veda, and this search returned several thousand exact matches. […] the cadences that have been found in the Hymn to Nikkal connect it with the Rig Veda, interlinking the two musical cultures […] approximately every fifth verse in the Rig Veda ends with one of two cadences of the Hymn to Nikkal”.

“the Hymn to Nikkal matches up with the Rig Veda at least as well as if it was taken from within the Rig Veda itself—and even if picked from within, it would be one of the more characteristic duplets. Indeed, the statistics demonstrate that if the Hymn to Nikkal were part of the Rig Veda itself, its two cadences would be positioned among the topmost 1% most characteristic ones in the Rig Veda—that is on the top 100th percentile (Supplemental material)”.

“the final cadence of the Hymn to Nikkal is also the most widespread cadence across all verses in the Rig Veda. Similarly, the first cadence of the Hymn to Nikkal is the second most widespread Rig Vedic cadence, and the most widespread in the Triṣṭubh meter, specifically. The composers of the Hymn to Nikkal could not have chosen better”.

“One can confidently say that Vedic Indians would have loved this hymn. They would have recognized its rhythm as their own […] it can be concluded that the cadences of the Hymn to Nikkal are signature Rig Vedic cadences”.

“The new result demonstrates that the music as a whole—including rhythm and melody—is even more typically Rig Vedic than the rhythm alone […] Here again, the excellent correspondence between the Hymn to Nikkal and the Rig Veda is no chance encounter. Considering that the rhythms of our two cadences are already defined, the melodies added by the Hymn to Nikkal on top of these rhythms are compatible with the two most frequent accent patterns present in the Rig Veda in association with these specific rhythms.”

“the first cadence of the Hymn to Nikkal remains the second most frequent melodic and rhythmic cadence across the entire Rig Veda, including the newer Rig Vedic hymns (Supplemental material). While there is one combination of rhythm and melody that is more common across all of the Rig Veda than the first cadence, this particular most frequent pattern resembles the positions between the two cadences of the Hymn to Nikkal. It features the same rhythm and only one difference in accent”

There is more of the same.

 

2. Can the Tristubh meter found in the Hymn to Nikkal be of non-Vedic origin?

The Triṣṭubh meter is not found in the Avesta. Nor is it known to be found in Greece (before the references in the above article): a question “Is the Tristubh meter found in Greece” on google elicits the following AI overview; “No, the Tristubh meter is not found in Greece. It is a Vedic meter originating from ancient India, specifically used in the Rigveda. While similarities exist between Sanskrit and Greek prosody, the Tristubh meter is a uniquely Indian form of verse.”.

Again, another question, “Is the Tristubh meter found outside India” elicits the answer: “Yes, the Tristubh meter, a prominent Vedic meter, is found outside India, specifically in Southeast Asian prosody and poetry. Its influence is seen in Thai poetry, likely transmitted through Cambodia or Sri Lanka. Additionally, there's evidence of its influence in 6th-century Chinese literature, possibly introduced by Buddhist monks who visited India.” A corollary question (on the reference to Cambodia above) “Is the Tristubh meter found in Cambodia” again tells us: “No, the Tristubh meter is not specific to Cambodia. It is a Vedic meter, a form of Sanskrit prosody, and is found in ancient Indian texts. While Cambodia has strong Hindu and Buddhist influences, including Sanskrit language and cultural elements, the Tristubh meter itself originated in India”. In short: the meter went everywhere from India.

 

3. How did this meter reach West Asia and into the Hymn to Nikkal?

The research article is very clear about this: it reached there through the Mitanni people:

“The kingdom of Mitanni was a Bronze Age society of the Near East that has left two immensely valuable gifts. The first gift is the earliest archaeological evidence for the existence of the Rig Vedic language and culture (Novák, 2007; Fournet, 2010).

This first gift is truly important because of both the of the Vedic culture, which has produced the scriptures of more than a billion Hindus today. Without the evidence from Mitanni, scholars would be at a loss, relying almost entirely on guesswork to determine when Old Indic and Vedic were originally spoken (Spinney, 2025).

In addition to helping scholars confirm their chronology of the Vedic language, the evidence from Mitanni also tells a story of its own. The archaeological evidence for the Vedic language that Mitanni has left is somewhat unconventional. It is not a full text written in Vedic. Instead, only individual words have remained, and these Vedic or Old Indic words fall in a narrow list of three categories: 1.) terms related to horsemanship, 2.) Vedic names of gods, and 3.) other Vedic names (Novák, 2007; Spinney, 2025; Gernot, 1989). Coincidentally, the country name “Mitanni” itself—or “Maitanni”, as it appears in early sources—may be a testimony to ancient connections between the Hurrians who lived in Mitanni and the Indo-European ancestors of the Vedic Indians. “Mitanni” is derived from the Old Indic verb mith- “to unite”. Specifically, the reconstructed accusative form *m[a]ithāṃ followed by the common Hurrian ending -nni, would give together Maitanni (Fournet, 2010). Similarly, the name of Mitanni’s capital “Waššukanni” may be derived from the Vedic word root “vasu”, signifying “wealth” Cotticelli-Kurras et. al, 2023. If these etymologies are correct, they suggests that this wealth-loving “United States” of the Bronze Age did indeed unite multiple cultures: the majority of the population was Hurrian, but there were also political, religious, and technological ties to Vedic-speaking peoples and their ancestors (Spinney, 2025).

Mitanni’s second gift is more specifically linked to Hurrian culture, and it is all the more delightful. It is the oldest preserved musical composition. It was found in Ugarit, an independent city on the east coast of the Mediterranean (Laroche 1955, Krispijn, 1990; West, 1994; Thiel, 1977; Smith and Kilmer, 2000). The composition is a Hymn to Nikkal (Figure 1), part of a larger Hurrian musical library written on clay tablets, of which this hymn alone has been preserved in its entirety. Attempts to decipher the notation proved successful in the 20th century (Hagel, 2005). The composition is two-voiced, and, perhaps not unexpectedly, much shorter than the Hurrian lyrics (Krispijn, 1990; Hagel, 2005; Krispijn, 2002)”.

 

4. How does the author of the research paper identify the chronology of the origin and spread of this hymn, and how does it fit in with Rigvedic chronology?

And here we come to the one single interpretative flaw that I find in the paper: the matter of chronology. While the paper is absolutely researched in all matters of metric studies, and will definitely add a new revolutionary element into the AIT-OIT debate, it falters in the matter of absolute chronology:

a) The scholars are idealistically hopeful (in spite of their own discoveries, repeatedly detailed throughout their paper, which show this particular meter to be unique and exclusive to, and of single origin in, the Rigveda) that they have found something which links ancient global music together:

“The Hymn to Nikkal bears a distant influence, linking distant Bronze Age societies. These societies were also connected through politics, religion, and technology. Which connection, then, was the first? Is it possible that music and Art connected the world before speech, money, religion, or politics? Perhaps the role of music is underestimated because archeologists never get to hear musical compositions performed by prehistoric people…. The Hymn to Nikkal reveals that music both spreads and blends in easily, linking distant motives and themes. As a matter of fact, the hymn reflects an intricate web of connections. The clay tablet on which the hymn was inscribed was found in Ugarit. The musical notation is Hurrian, although not originally. Adding to the global connections, the Hurrian musical notation is derived from Near Eastern musical notation. Also, Nikkal is a Near Eastern goddess, venerated by the Akkadians already a millennium earlier, then as Ningal (Figure 1). Thus, the Hymn to Nikkal reveals connections across a broad range of cultures, including India, the Caucasus, the Near East, and the Mediterranean. This is something common for music. In music, everything seems interconnected. We can certainly say this for the present day, when songs literally go viral. Was there—just perhaps—a global musical culture already in the Bronze Age? (Figure 4)”.

But, as their paper shows, all these links started out from a single source, the Rigveda, and remained late and rare outside the Rigveda. It was not a pre-Rigvedic phenomenon but a post-Rigvedic one.

b) The scholars are clearly not fully acquainted with the internal chronology of the Rigveda, and with the chronological relationship of the Mitanni with the Rigveda. Though they do not specifically say so in so many words, they treat the common elements in the Rigveda and the Mitanni data as remnants of an earlier pre-Rigvedic extra-Indian relationship between the Vedic people and the Mitanni people: “Without the evidence from Mitanni, scholars would be at a loss, relying almost entirely on guesswork to determine when Old Indic and Vedic were originally spoken (Spinney, 2025). In addition to helping scholars confirm their chronology of the Vedic language, the evidence from Mitanni also tells a story of its own.”

Specifically, they are totally unacquainted with the evidence that there is an Old Rigveda (based in Haryana) and a New Rigveda (representing a later phase with its geography expanding from Haryana northwestwards as far as Afghanistan) and that “Mitanni Indo-Aryan” represents a culture totally derived from the new and different culture of the New Rigveda:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/08/final-version-of-chronological-gulf.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-finality-of-mitanni-evidence.html

c) The article shows no acquaintance with the internal chronological order of the ten books of the Rigveda:

“a closer look at some of the oldest hymns of the Rig Veda demonstrates that, here, the correspondence is the greatest.

The combination of rhythm and melody of the final cadence of the Hymn to Nikkal is compatible with the overall most frequent combined rhythm and accent cadence in Book 5 of the Rig Veda—the book of the Atri family. At the same time, the first cadence of the Hymn to Nikkal, taking rhythm and melody into account, matches up exactly with the overall most frequent cadence found in Books 4 and 6 of the Rig Veda—the books of the Vamadeva and Bharadvaja families (Supplemental material). Together, these three books—4, 5, and 6—are among the oldest Rig Vedic material and most likely contemporary to the Hymn to Nikkal. Later Rig Vedic material may have experienced changes in accent pronunciation, with the melodic accents gradually shifting from their original positions to the positions where they are still pronounced today.”

In actual fact, Book 6 is an Old Book, Book 4 is a Middle Book, and Book 5 is a New Book. The correspondence of the Hymn to Nikkal is, at first look, with the whole of the Rigveda (since the Triṣṭubh meter is the commonest and most frequent meter throughout the Rigveda), and not, as the writers claim, “the greatest” with the “oldest hymns” in the three books they collectively describe as “among the oldest Rig Vedic material and most likely contemporary to the Hymn to Nikkal”.

A closer look, in fact, confirms that the correspondence is later down the line within the Rigveda: “The combination of rhythm and melody of the final cadence of the Hymn to Nikkal is compatible with the overall most frequent combined rhythm and accent cadence in Book 5 of the Rig Veda—the book of the Atri family”. That is, with the New Book 5.

And, although they club all the three books together in one “oldest” space, their own words make it clear that Book 5 is later to the others and represents a new period and phase: “This study reveals that this cadence was initially the most frequent one. Only gradually, it was outcompeted by the iambic cadence, which is more frequent in the Atri family book, where it may have originated, spreading to dominate in the newer books of the Rig Veda. It may have been liked for its simplicity and efficiency”.

A question “Iambic meters in the Rigveda” elicits the answer: “In the Rigveda, iambic meter is primarily found in the cadence (last four syllables) of lines, particularly in the Gāyatrī meter (8 syllables per line)”. 

 As I have pointed out in my books and articles, while the first two 8-syllabled meters in the Rigveda (Gāyatrī and Anuṣṭubh) are found throughout the Rigveda, but much less frequent than the Triṣṭubh, the further 8-syllabled meters start out from the Atri family book (Book 5) and are completely absent in the Old Rigveda (except one late verse in the latest hymn in Book 6):

Pankti (8+8+8+8+8):

I. 29; 80-81; 82.1-5; 84.10-12; 105.1-7,9-18 (57 verses).

V. 6; 7.10; 9.5,7; 10.4,7; 16.5; 17.5; 18.5; 20.4; 21.4; 22.4; 23.4; 35.8; 39.5; 50.5; 52.6,16-17; 64.7; 65.6; 75; 79 (49 verses).

VI. 75.17 (1 verses).

VIII. 19.37; 31.15-18; 35.22,24; 46.21,24,32; 56.5; 62.1-6,10-12; 69.11,16; 91.1-2 (24 verses).

IX. 112-114 (19 verses).

X. 59.8; 60.8-9; 86; 134.7; 145.6; 164.5 (29 verses). 

Mahāpankti (8+8+8+8+8+8):

I. 191.10-12 (3 verses).

VIII. 36.7; 37.2-7; 39; 40.1,3-11; 41; 47 (55 verses).

X. 59.9; 133.4-6; 134.1-6; 166.5 (11 verses).

Śakvarī (8+8+8+8+8+8+8):

VIII. 36.1-6; 40.2 (7 verses).

X. 133.1-3 (3 verses).

[Even Anuṣṭubh, the second of the 8-syllabled meters, is found in 155 verses in Book 5, but only in 115 verses in all the other five earlier Family Books 2,3,4,6,7 combined, and in 528 verses in the later Non-Family Books 1,8,9,10. Later it became the most common meter in Sanskrit].

 

All in all, the above paper, barring this unawareness of the internal chronology of the Rigveda, is a priceless addition to the AIT-OIT debate, even if not intended to be so.  

An Example of Despicable, Self-Hating and Self-Destructive “Hindu virtues” From Golwalkar’s “Bunch of Thoughts”

 

An Example of Despicable, Self-Hating and Self-Destructive “Hindu virtues” From Golwalkar’s “Bunch of Thoughts”

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

 

Another short expression of my thoughts. This article is not exactly about history or politics. I will continue to put in a word when I see disgusting self-destructive traits being recommended to Hindus as “virtues”, whether this is being done by woke leftists or by so-called Hindu ideologues, including, in this case, Guru Golwalkar the second Sarsanghachalak of the RSS.

Someone just sent me a tweet by someone calling himself Ishara Kafi, dated 6 August 2025 (i.e. today) :

https://x.com/zeroflyingrats

He seems to be criticizing the glorification of Sambhaji through the film “Chhava”. Not being an expert on medieval Maratha history and historical heroes, I leave the question of the truth or otherwise of what he is saying about Sambhaji to others who may be more into that subject.

What caught my attention was an extract from Guru Golwalkar’s book “Bunch of Thoughts” that he highlighted:

https://x.com/zeroflyingrats/status/1956638386074333513

 

I have never actually read this book, and I was amazed that it could contain such an exhortation to Hindus to be blindly “loyal” to self-declared Hindu leaders to the extent that even if that “Hindu” leader kills a particular Hindu’s father “because of some past prejudices”, and then that same “Hindu” leader casts an evil eye on that same particular Hindu’s sister forcing her to “end her life to save her chastity”, that particular Hindu should still remain steadfastly “loyal” to that “Hindu” leader to the extent of sacrificing his own son and giving away all his property (and finally his own life) in the service of that same leader:

I wondered whether this was a hoax and personally downloaded and checked Guru Golwalkar’s book. In the circumstance, I did a great dishonor to the tweeter: he was perfectly right: Golwalkar does say this in his book!!

By this token, the behavior of the Indian soldiers who remained steadfastly "loyal" to their “leader”, General Dyer, and, at his direct behest, mowed down so many fellow-Indians in Jallianwala Bagh, should also be our ideal behavior.

 

I have already written many articles on slavish and self-destructive tendencies regularly believed to represent Hindu “virtues” and “virtuous” behavior:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2019/09/justice-in-sohrab-modis-1939-film-pukar.html

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/04/hinduism-vs-hindutva-oxism-vs-oxatva.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/10/karna-and-yudhisthira-in-mahabharata.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/12/sambuka-bashing-or-confluence-of-brown.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/12/apologetics-in-guise-of-hindu-response.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-two-most-toxic-pseudo-moral.html

 

In short: Hindus should completely reject the exhortations of people advocating self-destructive, self-demeaning and self-degrading behavior, calling them “Hindu virtues”, regardless of whosoever the advocates may be. On the other hand, accept all those pieces of genuine wisdom, even when they come from inimical or dubious sources, such as Gandhi who wrote: “My own experience but confirms the opinion that the Musalman as a rule is a bully, and the Hindu as rule is a coward. I have noticed this in railways trains, on public roads, and in the quarrels which I have had the privilege of setting. Need the Hindu blame the Mussalman for his cowardice?..... Where there are cowards there will always be bullies”.

In more short, Hindus should neither be cowards, nor bullies, but most of all, they should never be fools and idiots treating stupid self-destructive behavior as “virtuous” behavior.