A “Critique” of my Internal Chronology by an “Impartial Indologist”

 

A “Critique” of my Internal Chronology by an “Impartial Indologist”

Shrikant G. Talageri 

 

Someone just sent me for my response the following article written by someone named Benjamin Lloyd whose blog is named “Impartial Indology”. The article itself is titled “Critiquing Talageri: Why he gets almost everything wrong”:   

https://benjaminindology.wordpress.com/2020/09/13/critiquing-talageri-why-he-gets-almost-everything-wrong/

 

His article consists of two parts. The second part pertains to the old and much discussed subject of Purukutsa and Trasadasyu. I have already written so many articles on this subject in the context of Jijith Nadumuri Ravi’s fairy-tale-ridden books and tweets, that some regular reader of my articles is likely to stone me to death for continuing to discuss this same old thing every time someone repeats the same old arguments. Anyone who has not read my articles on the subject (and this goes for Benjamin Lloyd as well) can do so now.

 

The first part of his article I will quote in full:

“In this post, I will attempt a brutal, honest, factual critique of Shrikant Talageri, who is unarguably one of the most important authors in the field of Indology. Despite making important contributions, he makes fatal errors in his reasoning that lead to faulty conclusions.

 

In Chapter 3 of his book “Rig Veda A Historical Analysis”, we read the following statement:

The Rigveda consists of ten MaNDalas or Books. And, excepting likely interpolations, these MaNDalas represent different epochs of history.

 

Unfortunately, instead of giving actual evidence in favor of this hypothesis, Talageri opts for a selective reading of both the Rigveda and the Anukramani in order to support his absurd thesis. At the very outset, this statement seems illogical. If each mandala is written by a particular rishi family, and each mandala also corresponds to an ‘epoch’ of history, then it would imply that each ‘epoch’ was dominated by one and only one rishi family. It would imply that in each epoch, one rishi family held a near monopoly on composing Rigvedic hymns. At the very outset, this doesn’t seem very likely.

 

Further, we read:

The chronological position of MaNDala IX is equally beyond doubt: it is definitely much earlier than MaNDala X, but equally definitely later than the other eight MaNDalas.

MaNDala IX was meant to be a kind of appendix in which hymns to Soma, ascribed to RSis belonging to all the ten families, were brought together.

 

Notice how these two statements contradict each other. If the IXth mandala consists of hymns composed by all the ten families, and each family composed hymns during a specific ‘epoch’, then it implies that IXth mandala should contain hymns from all the epochs. So while it may be true that the IXth mandala was organized at a later date, some of its hymns could be much earlier. By no means can IXth mandala be considered a ‘late’ mandala.

 

Further, we read:

The family MaNDalas can be divided into Early Family MaNDalas (VI, III, VII) and Later Family MaNDalas (IV, II, V). The Later Family MaNDalas have full hymns composed by direct descendants of RSis from the Early Family MaNDalas.

 

The reader is left to presume that the second statement is supposed to be ‘evidence’ in favor of the the first statement. Unfortunately, the evidence is very flimsy. The fourth mandala is attributed to Vamadeva Gautama, and he bears no known relationship to the authors of mandalas VI (Bharadvaja), III (Visvamitra) or VII (Vasistha). However, there is one hymn in mandala IV, hymn 43, which is ascribed to the rishis Purumīḷha Sauhotra and Ajamīḷha Sauhotra. Supposedly, they descend from Suhotra Bharadvaja, and this is supposed to be ‘evidence’ that the entire IVth mandala is later than the VIth! But even if we accept the premises, the only thing we can safely conclude is that this one particular hymn is later to (most hymns of) VIth mandala. Just because one hymn in the IVth mandala was composed by a descendant of rishi Bharadvaja doesn’t mean the entire mandala is later than VIth. This unfounded conclusion could only be based on his unfounded hypothesis that each mandala is supposed to be an ‘epoch’!

 

He futher presents a series of similar arguments in which he uses the Anukramani to “logically deduce” the relative chronology of mandalas. I do not need to demonstrate in detail that all of those arguments are based on equally unfounded and flimsy premises. Let me just point out how he has selectively employed the Anukramani data. In mandala I, there are several hymns (166-191) attributed to Agastya Maitrāvaruṇi. As we know from hymn VII.33, Agastya was a contemporary of Vasistha, and was regarded as his brother. In fact, it was Agastya (according to VII.33), who introduced Vasistha to Sudas. This would imply that major portions of mandala I actually belong to the earliest period. But Talageri asserts that even the earliest parts of mandala I are later than VII. This is a serious contradiction, because according to Talageri, mandalas represent ‘epochs’ and therefore Vasistha and Agastya must be separated by ‘epochs’ (which can’t be true).

 

I can give another example. Hymns VIII.101, IX.62, IX.65, X.110, X.167 are attributed to rishi Jamadagni. Jamadagni was a contemporary of Visvamitra, and we know this from hymn III.53, where Visvamitra attributes his poetic skill (symbolized by Sasarparī) to Palastis and Jamadagnis. However, Talageri places mandalas VIII, XI, and X to be later than mandala III.

 

One may raise a point in Talageri’s defense. It could be that the Agastya of mandala I was a later Agastya. Likewise, the Jamadagnis of mandalas III, VIII, IX and X could all be different personalities belonging to different epochs. But this would open a can of worms. How, then, would we know that the hymns of mandala VI that are attributed to Bharadvaja were composed by the same Bharadvaja? In fact, we don’t. In all likelihood, the mandala VI was composed by many generations of Bharadvajas, and not all of their personal names were preserved in the Anukramani. This would mean that each family mandala would have early, middle and late portions, that would be roughly concurrent with the early, middle and late portions of other family mandalas. In other words, rishi families were (in some sense) “competitors” in a market rather than monopolists of their respective epochs.”

 

 

I could reply point by point to the above, but again it would constitute repeating myself ad nauseam, and I am really tired of doing this. Let me go to the very fundamentals instead of discussing individual points already answered.

 

Basically, what Benjamin Lloyd is arguing here is that my internal chronology of the books is wrong because:

 

1. “Talageri opts for a selective reading of both the Rigveda and the Anukramani in order to support his absurd thesis. At the very outset, this statement seems illogical. If each mandala is written by a particular rishi family, and each mandala also corresponds to an ‘epoch’ of history, then it would imply that each ‘epoch’ was dominated by one and only one rishi family. It would imply that in each epoch, one rishi family held a near monopoly on composing Rigvedic hymns. At the very outset, this doesn’t seem very likely.”

 

2. “If the IXth mandala consists of hymns composed by all the ten families, and each family composed hymns during a specific ‘epoch’, then it implies that IXth mandala should contain hymns from all the epochs. So while it may be true that the IXth mandala was organized at a later date, some of its hymns could be much earlier. By no means can IXth mandala be considered a ‘late’ mandala.”

 

3. “However, there is one hymn in mandala IV, hymn 43, which is ascribed to the rishis Purumīḷha Sauhotra and Ajamīḷha Sauhotra. Supposedly, they descend from Suhotra Bharadvaja, and this is supposed to be ‘evidence’ that the entire IVth mandala is later than the VIth! But even if we accept the premises, the only thing we can safely conclude is that this one particular hymn is later to (most hymns of) VIth mandala. Just because one hymn in the IVth mandala was composed by a descendant of rishi Bharadvaja doesn’t mean the entire mandala is later than VIth. This unfounded conclusion could only be based on his unfounded hypothesis that each mandala is supposed to be an ‘epoch’!”

 

4. “Hymns VIII.101, IX.62, IX.65, X.110, X.167 are attributed to rishi Jamadagni. Jamadagni was a contemporary of Visvamitra, and we know this from hymn III.53, where Visvamitra attributes his poetic skill (symbolized by Sasarparī) to Palastis and Jamadagnis. However, Talageri places mandalas VIII, XI, and X to be later than mandala III.”

 

5. “It could be that the Agastya of mandala I was a later Agastya. Likewise, the Jamadagnis of mandalas III, VIII, IX and X could all be different personalities belonging to different epochs. But this would open a can of worms. How, then, would we know that the hymns of mandala VI that are attributed to Bharadvaja were composed by the same Bharadvaja? In fact, we don’t. In all likelihood, the mandala VI was composed by many generations of Bharadvajas, and not all of their personal names were preserved in the Anukramani. This would mean that each family mandala would have early, middle and late portions, that would be roughly concurrent with the early, middle and late portions of other family mandalas. In other words, rishi families were (in some sense) “competitors” in a market rather than monopolists of their respective epochs.”

 

 

I could point out the incorrectness of all his above arguments, by which he strives to prove that I have presented an “unfounded hypothesis that each mandala is supposed to be an ‘epoch’!”

 

But, since each individual point has been explained in full in my books and blogs, and his arguments are completely wrong, I will not repeat my explanations again. Let me instead try a new approach: let me assume that all his above arguments do indeed present a case showing that my “hypothesis that each mandala is supposed to be an ‘epoch’” is “unfounded”.

 

So is my case, “that each mandala is supposed to be an ‘epoch’” right, or is his case, that my case is “unfounded” right?

 

If his case (his article is of 2019) had been brought to my notice a few years ago, I would have had to reply laboriously to each point. But in 2022 I have written an article “Final Version of the Chronological Gulf between the Old Rigveda and the New Rigveda” which completely analyzes the vocabulary of the various books of the Rigveda and conclusively shows that:

 

1. There is a massive vocabulary of New Words found only in the New Rigveda (Books 5,1,8,9,10) and the Redacted Hymns in the Old Books 2-4,6-7 (the list of which was originally compiled not by me but by the most standard Indologists/Vedicists like Oldenberg, Witzel and Proferes), but not in the Old Hymns of the Old Rigveda (Books  2-4,6-7).

 

2. There is also a large vocabulary of Middle Words found only in the Middle Books (2,4), and in the New Rigveda (Books 5,1,8,9,10) and the Redacted Hymns in the Old Books 3,6,7, but not in the Old Hymns of the Old Books 3,6,7.

 

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

 

Now I do not have to prove the correctness of my case “that each mandala is an ‘epoch’” by talking about Anukramanis and composer names. I have already done that in my books, and it is that evidence which Benjamin Lloyd is arguing against in his above article. But the correctness of my case “that each mandala is an ‘epoch’” is now conclusively proved by an absolute analysis of the vocabulary of the 10 Books of the Rigveda:

 

The New Words (for precise details see my above article) are found as follows:

 

1. Old Rigveda Books 2,3,4,6,7:  0/280  Hymns, 0/2368 verses, 0 words.  +0 C + 0 M.

2. Redacted Hymns in Old Books 2,3,4,6,7:  61/62  Hymns, 470/873 verses, 724 words. +1 C + 6 M.

3. New Rigveda Books 1,5,8,9,10:  684/686 Hymns, 4256/7311 verses, 6828 words. +300 C + 96 M.

 

In the above article I have also given the list of Middle Words (for precise details again see my above article) are found only in the Middle Books (2,4), and in the New Rigveda (Books 5,1,8,9,10) and the Redacted Hymns in the Old Books 3,6,7, but not in the Old Hymns of the Old Books 3,6,7. The only thing is I did not feel it necessary the lists of references containing those words.

 

[I did not feel it necessary because of the severe sciatica and vertigo caused by the back-breaking work involved in preparing this detailedly analyzed article, and also because, as I explained at the beginning of that article, so as not to dilute the impact of the historically important chronological gulf between the Old Rigveda and the New Rigveda demonstrated by the New Words and New Meters, by introducing an additional angle of references of Middle Words, important for internal Rigvedic history, but not important for IE and OIT history].

 

So I would request Benjamin Lloyd, and any admirers of his “critique” of my Internal Chronology of the Books of the Rigveda, to see whether his pedestrian (and, incidentally, already answered) arguments about Anukramanis and Composer Rishis, have even the slightest force against the avalanche of data contained in my above article. To repeat myself, it will be obvious that my case, “that each mandala is an ‘epoch’”, is now conclusively proved by an absolute analysis of the vocabulary of the 10 Books of the Rigveda.  

The Neo-Nazis: Israel’s Woke Jewish Anti-Nationals

 

The Neo-Nazis: Israel’s Woke Jewish Anti-Nationals

Shrikant G Talageri

 

We in India have experience of over seven decades of a suffocating and overpoweringly powerful leftist (woke) anti-national and anti-Hindu stranglehold over Bollywood in particular and the Indian film industry in general.

Israel, in spite of being many times more aware and self-preservationist than India, and most certainly a sharp contrast to India in the ways in which it deals with anti-national and anti-Jewish elements, is nevertheless in the same boat as India in two respects:

1. The Muslim population of both the countries has increased sharply in this period:

India   1951 9.8%,   2011 14.2%

Israel   1948 13.8%,   2023 18 to 21%

2. Both the countries have the cancer of woke-leftist activists working against the national interests, woke “Hindus” in India and woke “Jews” in Israel, who work hand in hand with the internal and external enemies in maligning Hindus and Jews respectively.

 

This article is about the woke-leftist “Jews” of Israel who are always in the forefront of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda. The most recent provocation is a film NAZA by two woke Jews, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. which seeks to drum up fury against Israel in the context of Gaza.

The name, NAZA, is apparently a military Hebrew acronym used in reference to “"collateral damage" or "incidental damage" (nezek agavi)”. But the fact that it closely resembles the word Nazi is suspicious in the context of its use as the title of a film apparently documenting “Israeli atrocities” on the Palestinians in Gaza, suggesting a comparison with Nazi atrocities. Ironic because it is the makers of the film who are indirectly exhibiting the most blatant Nazi tendency of all: Anti-Semitism (or hatred for Jews and hostility towards their right to exist without facing constant threats of Total Annihilation; and the determination to stand solidly behind all those forces pledged to annihilate Israel).

Today Israel is facing enemies who openly express their ultimate desire to wipe Israel off the face of this earth. Note that Iran has no borders with Israel and could very easily have followed a policy of Live-and-Let-Live vis-à-vis Israel, both benefitting and prospering from such a relationship. But its Jew-hatred does not allow it to let Israel live in peace, and it is in the forefront of forming, arming and financing terrorist and militia groups on the very borders of Israel, with the openly expressed aim of annihilating Israel. In the face of this, every self-respecting Hindu fully supports Israel in whatever it does and has to do in order to survive against its would-be-annihilators.

 

[Most Hindus, even the Hindutva-minded ones, would probably have sympathized with Iran in its fight against a USA which seeks to take control of its oil resources. But in the face of Iran’s unremitting hatred of Israel and its consistently and openly expressed aim of wiping Israel out of existence, it is Israel which has the sympathy of most Hindus, and Iran automatically forfeits any Hindu sympathies it could possibly have got if its hatred for Israel had not been in the picture.

This is no speculation. I still remember when the famous WTC incident took place on “9/11”. I don’t know how this will sound to the readers, but (like George Washington is supposed to say in the story), “I cannot tell a lie”: I still remember the atmosphere in my bank branch the next day. Everyone had spent the whole previous day watching again and again the scenes of the terrorist plane attack on TV. Practically all of the staff were anti-terrorist and out of sympathy especially with Islamic terrorism. And yet, every single person in the office (Hindu, Muslim Christian and Parsi – there were no Jews – as well as Congress-supporters, Communists, Socialists and Hindutvites) were unanimous in the jubilant view that the USA deserved it! [Only one Parsi lady seemed absolutely confused: “Meri samajh mein nahin aa raha hai. Sab log khush hain!”]

Further, a few months later I was speaking with a top RSS leader and a top VHP leader. The VHP leader revealed that when “9/11” took place, Pravin Togadia (then still the chief of the VHP) wanted to make use of the incident to organize a massive all-India agitation against Islamic terrorism. But to his surprise, all the VHP leaders he contacted told him that VHP members were in fact jubilant rather than indignant about “9/11”, and no-one would be interested in making hay out of it!

But when it comes to Israel, most Hindus are firm in their support for whatever Israel has to do to ensure its survival. And when people, who maintain an absolute silence about atrocities on, and massacres or expulsions of, Hindus everywhere, make an issue of “atrocities on Palestinians” as if there are no other human beings on earth other than Palestinians who are facing attacks, Hindus are certainly in no mood to join the vicious mob-ragging against Jews/Israel.]

 

This woke film NAZA was not only entered in the 83^rd Venice International Film Festival in September 2026 where the woke-leftist and anti-Semitic crowds who fill such events gave it a standing ovation of 25 minutes, but it received the Special Jury Prize at the Festival. This is exactly the kind of treatment these Film Festivals give to Indian woke films tarring Hindus in cases where they are clearly the victims.

The film has raised widespread indignation and outrage in (the non-woke sections of) Israel. There are calls to revoke the Israeli citizenship of the makers of the film, treating them as traitors. Of course, the woke sections within Israel, with the full backing of all the international forces of Wokism and anti-Semitism, will fight back.

We in India are familiar with woke-leftists trying to destroy India from within. Will Israel be able to deal with them more effectively, especially in the face of the fury and support of all the international forces of Wokism and anti-Semitism? I wonder!

But the point to become aware of is that while woke people in every country are totally deracinated persons attacking the culture and the just rights of their own people and nations, it is the woke people in India and Israel who stand out from all others in the intensity of their deracination and self-identity-hatred and in the degree of massive support they get in the international arena.

[On a lighter note, my urge to write articles seems to be coming in series of threes: after my recent three continuous articles on Indra, this is now my third continuous article on internal enemies].      

A Great Hero vs. Contemptible Mercenary Politicians

 

A Great Hero vs. Contemptible Mercenary Politicians

 Shrikant G. Talageri 

 

In my article “The Twelve Indian Political Figures I Like, Respect and Admire the Most”, one of the twelve persons I named was: “Dara Singh (of Orissa fame)”. While I have found had to be embarrassed (at having so fulsomely included them in my list) by the words and actions of one or two of the still-living “political figures”, two of the still-living ones in that list who will always be heroes in my eyes are Dara Singh and “The unknown, unnamed Sentinelese tribal who shot an arrow and killed the American missionary boy of Chinese origin in November 2018”.

Dara Singh is in the news again. The facts may be noted:

1. He has been in prison since January 2000, that is already close to 27 years. Another person convicted in the same case, Mahendra Hembram, was released prematurely in April 2025 after 25 years of imprisonment.

2. Mahendra Hembram, was released prematurely in April 2025 after 25 years of imprisonment on the grounds of good conduct.

Dara Singh was also recommended to be released by the Director-General of Prisons and Correctional Services on exactly similar grounds of good conduct. But, apparently at the behest of the BJP government of Orissa, the State Sentence Review Board (SSRB) reversed the recommendation and cancelled Dara Singh’s release on the grounds of “potential communal disturbances, provocative gatherings by supporters outside the jail, and the gravity of his convictions across multiple murder cases”.

3. The Supreme Court directed the SSRB and the Orissa government to take a decision on Dara Singh’s plea for premature release. The Orissa government, and the Chief Minister of Orissa, Mohan Majhi, officially rejected Dara Singh’s plea for premature release.

It may be noted that this man, Mohan Majhi, who rejected Dara Singh’s plea for premature release, is the same man who had sat on dharna in 2022 demanding that Dara Singh be prematurely released. At that time the state was being ruled by a BJD government and the BJP was in the opposition. As soon as it came to power the crooked, mercenary BJP − very, very, typically, as per its very consistent record − has executed a full about-turn on this whole issue and now refuses to release Dara Singh.

 

The case is apparently scheduled to go before the Supreme Court again tomorrow 17 September 2026. I do not know what will be the decision tomorrow. But, regardless of what happens in the Supreme Court, let us see what is the crux of the whole matter.

The twitter/internet is abuzz with arguments both for and against the release of Dara Singh. Many of the supporters of Dara Singh are sharply critical of the crooked BJP which never fails to prove that it is Enemy Number One of Hindus: always pretending to stand for Hindu Issues and Causes when not in power, and in order to come to power, and then unfailingly stabbing Hindus in the back after coming to power,

I will not bother to repeat what the supporters of Dara Singh are saying on twitter and other internet media spaces: let me simply state that bI am in absolutely total agreement with them. To me Dara Singh is a True Hindutva Hero, and if there had been many more like him India would not be fated to become a Hindu-minority country in 50-100 years from now. Dara Singh should not only be released, but his status as a Hindutva Hero must be recognized and declared.

But I will speak about those who are opposed to the release of Dara Singh and pretend to be full of moral horror at his act in killing the Staines family. Is it right to kill people, especially children? Obviously not! But that is not the issue here. This fake “moral horror” is the same fake “moral horror” that anti-Israel bleeding hearts profess to feel when they accuse Israel of “killing children”. I have already written articles on that subject. This kind of selective “moral horror” or “moral outrage” has zero value in my eyes, and should have zero value in the eyes of all sane and honest people.

How many of these people who feel moral outrage and moral horror at the fact that Hindu activists can consider Dara Singh to be a Hero, also feel the same moral outrage and moral horror at the fact that Francis Xavier, a man responsible for the institution of the Goa Inquisition, for the destruction of a large number of idols and Hindu temples in Goa and the flight of a large number of Hindus from Goa to other territories to escape active persecution, is considered not only by Catholics but also by countless brainless Hindus to be a Saint?

This same BJP now ruling in Orissa, a party which comes to power every time by stoking Hindu issues, and which (after having agitated for the release of Dara Singh just four years ago when they were not in power in Orissa) now refuses to release him after coming to power in that state.

And this is the same BJP which is ruling in Goa, and which, exactly five months ago, arrested a Hindu speaker, Gautam Khattar of the Sanatan Mahasangh, for criticizing Xavier during an event in Vasco, Goa, on April 19, 2026, calling him a "barbaric ruler" and a "terrorist" who destroyed Hindu temples and pushed for the Goa Inquisition. He was arrested five days later.

Unless it is officially recognized in India that Xavier was a "terrorist" who destroyed Hindu temples and pushed for the Goa Inquisition, and not a “saint”, no-one has any “moral” right to object in any way to Dara Singh being considered a Hindu and Hindutva Hero.

As I said, I do not know what will happen tomorrow in the Supreme Court.

APPENDIX ADDED 17 Sept 2026:

Someone brought to my notice this interesting quote from the Bible, Deuteronomy 13:6-9: “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or your cherished wife or your closest companion should try to entice you in secrecy, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods’, gods that neither you nor your forefathers have known, from the gods of the people all around you, whether those near you or far away from you, from one end of the land to the other end of the land, you must not give in to him or listen to him; nor should you show pity or feel compassion or protect him; instead you should kill him without fail. Your hand should be the first to come upon him to put him to death, and the hand of all the people afterward.”

Isn’t this exactly what Dara Singh is supposed to have done? Can Bible-worshippers condemn him for this?

APPENDIX ADDED 19 Sept 2026:

A reader asked me a very interesting question in a personal mail:

In your article ‘Internal Sabotage or The Enemies Within”, you wrote “Christianity does not typically convert people of target communities by appealing to them to embrace their ancestral identities (in this case, the alleged “pre-Hindu” “non-Aryan” religious heritage of Dravidian-language speakers). Christianity (like its successor Islam) typically converts people by telling them that their ancestral religious identities are “Heathen” or “Pagan” identities which will take them to Hell and must therefore be abandoned for the One True Religion.”

How does this above verse, which condemns people who abandon the religion of their ancestors, fit in with this?”

A very important question! The point is that the above verses from Deuteronomy do not belong to the Christian New Testament but to the Jewish Old Testament (and in fact to the Torah, the most sacred part of the Jewish Old Testament), and, in fact, along with other similar verses which abound in the Old Testament, they underline the very fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity. Judaism is a religion which totally frowns on conversion from one religion to another and the abandonment of ancestral Gods for the Gods of others (the Old Testament is full of such statements), while making people abandon their ancestral gods for the god of Jesus is the most fundamental tenet of Christianity.

Of course the Old Testament does not make these pronouncements for all the people of the world but for Jews: to the Old Testament, Jehovah is the special god of the Jews alone and the Jews alone are his “chosen people”. In the above quotation from Deuteronomy, the next verse, verse 10, specifically says “And you must stone him to death, because he has sought to turn you away from Jehovah your God, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery”. Notably, while the Old Testament repeatedly keeps telling the Jews not to abandon their ancestral God Jehovah, it nowhere asks the Jews to compel or ask non-Jews to abandon their ancestral Gods and adopt Jehovah.

When Christianity was taking birth, the first aim of the First Christians was to claim that Jesus was the “promised Messiah” (of the Jews), promised in the Old Testament, and all Jews alone were called upon to accept this. When this bid failed, they reached out to “Gentiles” (non-Jews) and turned hostile to Jews who refused to join their bandwagon. So the above verse from Deuteronomy prohibiting the adoption of “other Gods” was as applicable, in the eyes of Jews, to the “God of Jesus” as to all the “other Gods”.

Internal Sabotage or The Enemies Within

 

Internal Sabotage or The Enemies Within

Shrikant G. Talageri 

 

The campaign to prove a newly emerging DIT (Dravidian Invasion-of-India Theory), under the guise of disproving the AIT (Aryan Invasion-of-India Theory), being carried on jointly by Koenraad Elst and Jijith Nadumuri Ravi, is going on in full strength, and on an international scale. Someone just sent me the following: 

https://x.com/ElstKoenraad/status/2098055060546633942

“Do quote scientist Jijith Nadumuri Ravi as proving that the Sindhū-Sarasvatī civilization was the Vedic civilization par excellence.”

7:54 PM · Sep 10, 2026

This tweet by Koenraad Elst (which is apparently attracting thousands of views in a single day), is apparently in reply to the following tweet by Jijith:

https://x.com/Jijith_NR/status/2097721130786455846

“IVC was clearly a Vedic Civilization. The Geochronology of Rigveda perfectly corresponds to the Geochronology of Early & Mature Harappan Civilizations. The span of rivers in Rgveda is from Ganga upto Kabul River. Ditto same, the Early & Mature Harappan sites are between the Ganga and Kabul Rivers. Thus, Both Rgveda and Early-Mature Harappan have the same Geography. Chronologically they are both in the 3300-1900 BCE Period. Thus, both are two sides of the same coin. Early-Mature Harappan is the material culture and Rgveda is its literature counterpart. All symbolism inside IVC is Vedic in nature:- the altars, Svastika, Yoga, Pashupati, chakra (wheel) seals, bull seals, horse seals Rajarshis - priest-kings, Apsaras - dancing girl etc. The old notion of IVC as Dravidian has misled scholars for close to a hundred years. Now IVC Script is deciphered as Samskrtam. Thus it is proved to be Vedic civilization par excellence. This also means Vedic language (later named as 'Samskrtam') - a daughter language of Proto Indo-European (PIE) - was spoken in North West India minimum since 4000 BCE. This is why, all the river names in Rgveda are in Vedic language and not in Dravidian, Munda (Austro-Asiatic) or other languages. A foreign language entering a new region cannot easily rename the pre-existing river names in the native language of the region. This means the Vedic language wasn't foreign to India. It was native to India. It was born in India from its mother, PIE which was also native to India. This implies the PIE originated in North West India and spread to Afghanistan, Central Asia, Iran and Europe. There are many Dravidian origin theories- Central India origin, Gujarat origin and Elam origin.

In Elam origin theory, the Dravidian languages, after originating from Elam in South West Iran did pass through the southern parts of IVC to southern Balochistan, Sindh and Gujarat during the Late Rgvedic Period (2400-1900 BCE). The Dravidian languages and culture absorbed some cultural elements of IVC and spread those into South India. This much is true. This fact is reflected in Rgveda with some Dravidian Rishis like Irimbiṭhi and Śirimbiṭha mentioned in the Late Rgvedic 10th Maṇḍala (2100-1900 BCE). These Dravidian Rishis were inducted into Kanva and Bharadvaja Gotras.”

9:47 PM · Sep 9, 2026

Today a massive transformation of Tamilnadu from A Land of Hindu Temples to A Land of Evangelist Christians is taking place, and the full effects of this will become apparent when, within a decade or two, census figures reveal that Christianity has  overwhelmingly become the majority religion of Tamilnadu. Earlier, the so-called Dravidian Movement concentrated on alleging that India was originally a Dravidian Land which was invaded by “Aryans”. This was a tool in the hands of Christian missionaries to propagate the idea that Hinduism is a religion brought into India by a foreign race which invaded, conquered and dominated over an original Dravidian India, and that Dravidian speakers should reject Hinduism and accept Christianity.

This theory is still the official stand of both the “Dravidianist” politicians as well as the Christian missionaries. But then a war is usually won with the simultaneous use of two seemingly opposite strategies both working towards the same end.

After my work of over three decades, both disproving the AIT as well as proving that Hinduism is more a “Dravidian” than an “Aryan” religion, and pointing out that in fact it is Christianity which represents the foreign invading force, the effectiveness of the AIT is becoming less important, and the emphasis on disproving the OIT less necessary, in the Evangelist propaganda sphere:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-primarily-dravidian-and-pan-indian_30.html

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/09/does-aryan-invasion-theory-mean-that.html

 

And in the face of the fact that despite everything Christianity is still on a winning spree in Tamilnadu, it has become both feasible and possible to open up a second front to strengthen the Evangelist onslaught on Tamilnadu: strangely by now propping up a Dravidian Invasion Theory to show that Dravidianist ideology and Evangelist ideology (as foreign comrades-in-arms against a common enemy:  Pagan “Aryan” India) are on the same side of the battle-lines. And what more effective and credible way to pursue this second front than through a caucus of writers and scholars (including “scientists”) who seemingly represent the opposite side in the war: who are nominally “OIT supporters and AIT opponents”?

 

Hence the increasing intensity of the new “AIT: NO, but DIT: YES” campaign by Koenraad and Jijith. So now, whether AIT or DIT, or both working simultaneously on seemingly opposite sides of the battle-lines, the winner in both (or all) cases is Evangelist Christianity in “Dravidian” Tamilnadu.

The first (but then still foggy) signs of this New Evangelist Front were in Jijith Nadumuri Ravi’s book “Rivers of Ṛgveda” which, while purporting to show only the large collection of Epic-Puranic data in his repertoire, was actually a direct attack on the Internal Chronology and Geography of the Rigveda as shown by the Rigvedic data and as forming the First Base of the OIT Case: his book subtly tried to turn this Internal Chronology and Geography of the Rigveda on its head (thus sabotaging the very First Base of the OIT Case) by insisting that certain eminent kings (Purukutsa and Trasadasyu) of the New Rigveda were actually older than certain pre-eminent kings (i.e. Divodāsa and Sudās) of the Old Rigveda, and that these kings of the New Rigveda were actually already established in the Northwest of India as Rigvedic kings well before Sudās first crossed the Punjab from Haryana in the East and long before Sudās’ descendants reached as far West as Afghanistan.

In spite of this, Koenraad Elst started propagating the book on a massive scale, completely refusing to note (not only the OIT-sabotaging nature of Jijith’s book, but also) the extremely stupid and zero-data-and-evidence-based contents of Jijith’s entire book (including and especially baseless fairy-tales about five different rivers named Sarayu, two mutually-hostile “Bharata” groups in the hymns with both being the heroes or enemies in various hymns, a new fictional “Battle of Asiknī”, etc. etc.).

And both Koenraad Elst and Jijith himself started a campaign (which ran on for over a year) where they simultaneously started propagating that Jijith was the original pioneer of many aspects of the OIT, while at the same time making blatantly false claims about what I myself had written in my books and articles. in order to make my OIT Case appear ridiculous. These have been the subject of acrimonious debate in different internet groups and even in many of my blogs, so I will not go into all that again.

Earlier this year, Koenraad Elst (who has already undergone major surgeries for heart and cancer – a fact in itself of great distress for all true sympathizers of the Hindu Cause, since his valuable and unrewarded pro-Hindu writings are beyond comparison, which makes his single-minded advocacy of Jijith’s “scholarship” and more especially of the DIT all the more inexplicable), was away from the public eye for a long time. After that, although he has started tweeting again, his tweets are few and far between and all his other activities I assume are drastically reduced. Nevertheless, even in this condition, he has been regularly exerted himself to make claims about “scientist” Jijith’s revolutionary role as the pioneering scholar in the matter of various aspects of the AIT-OIT debate. To give just three out of literally countless examples, he propagated “scientist” Jijith to be the first and/or only scholar to explain the presence of Steppe genes in the Indian population, to date the Mahabharata War to the first half of the second millennium BCE, and (now) “proving that the Sindhū-Sarasvatī civilization was the Vedic civilization par excellence.”

That I have been writing all this (and much more) with much more data and evidence right from my first book in 1993 is stonewalled by Koenraad:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2025/06/cant-people-jijith-koenraad-lie-without.html

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-date-of-mahabharata-war.html

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-common-identity-of-rigvedic-and.html

 

Likewise, Koenraad has been stonewalling my own blog articles as a whole. I have, in the last few years, written many articles of significance in the AIT-OIT debate (my three recent articles on Indra are a case in point) bringing out new and clinching evidence. Even more significantly, I have written one long article which was the result of extremely back-breaking original research on the Rigveda, and of high academic level (I am told a French scholar Arnaud Fournet, whom I have very sharply criticized and even abused in reply to his unwarranted criticisms, recommended this article for reading) which I consider my single most important article in the AIT-OIT debate (although there are countless other important articles where I have introduced pioneering and revolutionary new data and evidence of a fundamental nature on various aspects like the Mitanni, the Dāśarājña battle, the Elephant, various aspects of Linguistics, etc. etc.):

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

Even this article (already four years old now) has been completely stonewalled by Koenraad Elst who so assiduously does diligent PRO work for every word written or spoken by OIT-sabotaging Jijith Nadumuri Ravi.

 

The stupidity of Jijith’s work should be apparent to any knowledgeable person who reads his books. Koenraad Elst is not stupid. This makes one wonder if there is an agenda involved behind Koenraad’s unremitting and unrelenting glorification of such stupid writings. So far it seemed only a personal issue. But now it increasingly looks like something more: like an alliance formed to propagate the DIT or Dravidian Invasion Theory. Every single claim about Jijith’s revolutionary new discoveries on the AIT-OIT Front simultaneously propagates the DIT on a war footing and is endorsed by Koenraad.

Clearly we now have a new unspoken Grand Alliance of

1. a section (an OIT-sabotaging section) of the OIT side,

2. a section of the Evangelists, and,

3. a section of Dravidianists who seek to portray Dravidian(language-speaker)s as an earlier invader group into Pagan “Aryan” India, as the Evangelists are a later such group, and want to form an alliance between the two against the Pagan “Aryans”/Hindus.

All these three groups are united in their independent propagation of the utterly and totally baseless DIT.

Of these three groups, the second and third groups still have to come out in the open to show their fangs and claws. But all the signs are there.

Perhaps a prominent recent example of the ever-strengthening Evangelist-Dravidianist Alliance, and its capability to slowly co-opt Rigvedic culture into its joint operations, is the recent “Prajapathi” controversy.

A Google overview of this controversy:

“The new project is called Prajapathi, a feature film and long-running dramatic production that portrays the life of Jesus Christ by mapping him onto the Vedic concept of Prajapati. [1, 2]

Key Details About Prajapathi

Origins: It began as a live stage drama and passion play that toured across India for more than 25 years before transitioning into a feature film format. [1, 2]

Theological Premise: The production and its promotional materials frame Jesus as the fulfillment of ancient Vedic prophecies, equating the sacrificial post (yupa) in Vedic texts to the Christian cross (Purusha-medha). [1, 2]

Presentation Style: Performances and promotional events often blend traditional Indian musical instrumentation, Vedic-style chants, and conch-shell soundscapes with biblical narratives. [1]

Cast & Crew: Instead of mainstream commercial film actors, the project features veteran devotional stage artists who have portrayed these roles in the live theatrical version for decades. [1]

Reception & Debate: The adaptation has drawn significant public discussion and critique from cultural observers and publications like Swarajya regarding how ancient Hindu texts and terminology are reinterpreted within Christian evangelism in Tamil Nadu. [1, 2]”

[The film (or its trailer) was launched by John Christian Devaram Prabhakar, former member of the AIADMK and now speaker of the state assembly in Christian CM C. Joseph Vijay led Tamilnadu.]

 

To sum up, people can understand only as far as their intellects permit. As a Marathi saying goes: “zashi drushti tashi srushti”: roughly “one’s understanding of the world is limited to the scope of one’s vision”. There can be anti-AIT and pro-OIT people to whose intellects Jijith’s fairy-tales sound attractive and convincing. But they should reflect whether the true agenda behind Jijth’s writings, the DIT Dravidian Invasion Theory, sounds equally attractive and convincing to them.     

 

APPENDIX ADDED 16 Sept 2026:

Why Would Evangelists Want To Promote a DIT?:     

A reader sent me a private mail asking me: “Why would Evangelists want to promote a Dravidian Invasion Theory? And why would a staunch Hindu like Jijith, and one of the staunchest supporters of the Hindu Cause like Koenraad Elst, support such a theory?”

It is a well-known fact that from Day One, Evangelists have been strongly supporting the AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory) and using it as a tool to break out pieces of Hindu Society: Dravidian-language speakers are told that Hinduism is an “Aryan religion” imposed on the originally Dravidian-language speaking native people of India by “Aryan” invaders from outside India (just as “SCs” and “STs”, to put it in present political terms, are told that they are descendants of non-Aryan inhabitants of India, conquered and reduced to a lowly status by “Aryan” invaders who imposed not  just their religion but also their “Aryan” language and an inferior status within the “Hindu” social system) and that therefore they must reject Hinduism − and, of course adopt Christianity, or just simply carry on the Evangelist battle from within Hindu Society.

This fact is so well known to Hindu activists that they automatically assume this to be the natural tactic of Evangelist Christianity. But, on the contrary, this kind of reasoning is out of sync with the normal and natural Christian Ideological Playbook. Christianity does not typically convert people of target communities by appealing to them to embrace their ancestral identities (in this case, the alleged “pre-Hindu” “non-Aryan” religious heritage of Dravidian-language speakers). Christianity (like its successor Islam) typically converts people by telling them that their ancestral religious identities are “Heathen” or “Pagan” identities which will take them to Hell and must therefore be abandoned for the One True Religion.

So the campaign to make sections of Indians (Dravidian-language speakers, “SCs” and “STs”, etc.) reject Hinduism by appealing to their “pre-Aryan-invasion” identities (even if to ultimately accept Christianity), is actually an aberration in Abrahamic Evangelist history. Although it has been a grand and extremely successful tactic so far as India goes, it does not represent true Christian Evangelism. To a true Christian, any “Dravidian” religion, howsoever it is to be defined, is as Heathen, Pagan and a “Doorway-To-Hell” as any “Aryan” religion. And, as identifying Hinduism as “Aryan” and therefore to be rejected in favor of “pre-Aryan” religion was only the first step to Christianization, the next step is to define or redefine what exactly was this “pre-Aryan” religion.

Today, the main target of Evangelism is Tamilnadu, closely followed by Andhra, and both are Dravidian-language speaking areas. And the problem is that howsoever it is redefined, it is not possible to redefine “pre-Aryan” (or specifically “Dravidian”) religion as somehow being the same as Abrahamic Christianity.

So the most ideologically feasible tactic is to leave it almost totally undefined (except to hint that it was somehow ideologically similar to Abrahamic Christianity, without going into specifics). If the Dravidian speakers are accepted as native to India, it leaves the door open for the idea that they were originally idol-worshipping polytheists who held India’s geography to be their sacred geography. Not quite conducive to the Evangelist game! So: the original Dravidian-language speakers must now be claimed to have no original connection to the Indian soil, and it is necessary to make them invaders (into a Pagan India) with no definable religious features of their own which could connect them to idol-worshipping and polytheist Pagan Hinduism. In this sense, they were just like the Christian Evangelists who came much later. Hence the two (Evangelists and Dravidianists) must now become comrades-in-arms against Pagan “Aryan” Hinduism. And the binding force must ultimately be Evangelist Christianity.

Thus, both the AIT and the DIT can be used as weapons in the service of Evangelist Christianity, in different hands and/or in different contexts. [On a broader scale, emphasizing that all Indians, and all their cultures, are ultimately “outsiders” in India is after all a basic element of Evangelist propaganda to counter the point that Christianity is a foreign religion].

 

As to the second question, there can be many reasons why Jijith supports the DIT:

1. The very first reason is that Jijith must have supported the DIT somewhere in the first place, in blind acceptance f some western scholar. Going by his record, he is not the kind of person to admit that he had made a mistake on any major point; and nor the kind of person to at least stop repeating the mistake, whenever a mistake is brought to his notice: the more the evidence is brought forward to show that he was wrong.he just keeps on repeating the wrong assertion again and again in more and more strident terms.

2. Jijith clearly belongs to the school of thought which believes that attack is the best form of defense, and somehow that the best way to defend the AIT is by postulating and promoting on a war footing a counter-case in the form of a DIT! Instead of “Aryans” migrating into a “Dravidian” India, he prefers to insist that “Dravidians” migrated into an “Aryan” India.

3. Jijith also belongs to the particular school of Hindu thought which assigns the origins of all the Vedic-Epic-Puranic tribes to the banks of the Sarasvati river; and holds that the whole of Hindu religion and culture (if not all the people themselves) in all parts of India emanated from the Harappan/Vedic Civilization, as it spread all over the land and gradually “developed” into modern Hinduism. Therefore all aspects of Hinduism from all parts of India represent “Aryan”\Vedic religion as it transformed over time. When speakers of Dravidian languages (as per his theory) migrated through the northwest into South India, they merely merged into the local “Aryan” cultures in the South, replacing only the local languages (he does not clarify what those earlier local languages were), but adopted the local “Vedic”- origin religions. All this is perfectly in sync with the Evangelist approach which seeks to erase all “Pagan Hindu” features from the alleged “Dravidian” religion.

 

What is noteworthy is that while not even the faintest vestige of any Dravidian language has ever been found anywhere outside India, the northwesternmost language Brahui had long been cited (as part of the AIT) to be a remnant of Dravidian speakers who remained behind in the northwest after the other Dravidian speakers migrated South. This is the only linguistic argument that has ever been made so far to take the origins of the Dravidian to and beyond the northwest (since attempts to connect Dravidian with Elamite have been completely debunked: see also my articles on that matter). But today all the major western academic scholars who support the AIT (including, for example, Witzel, Hock, Southworth, etc.) have accepted that Brahui is a migrant from South India. Isn’t it strange that it is Jijith and Koenraad (supposed to be supporters of the OIT) who are today citing an AIT argument which has been abandoned even by the topmost AIT scholars?

As to why Koenraad has formed an alliance with Jijith to propagate his fairy-tales, to spread disinformation about my own writings, and to promote the DIT: Koenraad himself is best placed to answer that question. Is he merely mesmerized by Jijith’s “scientist” status, or is there a bigger agenda?

ADDED 18 September 2026:

As a joke, it may be noted that Koenraad, in reply to a critic who wrote that Jijith’s map featuring the DIT (along with his AIOIT) consisted of mere “non-sense” and “speculations”, stresses that Jijith and he himself “have years of scientific investigation, & built solid knowledge”:

https://x.com/ElstKoenraad/status/2100280656706032045

“For you it is indeed "speculations". Your conformistic beliefs from the younger Max Müller, which he himself already outgrew in the 19th century, is still sheepishly repeated, yes. By contrast, Jijith & myself have years of scientific investigation, & built solid knowledge.”

11:18 PM · Sep 16, 2026

I find this bid to promote genuine “non-sense” and “speculations” as “scientific investigation” and building of “solid knowledge” truly pathetic.