Did the Hittites have “Mongoloid” Physical Features? And if so, What does it Show?

 

Did the Hittites have “Mongoloid” Physical Features? And if so, What does it Show?

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

I have stopped writing and stopped responding to trolls and hecklers. One such troll has been trolling me on my blogspot with critical comments/questions on various points, all of which I have conclusively and irrefutably answered so many times in my books and articles that I refuse to repeat things for every new troll.

However (and as I have repeatedly said, I will stir myself to write only if and when I feel something has to be clarified in more detail once and for all) his remarks on the racial features of Hittites made me feel that a more detailed exposition of the situation will not be out of place.

But first, please note that this is a side-feature in my OIT case, and I am not the person to have “discovered” that the Hittites had “mongoloid” racial features. Nevertheless, I have indeed used this as an additional argument for my case, and so it is proper that I should either withdraw the argument as faulty, or reiterate it. I find it completely impossible to withdraw the argument as faulty in any way, as there is no fault. Hence this article to reiterate my argument in more detail.

 

There are two aspects involved:

1. Did the Hittites have “mongoloid” features?

2. If they did, what does it show about their geographical origins?

 

I. Did the Hittites have “mongoloid” features?

 The Hittites as a people have been known from ancient times because of their regular or frequent appearance in texts (including prominent mention in the Old Testament of the Bible), in inscriptions and in carved or painted depictions in West Asia. But nothing detailed was known about their language till the early twentieth century when Linguistic studies became important in Europe, and the concept of language families (and especially the “Aryan” or “Indo-European” family) had become well established in academic studies. It was then discovered that they spoke an Indo-European language: this fact was in fact contested and disputed by many scholars till it was finally proved beyond any doubt.

But their “ethnic” identity was well known long before the discovery of their linguistic identity. It was only in the beginning of the twentieth century that their language was discovered and studied in detail and they were conclusively identified linguistically as Indo-Europeans. Shortly after this, a paper in the Journal of the American Oriental Society makes the following incidental observations: “While the reading of the inscriptions by Hrozny and other scholars has almost conclusively shown that they spoke an Indo-European language, their physical type is clearly Mongoloid, as is shown by their representations both on their own sculptures and on Egyptian monuments. They had high cheek-bones and retreating foreheads.” (CARNOY 1919:117).

Here is what jewishencyclopedia.com has to say on the subject:

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7774-hittites#:~:text=The%20Hittites'%20power%20and%20their,xvi. 

“The Hittites as shown both on their own and on Egyptian monuments were clearly Mongoloid in type. They were short and stout, prognathous, and had rather receding foreheads. The cheek-bones were high, the nose was large and straight, forming almost a line with the forehead, and the upper lip protruded. They were yellow in color, with black hair and eyes, and were beardless, while according to the Egyptian paintings they wore their hair in pigtails, although this characteristic does not appear in the Hittite sculptures. They would seem to have come from the northeast of Mesopotamia, and to have worked south into Palestine and west into Asia Minor”

 

One more example (or rather two) from the book “The Hittites, The Story of a Forgotten Empire” by A.H.Sayce:

“The Hittites were a people with yellow skins and ‘mongoloid’ features whose receding foreheads, oblique eyes, and protruding upper jaws, are represented as faithfully on their own monuments as they are on those of Egypt, so that we cannot accuse the Egyptian artists of caricaturing their enemies” (SAYCE 1890:15).

“We have seen that the Hittites were a northern race. Their primitive home probably lay on the northern side of the Taurus. What they were like we can learn both from their own sculptures and from the Egyptian monuments, which agree most remarkably in the delineation of their features. The extraordinary resemblance between the Hittite faces drawn by the Egyptian artists and those depicted by themselves in their bas-reliefs and their hieroglyphs, is a convincing proof of the faithfulness of the Egyptian representations, as well as of the identity of the Hittites of the Egyptian inscriptions with the Hittites of Carchemish and Kappadokia.

It must be confessed that they were not a handsome people. They were short and thick of limb, and the front part of their faces was pushed forward in a curious and somewhat repulsive way. The forehead retreated, the cheek-bones were high, the nostrils were large, the upper lip protrusive. They had, in fact, according to the craniologists, the characteristics of a Mongoloid race. [102] Like the Mongols, moreover, their skins were yellow and their eyes and hair were black. They arranged the hair in the form of a 'pig-tail,' which characterizes them on their own and the Egyptian monuments quite as much as their snow-shoes with upturned toes.

In Syria they doubtless mixed with the Semitic race, and the further south they advanced the more likely they were to become absorbed into the native population.” (SAYCE 1890:101).

 

Many more examples could be given. That they were “mongoloid in appearance” was never doubted or disputed: until the discovery that they spoke an Indo-European language made their “mongoloid” features something to be hushed up so as not to complicate matters in the field of Indo-European studies!

That was already in the early twentieth century. Today, two new factors add to the need to blank out any reference to these “mongoloid features”:

1. The fact that the old colonial European division of mankind into three races (Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid) stands rejected as outdated and unscientific.

2. New ideas about political correctness which frown on any mention of physical features even in neutral terms for academic purposes.

 

Thus, ask the question on google: “Where and when did “mongoloid" racial features originate?” The Artificial Intelligence generated answer (ignoring the “where and when” part): “The concept of "Mongoloid" features originated in the late 18th century as part of a now-discredited system of classifying humans into distinct races. This system, developed by Western scholars, included "Mongoloid," "Caucasoid," and "Negroid" as primary groupings. The term "Mongoloid" was initially used to describe people from East Asia, the Americas, and parts of Oceania. However, modern genetics has shown that this racial classification is not biologically valid.” Further, it clarifies:

“The term “Mongoloid” was initially based on perceived physical similarities, particularly facial features, observed in populations across a wide geographic area”.

“Modern genetics has demonstrated that the concept of distinct human races, as proposed in the past, is not supported by scientific evidence”.

“The term “Mongoloid”, along with related terms like “Mongolian race”, ‘yellow”, or “Asiatic”, is now considered outdated and offensive”.

 

All very politically correct and scientific!

But what the whole thing ignores is “The term “Mongoloid” was initially based on perceived physical similarities, particularly facial features, observed in populations across a wide geographic area”. Whether politically correct or not, whether scientifically valid as a means of classifying mankind or not, these features definitely represented “perceived physical similarities, particularly facial features, observed in populations across a wide geographic area”.

Here the real question is only whether or not these physical features (wrongly accepted as a means of classifying mankind, but correctly perceived as physical features physically visible to the human eye) were distinctly seen among the Hittites or not. Or were the Egyptians (and even the Hittites themselves) hallucinating when they depicted Hittites with those physical features? They were merely objectively depicting what they could see before their eyes: they were not trying to establish systems of classifying mankind, nor were they analyzing Hittite DNA or other genetic features, nor trying to provide grounds for any racial political theories or Linguistic Homeland theories.

No-one has yet produced contemporary recorded evidence of depicted Hittite physical features emphasizing that they did not physically have these particular features but were physically exactly similar to their Egyptian and other neighbors in West Asia, or contemporary written testimonies alleging that the depictions were false. Nor are there any modern studies explaining (and convincingly) why exactly the Egyptians and the Hittites themselves depicted Hittites with these features (and indeed explaining how these depicters were so well acquainted with these particular physical features anyway, to the extent that they regularly and unanimously depicted Hittites with these features).

 

If you put the question “Were the Hittites of mongoloid race?” on google, the Artificial Intelligence generated answer is: “No, the Hittites were not of the Mongoloid race. While some historical accounts and artistic depictions suggest certain physical characteristics that might be associated with Mongoloid features, such as receding foreheads and high cheekbones, this is not the dominant or definitive view among scholars. The Hittites are generally considered to be an Indo-European people who migrated to Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and established a powerful empire….[since] the prevailing view among historians and anthropologists is that the Hittites were an Indo-European people. Their language Hittite, is classified as part of the Indo-European language family, which also includes languages like Greek, Latin and English”

It all boils down to the hand-waving logic: “Oh, we now know that the Hittites were Indo-Europeans, so they cannot possibly have had such physical features. So ignore all those depictions as wrong or irrelevant”!

The case of the gratuitous and automatic transformation of Hittites from having “mongoloid” features to not having “mongoloid” features has several parallels in the AIT/Steppe-Homeland story. The most prominent being how all Indologists analyzing the Vedic evidence before the discovery of the Harappan sites were unanimous that the Aryan invaders were highly civilized people and the natives were savages, But, as soon as the Harappan sites were discovered, it is the natives who became civilized people and the Aryan invaders wandering savages or nomads!

So clearly the “scholarly consensus” is a politically correct afterthought in the context of the discovery that they spoke an IE language, and is not based on the contemporary depictions of the Hittites (or any other kind of evidence) but in fact goes opposite to those depictions!

But, like it or not, the sum of the evidence is still that the Hittites did distinctly have physical features which in the terminology of those times could be correctly described (whether or not now accepted as scientifically valid or politically correct) as “Mongoloid” features.

II. If they did, what does it show about their geographical origins?

If the Hittites did indeed have what (in the terminology of those times) could be described as “mongoloid” physical features, what does it show about their geographical origins?

I have pointed out in my books and articles that it (the presence of “Mongoloid” physical features among the Hittites) fits in with the OIT, where early groups of Druhyus migrated northwards through Afghanistan into eastern Central Asia before later, in more historical times, migrating westwards around the Caspian Sea into eastern Turkey and thence southwards into historical West Asia.

The troll who keeps raising objections to this “racial” evidence tells me: “Your assumption that the Hittites were “mongoloid” because they dwelled in central asia, before emigrating to Anatoila is an unscientific speculation which is premised upon an outdated source. As per modern scientific studies, central asia during those times wasn’t inhabited by mongoloid people, in fact mongoloid/east asian tribes arrived during the the Hunnic/Turkic related migrations which happened in mediaeval period”.

Since I have encountered this kind of obfuscatory pseudo-scientific argument many times in the past, I felt the need to write this article specifically on the “mongoloid Hittites”. So let me put things very clearly (unfortunately, I cannot add “in words of one syllable intelligible to the meanest intelligence” since I will have to use longer words, and also it is basically not a question of intelligence but of honesty and of willingness to accept facts):

 

Firstly, it is necessary for everyone to digest the basic fact that the Hittites did indeed have these “mongoloid features”. And that they were physically distinct from all the other people of West Asia specifically on the basis of these “mongoloid features”. So, clearly, since there is no controversy about them being outsiders in the region, the only question is where exactly did they come from bringing these “mongoloid features” which are clearly new to the region.

There can only be three possibilities. The first one − that they dropped out of the sky − we can safely dismiss without further discussion.

The only two other possibilities are either that they came from the northwest (Ukraine, Europe or the western Steppes) or that they came from the northeast (Central and eastern Asia).

Apparently, “As per modern scientific studies, central asia during those times wasn’t inhabited by mongoloid people, in fact mongoloid/east asian tribes arrived during the the Hunnic/Turkic related migrations which happened in mediaeval period”. Well, were Ukraine, Europe or the western Steppes ever “inhabited by mongoloid people”?

As per the following article, there are several subgroups of communities of people with “mongoloid features” based on geographical distribution and morphological variations, covering the following different areas:

1. Eastern Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia Tibet).

2. Arctic regions (northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland, far eastern Siberia).

3. The Americas.

4. Southeast Asia and many of the Pacific islands.

While the first group, as named in the group, covers only the five countries named above, actually they are found all over the Himalayas and all over the adjoining areas of India. They are also found in Ladakh and northwards and westwards up to most of eastern Central Asia and northern Afghanistan. If the point being made is that they expanded westwards into these areas only in post-Hittite times, then it must be noted that they never ever expanded further westwards into Ukraine, Europe or the western Steppes at any point of time convenient to the Steppe Homeland theory (except in much later historical times as invaders: the Huns and Mongols). Clearly, since the Hittites in West Asia did come from the north, and did have “mongoloid features”, they could only have come from the farther eastern direction than from the western one (i.e. from the direction of eastern central Asia, and not from the direction of Ukraine, Europe or the western Steppes).

 

Or else it is up to those who deny that the Hittites moved into West Asia from an original location in eastern Central Asia to prove that the inhabitants of the “Steppe Homeland” of the ancestral Hittites also had “mongoloid features”.

In any case, it is not enough to claim that “As per modern scientific studies, central asia during those times wasn’t inhabited by mongoloid people”:

1. It would firstly be necessary to provide a century-by-century scientifically proven timetable of the progress of such “mongoloid features” into different regions of Central Asia, to prove that the northern-migrating Druhyus of the OIT (who later became the Hittites in West Asia) could not have acquired these features in the required time frame.

2. It would also be necessary to provide a complete century-by-century itinerary of the northward migrating Druhyus to map out the exact areas of Central Asia (or areas further east) which they inhabited at different points of time before finally turning west and moving southeastwards into northeastern Turkey, to prove that they never at any point of time inhabited any “mongoloid-featured” parts of eastern Central Asia (or areas further east). As I myself, the formulator of the OIT, have never imagined how such an itinerary could be drawn out, I don’t know how anyone else (especially those who deny the Druhyu migrations in the first place) would be able to do so.

So, until new and conclusive evidence surfaces to the contrary, the only conclusion that can be logically accepted is that the Hittites with “mongoloid features” could only have emigrated from eastern Central Asia (or areas further east).           

 

Finally, could this be incorporated into a Steppe Homeland Theory? Theoretically, and by a great amount of special pleading, it could desperately be argued that the Hittites set out from the Ukrainian Steppes and marched eastwards all the way to eastern Central Asia (or areas further east), and had a long sojourn there, before finally turning west and moving southeastwards into northeastern Turkey. But wouldn’t that be a bit too thick for any honest person to swallow? Is it likely that both the earliest branches migrating out of the PIE Homeland could have, separately, made a beeline for the very distant east from Ukraine? Is it not more rational to accept a much shorter and natural journey from NW India through Afghanistan into Central Asia (where, indeed, Tocharian continued to remain till its last breath)?

Even V Gordon Childe, in many ways a pioneer of IE migration theories, and a staunch protagonist of the Steppe origin of the IE languages, had to reluctantly concede in the case of Tocharian itself that it was very difficult to fit it into the AIT paradigm. As Childe put it: “to identify a wandering of Aryans across Turkestan from Europe in a relatively late prehistorical period is frankly difficult” (CHILDE 1926:95-96). What would he have said about any attempt to identify another such wandering (of Hittites this time) as part of a desperate bid to explain the “mongoloid features” of the Hittites?

FINAL NOTE ADDED SAME DAY 14 JULY 2025 EVENING:

I will not add anything more after this, because the kind of rubbish I am going to point out now is the only kind of rubbish that I will get from clowns who think they are very clever but don’t realize they are not.

A clown (“Graviton Denier”: does his name indicate that he denies things of gravity or importance?) has apparently reacted to this article as follows:

https://x.com/jugram51036

“Honestly using racial science from 1890 and 1919 instead of modern genetics should be incredibly embarrassing for anyone, let alone an anti-AIT person”

7:17 PM· JULY 14, 2025.

“Talageri is relying on the same methodology that claimed Romans and Macedonians had Northern european features, egyptians had mediterranian features, etruscans had semitic features etc Racist eurocentrism is fine to him over actual science when it suits his claims”.

7:33 PM· JULY 14, 2025.

“Riddle me this, if someone looked at this mughal era rajput painting and assumed Krishna actually looked like this, what face type would he assign Indians too?”

7:36 PM· JULY 14, 2025.

 

This clown has apparently not bothered to read the article before jumping into the fray. But clowns never do. The Egyptian and Hittite (note: Egyptian and Hittite) artists who depicted both Egyptians and Hittites were not from some other age and area (as in the examples the clown gives) they were contemporary artists depicting what was before their eyes. And they had no knowledge of “racial science from 1890 and 1919” when they produced their artistic depictions, in which they portrayed the Hittites differently from other West Asians.

I am not “incredibly embarrassed” and have no need to be. But people who display their incredible stupidity with a cleverer-than-thou air do have reason to feel “incredibly embarrassed”. But I don’t think they have the honesty to feel embarrassed. In any case, this is the kind of half-witted reactions that will come, and which (after now having drawn attention to a classic example of such a reaction) I will not bother to waste my time reacting to after this.   

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

CARNOY 1919: Pre-Aryan Origins of the Persian Perfect. pp. 117-121 in The Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol.39, 1919.

CHILDE 1926: The Aryans: A study of Indo-European Origins. Childe, V. Gordon. Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & co. Ltd., London, 1926.

SAYCE 1890: “The Hittites, The Story of a forgotten Empire”, the Religious Tract Society, Piccadilly, 1890.

Can’t People (Jijith-Koenraad) Lie Without Naming Me In Their Lies?

 

Can’t People (Jijith-Koenraad) Lie Without Naming Me In Their Lies?

Shrikant G. Talageri 

Recently there has been a huge spate of tweets and articles and group-mails by Jijith and Koenraad slowly trying to, as I pointed out in an earlier article, cancel the role, and even existence, of my contributions from the OIT case. I could have observed it all with a smile (and indeed have been doing so by and large whenever these are reported to me) if they only refrained from deliberately taking my name in the process of their lies.

Yesterday, Jijith has put up a tweet claiming that he has provided the “explanation for the Steppe gene presence in 2000-1500 BCE” which I had not!:

https://x.com/Jijith_NR

“In contrast to Talageri's OIT, i gave an explanation for the Steppe gene presence in 2000-1500 BCE not through the book Rivers of Rgveda, but through the book Geography of Mahabharata - which indicates a post Kurukṣetra War invasion / migration of the Gandharas, Kambojas & Rishikas into Indo Gangatic Plains. Contemporary to Arjuna (1850-1750 BCE) they were around Kashmir Valley. Later texts note them present as South as Maharashtra! Ref. Khandesh = North West Maharashtra. Ref. Place names like Kambey and Gandhare in Gujarat & Maharashtra. This is followed by Shakas and Kushanas (Tusharas - Tukharas). All of them has Central Asian origin. Today the highest Steppe ancestry in India often associated with the Kambojs. This wasn't a language migration from Steppes to India but a genetic migration from Central Asians carrying Steppe genes to North India.”

6:26 PM · Jun 19, 2025

 

As expected, Koenraad chimes in:

 

https://x.com/ElstKoenraad

“Thanks for contributing more detail to the C-Asian immigration ca. 1800 BCE, already identified in the genetic record by David Reich, but wrongly identified as the incoming Vedic Aryans. They were one of a succession of Scythian, Huna, Kušana et al. groups leaving genes in India.”

Last edited 10:48 AM · Jun 20, 2025

 

I have already pointed out that there is a disinformation campaign trying to cancel out my contributions to the OIT case – in fact, actually no serious OIT case would even have existed today if not for my books and articles – but having alerted whomsoever it may concern to the steady rise of this campaign, I would have considered my duty done and not have not continued to bother to see what they are writing, and would have ignored them as they steadily progressed in their campaign (still in its initial stages) to claim credit one-by-one for every single thing I have written in the last 33 years, if they could have done so while resisting the itch to poke needles at me by naming me and specifically stating that I have not written anything on the subject.

 

But since Jijith has specifically named me as not having given any “explanation for the Steppe gene presence in 2000-1500 BCE”, and Koenraad has immediately endorsed his claim, here are some quotations from my own books and articles on the subject.

I have referred to the invasions of the Central Asian (or through-Central-Asia) invasions right from my first book in 1993, but the references to genetics is a more recent phenomenon, and therefore I will have to quote my most recent books and articles. Just one example each will suffice:

1. My 2019 Book (which was entirely about the alleged genetic influx into India):

 “But we know that there actually are, in the attested historical record, people from the Steppes who had indeed invaded or immigrated into India a millennium and more later: the Scythians, Kushans, Huns and others in the first millennium BCE. So it could well be that any Steppe DNA found in India could have been brought in by them rather than by any hypothetical "Aryans" in the second millennium BCE, whose presence in India is attested (as per this genetic report) by ancient DNA samples only from the Swat area in northernmost Pakistan (but not from any other place further in the interior of ancient South Asia).

To counter this, these ideologically committed "scientists" categorically rule out the possibility that any Steppe ancestry in present-day India could have come from later historically attested invasions. Telling us that the Steppe_MLBA samples from eastern Eurasia after 1500 BCE have ~25% of East Asian ancestry (the color purple in the chart), which should necessarily have brought purple ancestry into the DNA of modern Indians, the report claims that this "decreases the probability that populations in the 1st millennium BCE and 1st millennium BCE - including Scythians, Kushans and Huns, sometimes suggested as sources for the Steppe ancestry influences in India today - contributed to the majority of South Asians, which have negligible East Asian ancestry in our analysis" (REICH 2018:11-12).

That is: the Steppe people of the first millennium BCE (as per these scientists) had an additional Han Chinese ancestry (purple) while the Steppe people of the second millennium BCE did not. Since the Steppe DNA in modern Indians does not have this purple ancestry, it must have entered India in the second millennium BCE and not in the first millennium BCE. [So the argument goes, although we are not provided with color code charts of modern Indians to allow us to check or confirm this].

However  the simple logic that these scientists do not seem to understand is that instead of proving the AIT, their argument actually proves the OIT (or at least answers their objection to the OIT):

If the historically attested invasions/immigrations of actual Steppe people (the Scythians, Kushans and Huns) and their well-attested intermixing with native Indians in the first millennium BCE did not leave their genetic imprint (purple) in the Indian population, then no-one can demand that expansions of Indo-European languages beyond Central Asia from India should necessarily have to be attested by First Indian (yellow) ancestry among Indo-European speakers outside India.” (TALAGERI 2019:96-97).

 

2. My Blog Article dated 22 April 2018: “What is the Value of the New "Genomic Evidence" for the Aryan Invasion/Migration Theory versus the Out-of-India Theory?”

“It must be noted that genetic studies are as scientific as they are believed to be when it pertains to tracing genetic lines. Human beings have been migrating from every conceivable area to every other conceivable area and in every possible direction since the dawn of history. Certain areas, indeed, like Central Asia, are seething hotbeds of ethnic to-and-fro migrations, and India has seen countless migrations and invasions in the last many thousand years: we have Scythians, Greeks, Kushanas, Hunas, Arabs, Turks, Afghans, Ethiopian slave-soldiers and Persians invading, we have other Persians and Syrian Christians taking refuge in India, and none of them retained their language, and all of them assimilated into the local populations and adopted the local languages, but their foreign genes remain in the genetic record. As almost all the invasions and migrations took place from the northwest into northern India (although coastal areas also have their high share of foreign interactions), naturally any foreign genes are more likely to be found in greater proportions in the north than in the south; and as invaders are more likely to mix with the elites in the conquered societies, these genes are more likely to be found among "upper"-castes or ruling classes than among the "lower"-castes or isolated jungle or hill tribes. That this phenomenon is being invested with linguistic "Aryan" connotations and caste implications is testimony to the motives behind the whole enterprise. Needless to say, the real or alleged genetic compositions of present day Indians belonging to different castes or regions is irrelevant to the linguistic question.”

 

Soon, twitter (X) and the internet in general will be flooded by this duo with Jijith’s “new discoveries” and “new contributions” regarding the Mitanni evidence, the dāśarājña war, the Uralic evidence, the evidence of the Elephant, the evidence of the Isoglosses, and countless other topics, all of which, we will be told, completely escaped mention in my writings.

I had earlier alerted readers to not take anyone else’s words (other than my own) about what I have written in my books and articles (e.g. Manu-in-Ayodhya). Now I must add that should remain alert to anyone else’s words (other than my own) about what I have not written in my books and articles (e.g. the explanation for Central Asian genes in Indians). Of course, my books and articles are on record, but not everyone can possibly bother to remember everything about everything I have written!

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

TALAGERI 2019: Genetics and the Aryan Debate―"Early Indians", Tony Joseph's Latest Assault. Talageri, Shrikant G.  Voice of India, New Delhi, 2019.

Interesting Ending to Manu-in-Ayodhya Imbroglio

 

Interesting Ending to Manu-in-Ayodhya Imbroglio

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

After my last three articles on the subject, this article had to be written. After Koenraad Elst gave his reply (in five parts), in all fairness I cannot ignore it, can I? It is a very interesting reply in itself as I will point out below, and indeed there is need to point out what his rather complicated reply tells us.

 

I. His five part reply:

https://x.com/ElstKoenraad

“In expectation of an article about the Manu-in-Ayodhya controversy (which I ought to have taken more seriously), already this comment on the true story as per the horse’s mouth. I was apparently right in locating Ikṣvāku’s dynasty as per the horse’s mouth in Ayodhya, & at any/1”

Last edited 12:02 PM · Jun 18, 2025

 

“2/ rate in the east, whence Aikṣvāku/Solar king Māndhātā came to help his Paurava in-laws, then to return to his Aikṣvāku seat in Ayodhyā. Ikṣvāku was the successor (& perhaps figuratively, "son") of Manu. The most economical hypothesis is that he was born in Manu's Palace.”

Last edited 12:24 PM · Jun 18, 2025

 

“3/ But this isn't strictly proven. Since only 6000y have passed, I should have done better than to make this hazy assumption. So, Talageri's confirmed position about the Solar dynasty's eastern location does indeed imply nothing about Manu. Sorry there, Shrikant.”

Last edited 12:49 PM · Jun 18, 2025

 

“4/ It so happens that in this case, the Purāṇa-based picture, of Manu's Lunar descendents trekking west from the Ayodhyā area, is supported by 2 Vedic data: the east-to-west rivers sequence, and the early reference to the Gaṅgā landscape as proverbially well-known.”

Last edited 12:53 PM · Jun 18, 2025

 

“5/ It is this convergence of evidence that persuaded me, & it is what I have remembered since. This is a perfectly innocent psychology; at worst a "mistake" can be involved, but no indication of a "lie", a word I've lately had to hear a dozen times in this context.”

Last edited 1:12 PM · Jun 18, 2025

 

II. The meaning of his reply:

Here is how a reader of his comments (the same one who prodded him into replying) takes his reply:

(After tweet no 3):

https://x.com/clstephensenior

“Sir Mr Talageri was extremely upset due to your taking this issue lightly. But now that You have said 'sorry' and admitted to misconstruing Talageri's position, you have set the record straight. Thanks (Don't forget to check out the article that he has addressed directly to U)”

1:01 PM · Jun 18, 2025

Was it a “sorry”? Well, I had never asked for or wanted a “sorry”, but for a clarification of a repeatedly repeated canard which was grossly misrepresenting my OIT case. Was his reply even a clarification of a repeatedly repeated canard? He calls it “innocent psychology”: so innocent that he stuck through it for months until a reply was practically forced out of him. He could have clarified that it was a “mistake” months ago instead of determinedly repeating it again and again against my repeated denials, and then comparing my alleged “location in Ayodhya” with Jijith’s stated “location in Haryana” to my detriment (repeatedly asserting that he found Jijith’s actually stated location more credible than “my” alleged location which I had never-ever-stated or even hinted).

Nevertheless this matter is closed: let us assume it was a mistake he is now admitting.

 

But is he admitting it? In any case, what is the new picture that rises from his reply?

His reply concedes that “Talageri's confirmed position about the Solar dynasty's eastern location does indeed imply nothing about Manu”. So I am out of the picture.

But this present round of discussion on Manu-in-Ayodhya started with Koenraad’s following tweet just six days ago:

https://x.com/ElstKoenraad

“So much the better. Sometimes one is glad to have been wrong. At any rate, the only extant alternative to Shrikant Talageri's locating Manu in Ayodhya is Jijith Nadumuri Ravi, locating him in Haryana. I have no new arguments to add to their respective positions.”

4:08 PM. June 12, 2025.

But while Koenraad now concedes that I have not located Manu in Ayodhya, his above reply seems to indicate that he himself now locates Manu in Ayodhya:

1. “Ikṣvāku was the successor (& perhaps figuratively, "son") of Manu. The most economical hypothesis is that he was born in Manu's Palace.”

2. the Purāṇa-based picture, of Manu's Lunar descendents trekking west from the Ayodhyā area, is supported by 2 Vedic data: the east-to-west rivers sequence, and the early reference to the Gaṅgā landscape as proverbially well-known.”

 

I have never spoken of Manu and Ikṣvāku as actual human historical kings with kingdoms, capitals, palaces and courts. or other geographical and chronological specifics (except in quoting the formulations of other Purana-based scholars). I have held that they were hypothetical ancestral figures postulated for actual existing tribal conglomerates which covered different parts of India at the point of time when the writers of the Puranas started collating their traditional history. I have started the historical Puranic narrative at the point where the Ikṣvākus are in the east, and the other five “Lunar” tribes in the west in their respective locations, and have never spoken about earlier people “trekking” in any direction, east or west, before those historical locations. Thus, I have never ever spoken of “Manu's Lunar descendents trekking west from the Ayodhyā area”.

[Yes, in my linguistic analyses, I have postulated that there were other “Indo-European” branches spoken to the east of the Vedic Pūru area, whose languages, lost to the actual record, contained linguistic features found in other IE branches outside India but not in “Vedic Indo-Aryan” or “Indo-Iranian”, and also suggested that the original PIE originated further east and had contacts with other eastern speeches. I have even suggested that the Ikṣvākus and other eastern and southern tribes must have spoken these languages which got completely Sanskritized in the course of time and have therefore not left detailed records. But I nowhere connected these with textual descriptions of migrations of Puranic tribes, and certainly not with hypothetical ancestral figures.]

Koenraad, however still treats the earliest names of ancestors as historical, and talks about Puranic tribes trekking in different directions before arriving in their historical Puranic original locations.

After Koenraad’s above tweet no 4, note someone’s comment and Koenraad’s reply:

(After tweet no 4)

https://x.com/RMV0210

“Manu is as real as Unicorn”

12:53 PM · Jun 18, 2025

https://x.com/ElstKoenraad

“In "rationalist" circles you'll harvest some success w/ it, but it's hopelessly obsolete, from the scientistic wave of late 19th century. Of Laozi, Jesus, Mo & other founders it has been questioned whether they existed. By now their names are still doubted, but of course /1”

1:27 PM · Jun 18, 2025

 

2/ someone on whose life events his foundational story was based, did exist. Unlike the names of his children, "Manu" was first a figure from myth (the Creator, together w/ Yemo/Yama, his "twin"), then the (possibly postumous) title of a founder-king. Greco-Roman sources call

3:23 PM · Jun 18, 2025

 

“3/ him Dis Pater, "divine father". So many literarily attested figures (Troy, the Hittites, Jesus, Zarathuštra, Rāma) have been declared non-existent until their existence was corroborated, often from unexpected quarters.”

5:00 PM · Jun 18, 2025

 

So Koenraad clearly accepts Manu as an actual historical human being of that name having “Lunar descendents trekking west from the Ayodhyā area”. I have no argument with that: it just happens to not be my position: that is all.

Should Koenraad’s earlier tweeted “alternative” now be restated as follows: “the only extant alternative to Koenraad Elst's locating Manu in Ayodhya is Jijith Nadumuri Ravi, locating him in Haryana”? My views on this point are in a different category altogether: I don’t locate Manu, Ikṣvāku, Iḷā etc. anywhere in particular.

A Last Reply to Lies about My Position on Manu Vaivasvata

 

 

A Last Reply to Lies about My Position on Manu Vaivasvata

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

After months of prevarication and dissemination of disinformation on a war-footing, accompanied by a refusal to take notice of my repeated and very detailed refutations of his lies, Koenraad Elst has finally been forced to take note of what he dismissively (and very strangely in a person who always claims to stand for authentic references whenever he is dealing with critics on the internet) calls “some commotion … over the historical/scriptural location of Manu Vaivasvata” – it should have been “some indignation over a deliberate and sustained disinformation campaign to put words into the mouth or pen of Talageri about the geographical location of Manu Vaivasvata, words never ever spoken or written by him, in order to make his formulations sound as fictitious and immature as those of Jijith Nadumuri Ravi”:

https://x.com/ElstKoenraad

“Some commotion has erupted over the historical/scriptural location of Manu vaivasvata. As I remember it, Shrikant talageri wrote in his 1993 book, still strongly Purāṇa-based, that Manu stayed in Ayodhya. In that area, his daughter Iḷā’s son Purūravas founded the Lunar Dynasty,/1”

1:11 PM . Jun 17 2025

After five more tweets on this issue where he makes rambling and irrelevant points, he ends (?) with a seventh tweet:

https://x.com/ElstKoenraad

“7/Whether this flies in the face of a position once taken by Talageri, I'm presently in no position to check. But since this is not a spectator sport, among you some possessor of his 1993 book may get up from his couch & check, then let us know? Ah, good you Hs are so helpful”.

2:12 PM . Jun 17 2025

 

I will address this man directly for hopefully the last time:

If you are not in a position to check whether what your very faulty memory tells you is right or not, how does it justify your militantly repeating this faulty “remembrance” for months on end in the face of continuous and strong denials from my end?

And now, cornered on this (to you, as you now claim, superficial and unimportant) issue, but which you made the very basis of comparing my OIT case with Jijith’s AIOIT case throughout your disinformation campaign, do you think you can get away with flippant and contemptuous remarks about Hindus being spectators sitting on couches and discussing irrelevant issues?

If you were in no position to check, why did you carry on this disinformation campaign for so long and in so militant and determined a fashion? And when you challenge people with whom you argue on different issues on twitter and elsewhere and ask them to produce exact citations, and they fail to do so, is it because you are sitting free on a couch while they are too busy to examine the sources on issues on which they are making categorical assertions?

And even now, when a response is being practically choked out of you by public exposure, you are trying to get away with fudging the issues. You still do not admit that you deliberately lied, or even that you were very wrong. You state: “As I remember it, Shrikant talageri wrote in his 1993 book, still strongly Purāṇa-based, that Manu stayed in Ayodhya.” It is your duty to give the relevant quotations from my 1993 book, not the duty of others to search out these references to expose your lies.

 

Well, it was my book; your false accusation is about me; I am a retired person with time hanging on my hands as I sit idly on my couch (but as the original writer you are misrepresenting, and not just a “spectator”); I do have a copy of my 1993 book with me; and I am in a position to check out the facts about your assertions about my 1993 book.

You are right: it was “still strongly Purāṇa-based”. But nowhere did I present the Puranic data as a result of my own investigations. Before writing my 1993 book, I had never even seen an actual copy of the Rigveda with my own eyes, or the Puranas. It was after my 1993 book that I started my own detailed investigation of the Rigvedic data and found out exactly where and how it clashed or contrasted – or fitted in – with the accounts in the Puranas. Throughout my first book, I was dealing with the Puranic analyses of other scholars like Pusalker, Bhargava and Pargiter.

And I was mainly concerned with demolishing their arguments (especially those of Bhargava). Thus even Pargiter, whose conclusions I found more conducive than those of Bhargava (since Pargiter concludes that all the Indo-European languages of Europe, Iran and West Asia migrated from India through the northwest), made extremely ridiculous arguments which I rejected in strong terms. I will mention some of them, just for safety, in case tomorrow your faulty memory tells you that I had made those assertions in my 1993 book: he asserted that there was an Aryan invasion from across the Himalayas; he asserted that the Ikṣvākus were Dravidian-language speakers; he asserted that Sudyumna ruled from Prayag; he asserted that all the Rigvedic rishis and the brahmana families descended from them were “non-Aryans”; he asserted that most of the Rigvedic hymns were translations into Vedic Sanskrit of “pre-Aryan” hymns in some “non-Aryan” language!

Nowhere did I accept their assertions: I only described them all, and rejected with detailed arguments those that I found most necessary to reject.

 

But, to come back to Manu, did I accept him at least in my first book as a genuine ancestral king with a kingdom and “Court”? Here is what I wrote even in 1993, when I had not learnt to look at the Puranic data with as much skepticism and careful scrutiny as in my writings after 1993:

“The Puranas commence the traditional history of India with the division of the whole of northern India among the ten sons of Manu. Now it is obvious that these ten kings could not have been the sons of a single person, and that this was the mythical way of presenting the relationship between the kings of the ten kingdoms which must have existed in India at the point of time at which the traditional historians commenced their recording. Manu Vaivasvata may have been an emperor who ruled over all the kingdoms.”

Note the last sentence. It was a nominal concession (as my first step into the subject) to the idea of a historical Manu who may have lived at some time in the remote prehistorical past, long before the situation “which must have existed in India at the point of time at which the traditional historians commenced their recording”. But nowhere, even in my first book, did I talk about his geographical location (whether Ayodhya, Kashi, Haryana or anywhere else) – and, what is more, I don’t think even Bhargava or Pargiter gave Manu’s “Court” a geographical location, and certainly not Ayodhya! 

It is unfortunate that people, who pretend to base their arguments (when arguing with other less careful critics) on quotable citations, treat exact citations in such a cavalier and even contemptuous manner: “among you some possessor of his 1993 book may get up from his couch & check, then let us know? Ah, good you Hs are so helpful”.

 

So now your positions (on which you are discreet and diplomatic enough to avoid committing yourself openly) on various issues is out in the open. According to you and Jijith:

1. In the Rigveda there are three different rivers named Sarayu (apart from the only two historical ones known to all students of ancient history: the ones in Ayodhya and in Afghanistan, which you both agree are unknown to the Rigveda).

2. The Ikṣvākus are archaeologically identifiable on the northern banks of the Sarasvati river (which was one of the three Sarayus) in pre-Rigvedic times. And there is an archaeological trail of their identifiably “Ikṣvāku” archaeological artefacts (pottery? tools? cultural items?) moving west-to-east from the Sarasvati river to Ayodhya in the east, such archaeological proof  standing in sharp contrast to the total absence of such “archaeological” evidence in my OIT case to show an east-to-west movement of the Ikṣvākus.

3. In the Rigveda (especially in the older and oldest parts) the Bharata Pūru dynasty and sub-tribe to which Divodāsa and Sudās belong are the heroes in half the hymns but the enemies in the other, and older, half (where the “Samvaraṇa Bharatas”, their enemies, are the heroes).

4. In fact, many kings in what I have called the “New Rigveda’ are actually older than Sudās who belongs to what I have called the “Old Rigveda” (so that the terms Old Rigveda and New Rigveda are plainly wrong), and these older kings were already in the NW (in the Swat area) even before Sudās commenced his westward journey from Haryana (so that the actual “Aryan” movement in the Rigveda cannot be east-to-west, or, at least, Sudās’ battles do not mark any such east-to-west movement).

 

And how does all this stand proved? Simply because I have made the supreme mistake of locating Manu in Ayodhya while Jijith correctly located him in Haryana!

Well, we will see whether ultimately the truth will prevail or your lies!

 

Incidentally, the war also seems to have been joined by other forces:

Jijith apparently sent a comment to your tweets, claiming that I am always making contradictory statements in my writings. He quotes my reference to Mandhāta’s father (for some reason, he persistently calls Mandhāta "Manthata") being from Ayodhya. However, his brainless comment was immediately replied to by a tweeter who pointed out:

https://x.com/clstephensenior

“Where in this image did Mr Talageri locate Manu in Ayodhya? He just said that an eastern IKSHVAKU king Mandhata's mother was a Puru from the west (haryana & westernmost UP) so he went to the west (Puru lands) to help the Purus & returned to Ayo to continue the line of Ikshvakus.”

 

Another person has apparently quoted my reference (in my 2000 book) to Pratardana as a king of Kashi. But I already replied to this when it was pointed out by a person commenting on my previous article:

“"Pratardana was a king of Kashi, which is in eastern Uttar Pradesh. This can only mean that the Bharata Kings of the Early Period of the Rigveda were Kings of Kashi; and, in the light of the other information in the Rigveda, the land of the Bharatas extended from Kashi in the east to Kurukshetra in the west."

This was an indirect attempt at interpretation of the late Anukramani attribution of a verse in Book 10, where I have suggested that (if true) Bharata Purus (extremely late descendants of the Rigvedic Purus) may have reached Kashi by the late period of Book 10. In any case, in the same book (in 2000) I also suggested (on the basis of information then gleaned by me) that Kikata was Bihar (while it is in northern-Madhya-Pradesh Rajasthan, which I have accepted in all my subsequent writings).

In the same book where I wrote the above, I also wrote on p.49 about Book 10:
"The ascription of hymns in this Maṇḍala is so chaotic that in most of the hymns the names, or the patronymics/epithets, or both, of the composers, are fictitious; to the extent that, in 44 hymns out of 191, and in parts of one more, the family identity of the composers is a total mystery.
In many other hymns, the family identity, but not the actual identity of the composers, is clear or can be deduced: the hymns are ascribed to remote ancestors, or even to mythical ancestors not known to have composed any hymns in earlier Maṇḍalas."

In all my writings after 2000, I have repeatedly reiterated that the Ikshvakus were the only people in the east.

In any case how does this ascription about a king named Pratardana of Kashi (as per the Anukramanis) in Book 10 indicate that I have located Manu Vaivasvata (long into the pre-Rigvedic days) in Ayodhya? So much that in spite of my repeated denials these two keep on propagating this lie?”

 

As I have already replied to everything in this matter, I will ignore further trolling on this subject.