Tuesday 21 November 2017

Are German and French Closer to Sanskrit than Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu?

[This question, "ARE GERMAN AND FRENCH CLOSER TO SANSKRIT THAN MALAYALAM, KANNADA, TELUGU AS THE THEORIES SEEM TO SUGGEST?", was the subject of discussion in certain Hindu circles. This relates to a fundamental point concerning the validity of the concept of "language-families", which would seem obvious to many people but equally unacceptable to many others. I felt this point, elementary though it is, needs to be clarified; hence this article]



The above is an oft-repeated kind of question in Hindu circles which reject the linguistic distinction between Indo-European languages on the one hand and the Dravidian languages on the other as they feel it creates a division between "North India" and "South India", and somehow makes "North India" closer to Europe than to "South India".

This question has three very distinct components:'
1. Is the classification of languages into different families as "Indo-European" ("Aryan") and "Dravidian" correct?
2. Does this prove an "Aryan Invasion" of India?
3. Does this cause a division between the people of North India and South India, and put the people of North India closer to the people of Europe than to the people of South India?


I. DIFFERENT LANGUAGE FAMILIES.

The division into different families is a linguistic fact. Anyone who sees the evidence cannot reach any other conclusion. Any examination of the Sanskrit vocabulary and grammar with the oldest available vocabularies and grammars of the different Indo-European languages makes it crystal clear that the languages are indeed related to each other. Note some examples here:

1. To begin with, compare the closest relationship words for "father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter" in Sanskrit: "pitar, mātar, bhrātar, svasar, sūnu, duhitar", and in Persian: "pidar, mādar, birādar, khvahar, hūnu (in Avestan), dukhtar". Compare the normal (not borrowed from Sanskrit) forms in the Dravidian languages.

2. Compare Sanskrit "dvā, tri, catur, panca" with Russian "dva, tri, cetuire, pyac"; or Sanskrit "saptan, aṭan, navan, daśan" with Latin "septem, octo, novem, decem". Compare the Persian numerals "yak, du, si, chahar, panj, shish, haft, hasht, nuh, dah" with Hindi "ek, do, tīn, chār, pānc, che, sāt, āṭh, nau, das", and then with Tamil "onṛu, iranḍu, mūnṛu, nāngu, aindu, āṛu, ēzhu, eṭṭu, onbadu, pattu" or Telugu "okaṭi, renḍu, mūḍu, nālugu, ayidu, āru, ēḍu, enimidi, tommidi, padi".
Compare for example Sanskrit tri, Avestan thri, English three, Latin treis, Greek treis, Russian tri, German drei, Lithuanian trys, Albanian tre, Welsh tri, Tokharian tri/tre, Hittite teri-, etc. with Tamil mūnṛu, Malayalam mūnnu, Telugu mūḍu, Kannada mūru, Tulu mūji.

3. Relationship words and numerals can be borrowed, as English "uncle", "mummy" and English numerals are commonly used today by people in the midst of discourse in their own other languages (though it would be difficult to explain how Sanskrit relationship words and numerals could have been "borrowed" wholesale by totally unrelated languages in far-off areas in very ancient times, and how they could completely replace the original words in those languages), but personal pronouns cannot be borrowed:
a. Note the striking and undeniable relationship between the nominative plurals in Sanskrit vay-, yūy-, te, English we, you, they, and Avestan vae, yūz, dī.
Again compare the accusative forms of the same plural pronouns, Sanskrit nas, vas,  with Avestan noh, voh, Russian nas, vas,  and the Latin nominative forms nos, vos.
b. Compare Sanskrit tu- (English thou) with (or variations tu/ti/du, etc.) in all the modern Indo-Aryan languages, as well as in Avestan, Persian, Armenian, (Doric) Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Lithuanian, Irish, Welsh, Albanian, German, etc. etc.: practically in every Indo-European language.
c. Compare Sanskrit dative forms me and te (as in kṣamasva-me and namas-te) with Avestan me and te,  English me and thee, Greek me and se (te in Doric Greek), Latin me and te, etc.   
d. Compare Sanskrit tat with English that; Latin id and Avestan it with English it; Sanskrit tām with English them; and Sanskrit as-ma- with English us. And  the root in the Sanskrit dual forms āvā(-am) and yuvā(-am) with the roots in English possessive plurals our and your.
Compare all these forms with the personal pronouns in the Dravidian languages of the South.

4. Take the most fundamental of verbs, the verb "to be", and its most basic present tense conjugational forms: (I) am, (thou) art, (he/she/it) is. The forms in a main representative language from each of the twelve different branches are:
Sanskrit: asmi, asi, asti.
Avestan: ahmī, ahī, astī.
Homeric Greek: eimi, essi, esti.
Latin: sum, es, est.
Gothic: em, ert, est.
Hittite: ēšmi, ēšši, ēšzi.
Old Irish: am, at, is.
Russian: esmy, esi, esty.
Lithuanian: esmi, esi, esti.
Albanian: jam, je, ishtë.
Armenian: em, es, ê.
Tocharian: -am, -at, -aṣ.

[Note added 15/9/2018:

[What are the comparative forms in the Dravidian languages of South India, or even the modern Indo-Aryan languages of the North?

Tamil: irukkiŗēn, irukkiŗāy, irukkiŗān/irukkiŗāḷ/irukkiŗadu.
Kannada: iddēne, iddi, iddāne/iddāḷe/ide.
Telugu: unnānu, unnāvu, unnāḍu/unnadi/unnadi.

Marathi: āhe, āhes, āhe.
Konkani: āssa, āssa, āssa.
Hindi: , hai, hai.
Gujarati: chũ, che, che.
Bengali: āchi, ācha, āche.
Sindhi: āhyã, āhī , āhe

See how even the modern North Indian ("Aryan" language) words are not exactly like the Sanskrit words or like each other, though the connection can be seen or analyzed; but the words in the ancient Indo-European languages given above are almost replicas of each other, like the dialectal forms of a single language. And this is not only with Sanskrit, ancient Greek, Avestan and Hittite, but even modern Russian and Lithuanian. But all these languages have evolved separately from each other for thousands of years in different geographical areas with very little historical contacts (and certainly no known historical contacts where the interaction was so total and all-powerful that even such basic words could have been borrowed from one to the other, when there is not a single known example anywhere in the whole world where even closely situated languages with one language totally influencing the other one has resulted in the borrowing of personal pronouns or basic verbal forms). Obviously the "Indo-European" languages are closely related to each other. But the speakers of the languages are clearly not racially or genetically related to each other (while the speakers of different language families in India are racially and genetically related to each other). So this means that these languages have spread from some one particular area to all the other areas in prehistoric times, and (by elite dominance or whatever means) language replacement took place where the people in the other areas, over the centuries, slowly adopted these languages: there can be no alternative explanation. The only question is: from which area? I have shown that it was from North India].

Further, compare the conjugation of the verb "bear" (to carry) in the forms (I) bear, (thou) bearest, (he/she/it) bears, (we) bear, (you) bear, (they) bear, in a few representative old languages from different Indo-European branches:
Sanskrit: bharāmi, bharasi, bharati, bharāmas, bharatha, bharanth.
Avestan: barā, barāhi, baraiti, barāmahi, baratha, baranti.
Gothic: baira, bairis, bairith, bairam, bairith, bairand.
Greek: pherō, phereis, pherei, pheremon, pherete, pherousi.
Latin: fero, fers, phert, ferimus, fertis, ferunt.
Old Irish: birum, bir, berid, bermoi, beirthe, berait.
Old Slavic: bero, bereši, beretŭ, beremŭ, berete, berotŭ.
Again, compare the conjugations in the Dravidian languages of the South.

5. In fact, a deep examination of every aspect of the original basic vocabulary of the different Indo-European languages shows a common origin: English "dewdrops" and Sanskrit "davadrapsa", English "thirsty" and Sanskrit "tṛṣit", English "navy" and Sanskrit "nāva", English "be-tter" and "be-st" and Sanskrit "vasu-tara" (Persian "beh-tar" as used in Urdu) and "vas-iṣṭha" (from "vasu-", good) , English "same" and "other" and Sanskrit "sama" and "itara" (Greek "homo" and "hetero"), even English "fart" and Sanskrit "pārd"!
The relation is fundamental, and covers not only the original roots of the basic verbs, but even the prefixes used to form new words from those roots. Compare the Sanskrit prefixes with their Avestan equivalents in brackets: ati (aiti), antar (antar), apa (apa), api (aipi), abhi (aibi, aiwi), anu (anu), ava (ava), ā (ā), ud (uz), upa (upa), ni (ni), niṣ (niz), para/parā (para/parā), pari (pairi), pra (fra), prati (paiti), vi (vi), saṁ (haṁ), a/an (a/an), duṣ (duz), sva (hva), su (hu), etc. See also some of these prefixes in Greek (as found in countless Greek-derived words used in English): ati (ety), antar (endo/ento, Latin inter/intro), apa (apo/ap Latin ab/abs), api (epi), abhi (amphi, Latin ambi), ā (ana), upa (hypo/hyp), ni (eni), parā (para), pari (peri), pra (pro, Latin pro), prati (proti), saṁ (syn/sym), a/an (in, Latin un), su (eu), etc.
Is there anything comparable in the basic vocabulary, roots and basic word-formation in the Dravidian languages of the South?

It is therefore likely to be counter-productive to adopt the line that German and French are not closer to Sanskrit (in their ancient linguistic beginnings) than Malayalam or Telugu. If we choose to ignore or refuse to accept clear facts, which should become clear from the above examples even to someone who has not studied linguistics and does not know all these languages, can our arguments be taken seriously by any serious person? Must we adopt a line just because it makes us happy, because we want to oppose whatever the opponents are saying, because a captive following will adopt whatever we say as a dogma, or because we have an agenda to uphold? Or should we present the facts, and examine what exactly is shown by the facts and evidence?


II. "ARYAN" INVASION OF INDIA.

The linguistic evidence shows that there were (at least as per presently available data) twelve branches of Indo-European languages which had split from an original ancestral language - unrecorded and hypothetical, but an ancestral language which can be roughly linguistically reconstructed from the available data on the basis of linguistic parameters - which was spoken in one particular geographical area (the Original Homeland) from where different branches migrated outwards in the course of time and settled down in their various earliest known and recorded historical areas.

The evidence does not show that the "Indo-Aryan" (Vedic) branch migrated into India from an Original Homeland in South Russia or anywhere else outside India. It in fact shows (see my books and blog articles for the irrefutable data and evidence) that the other eleven branches migrated from their Original Homeland in northern India into their historical areas in ancient times in circumstances which are recorded in the ancient Vedic and other texts.

The linguists see three stages in the Indo-Aryan heritage: 1. The Indo-European stage (which they place in South Russia) where the Indo-Aryans shared space and linguistic developments with all the other branches. 2. The Indo-Iranian stage (which they place in Central Asia) where the Indo-Aryans shared space and linguistic developments with the Iranian branch. 3. The Indo-Aryan stage (which they place in northern India) where the Indo-Aryans lost contact with the other eleven branches, and shared space and linguistic developments with the non-Indo-European (mainly Dravidian and Austric) languages in India.

However, an examination of the Rigveda shows all the three stages present within the history of the text. This can be illustrated with the history of just one word "night":
1. The common word for "night" throughout the Rigveda is nakt-. It is common to almost all the other branches: Greek nox (modern Greek nychta), Latin noctis (French nuit, Spanish noche), Hittite nekuz, Tocharian nekciye, German nacht, Irish anocht, Russian noc', Lithuanian naktis, Albanian natë, etc.
2. A less common word for "night" throughout the Rigveda is kṣap. It is found in the Avesta (where the word related to nakt- is completely missing except in a phrase upa-naxturusu, "bordering on the night") as xšap: modern Persian shab (as used in Urdu, and in the phrase shab-nam "night-moisture= dew").
3. The common Sanskrit word, which appears for the first time only a few times in the latest parts of the Rigveda, is rātri, which completely replaces the earlier words in post-Rigvedic Sanskrit and is the common or normal word in all modern Indo-Aryan languages as well as in all other languages which have borrowed the word from Sanskrit, but is totally missing in the IE languages outside India (which had already departed before the birth of this word).
All these three stages are geographically located within India, and in fact the three Oldest Books (Maṇḍala-s) of the Rigveda (6, 3, 7, in that order) are geographically restricted to the areas in Haryana and further east (i.e. in the region to the east of the Sarasvati), and it is only during the course of composition of the Rigveda that the geography of the text expands northwestwards.


III. NORTH-SOUTH DIVIDE?

Before examining the apprehension that the acceptance of the "Indo-European" and "Dravidian" language families as two different language families somehow creates a "north-south divide" in India and makes the "North Indians" closer to Europeans than to "South Indians", let us examine some subsidiary arguments:
1. That Dravidian languages also have large numbers of Sanskrit words in them.
2. That Vedic Sanskrit, and not some hypothetical "Proto-Indo-European" language, should be regarded as the ancestral language.

1. Large numbers of Sanskrit words are found in the Dravidian languages of the south because Sanskrit has been important as a source of vocabulary in all modern Indian languages (Indo-Aryan as well as Dravidian, Austric, etc., and even in many of the east or southeast Asian languages) just as large numbers of Greek and Latin words are found in the English language. But there is a difference between related words and borrowed words.
To the lay person, a large number of borrowed words appears to show a relationship. Take the German words: "der Beweiss, die Entwickelung, genau, die Übertreibung, die Erhebung, die Prüfung, das Beispiel, die Erbitterung, die Aushöhlung, überschreiten, vortrefflich…" from a book of comparative vocabulary. They are incomprehensible to an English reader who does not know German. See the Spanish equivalents: "la evidencia, la evolución, exacto, la exageración, la exaltacion, la examen, el ejemplo, el exasperación, el excavación, exceder, excelente…". A person knowing English can guess that the words may mean: "evidence, evolution, exact, exaggeration, exaltation, examination, example, exasperation, excavation, exceed, excellent…". From this "evidence", it looks as if English is closely related to Spanish, and unrelated to German. But actually, English and German both belong to the Germanic branch (and the connections become more and more apparent as we examine older and older varieties of English), and Spanish belongs to the Italic branch. But while German has by and large produced words from its own roots, English has resorted to large-scale borrowing from Italic/Latin and Greek, hence its vocabulary makes it seem related to (Italic) Spanish rather than to German.
Thus, English "book" is related to German "buch", but English has borrowed the word for "library" from Latin "librarium", derived from the Latin word "liber" (French "livre", Spanish and Italian "libro") for "book", while German has coined the word "bücherei" (and likewise Russian has coined the word "knigakhranilishche" from the word "kniga" for book). However, all the European languages, including Latin, the other Italic languages, and English, German and Russian, also use the alternate Greek word "bibliotheca" or "bibliotheque" for "library" from the Greek word "biblos" for "book".
Therefore the fact that there are large numbers of borrowed Sanskrit words in Malayalam, Telugu, Malay or Thai does not show their genetic relationship with Sanskrit. On the other hand, Bengali is related to Sanskrit not because of its large number of borrowed Sanskrit words, but because of the inherited basic vocabulary, grammar and roots.

2. One objection many Hindu opponents of the Indo-European case have is that the linguists postulate an artificially reconstructed "Proto-Indo-European" language as the ancestral form of the various Indo-European languages. The main grouse is: "Why can't Vedic be accepted as the ancestral language?"
This question ignores the fact that no language is static. There is a notable difference between the Vedic language and latter-day (which is also present-day) Classical Sanskrit: Classical Sanskrit has lost the tonal accents of Vedic Sanskrit (udātta, anudātta, svarit), the cerebral liquid sounds ( and ḷh, which become and ḍh), the end-inflected independent morphemes (which could occur anywhere in the sentence in Vedic, but in Classical Sanskrit are prefixes attached to the beginning of verbs), the subjunctive, injunctive and optative moods, eleven of the twelve forms of Vedic infinitives, the difference between the perfect and aorist forms of the verb, some personal pronouns (like asme, tve, yume, tvā forms for the first and second person), and a large part of the original Vedic vocabulary (found in common with the other branches) while developing new grammatical features and an extremely huge new vocabulary (not found in the other branches).
What is more, there is even a difference between the language in the Old parts of the Rigveda and the language in the New parts: the above example of the very common Sanskrit word "rātri" for "night", which is found only a few times in the very Newest parts of the Rigveda (and very common in the Atharvaveda and in all later texts and times) but totally missing in the Old parts (as well as in the other Indo-European branches) is a perfect example. As I have shown in my books, a huge mass of names, name types, words and metres common to the Rigveda, the Avesta and the Mitanni records are not found in a single one of the 280 Old Hymns and 2351 Old verses in the Old Books of the Rigveda (6,3,7,4,2) but found in 425 of the 686 New Hymns and 3692 of the 7311 New verses in the New Books (5,1,8,9,10): this illustrates the difference between the language of the Old hymns and the New hymns.
Logic tells us that language did not come into existence from the first point when it was recorded: it existed long before that (just as each individual among us has human ancestors going back countless generations beyond the generation for which we actually have records or memories from where we know the name of the ancestor and have recorded evidence of his existence). Further, even after (any) language was recorded, and therefore in a way set on the path of standardization and fixed formulation, it kept evolving and changing: the reader should read any book on the history of the English language and see how totally incomprehensible the earliest recorded English sentences are to us now. So obviously, the Vedic language itself, before the first Vedic hymn was composed and set in a fixed form, was different from the Vedic language in that first Vedic hymn; and as we move further and further back in time the ancestral form of the Vedic language must have been progressively more and more different from the Vedic language that we know.  And the linguistic evidence shows, whether anyone likes it or not, that the other branches of Indo-European are descended not from Vedic but from a far, far ancestral form of Vedic, which the linguists have artificially reconstructed and named "Proto-Indo-European".
An objection raised by a person to me was: "why shouldn't that ancestral language be called Proto-Vedic rather than Proto-Indo-European?". This is rather illogical: if that ancestral language was a far ancestor of Vedic, it was also a far ancestor of Greek, Latin, German, English, Russian, etc. It could equally well be asked by a speaker of one of those languages: "why shouldn't that ancestral language be called Proto-Greek/Proto-Latin/… rather than Proto-Indo-European?" Proto-Indo-European is clearly a logical, neutral and non-presumptuous name for the hypothetical reconstructed language.
That Proto-Indo-European is not called Proto-Vedic says nothing about the geographical location of the Proto-Indo-European language in its Original Homeland. While it was an ancestral language to all the known Indo-European languages of the world, it certainly could not have been located all over the world in the geographical areas of its descendant tongues. It obviously existed only in one out of the many geographical areas occupied by its descendant languages. The question is "Which was this area?", and the answer to this question, as I have conclusively proved in my books, is: "In North India". Whatever name the language is given, it was spoken in and around roughly the same area as Vedic: within North India.

So we come to the main question: does all this create a "north-south" divide and make the "North Indians" closer to the Europeans than to "South Indians"?

This is obviously a ridiculous question. To begin with, the people of North India and South India share a common geographical space (India) and (with regional variations in everything) a common long history and civilization, a common religion and common spectrum of culture (food, clothes, music and dance, architecture, lifestyle, etc.), a common modern political and film culture, and even a mosaic of common racial types. In all these respects they both stand together with each other and distinct from the Europeans. It is only in the origins of their languages that the North Indians seem to fall in one category and the South Indians in another.

But is this distinction in language so stark? While the basic vocabulary and origins of the two language families are different, the Indo-European ("Indo-Aryan") languages of North India and the Dravidian languages of South India have evolved together with each other (and also with the Austric languages of east-central India) for well over 3000 years (even as per the Aryan Invasion Theory) with no contacts or very sporadic and casual contacts with the languages of Europe till the European colonialists came and established their empires in India in the last 400-500 years: but even here the contacts were "they" (Europeans) vis-à-vis or versus "us" (both North and South Indians together). The Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages share not only a very large vocabulary in common, but they have evolved common linguistic features (absent in the European languages) which distinguish them as one group: the cerebral sounds (ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍh, ṇ, ḷ) as opposed to the dental sounds (t, th, d, dh, n, l), common grammatical forms (such as close third persons versus distant third persons: e.g. Tamil ivan vs. avan, Hindi yeh vs. voh, etc.), and a common syntax (so that a Hindi sentence can generally be translated into a Tamil sentence merely by substituting all the Hindi words or phrases, in the same order in the sentence, into the equivalent Tamil words and phrases, and giving a completely coherent sentence; while an English sentence translated word for word into Hindi or Tamil would look funny and grammatically weird). The common features become apparent when Indians speak English: despite differences in accents and pronunciations, both North Indian and South Indian English shares the same "Indianisms": take the most common Indianism of all, the word "only" as in "you only told me!"; no other people in the world use the word "only" in this sense (equivalent to Hindi "", Marathi "-ch", common South Indian "-ē" or particular Tamil "thaan"), but all Indians do it.

The languages of Europe have their ancient origins in common with Sanskrit, but belong to different branches of Indo-European languages, and further they have evolved for thousands of years in areas thousands of miles away in Europe, and evolved in completely different and unconnected ways. Even German and English, as we saw (in the coining or borrowing of new words), both Germanic languages within the Indo-European family and geographical neighbours, have evolved so differently as to be mutually incomprehensible. English has evolved into a grammatically simpler language: for example the single English word "the", in German, would be: der (nom. masc., gen fem., gen. pl., dat. fem.), den (acc. masc., dat. pl.), das (nom. neut., acc. neut.), die (nom. fem., acc. fem., nom. pl., acc. pl.), des (gen. masc., gen. neut.) or dem (dat. masc., dat. neut.)!

If the European people speak languages which, in their original ancestral forms, went out from North India, this does not in any way make the North Indians closer to them than to the South Indians, since the Europeans themselves did not emigrate from North India:
1. The Europeans are native people of Europe who, thousands of years ago in prehistoric times, adopted languages which were taken there by migrants from India.
2. In fact, even those people who took the languages into Europe were not necessarily direct actual migrants from India: in any migration theory of Indo-European languages in any direction from any Homeland, migrating Indo-European groups from the Original Homeland (wherever it was located) migrated in waves and in a stop and start fashion, getting racially mixed with umpteen other racial types on the way over the centuries, so that the Indo-European speakers who finally landed in the earliest historical areas of the different branches were not racially identical with the people who had originally started out from the Homeland with the ancestral form of that particular language.
3. There are many things which went out from some part of India in ancient times and were adopted by people from different other areas of the world: this does not make the Indians from that part of India closer to the people from those different other areas of the world than to the people from other parts of India.
4. Further:
a) The languages that went out from India were not descended from Vedic Sanskrit (except in the case of the ancestral language of the Mitanni of ancient Syria-Iraq, or the speech-forms of the latter-day gypsies or Romany people).
b) They belonged to the other eleven branches (i.e. other than "Indo-Aryan" or Vedic).
c) They went off to far off lands in very ancient times, where they evolved separately for thousands of years into their present forms.

Therefore, instead of treating the family difference between the Indo-European languages of North India and the Dravidian languages of South India as a dividing factor in India (and playing into the hands of the enemies of India and Hinduism), we should appreciate the quality of "Being Different", and should be proud of the range and variety within our Indian=Hindu heritage. As I put it in my earlier blogspot article on "Hindutva or Hindu Nationalism", in describing the richness of our Indian=Hindu=Pan-Indic heritage:
"There are three recognised races in the world (Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid), and India is the only area in the world which has all three native to it: the Andaman islanders are the only true Negroids outside Africa. Sometimes, a fourth race, Australoid, is postulated (otherwise included among Caucasoids), and we have it among the Veddas of Sri Lanka. Language wise, six of the nineteen families of languages in the world are found in India, three of them (Dravidian, Andamanese and Burushaski) only in India. And the numerically and politically most important family of languages in the world, Indo-European, originated (as I have shown in my books) in India". 

Ideas of Indian Nationalism seem to generally fall onto two opposing camps:
a) Leftist/"Secular" "Nationalism" where the Indian (Hindu) ethos and identity as well as every foreign (Christian, Muslim, etc.) ethos and identity, including in situations where they stand in stark opposition to each other because of aggressive attacks by the latter on the former, are to be treated as equally "Indian" and "national".
b) Rightist/Feudal "Nationalism" where only one particular part of the Indian ethos (Vedic/Sanskrit) is to be treated as THE Indian national ethos and identity from which all other (equally Indian) parts are to be "derived".

But real Indian Nationalism would treat all the different parts of the Indian ethos and identity (as distinct from any foreign ethos or identity) as equally worthy of respect and equally "ours", each in its own right. One particular part of the ethos and identity (Vedic/Sanskrit) should certainly be (as it factually is) recognized and accepted as the Pan-Indian Civilizational Link between the various different parts. And every other "foreign" ethos and identity which has historically found a place in India should be treated with respect (strictly if reciprocated) while strongly countering further aggression from it.

In this particular context, pushing an agenda for the Vedic/Sanskrit language and culture to be treated as the parent of all, even all Indian, languages and cultures, against all linguistic and historical evidence, would not only be unscholarly and unlikely to convince opponents, it would show a lack of respect for other Indian languages and cultures and be extremely counter-productive. While accepting Vedic/Sanskrit language and culture as being the Pan-Indian umbrella of our great and ancient Civilizational ethos and identity, we should also accept that Sanskrit, Tamil, Santali, Lepcha, Burushaski and Andamanese (taking here, for illustration, one representative language from each of the six language-families found in India) are all "different", but all equally Indian and equally "ours", and equally worthy of our pride, respect and protection.   

98 comments:

  1. pushing an agenda for the Vedic/Sanskrit language and culture to be treated as the parent of all, even all Indian, languages and cultures, against all linguistic and historical evidence, would not only be unscholarly and unlikely to convince opponents, it would show a lack of respect for other Indian languages and cultures and be extremely counter-productive. While accepting Vedic/Sanskrit language and culture as being the Pan-Indian umbrella of our great and ancient Civilizational ethos and identity, we should also accept that Sanskrit, Tamil, Santali, Lepcha, Burushaski and Andamanese (taking here, for illustration, one representative language from each of the six language-families found in India) are all "different", but all equally Indian and equally "ours", and equally worthy of our pride, respect and protection.

    Very good suggestion!.

    ReplyDelete
  2. https://www.myindiamyglory.com/2017/11/24/open-letter-toi-indias-historical-glory-ravikumar-pillay/ do consider reading my article on Indian history

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello MR. Talageri,

    I have followed your work and just wanted to ask you some things.
    You concluded that archeological evidence says no to any aryan migration,and that india is orignal homeland.,but can we say that archeological evidence can graph out a map to show archeologicaly that indians moved from india to the rest of the world...I agree on your analysis of the linguistic and textual records...but what about archeology?
    Thank you

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is linguistic and textual evidence of the migrations from India. As for the archaeological evidence, I will quote from my book:

      "To begin with, analogical comparison should be between immigrations and immigrations, not between immigrations and emigrations. Archaeological evidence is to be found at the immigratory ending point of a migration where the arrival of a totally new people with a totally different culture should cause major changes in the ethnic and cultural composition of the material remains after the migration, not at the emigratory starting point. Any archaeological evidence to be found for the migration of white Europeans to America during the colonization of the Americas will be found in America, not in Europe. If anything, literary evidence is found in Europe (and also in America) for these migrations, since these migrations took place consciously in literate historical times, in which there continued to be communication between the areas of the starting point and the ending point of the migrations. Analogically, here we can and do find acceptable archaeological evidence for the immigration of Indo-Europeans in Europe, and in most of the other earliest historical habitats of the other Indo-European groups outside India, but not for their emigration from northern India (although, as we saw, we do incidentally find literary evidence of their emigrations from northern India). So there would obviously be little to expect by way of archaeological evidence of emigrations in the Harappan areas proper.

      So far as the areas to its west are concerned (Afghanistan and the Bactria-Margiana areas of southern Central Asia to its immediate north), we have seen (in the OIT scenario in Chapter 7) that this was already Indo-European in the pre-Rigvedic period: the various Druhyu tribes were already inhabitants of these areas in pre-Rigvedic times, and it was an extension of the Indian homeland in the sense that the Indo-European Dialects had already slowly expanded into these areas and were moving off further north in a gradual process which must have occurred over a long period. As all these peoples were presumably ethnically related to each other in a chain of ethnic connections, and, in this scenario the process of continuous acculturation and assimilation must certainly have been in play, we can genuinely excuse the lack of substantial archaeological and anthropological evidence of any cataclysmic transformations (unlike in the case of the AIT scenario for the Harappan areas, where two totally different civilizations in every sense, including the ethnic sense, are supposed to have occupied the same vast area in quick succession). All this, it must be remembered, took place in an earlier and more primitive period, and yet we have the Purāṇic traditions of these emigrations; while the alleged immigrations of the AIT scenario are alleged to have taken place in a later and more civilized period, and yet have left not a trace of a memory anywhere.

      Delete
    2. [continued:]
      After the various Indo-European groups entered deeper into Central Asia, they were in an area which Nichols (see section 7D-2 of chapter 7) calls the “central Eurasian spread zone” which “was part of a standing pattern whereby languages were drawn into the spread zone, spread westward, and were eventually succeeded by the next spreading family” (NICHOLS 1997:137). The further migrations of the Indo-Europeans through Eurasia all the way to Europe were long and gradual processes through primitive areas, and we have archaeological records of movements of people, who can be identified as Indo-Europeans at least because they fulfill the time-space requirements, but also for other more substantial reasons, like the movements of the various pre-Kurgan and Kurgan expansions. While the movements of the European Dialects into Europe are more or less archaeologically established, the first arrival or presence of other groups like the Hittites (as also the Mitanni and Kassites) in West Asia, and even of the Iranians (who moved into their historical areas “from the east”: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1974, Vol.9, 832) in Iran are well documented."

      Delete
  4. Hello Mr. Talageri,

    This was a very good article. When do you plan on posting part 4 of the "recorded history of the indo european migrations" ?

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sir, I have just come up with this article which stated that the Helmand river of Afghanistan is the Saraswati of Rig Veda. So can you please provide a satisfactory answer.

    Thank You.

    http://ssonawani.blogspot.in/2014/06/helmand-is-saraswati.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The complete history is there in my books and blog articles, but, to narrow down on this specific point about the Sarasvati: the Helmand is not the Sarasvati of the Rigveda but the Haraxvaiti of the Iranian Avesta. This means that one of the two rivers (the Helmand of Afghanistan and the Ghaggar-Hakra of Haryana) acquired its name from the other. As per the AIT, the Helmand was the original river. However, this is absolutely untenable:
      1. Linguistically, the name Sarasvati is the original form and the name Haraxvaiti is the derived form.
      2. The Sarasvati of the Rigveda has three full hymns in the oldest books of the Rigveda (books 6,3,7), and the following verses: VI.49.7; 50.12; 52.6; 61.1-7,10-11,13-14; III.4.8; 23.4; 54.13; VII.2.8; 9.5; 35.11; 36.6; 39.5; 40.3; 95.1-2,4-6; 96.1,3-6.
      These three books are situated in the east, and do not even mention the Indus (let alone the rivers of Afghanistan to its west) and all the rivers, animals, lakes, mountains and place-names of the west are missing in these books (see my blog "The Recorded History of the Indo-European Migrations, part 2 of 4, The Chronology and Geography of the Rigveda"). The Sarasvati of the Rigveda slowly loses its supremacy (as the old Ghaggar-Hakra river dried up over the centuries) and the Indus becomes more important by the time of the last book of the Rigveda, book 10.
      3. The ancestors of the Iranians were in the Punjab during the period of the old books 6,3,7 (see my blog "The Recorded History of the Indo-European Migrations, part 3 of 4,The Anu Migrations"). They later migrated from the Punjab to Afghanistan, and composed the Avesta only after that, in Afghanistan.
      4. The Haraxvaiti is found mentioned only once in the Avesta, in the newest and last part of the Avesta (long, long after the importance of the Sarasvati in the oldest books of the Rigveda), in the Vendidad/Videvdat.
      So clearly, the name of the Ghaggar-Hakra was taken by the ancestors of the Iranians westwards and later given to the (present-day) Helmand.

      Delete
    2. Thank you for your reply sir. But there are some other points which I want you to clarify.

      1. This article says that "Zoroastrian religion could be little older than Vedic religion as Zoroaster finds his mention in Rig Veda as “Jaruthar” and description of his death as well. ( RV 7.1.7) Not only this, we find mention of Avestan king “Vistaspa” as “Istasva” , Ajaspa as Ijashva in Rig Veda. (RV 1.112.13). To know Avestan Kings and Zoroastar (Jaruthar) himself, Vedic people necessarily needs to be situated in the close proximity of Avestan geography."

      Now I know that you have already mentioned that various ancestors of Iranian already present in the Punjab region during the composition of the old books so reference of king Vistaspa” as “Istasva” and Ajaspa as Ijashva in book 1(RV 1.112.13) is not a problem as book 1 is a new book. But what about Jaruthar(which, according to the author is Zoroaster/zarathustra) and description of his death in book 7(RV 7.1.7). So is this word "Jaruthar" really representing Zoroaster/zarathustra. I am asking this because since this word is mentioned in the old book i.e. book 7.

      2. Meaning of Saraswati and Haraxvaiti in both RigVedic and Avestan languages is “Dammed” or “Full of ponds. Does the present Ghaggar-Hakra of Haryana fit in this assumption.

      3. RigVeda(5.53.9) says,
      “May the Rasa, Krumu, Anitabh, Kuva or Sindhu not be able to stop you; let the deep Sarayu not be an obstacle.
      Since RigVedic Sarayu is in Afghanistan and all this river are the western tributaries of Indus so how can this be Indian Sarasvati, but it's fitting well with Helmand.

      The last point i.e. point 3 is from a separate article.

      http://scroll.in/article/723351/was-the-ramayana-actually-set-in-and-around-todays-afghanistan

      Delete
    3. I hope you are seriously asking these questions, and not just heckling. In any case:
      1. I do not know of any serious scholar who would identify a word Jaruthar in VII.1.7 as "Zarathushtra". This is an extremely P N Oakish comparison. What is "thar"? The "ushtra" in the name of Zarathushtra (and some other Avestan names) signifies "camel".
      2. We will discover whether the Rigvedic Sarasvati in Haryana (now almost a ghost of its ancient self) had ponds or not when someone sends a time-machine into the past and takes photographs of the ancient Sarasvati. In any case, if it did not have ponds, why was it named "Sarasvati" anyway even by any "invading Aryans" who allegedly transferred the name of an Afghan river "with ponds" to it? The very fact that no-one denies that the Ghaggar-Hakra was called the Sarasvati at all makes this argument superfluous.
      3. I don't think you have gone through my article on the chronology and geography of the Rigveda. This verse referred to by you (V.53.9) is in the New Book 5. And in this particular New Book (5), which is earlier than all the other New Books (1,8,9,10) with their more pronounced western geographical data, there are no references to western places, mountains, lakes and animals, and these references to the western rivers in V.53 (the previous hymn V.52 by the same poet refers to the Yamuna, which is surely not in Afghanistan) are described even by Witzel as follows: “all these geographical notes belonging to diverse hymns are attributed to one and the same poet, Śyāvāśva, which is indicative of the poet’s travels” (WITZEL 1995b:317).

      Delete
  6. Thank you. I understand your reply regarding the first two points. And for the third point I think I have made a mistake. After your reply I have checked with the verse as well as the entire hymn 5.53. This hymn is actually dedicated to the Maruts and not river Sarasvati. I checked with the Griffith translation and I didn't find the word "Sarasvati" nowhere in the entire hymn. I don't know why the author relates this verse (5.53.9) with river Sarasvati.

    So am I right?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When you say "So am I right?", are you referring to your comment in the earlier mail ("how can this be Indian Sarasvati, but it's fitting well with Helmand.") or your present mail ("for the third point I think I have made a mistake.")?
      The same people (Witzel, for one) who said the Rigvedic river was the Ghaggar-Hakra are now claiming that it was the Helmand, in total contradiction to their earlier writings. And they are presenting no new evidence or data, just wishful, and foolish, quibbling arguments. The only reason they have changed their stance is that, after my analysis, they have realized how lethal any logical analysis of the Rigvedic data is to the AIT.

      Delete
    2. 5.53.9 mentions Sarayu, and not Sarasvati.

      "Maa vah: pari sThaat sarayuh: prueeshiNy asme eet sumnam asatu vah: |

      Delete
    3. Yes. That was my mistake. It's talking about Sarayu (of Afghanistan) and not Sarasvati river. And this hymn is also dedicated to the Maruts and not Sarasvati river.

      Delete
    4. "It's talking about Sarayu (of Afghanistan)"

      It's talking about the Sarayu in Uttarkhand and Uttar Pradesh.

      There is a Horayu in Afghanistan, but that's Horayu and not Sarayu.

      Delete
    5. The Rigvedic Sarayu is neither the Avestan Harayu of Afghanistan proper nor the Sharayu of Uttar Pradesh. The Sarayu in the Rigveda is the original Sarayu from which at least the more western Avestan Harayu got its name: it is the present-day Siritoi, one of the western tributaries of the Indus (along with Gomati of the Rigveda which is the present-day Gomal) which also flows from Afghanistan but into the Indus. The Avestan Harayu (now called Herat or Hari Rud, and Arius by the ancient Greeks) is further west and flows northward from Afghanistan into Turkmenistan. That we have a Gomati and a Sharayu in Uttar Pradesh either means that the Rigvedic rivers gave their names to the UP rivers, or more probably that, in pre-Rigvedic times (during the westward forays of the eastern Ikshvaku king Mandhata against the Druhyus who originally occupied the Punjab before the Anus) the UP rivers gave their names to these western tributaries of the Indus named in the Rigveda.

      Delete
  7. No sir, this is about my last comment regarding my mistake. I am just asking you that whatever I have said in my last comment is valid or not? That this hymn actually referring to Maruts and not Sarasvati.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sir I remembered that in your third video "The Out of India Theory- Part 1 Chronology of the Rigveda." you mentioned that Yama was the ancestor of the Iranians just like Manu is our ancestor according to the Puranas. You say that Yama-s name appears only in the later books. But I have found in Griffith translation that in book 7 (7.33.9 and 7.33.12) the word Yama is present. I don't know whether the actual Sanskrit version contains this word Yama or not or perhaps Griffith mistranslated some other word in the verse as Yama. Can you please look into it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Both those verses say "yamena", which means "with Yama".

      Delete
    2. The declension "ena" for a singular, masculine noun ending in "ah:" is the instrumental case, meaning by/with/ etc.

      Delete
    3. If you read my blog article "The Recorded History of the Indo-European Migrations, part 2 of 4, The Chronology and Geography of the Rigveda", Section 4 "The Avestan Evidence", 2 "The references within the hymns", you will see VII.9,12,13 listed among the 14 hymns, 20 verses and 21 references in the Redacted Hymns which contain the Avestan-related words and names. This is not only a Redacted Hymn, it records the battle with the ancestors of the Iranians, and, as I have pointed out in my books, the poet symbolically refers to the Vasishthas as taking over the powers of the proto-Iranian priests by referring to them in Iranian terms as Shvitnya (Spitama) and as wearing the vestments of Yama (Yima).

      Delete
  9. Thank you Mr. Talageri for clarifying my doubts.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sir, I was reading your blog"The Recorded History of the Indo-European Migrations - Part 2 of 4 The Chronology and Geography of the Rigveda","Section 5. The Chronological and Geographical Picture:", 9(a). In this paragraph the statement within parenthesis i.e "(in VI.61.16, the composer begs the river Sarasvatī: "let us not go from thee to distant countries"):". I think that reference number is wrong It should be VI.61.14 and not VI.61.16.
    Also is the preceding verse i.e VI.61.13 an interpolated one? Because it contains the word "rath" and I thought that all the references related to ratha or chariot found in the new books.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you very much for pointing out the typing error. I have corrected it. As I always say, I love to have such errors pointed out when I am still alive and in a position to make corrections. Also, this is the advantage of a blog over a published book.

      All references to "ara" or spokes are found in the New Books. The word "ratha" is an old IE word (e.g. rota-tion) which signifies that the various IE branches were together when wheeled vehicles (carts) were invented around 3000 BCE or so. The spoked-wheels were invented around 2200 BCE. It is personal names with Ratha- or -ratha that came into being in the New Books, not the word ratha itself..

      Delete
  11. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Yes, thank you. One more thing, is it possible that the composition of the old books can go further back then 3000 BCE, if in the future we discover older evidence of wheeled vehicles (carts)?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wheels with axles (Sanskrit aksha), as used in wheeled vehicles or carts, were invented after 3300 BCE, and these words show that the different IE branches were together till then and only spread out away from each other after that date. The dating of the Old Books of the Rigveda is not based on these.

      Spokes, or spoked wheels, were invented well after 2500 BCE. The wikipedia entry on "wheel" tells us: "The spoked wheel was invented more recently, and allowed the construction of lighter and swifter vehicles. In the Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley and Northwestern India, we find toy-cart wheels made of clay with lines which have been interpreted as spokes painted or in relief,[20] and a symbol interpreted as a spoked wheel in the script of the seals,[21] already in the second half of the 3rd millennium BCE. The earliest known examples of wooden spoked wheels are in the context of the Andronovo culture, dating to c. 2000 BCE." So the earliest evidence on record is in the Harappan area, and then it spread northwards and westwards.

      This helps us date the Old Books 6,3,7, (and the Middle Books 4 and 2) as composed well before the invention of spoked wheels [Obviously even the earliest hymns in the New Books may have been composed in the pre-spoked-wheel period]. Exactly how long before can only be speculation: I have given the date of 3000 BCE as the barest "minimum date". For more exactness, we do not as yet have any precise evidence.

      Delete
  13. Very illuminating article. Language is just one element in all the many aspects of our unified culture which celebrate diversity and derive unity and strength from its diversity. North Indians and South Indians are connected in multiple other ways. Even when we focus on the language, as you rightly said Samskrit and Tamil are united by common linguistic features (absent in the European languages) which distinguish them as one group: the cerebral sounds (ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍh, ṇ, ḷ). That is sure a strong basis of North-South unity. Perhaps, further studies in the evolution of language families may strengthen this unity even further. What is promising is that IE family (whose homeland is North India, as established by Shrikant Talageri ji through his three books), the Dravidian family and the Austo Asiatic family - all three share a common ground of coexistence in this great land called Bhaarata.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Sir, you talked about the mitannis whose ancestors were Vedic Sanskrit speaking people who migrated out of India after the composition of the new books of the RigVeda. But sir, actually who were those people? Do the scriptures Vedas or Puranas give any information about those ancestral people. Was those people related to any other branches like the Purus, Anus, Turvasus, etc?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The fact that the Mitanni (or at least the ancestors of the ruling dynasties among the Mitanni people) were "Indo-Aryans" or belonged to the Vedic branch of Indo-European is not denied by anyone. The only point is that the AIT scholars postulated that they separated from the composers of the Rigveda somewhere in Central Asia in a pre-Rigvedic period before the "Aryans" (in an AIT scenario) "entered" India from the northwest and composed the Rigveda. I have proved, and no-one can challenge this, that the Mitanni ancestors separated from the composers of the Rigveda in a period during or after the height of the composition of the New Books, from India, and that the Old Books (pre-separation) are geographically located further within India. As they were "Indo-Aryans", they were Purus.

      Many migrations must have taken place all over the world in ancient times, and many from India: the Mitanni, the Indo-Aryans (and proto-Iranians) who migrated to the Uralic areas and contributed words to the Uralic languages, and the much later (CE or AD) "gypsies" or "Romany", are three examples. We know now from linguistic and historical data that these three migrations took place. But when these migrations (among many others) were actually taking place no-one (recording events in India) knew that these three particular groups would become historical in future, so obviously no-one recorded their departure. It is not as if they set out with some stated and recorded purpose (like the Europeans who set out to discover a sea-route to India and discovered America in the process). We are lucky, as it is, to have recorded accounts of the two migrations of the Druhyus (in the Puranas) and the Anus (in the Rigveda).

      Delete
  15. Dear Dr. Talageri,
    I have read your books.
    Is it possible to get your email address? I would like to have some discussions.
    Thank you.
    Regards,
    Arnab Bhattacharya

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am repeating my request to Dr. Talageri. My email address is arnabbhattacharya@gmail.com in case it does not feel prudent to share his email address publicly.
      Regards,
      Arnab Bhattacharya

      Delete
  16. Dear Talageriji,

    I have a small request. From available evidence it is most likely that Haryana & western UP was the Vedic and IE homeland. Can you write an article on all the evidence as per the Vedas, Puranas, Epics & other ancient literature which prove Haryana & western UP as the PIE/Vedic homeland ?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Sir, there are some critics in this article regarding your analysis under the heading "OIT's ultimate weapon - The Rig Veda". Can you please answer those critics if possible in a new blog.

    http://ilavaluthy.blogspot.in/2017/07/the-out-of-india-myth.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are innumerable cranks, semi-literates, trolls, and plain liars, who write abusing me. I cannot answer them because they just do not produce anything new for me to answer. Forget my books: read my blogs on the subject of the OIT on this very blogspot. Has this man (Ilavaluthy) answered a single one of the definitely irrefutable data given by me? He just denies, ridicules and abuses.

      Note the innumerable mistakes he makes like regularly spelling Divodasa as Divodatsa.

      He writes: "According to this theory, Aryans migrated out of India to settle in different parts of Europe, and that Sanskrit is the mother of all European languages". Have I written that Sanskrit is the mother of all Indo-European languages? Later, he writes: "Shrikant Talageri has suggested that Prakrit is a sister language of Sanskrit and is not a daughter language as earlier thought". But this does not negate the lies he writes earlier about European languages. And no serious linguist (even "earlier" than me) has ever "thought" that Prakrit is a daughter language of Sanskrit: as I have pointed out in great detail, it has been an accepted (if camouflaged) linguistic dictum that Vedic was just one of many "Aryan" languages in India.

      I have explained the relative chronology of the ten books of the Rigveda with all the relevant data. Yet this man writes: ""I wonder if Talageri added book 5 (even though it is considered a pure family book) to the later period to ensure that the mention of 'Ayas' is not further questioned"! Apparently this man,who believes in rhetoric rather than examination of the data, has not read my books and blogs, and seen that the western scholars (from Oldenberg to Proferes) have classified book 5 as being closer to the non-family books than the family books.
      Further, as I have shown (and no-one dares to challenge this hard data): a "huge mass of names, name types, words and metres common to the Rigveda, the Avesta and the Mitanni records are not found in a single one of the 280 Old Hymns and 2351 Old verses in the Old Books of the Rigveda (6,3,7,4,2) but found in 425 of the 686 New Hymns and 3692 of the 7311 New verses in the New Books (5,1,8,9,10): this illustrates the difference between the language of the Old hymns and the New hymns." For the exact number of such references in book 5, please check the data given in my blog "The Recorded history of the Indo-European Migrations Part 2 of 4 - The Chronology and Geography of the Rigveda". Data matters, not hate-rhetoric, but not to these trolls. And hate-rhetoric cannot be "answered". Everything is already given in detail in my books and blogs, and when these people raise blanket questions which show total ignorance of and indifference to the data I have given, I cannot just keep on repeating the full content of my books and blogs again and again in answer to every troll.

      Delete
  18. Also can you tell me some references from the RigVeda that contains name types with suffixes and prefixes like "rta","vasu", "priya","sena",and "uta". Also does the name Tusratta present in the RigVeda?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have given the full list of all the names in my third book, which is meant to give all the exact data for reference and examination. In my blog articles, I am only giving the necessary details (of the total number of such references) and not the overwhelming mass of listed names.
      Tusratta is not present as a name in the Rigveda, but the word (accepted as Tvesharatha, not Dasharatha as some people would wrongly presume) is accepted as a -ratha name, like so many others found in the late books of the Rigveda and in all later texts, and is found as an epithet of the Maruts in the New Book 5: in V.61.13. Even more significant is the only -uuta name in the Rigveda or in Vedic Sanskrit itself: Indrota, VIII.8.15,17, found among the Mitanni as Indarota (along with Yamiuta).

      Delete
    2. Sorry, that was not VIII.8.15,17, but VIII.68.15,17. Sorry for the typing error.

      Delete
  19. Thank you. And it seems like online available Griffith English translation of the RigVeda has 10 verses missing from Book VIII hymn 68, where it has only 9 verses. However the Sanskrit format has all the 19 verses.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Griffith's translation of book (Mandala) 8 follows a peculiar practice (followed also by Grassmann and Wilson, but not by Geldner and Jamison) of changing the numbering of the hymns in this book.

      Book 8 contains 103 hymns. Of these, 11 hymns, numbers 49-59, are called Valakhilya hymns, and are accepted even by tradition as being interpolated hymns inserted later into the book. Nevertheless, they are numbered 49-59 in the traditional Anukramanis. But Griffith and some others take the over-smart step of removing these 11 hymns from book 8 and placing them separately in an appendix (numbering them as Valakhilya 1-11), and they change the numbers of the following hymns, VIII.60-103, to VIII.49-92. This over-smart step results in much confusion to researchers and students of the Rigveda, since most works retain the original numbers of the hymns while these few scholars use different numbers. Therefore, you will find hymn VIII.68 numbered in Griffith's translation as VIII.57!

      Delete
  20. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  21. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Sir, can you please make a blog describing the non Indo-European & BMAC words found in the RigVeda and how they entered in the RigVeda. I know that in your third book you have a section named "Three BMAC words in Rigvedic Names". But recently I was reading a wiki page titled "Substratum in the Vedic language" where it gives a large number of BMAC words found in Sanskrit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You do not seem to have noticed the inverted commas in the title of the section. It is not "Three BMAC words in Rigvedic Names", but "Three 'BMAC' words in Rigvedic Names". I have nowhere claimed there are "non-Indo-European and BMAC words" in the Rigvedic language (except for the Babylonian words "pana" and "bekanata", and the only possible Dravidian word "kana" for "cross-eyed" from Dravidian "kan" for "eye". This in fact indicates that there were some Dravidian speaking traders from the south in the Harappan/Rigvedic area from whom this slangy use of a simple Dravidian word was adopted). Did the wiki page give the evidence for treating those words as "BMAC words", or are we take it as a matter of faith?

      Delete
  23. well it says that according to Mayrhofer recurring prefixes like ka- or ki are the source of many non-Indo-European words in the Rigveda and Michael Witzel have compared this by the Munda prefix k- for designation of persons, and the plural prefix ki seen in Khasi.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1. It is quite tiring when people refuse to see the force of one tonne of evidence and continuously keep weighing it, to its disadvantage, against even a single gram of baseless speculation. The "Munda" origin of Rigvedic words is as strong as the "BMAC" origin of other Rigvedic words, and I need not repeat the value of that "evidence" for so-called "pre-Rigvedic" "BMAC words" found only in Late Rigvedic and post-Rigvedic texts.
      2. Witzel's (and whomsoever else's) claims of Mundas in the Indus Valley have been completely rejected by a majority of even the western AIT-supporting scholars.
      2. At this rate, even the name of Kikkuli, known as "the master horse trainer of the Land of Mitanni" (in Syria/Iraq) must be a Mundari/Khasi-influenced name!

      Delete
  24. Sir, the Sarayu river of the RigVeda is actually a river of Afghanistan which you have mentioned but is the Sarayu river of Ramayana also that same RigVedic river or this Ramayanic Sarayu is the present day Sarayu of UP, India?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are three different Sarayus: the Siritoi, an eastern tributary of the Indus, is the one mentioned in the Rigveda. The Haroyu of the Avesta is the Herat or Hari Rud of Afghanistan proper. And the Sarayu/Sharayu of the Ramayana is the river of Uttar Pradesh.

      Delete
    2. I am a bit confused. I can remember that in your video(The Aryan Invasion Theory- Part II Textual Evidence and Archaeology) you mentioned that the Sarayu of RigVeda is the river of Afghanistan but here you're saying that it is an eastern tributary of the Indus. So, if this is an eastern tributary won't that make RigVedic Sarayu a river of present day Pakistan region rather than Afghanistan because Afghanistan lie west of the Indus?

      Delete
    3. Sorry, you are right, that was a typing error. The Siritoi is a western and not an eastern tributary of the Indus. It does flow from Afghanistan, but it is well to the east of the Avestan Sarayu or Herat/Harirud river.

      Delete
  25. Hello Mr. Talageri,

    I would love your opinion on the Sanskrit word 'varna', especially when used in later texts such as Mahabhasya written by Patanjali. Some people still claim that it means 'color'n instead of 'quality' and interpret a racial evidence of a golden-reddish hair 'Pingala' and nordic characteristics of a brahmin. Similar patterns were seen when i saw Panini's Ashtadhaya on description of a Brahmin.

    Thank you Sir,

    Sukhraj Singh

    ReplyDelete
  26. Sir, what are your views on Dr. Liny Srinivasan's books
    "Desi Words Speak of the Past: Indo-Aryans in the Ancient Near East"
    and
    "Crete to Egypt: Missing Links of the Rigveda Hardcover".
    He is trying to show that everything i.e from geography to historical events mentioned in the Indian texts started from the RigVeda to the Epics actually occurred in middle east.

    ReplyDelete
  27. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  28. On second thoughts...you did reply beautifully.thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. can you send or just tell me the source where I can find Mr.Talageri's reply on TP Verma's writing. Thank you.

      Delete
  29. http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.ca/2014/05/central-asia-thesis-tp-verma-responds.html

    ReplyDelete
  30. It is just like the theories developed by Tilak and Griffith. Depending on One sukta and making generalized assumptions.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Assuming OIT, is there an explanation why the waves of emigrating people from India, who have the language of the common group, did not carry the RigVeda or parts thereof in their oral or written tradition even upto Persia?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The emigrating people from india were (except for the Mitanni, who had already got completely integrated into the local Hurrian culture) were not Puru = Vedic Aryans. The Iranian priests, the Druids, etc. were different tribes of Anu and Druhyu, and they had their own hymns. The Avesta contains the hymns of the Iranians when in Afghanistan.

      Delete
  32. Actually they did. If you look in this very blog, the recorded history of Indo European migrations part 2i think it is, we have evidence of the tribes of northwest to the purus who carried some books of the rig Veda themselves. The Persian civilization developed much later, but still has clear influence of the Indo European culture. In fact, it is very strong.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Shri Talageri ji,

    I have read your third book and really found your proposal to the isogloss distribution impressive. You have used the detailed analysis of the AIT scholars against them. But in 7th chapter in the 7D-2 part, you mentioned Gamkrelidze and Ivanov( who, as you mention, have proposed an anatolian homeland)but you have not exposed this theory, as you have done with the Central Asia hypothesis( Hock, Witzel, Lubotsky and preety much your whole bibliograpghy). If you could provide with me why this hypothesis is wrong, then i would be very grateful.Although, i know the pre existing problems with this model, i was wondering if you could give your veiws.

    Thank you,
    Mahesh Yadav

    ReplyDelete
  34. https://books.google.ca/books?id=PSFBDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA251&lpg=PA251&dq=talageri+and+hans+hock&source=bl&ots=6G8MJmwRNH&sig=YK7PYVRYNGpC6dtGOcEi9hTVNM0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiOpPSDneHZAhVD9WMKHayYBvMQ6AEwF3oECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=talageri%20and%20hans%20hock&f=false

    ReplyDelete
  35. Mr talageri has debunked about all the other homeland hypothesis. But can anybody provide with a link or a source where he has tried to debunk the anatolian theory or not?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Anatolian Homeland hypothesis is so weak that it really requires no arguments to disprove it. It has no base at all. West Asia is an area which has maintained datable records since the fourth millennium BCE, and Indo-Europeans (Hittites, Mitanni, Kassites) appear in it only in the second millennium BCE. There is no archaeological, linguistic or textual argument given by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov to prove their thesis: all their arguments (about the Greek movement through the Aegean area into Greece) fit into the OIT, and in fact the linguistic evidence of the European migration from Central Asia to Europe is so strong that they are also forced to show the European Branches in their story moving eastwards into Central Asia before taking a u-turn and moving westwards into Europe (on the path indicated by the OIT). The Iranians are also historically known to be entering Iran from the east.

      Delete
  36. Sir, I have a bit of confusion. The closeness of basic words such as father, mother, daughter, one, two, you, we etc. leaves one wondering what happened to the original language of the people in Europe which not in one or two areas, but over vast areas got replaced. However, as I think you have said, some river names in Europe are not Vedic. Does that point to a large no. of people moving westwards from India in waves? Regards

    ReplyDelete
  37. Namaste sir, i am very convince that aryan invasion theory nothing but myth, but still i can not undrstand that why north indian and south indian have differnet skin colour?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Skin color is based on many different factors. All Indian castes and communities are a product of multiple racial mixtures and combinations. I belong to the Chitrapur Saraswat community, and our ancestors came from Kashmir and Haryana: even our language (Konkani) contains many clues to this origin. But "racially" (if such a word can be used) we are so mixed with the local population that there is very little difference between us and our neighboring communities on the coasts of Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka. Many people all over India must have migrated into India in ancient times and got integrated into the population. The point is that people may have come from "outside" in ancient times, but they did not bring the "Aryan" or Indo-European languages into India from outside.

      Incidentally, the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka surely have the same color as Tamil people, but their language is "Aryan", and even contains "Aryan" words which go even more deeply back into the past than Sanskrit (e.g. the word "watura" for water).

      Delete
    2. Thank you sir for replying me.

      Delete
  38. I finished Mr. Talageri’s third book two days ago. I think I know why the AIT Scholars won’t recognize the book. It’s very detailed and the way Mr. Talageri has figured out the connections between the tribes and their linguistic feature is simply irrefutable. It’s just jealousy that it wasn’t a so called Scholar to figure it out. But Mr Talageri is every bit of a scholar, outside the academic circle. So Aryan migration will remain the accepted veiw for some time. But the truth shall prevail gradually. Till then, it’s Shri Talageri Ji vs the baseless AIT empty rhetorics, polemics, and propaganda.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Sir
    I have read some of your blogs and watched your youtube videos though I have not read your books.
    With due respect to your research, I must confess that being a naive in the field of history as well as languages, all of your logics could not be grasped by me.

    But can you answer a few questions of this layman who wants to know the gross truth of the land named INDIA?

    1. If harappan culture/ civilization is basically conincides with Vedic era, then why we still could not decipher the harappan languages? Did they use sanskrit for communications? What did their "lipi" said? I can agree that at that time sanskrit might have different script or no script, but if it was so flourished a language why harappan/ sindhu-saraswati people did not use it?

    2.If Vedic people knew about the Sindhu Sarswati urban civilizations, how can the texts miss the history of them? Or they are mentioned with other names?

    Thanks in advance Sir.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The evidence of the Mitanni data (1500 BCE onwards) belonging to the period of the New Books of the Rigveda proves that the period of the New Books goes back to at least 2500 BCE, and the Old Books go much further back, The area of the Rigveda as a whole extends exactly over the area of the Harappan Civilization during the same period (3000 BCE onwards). As all the rivers of the Harappan Civilization have pure Vedic (Indo-Aryan) names in the Rigveda, this proves that the Rigvedic people and the Harappan people are the same.

      The question of why the Harappan script is still undeciphered is unanswerable. Probably, it was not a full-fledged phonetic script, and hence the texts were all kept alive through strict memorization. The fact is that it is still undeciphered, and this does not prove or disprove anything either way.

      The texts do not "miss" the history of the Sindhu Sarasvati Civilization: the descriptions in the Rigveda are all about this very civilization. As they were written by priests and rishis, the "urban" aspect of it may not seem immediately apparent, but Hopkins, long before the discovery of the Indus sites, had written: “[The Rigvedic collection] reflects not so much a wandering life in a desert as a life stable and fixed, a life of halls and cities, and shows sacrificial cases in such detail as to lead one to suppose that the hymnists were not on the tramp but were comfortable well-fed priests” (HOPKINS 1898:20).

      Delete
    2. As per Dr.Ambedkar there were two types of Aryans talked in rigvedas, one is rigvedic Aryans and another is non-vedic Aryans. Those who opposed the rigvedic culture rituals were called as non-vedic Aryans. So these non-vedic Aryans conflicted with rigvedic Aryan king sudas and got defeated by him. As the result non-vedic Aryans migrated westward and formed the Indus valley civilization. Really rigvedic culture and Indus valley civilization were directly opposite to each other. That's why IVC could not able to spread towards east of our country and interior parts of country to create gangs valley civilization and Krishna valley civilization. Rigvedic cultured Aryans act as a stumbling block to the spread of Indus valley civilization into our country. Until Mahabharata war this rigvedic culture spoiled our country and left our country in a dark ages.This rigvedic culture ultimate result was the complete destruction of the descendants of bharatha vamsa and hence went into deep sleep. Due to the defeat of bharatha vamsa and the decline of vedic culture people from west started to migrate towards east and mingle with the original inhabitants of India which is proved by the latest genetics theory. So this cultural mixture is the basic reason for western historians to propose the theory of Aryan invasion. Because our country met with New philosophies and New cultures like Upanishads, sankya,theerthankaras,Buddhism.. Etc leads western historians to guess the difference in the culture from rural to modern. Really this cultural mixture of West with East gifted us towards urbanization and modernization from mauryas and nandas by the effect of Buddhism. Buddhism totally rejected the vedic culture and their yajna customs like animal sacrifice...

      Delete
  40. Sir, I was reading your 3rd book "The Rigveda and the Avesta: The Final Evidence" where on page 160 under the heading "4.The Sintashta-Arkaim Evidence:" point "d"you says that "Everything connected with the horse sacrifice is found only in the Late Books: hymns".
    But in your video "The Aryan Invasion Theory- Part II Textual Evidence and Archaeology" at (41:40) you mentioned that old book 3 describes Ashvamedha(horse sacrifice).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are two parts to the "ashvamedha" as described in the epics and Puranas, as well as the later Vedic texts.

      First is the horse being let loose in all directions and the king becoming the conqueror of all the lands which fail to capture the horse. Second is the actual sacrifice of the horse where it is killed (preceded actually by all kinds of rituals).

      Note that Book 3 of the Old Period refers only to the first part, where the horse is let loose with the king conquering all the lands over which it moves without being caught. There are three points to be noted here. One: this part is the only one to be described in Book 3: note that the word ashvamedha "horse sacrifice" is completely missing in all these books. Two: the very concept of battles and conquests being fought over possession of a horse shows this to be rooted in an era when horses were so rare and valuable a possession that wars could be fought over the possession of one horse. It was an extremely rare animal in the Old Books, imported from Central Asia through tribes further west and northwest. Three: this part, of letting the horse loose and conquering the areas over which it roams is totally missing in all other cultures outside India: both in the Roman and Irish traditions where the equivalents of the Ashvamedha are found as well as in the Mesopotamian culture where animal sacrifices similar to the Vedic "-medha" sacrifices are found.

      The second part, with all its gory rituals is found only in the New Books: the desciptions in Book 1, as well as the word ashvamedha as a name. See my blog "Two papers by the renowned Indologist P E Dumont", where I have pointed out how this part of the horse sacrifice was based on Babylonian models in later times when horses were more common. The ashvamedha of the later Vedic texts and the Epics retained both these parts of the horse ritual, while the first part (pertaining to the period when horses were rare) was lost among the Romans and Irish who moved to the west.

      Delete
  41. Thank you for clarifying. Just one more thing I would like to clarify that in point Three of 3rd para you said "this part, of letting the horse loose and conquering the areas over which it roams is totally missing in all other cultures outside India:"

    but then you said
    " both in the Roman and Irish traditions where the equivalents of the Ashvamedha are found as well as in the Mesopotamian culture where animal sacrifices similar to the Vedic "-medha" sacrifices are found"
    So what you are suggesting is that in those outside culture the part of letting the horse loose and conquering lands are missing but the sacrificial part is present, did I get it right?

    ReplyDelete
  42. Sir, you have proved that Iranian avestan language is contemporary with the late part of the RigVeda but not with the old part. So is it possible that it's not the Indo-Aryan language that have derived from Indo-Iranian as wiki says but actually the other way around?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is no such thing as an ancestral "Indo-Iranian" language, ancestral to Vedic and Avestan. The Vedic (Puru) and pre-Avestan (Anu) people lived side by side, and continued to live side by side and develop parallel cultural elements long after the other ten branches (in the pre-Rigvedic and Old Books periods) had spread out further north or west or had broken off altogether. These parallel cultural elements reflect the parallel "Indo-Iranian" culture, developed during the period of the New Books (which was also the period of commencement of all the post-Rigvedic Vedic texts.

      The Indo-Aryan language was the language of the Purus, and the proto-Iranian language was the main language of the major section of the Anu tribes. The other Anu languages (Greek, Armenian, Albanian) shared features with Iranian which were not shared by the Puru Vedic language: (a) Change of *s > h from initial *s before a vowel, from intervocalic *s, and from some occurrences of *s before and after sonants, while *s remained before and after a stop, and (b) change of PIE tt to ss (while it remained tt in Indo-Aryan).

      Delete
  43. Sir, you have once mentioned that Jamadagini branch of the Bhrigus are the one who left the Anus and joined the Purus. And the Rishis from this Jamadagini branch are the Bhrigus of the later part of the RigVeda and the post Vedic texts. So can you please give me some references where all this are mentioned.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have given the full details of the Bhrgu/Atharvan history in relationship to "Indo-Iranian" history in my second book "The Rigveda - A historical Analysis" (mainly pp.164-180, but also on other pages).
      Among other things:
      1. The names Jamadagni and Parshurama are of Iranian origin.
      2. The Bhrgus were enemies in the early parts of the Rigveda, but became the most important rishis only in post-Rigvedic times.
      3. The Avesta refers to two sections of Athravan priests: the Spitamas and the Kavis, of which the Spitamas were the Zoroastrian priests while the Kavis are condemned. The references to Shvitna, Yama, etc. in the Dasharajna battle hymn are indirect references to the Iranian enemy Bhrigus.
      4. Goldman details this love-hate relationship between the Vedic Aryans and the Bhrgus, and the change of affiliation to the Vedic Aryans by a branch of the Bhrgus.
      5. Although Jamadagni was not the original ancestral Bhrgu, he is treated as such in Vedic gotra lists.

      Delete
  44. Dear Sir, Shrikant Talageri, I am contacting you for two reasons:

    . Firstly, I don't remember that I ever thanked you for your positive review of my book / monograph "Alphabet or Abracadabra? - Reverse Engineering the Western Alphabet". So herewith my belated "Thank You So Much".

    Since its launch in India at "The Museum of Mankind" (IGRMS) in Bhopal by its director Prof. Dr. Sarit Kumar Chaudhuri, and after my 20 venue lecture tour throughout India, I was invited to submit this book in dissertation format (fully rewritten) to the refereed journal ARNAVA (Varanasi) who published ot in 2017 under the title "Reverse Engineering the Western Alphabet - The Western Abecedary and a Pre-Sanskrit Abugida Compared"

    You may remember that it dealt with the dependent relationship between the western alphabet sequence of phonemes (abecedary) and an ancient but simpler pre-Ashokan Brahmi alphabet (abugida), after which it was modelled more than 3400 years ago.

    Second reason in following comment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Reverse Engineering the Western Alphabet - The Western Abecedary and a Pre-Sanskrit Abugida Compared" as published by ARNAVA Journal Varanasi 2017.
      https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21APwPjkTGxCVi308&cid=912AC80AC7F28A9C&id=912AC80AC7F28A9C%2118321&parId=root&o=OneUp

      Delete
  45. . The second reason for contacting you is in reference to your paragraph:
    "The evidence does not show that the 'Indo-Aryan' (Vedic) branch migrated into India from an Original Homeland in South Russia or anywhere else outside India. It in fact shows [...] that the other eleven branches migrated from their Original Homeland in northern India into their historical areas in ancient times in circumstances which are recorded in the ancient Vedic and other texts."

    It so happens that quite some years ago, before additional and more convincing genetic mtDNA and Y-DNA data and evidences became available, I wrote a paper (also published by ARNAVA Journal) titled "Worldwide Mesolithic - Neolithic Seafaring Migrations from the Indus Valley - A Paradigm Shift in Ancient Migration Theories"

    When this paper was presented to ASI director Dr. Rakesh Tiwari, he recommended that it be widely distributed under his colleagues.
    Two of the points I make in that paper are that:
    1. The Kurgan and Armenian hypotheses are lacking any evidence,
    2. The Anatolian hypothesis is possibly only partially correct.

    Granted much of my hypothesis is rather novel, even daring and may be considered rather farfetched, some might even find it naive, nevertheless, I would appreciate it if you could have a serious look at what I bring forward...
    Here is its abstract:

    "Based on language, archaeo-genetic and archaeological data, this hypothesis proposes that over an extended period of time, between 9,500 and 3,350 years ago, large segments of the urban, agricultural, river-faring and seafaring population of the northwest delta of the Indian subcontinent -- the Indus Valley or the Sapta Sindhu region, described in the Rigveda (RV 7.36.6) as सप्त सिंधू “Seven Rivers" -- left their homeland in migratory waves.

    They were driven by (1) a natural human inclination to “look for other shores” and (2) a number of large natural catastrophes, and the various diseases that resulted from them.
    These multiple group-migrations went into three main directions, following three distinct routes:

    1. Migrations oversea and along the coasts to coastal European lands: through the Red Sea to the Mediterranean lands (including northern Africa), and subsequently via the Strait of Gibraltar to the North Sea’s coastal lands, and from there to the Scandinavian and Baltic Sea coastal regions,
    2. Migrations overland within India to north, north east, central and southern Indian regions, where, over time, the migrants merged with existing populations and cultures. Shore hugging sea migration also took place around India’s mainland coasts.
    3. Further east oversea, via Sri Lanka, Central Asia, and even as far as the Pacific Ocean's archipelagos and the Americas.

    This hypothesis proposes that throughout their migrations, which altogether may have taken around 6,000 years, the migrants took along with them from their original homeland a number of social, cultural and industrial skills and aspects of the Indus Valley Civilization, which most importantly included their Sanskrit based language - even as it changed over time into various dialects and eventually grew into the various Indo-European as well as Polynesian languages."

    https://www.academia.edu/31268952/_Worldwide_Early_Holocene_Seafaring_Migrations_from_the_Indus_Valley_Published_in_the_peer_reviewed_Journal_ARNAVA_Latest_version_2017_

    ReplyDelete
  46. Sir, have you read this recent article that says Indus Valley was created by Iranian agriculturists and South Asian hunter gatherers. Though full of biased arguments but still one thing is interesting that they claim the Iranians must have been present in the Indus Valley at least by 4,700 to 3,000 BC. And you have also predicted this earlier that the Indus valley was a joint Puru-Anu(Indo-Iranian) culture.

    https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/genomic-study-vedic-aryan-migration-dravidian-languages-sanskrit

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For all that I have to say on this "genomic" rubbish, please read the comments and replies in my blog on the astronomical arguments on this blogspot.

      About the "genomic" claim that the Iranians were present in the Indus Valley at least by 4700-3000 BCE, they are not referring to the linguistically Indo-European Iranians who are generally the subject of discussion. They are referring to some pre-Indo-European inhabitants of the Iranian plateau. They bring the present linguistic Iranians into the area with the alleged "later immigrations" from the Steppes.

      Delete
  47. You have given names of various eastern animals named in the RigVeda, I don't know whether I am right or not but the word "pRSatI" for Chital or Spotted Deer is not matching when I am checking from online Sanskrit dictionary. It showing the result for "pRSatI" as "dappled cow or mare"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't know about online dictionaries but all the Sanskrit translations (ancient as well as by westerners) translate the Rigvedic word as "spotted deer/antelope", also the Vedic dictionaries: check Cappeller or Monier-Williams. In generalizing, it could be used for a dappled cow, but how many dappled Indian cows have you ever seen anyway: usually it is among European cattle that we find dappled cows commonly.

      Delete
  48. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Sir, I hope you would write more books on Ancient Indian Texts and History. The Smriti texts contain many stories with connections to Vedic texts, these are not very well understood and often brushed aside as myths. Please write more books and inspire many Young Indians and help them understand their ancient heritage.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Hello Mr. Talageri,
    I just saw some genetic studies showing some sort of migrations. They may be true, but they still cannot prove that these people brought the Aryan culture with themselves or the Indo Aryan language, as you rightly say, genetics has no say in studying language migrations. It just shows that some central Asian people came to Northwest India and settled. Why we do not have any record of these migrations?, as they were significant.
    Thank you,
    Sukhraj Singh

    ReplyDelete
  51. I appreciate your enormous scholarly work in assimilating and analyzing Rig Vedic data to firmly establish the OIT and NW India homeland for PIE. Congratulations on that.
    My question is regarding Indian sub-continent language families. Do you find any contribution /influence of other five Indian language family on Vedic and post Vedic scriptures? In other words, did Indic scriptures evolve as a pan Indian cultural work or simply as a Indo Aryan work?

    ReplyDelete
  52. Dear Shrikant, Your inference of OIT from Rig Veda is very logical. Can you help me connect the Saraswati-Indus civilization with references in Rig Veda if there are any? Or some references on 200 years draught in our scriptures? Regards Arunabha Roy

    ReplyDelete