The Logic of Rigvedic Geography
Shrikant G. Talageri
[This
article has been modified on 14/5/2020 in order to restate the extent of the
western expansion of the Rigvedic horizon, in the light of a much-needed
re-evaluation of the identity of the Sarayu in the Rigveda with the Herat or
Harirud river of Afghanistan].
The
identification and analysis of Rigvedic geography has always been a central pillar
of Rigvedic studies. On the basis of the fact that the geographical range of
the geographical names (mainly of the rivers, but also of certain lakes,
mountains and places in the Rigveda) extends from Afghanistan in the west to
Haryana and westernmost Uttar Pradesh in the east, it was taken by the
Indologists as evidence that this was the range or horizon of the area familiar
to the Vedic "Indo-Aryans".
This is perfectly logical: the geographical
data, particularly in ancient texts when there was no culture of
globetrotting and international reporting (or gossip), definitely does tell
us the geographical location of the texts. The Indologists who detailed and
analyzed the geographical data in the Rigveda were right in their basic
premise: the text was definitely composed in that particular area and the
composers definitely lived within that area.
The
only point of dispute is the further interpretation of this data: it was assumed,
on the basis of the extraneous Aryan Invasion Theory, that this
area was the initial area (the Rigveda, being the oldest Vedic text, representing
the initial or earliest stage of this invasion or immigration into India) known
or familiar to these immigrating people. Therefore, also, that the more western
geographical names within this total horizon represented areas known first,
and the more eastern names represented new areas which became
progressively familiar only as they moved eastwards. The internal data was
assumed, without internal examination, as showing an expansion of the Vedic
"Indo-Aryans" from west to east.
However,
I have shown in my books and articles that, when the data is examined from the
point of view of the relative internal chronology of the different parts
(Books= Maṇḍalas) of the Rigveda, the data irrefutably
demonstrates a progressive movement outwards from east to west:
1.
The non-riverine data shows that in the period of the Old Rigveda
(Books 6,3,7,4,2), and even of the oldest Book in the New Rigveda
(Book 5), the Rigvedic people were not familiar at all with the geographical names of the western lake,
mountains, places and animals: all these are completely missing
in these six older Books, and appear in the Rigveda only in the four latest
Books, the four non-Family Books of the Rigveda: Books 1,8,9,10.
The
eastern lake, place and animal names (there are no mountains in the
eastern data), in sharp contrast, are found distributed throughout the ten
Books of the Rigveda.
This
is not selective data: it is what the total geographical data in the
Rigveda shows. It is absolute evidence, and simply cannot
be rejected by any honest scholar who goes by the data.
Nevertheless,
faced with this rock-solid data and evidence, there are still people who raise
quibbling objections and refuse to accept the evidence. According to them, the
mention or non-mention of any geographical name in any Book of the Rigveda does
not automatically show familiarity or non-familiarity with that geographical
object: after all, the aim of the rishis was not to provide geographical lists
of objects known to them.
While
this is certainly true, if the logic of geographical references is taken to an
unthinking and unreasonable extreme, nevertheless the geographical logic
in itself (if applied with reasonable common-sense or viveka-buddhi)
is definitely right, or else it would be as valid to claim that the
Rigveda was composed in Bengal, Maharashtra or Tamilnadu―or in Indonesia, China
or Saudi Arabia―as to say that it was composed in
the area from westernmost U.P. to Afghanistan.
The main argument of the objectors
is that the mere mention of the name of a river does not automatically indicate
whether the composer is actually an inhabitant of the area of that
river, or whether he is a visitor to the area of that river, or whether
he is just referring to that river (known to him only from hearsay) in
some particular context. So we cannot decide geographical locations and chart
out expansionary movements on the basis of such mentions.
In
this case―see the chart of the rivers and the facts about the non-riverine data
above―the data is too massive and unidirectional to be denied.
Nevertheless, let us examine the data to see whether the geographical data
consists of mere "mentions" or whether it is more substantial in
import.
We
will examine this subject under the three following heads:
1.
Validity of the geographical data in the Rigveda.
2.
The Sarasvati.
3.
The Jahnāvī.
4.
The Hariyūpīyā and Yavyāvatī.
5.
Ibha: the Elephant.
I. Validity of the geographical data in
the Rigveda
To begin with, the evidence of the non-riverine
data in the Rigveda is absolute.
The eastern non-riverine
names are found throughout the Rigveda, in all the ten Books of
the Rigveda:
VI. 1.2; 4.5; 8.4; 17.11; 20.8 (5 hymns, 5 verses and names).
III. 5.9; 23.4,4,4; 26.4,6;
29.4,4; 45.1; 46.2; 53.11,14 (7 hymns, 9 verses, 12
names).
VII. 40.3; 44.5; 58.2; 69.6; 98.1 (5 hymns, 5 verses and names).
IV. 4.1; 16.14; 18.11; 21.8 (4 hymns, 4 verses and
names).
II. 3.7; 10.1; 22.1; 34.3,4;
36.2 (5 hymns, 6 verses and names).
V. 29.7,8; 42.15; 55.6; 57.3; 58.6; 60.2; 78.2
(7 hymns, 8 verses and names).
I. 16.5; 37.2; 39.6; 64.7,7,8; 84.17; 85.4,5; 87.4; 89.7; 95.9; 121.2; 128.1,1,7,7;
140.2; 141.3; 143.4; 162.21; 186.8; 191.14 (17 hymns,
20 verses, 23 names).
VIII. 1.25; 4.3; 7.28; 12.8; 33.8; 35.7,8,9; 45.24; 69.15; 77.10; 87.1,4
(10 hymns, 13 verses and names).
IX. 33.1; 57.3; 69.3; 72.7; 73.2; 79.4; 82.3; 86.8,40; 87.7; 92.6; 95.4; 96.6,18,19; 97.41,57; 113.3 (14 hymns, 18 verses and names).
X. 1.6,6; 5.2; 8.1; 28.10; 40.4; 45.3; 49.4; 51.6; 54.4; 60.3;
65.8; 66.10; 70.1; 91.1,4; 100.2; 106.2; 123.4; 128.8; 140.6; 189.2; 191.1 (21 hymns, 22 verses, 23 references).
But the western non-riverine
names are completely missing in all the six Family Books and are
found only in the four latest non-Family Books of the Rigveda:
I. 10.2; 29.5; 34.9; 43.6; 51.1; 52.1; 61.7; 84.14; 88.5; 114.5; 116.2,16; 117.17,18; 121.11; I26.7; 138.2; 162.3,21 (16 hymns, 19 verses and
names).
VIII. 2.40; 5.37; 6.39,48; 7.29,29; 34.3; 46.22,23,31; 56.3;
64.11; 66.8; 77.10; 85.7; 97.12
(12 hymns, 15 verses, 16 names).
IX. 8.5; 65.22,23; 86.47; 97.7; 107.11; 113.1,2 (6
hymns, 8 verses and names).
X. 27.17; 28.4; 34.1; 35.2; 67.7; 86.4; 91.14; 95.3; 99.6; 106.5 (10 hymns, 10 verses and names).
This data is as conclusive as the
data in the Rigveda as a whole. Just as we can confidently say that the Rigveda
as a whole was not composed in, or by the inhabitants of, Bengal, Maharashtra
or Tamilnadu―or Indonesia, China or Saudi Arabia―so also we can confidently say
that the Old Rigveda was not composed in, or by the
inhabitants of, the western areas within the geographical horizon
of the Rigveda: it was composed in, or by the inhabitants of, the eastern
areas within the geographical horizon of the Rigveda.
However, let us examine whether the
river names in the Rigveda are mere "mentions" or indicate much more:
An actual examination of the data
shows that the data is very clear on the matter of the area inhabited by the
Vedic "Indo-Aryans": we are directly and very specifically told by
the Rigvedic composers in categorical words that the Vedic people were the
inhabitants of the banks of a particular river:
VII.96.2:
Pūrus live on both banks of the Sarasvati.
This
one direct and categorical reference alone sets the base for the whole story:
it refers to an entire tribe (in fact, the very tribe, the Pūru,
who represent the Vedic Indo-Aryans and are the People of the Book),
it is found in the Old Books, and its declaration is very clear,
specific and objective since it is in a hymn to that deified river, and
not in a sycophantic ode to any individual.
[There
are only three other verses in the whole of the Rigveda which
specifically mention anyone as living on the banks of a specific
river. All of them are in the New Rigveda and we will see them presently].
This
very clear statement that the Pūru, the People of the Book, are actually
the inhabitants of the banks of the Sarasvati, is
backed by the whole force of the data in the Rigveda.
Let
us start with the evidence in the five Old Books (6,3,7,4,2):
1.
Four of the five Old Books, 6,3,7,4, are directly associated with the
main Bharata Pūru kings―with
Divodāsa (Book 6), Sudās (Books 3,7) and Sahadeva and Somaka (Book 4). While
the fifth Old Book 2 is not directly associated with any Bharata
Pūru king, the Book notably does not refer to any river other than this Bharata
Pūru river.
[The
word Bharata itself is found (in 11 hymns and 15 verses) only in the six
Family Books, except for one reference, and that one reference is found
in the Kutsa section of Book 1 (in I.96.3), which continues the Bharata
history and is associated with Sahadeva. After the period of the Family
Books, the Rigveda expands from a Bharata Pūru text to a general Pūru
text].
2.
There are three full hymns (26 verses) wholly in praise of the Sarasvati,
the only full hymns in the Rigveda with a river as the deity: VI.61; VII.95,96.
Incidentally, one of the verses prays to the river, "let us not go from
thee to distant lands" (VI.61.14), emphasizing the bond
between this particular river and the composers of the text.
3.
Of the 31 hymns in these five Old Books which refer to any river
at all:
a)
20 hymns refer to the Sarasvati (one of which also refers to two
eastern tributaries of the Sarasvati, the Dṛṣadvatī and Āpayā):
II.1,3,30,32,41; III.4,23,54; VI.49,50,52,61; VII.2,9,35,36,39,40,95,96.
b)
1 more hymn refers to two other eastern tributaries of the Sarasvati (the
Hariyūpīyā and Yavyāvatī): VI.27.
c)
2 hymns refer to the rivers further east (Gaṅgā/Jahnāvī,
Yamunā): VI.45; III.58.
All
these 23 hymns out of the 31 refer only to the Sarasvati
and rivers east of it.
Of
the remaining 8 hymns:
1
hymn refers to an eastern river and a central one: Yamunā
and Paruṣṇī.
3
hymns refer to central rivers Vipāś, Śutudrī , Paruṣṇī
and Asiknī.
1
hymn
refers to a central river and a western one: Vipāś, Sarayu.
3
hymns refer to western rivers Sarayu, Sindhu, Rasā.
4.
The linear east-to-west expansion indicated by the references to these central
and western rivers in these 8 hymns (III.33; IV.22,30,43,54,55; VII.5,18)
must be noted:
a)
First these Old Books refer to the activities of the ancestors of
Sudās (Bharata, Devavāta, Sṛñjaya="Vadhryaśva",
Divodāsa, Pratardana, Pijavana, Devaśravas) in the
area of the Sarasvatī river.
b)
Sudās first performs a yajña (described in III.53, which
does not name any river but refers to an eastern land Kīkaṭa, and which
describes the yajña taking place in vara ā pṛthivyāh, i.e. still
on the eastern banks of the Sarasvati) and lets loose his
horse "east, west and north".
c)
Then, in III.33, Sudās sets off on a campaign of expansion of his
kingdom, and crosses the first two rivers of the Punjab from the east,
the Vipāś and the Śutudrī.
d)
After that, in VII.5,18 (which also refers to his earlier eastern
conquests on the Yamunā), with a change of rishi, he reaches the third
river of the Punjab from the east, the Paruṣṇī (VII.18),
and fights a historic battle with a coalition of Anu and Druhyu tribes fighting
from the western area of the fourth river of the Punjab, the Asiknī
(VII.5).
e)
Finally, in IV.30 (which also mentions the Vipāś), in the period
of his descendants Sahadeva and Somaka, the westward expansion
culminates in the battle to the west of the Sarayu.
f)
In the 4 remaining hymns, IV.22,43,54,55, all in Book 4, the
Paruṣṇī is mentioned once more (IV.22), and two other western
rivers appear as an aftermath of this expansion westwards described in the earlier
hymns: the Rasā and the Sindhu (IV.43,54,55).
Therefore,
the Old Books of the Rigveda (6,3,7,4,2) do not leave us guessing as to
the specific roles, in Vedic history, of the rivers named by them: they very
categorically describe in clear words the westward expansion from the eastern
Homeland.
5.
To this may be added the evidence of the sixth Family Book, Book 5,
which is also the oldest of the five New Books (the other four
being non-Family Books):
Here
also, the core of the text is still solidly centered around the Sarasvati.
Of the 7 hymns which refer to any river at all:
a)
4 hymns refer exclusively to the Sarasvati: V.5,42,43,46.
b)
1 other hymn refers to the western river Rasā (V.41)―
but it may be noted that this is the same rishi, Atri, who refers
(above) to the Sarasvati in V.42.
We
can make this assertion because unlike the hymns of the five Old Books
(6,3,7,4,2, where all the hymns are by and large attributed to the ancestral
rishi), the hymns of the New Books (at least of 5,8,9,10) are generally
attributed to the actual composer rishi.
So
this indicates a rishi travelling to different areas, in this case
clearly from the east to the west.
c)
The remaining 2 hymns, V.52-53, strengthen this picture: both the
hymns are composed by the same rishi, Śyāvāśva, who in one hymn (V.52)
names both the eastern Yamunā and the central Paruṣṇī,
and in the other (V.53) actually names six western rivers:
Sarayu, Kubhā, Krumu, Anitabhā, Rasā, Sindhu.
And
this phenomenon is recognized even by Witzel, who points out: "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). The travels are
clearly from the east to the west.
6.
The non-Family Books (1,8,9,10) now represent stages where
the geographical horizon of the Rigveda is now spread out over the entire
Rigvedic area from westernmost U.P. in the east to Afghanistan. Now there is no
question of tracing movements and expansions in the hymns, because it is
obviously a well settled and thriving culture: as I have shown elsewhere, the
period of the New Rigveda is the period of the Mature Harappan
civilization, and the trade with the Mesopotamians (Sumerians, Akkadians) is
testified by Mesopotamian words like bekanāṭa and mana found in
Book 8.
The
period also reflects rishis wandering over the entire region, and receiving
gifts from different kings in different areas. There are (as already pointed
out earlier, in the context of the verse describing the Pūrus as the inhabitants
of the banks of the Sarasvati river) three other verses which refer to
people "living" on the banks of three different rivers:
VIII.21.17-18:
Citra and other kinglings live on the banks of the Sarasvati.
VIII.24.30:
Nārya lives on the banks of the Gomatī.
I.126.1:
Svanaya Bhāvya lives on the banks of the Indus.
However,
the nature of these references is totally different from the Pūru-Sarasvati
reference: they are references to individual kings who are totally
unknown and unimportant otherwise and whose tribal identity is also uncertain,
and who are mentioned only in dānastuti hymns by grateful rishis to whom
they give gifts (the Gomatī, for example, has no other mention in the
Rigveda, and the Indus also is not mentioned at all in four of
the five Old Books: 6,3,7,2).
Nevertheless,
there are many factors, in the river-names, which again point to the eastern
origins and the earlier east-to-west expansion:
1.
The four non-Family Books―out of a total of 41 hymns which refer
to any river at all―continue to refer solely to the Sarasvati in 17
hymns and to the Sarasvati along with other rivers in 4 more
hymns (including the nadī-sūkta, X.75), and to another
eastern river (Jahnāvī) in 1 more hymn. In addition, of course,
the eastern Gaṅgā and Yamunā are mentioned in the nadī-sūkta
(X.75).
[In
2 other hymns, there are references to two other rivers (Aṁśumatī
and Aśmanvatī) which have been identified by many scholars with the Yamunā,
however the identification is not universal, and we will treat them here as unknown
rivers to avoid unnecessary quibbling on irrelevant issues].
2.
They also refer for the first time (along with western rivers already named in
the latest parts of the Family Books: i.e. the Sindhu,
Sarayu, Rasā, Kubhā, and Krumu) to many new
rivers of the west: in 24 hymns: Tṛṣṭāmā, Susartū, Śvetyā, Gomatī, Mehatnū, Śvetyāvarī, Suvāstu, Suṣomā,
Ārjīkīyā: I.44,83,112,122,126,186; VIII.7,12,19,20,24,25,26,64,72; IX.41,65,97; X.64,65,66,75,108,121.
3.
They seem to have already lost sight of the eastern tributaries of the
Sarasvati named in the Old Rigveda: the Dṛṣadvatī , Āpayā
, Hariyūpīyā and Yavyāvatī: these are not named even in the nadī-sūkta.
This could also be because, by this time, the Sarasvati had started
drying up, and these tributaries had either already dried up or had become
shells of their former selves.
Without
going into more details, most of which have already been dealt with many times
before, the one thing clear from all this is that the whole of the
geographical data in the Rigveda unanimously points to an eastern
origin, and clearly describes in very specific terms an east-to-west
expansion, and the more we examine different aspects of the data, the more
clear this becomes. And it is not merely on the basis of "mentions"
(which are massive and unidirectional enough in themselves) but of actual statements
and descriptions in the text as well.
Let
us now examine the few specific geographical names whose identity many people try
to dispute in order to try to reject the evidence.
The
evidence is so clear that the only chance left for the objectors is to quibble
over the identifications of the geographical names. They can only try
to make small dents and chips in the evidence which is so massive and
unidirectional that it simply cannot be made to prove the opposite of
what it does prove. At the most desperate attempts can be made to invalidate
one or two of the countless pieces of evidence―but you cannot manufacture
even one or two pieces of new evidence to the opposite effect. And the
edifice of the evidence is so strong that it will remain standing solid even if
you prise out a few bricks from it.
Nevertheless
let us examine the validity of the identifications. It must be noted that we
are not discussing here the etymology of the names: whether it means this
or that, or even whether the word is Indo-Aryan
(=Indo-European) or non-"Aryan". Those are different
and old battlefields. Here we are only discussing whether, for example, the
identification of a particular Vedic river-name with a particular river is
right or not: the main identification under attack is the identification of the
Rigvedic Sarasvati with the Ghaggar-Hakra (Sarsuti).
For
that matter, determined objectors, from either side, can object to any
identification. The invasionist writer Rajesh Kochhar not only identifies the
Rigvedic Sarasvati with the Helmand of Afghanistan, he even
identifies the Rigvedic Gaṅgā and Yamunā as its tributaries!
The staunchly Hindu writer, S.D.Kulkarni (who belonged to the Hindu Invasionist
school of writers, which included Tilak, described in TALAGERI 2000:362-384), also
identified most of the Rigvedic rivers with rivers in Central Asia, and even
identified Rasā with the Tigris or Euphrates (the choice
apparently being ours!).
We
will not bother here to discuss crank identifications. Most of the
identifications are correctly made by the Indologists, and if anyone has
objections to any of these identifications, it is up to them to disprove the same
by taking on the Indologists. But some names require to be elaborated.
II. The Sarasvati
That
the Sarasvati of the Rigveda is the present-day Ghaggar-Hakra
river which flows through Haryana, Rajasthan and Sind out into the sea is an accepted
fact in the interpretation of the Rigveda.
Then
why do we have to deal with this identification here?
The
answer is: this name Sarasvati is a classic example of the totally and
shamelessly fraudulent nature of the present-day
"scholarship" which lies through its teeth and brazenly
propagates lies and falsehoods on a war-footing in order to further
political agendas (note again that, inspite of strong differences and sharp
criticism, I have never made such allegations against the admittedly biased and
blinkered traditional western Indology). Today there is a massive
political campaign in the media and academia to propagate two blatant lies:
1.
That the Sarasvati of the Rigveda is a river of Afghanistan.
2.
That the Hindu "right-wing" is trying to propagate a new theory that
the Sarasvati of the Rigveda is the Ghaggar-Hakra.
First
let us see what the consensus has been, on this point, until the
importance of the identification of the Sarasvati in the AIT-OIT debate
became clear to the AIT-supporting present political "scholars"
(especially after books written by myself and some other writers after the
1990s, and new developments in satellite-mapping and geology) and made them
take up damage control on a war-footing.
1.
THE CONSENSUS:
The
first western scholar to propose that the Ghaggar-Hakra was the Vedic Saraswati
was the French geographer Louis Vivien de Saint-Martin in 1855 in his very massive
and detailed book "Geography of India’s North-West According to the
Vedic Hymns".
After
that, this identification has been fully endorsed by almost every single
eminent Indologist, geologist and archaeologist in the last over 160 years. A
representative list, first of the western scholars down the ages, and then the
Indian (and Pakistani) ones: Max Müller, Keith and Macdonell, Monier-Williams,
Pischel, Geldner, Hopkins, R.D.Oldham, C.F.Oldham, Wilson, Renou, Benfey, Muir,
Lassen, Stein, Jane McIntosh, Wilhelmy, Mortimer Wheeler, Bridget and Raymond
Allchin, Gregory Possehl, JM Kenoyer, Jean-Marie Casal, Kenneth Kennedy, Rosen,
Southworth, Pargiter, Gowen, Burrow, Basham, Shamsul Islam Siddiqui, AH Dani,
BB Lal, SP Gupta, VN Misra, Dilip Chakrabarti, M. Israil Khan, S.R.Rao,
K.S.Valdiya, A.D.Pusalker, H.C.Raychaudhary, D.C.Sircar, Ashok Aklujkar, and many
more.
A
few scholars (Bergaigne, Lommel, Lüder), on the basis of the present-day poor
condition of the Ghaggar-Hakra, had expressed doubts, and concluded
that the Rigvedic river may have been "a celestial river" and
not an earthly one, and on the same grounds Roth suggested that it could be
another name for the Indus. Roth's suggestion was partially
accepted by Zimmer, Griffith, Hillebrandt and Ludwig, and yet all these
scholars, Roth included, accepted that in many hymns of the Rigveda, it did
indeed refer to the Ghaggar-Hakra!
Only
a few scholars, such as Brunnhofer, Hertel and Hüsing held that the Rigvedic Sarasvati
was in Afghanistan or even in Iran: but since these scholars located the whole
of the text in Afghanistan and Iran, and this identification of the Sarasvati
was only a part of their whole scenario, their writings on this point were
outright rejected by all the other Indologists.
Michael
Witzel is now frequently cited as an authority. Here is what Witzel
himself had to say on this matter before the full implications, for
the AIT, of the identification were made clear by me in my books:
In
this paper on Rigvedic history written in 1995, Witzel categorically tells us “Sarasvatī = Sarsuti; Ghaggar-Hakra”
(WITZEL 1995b:318). He concludes the paper/article with a summary of the “Geographical Data in the Rigveda” in
detailed charts covering ten pages (WITZEL 1995b:343-352), giving the
geographical data classified into columns as per five areas (which he
classifies as West, Northwest, Panjab, Kurukṣetra, East)
from west to east.
In
these charts, he specifically locates every
single reference (mentioned by
him) to the Sarasvatī in Books 6, 3 and 7 exclusively in Kurukṣetra: VI.61.3,10
(WITZEL 1995b:343, 349), III.23.4 (WITZEL 1995b:343, 347), VII.36.6 (WITZEL 1995b:344, 349), VII.95.2 (WITZEL 1995b:344, 349) and VII.96.1,2 (WITZEL 1995b:344, 349). Further, wherever, in the main body
of the article, he gives geographical areas in sequence from west to east in
these three Books, the Sarasvatī is inevitably to the east
of the Punjab (WITZEL 1995b:318, 320).
He
does locate some of the references to the Sarasvatī, in three of the other Books (2, 8 and 10), to the West
(i.e. Afghanistan): II.41.6 (WITZEL 1995b:343, 346), VIII.21.17-18 (WITZEL 1995b:344, 350) and X.64.9 (WITZEL
1995b:345, 352). But:
a)
In doing so, he creates an uncalled for dual entity in the Rigveda, a Sarasvatī
in Kurukṣetra as well as a Sarasvatī in Afghanistan: to
use his favourite phrase, "Occam's razor applies" and cancels
out his argument.
b)
And even then, it may be noted that the references to the Sarasvatī in Kurukṣetra
appear exclusively in the earlier Books, and the alleged
references to the Sarasvatī in Afghanistan appear exclusively in
the later Books!
But
a closer look at each of the three references:
1. II.41.6:
a)
He places a doubtful question mark after
his location of the Sarasvatī of Book 2 in the West (Afghanistan), in
both the places where he locates it there on his charts: “Sarasvatī? 2.41.6” (WITZEL 1995b:343, 346); and, in the main text
of his article, he uses the word “probably”
when suggesting, without any particular reason to do so, that the Sarasvatī
of this Book, in II.3.8, could refer to “the Avestan Haraxvaiti rather than […] to the modern Ghaggar-Hakra in the Panjab” (WITZEL 1995b:331).
b)
Then he vaguely admits, in a footnote, that “since Gārtsamāda Śaunaka is made a Bhārgava, he could be later than
Book 6” (WITZEL 1995b:316): that is, since Gṛtsamada, the rishi of
Book 2, was originally a descendant of Śunahotra Āngiras of Book
6, Book 2 could be later than Book 6. Since the earlier Sarasvatī of Book 6 is placed by Witzel himself in Kurukṣetra,
the later Sarasvatī of Book 2
could hardly be the river of Afghanistan.
c)
Moreover the references to the Sarasvatī in Book 2 are clearly
associated with Kurukṣetra and not with Afghanistan: in II.3.8,
which Witzel, above, suggests could refer to the river of Afghanistan
rather than the Ghaggar-Hakra of Kurukṣetra, the Sarasvatī
is actually mentioned alongwith the other two great goddesses of Kurukṣetra, Iḷā and Bhāratī,
and, the previous verse II.3.7 refers to “the three high places”
of these three goddesses “at the centre of the earth”. And Witzel
himself points out, in the course of his description of Kurukṣetra, that
it “became the heartland of the Bharatas
well into the Vedic period. it is here that 3.53.11 places the centre of the
earth” (WITZEL 1995b:339).
2. VIII.21.17-18:
Likewise,
Witzel’s location of the Sarasvatī of Book 8 in Afghanistan is
neutralized by the fact that he locates the same
verses, VIII.21.17-18, on the same
page (WITZEL 1995:350), once in Iran (i.e. “eastern Iran” = Afghanistan)
and once also in Kurukṣetra. And, for what it is worth,
the location in Afghanistan is followed by a speculative question mark,
but the location in Kurukṣetra is not!
3. X.64.9:
That
leaves only Witzel’s speculative location of the reference to the Sarasvatī
in Book 10 in Afghanistan. Book 10 is undoubtedly the last Book in the
Rigveda, and there is no logical reason why it should be supposed that the Sarasvatī
referred to in X.64.9 should be a different one from the
Sarasvatī referred to in the rest of the Rigveda. Also note, the reference
which specifically states that the Sarasvatī is in Kurukṣetra (X.75.5)
in the vicinity of the Gangā and Yamunā, is in the same book of
the Rigveda.
See
also the following straight statements by Witzel in 1995:
“[…] since the Sarasvatī, which dries up
progressively after the mid-2nd millennium B.C. (Erdosy 1989), is still
described as a mighty stream in the Ṛgveda, the earliest hymns in the latter
must have been composed by c.1500 B.C.” (WITZEL 1995a:98).
“Prominent in book 7: it flows from the
mountains to the sea (7.59.2) ― which would put the battle of ten kings prior
to 1500 BC or so, due to the now well documented dessication of the Sarasvatī
(Yash Pal et al. 1984) […]. Two
hymns (7.95-96) are composed solely in praise of the Sarasvatī.” (WITZEL
1995b:335, fn 82).
Here,
Witzel not only identified the Sarasvatī of the Rigveda with the Sarasvatī of
Kurukṣetra which dried up progressively after 1500 BCE (i.e. The
Ghaggar-Hakra), but noted that it “flows
from the mountains to the sea” (a description now often sought to be
transferred to the Harahvaiti of Afghanistan, with the Hamun-i-Hilmand lake now
sought to be identified as the “sea” described in the verse). Of course, he did
not say "the Vedic people are the Harappans".
But
then he later realized that this would be the implication of this for the AIT,
and went into damage control mode.
It
is clearly this desperate bid to deny the identity of the Vedic Sarasvati
with the Ghaggar-Hakra that is new and revisionist.
2.
THE SARASVATI IN THE RIGVEDA:
The
Sarasvati is found in the Rigveda in contexts where it can only
be the Ghaggar-Hakra of Haryana and not any river of Afghanistan:
it is found in many hymns in four (2,3,6,7) of the five
Books of the Old Rigveda (III.4, 23,
54; VII.2, 9, 35, 36, 39, 40, 95) as well as in
the Redacted Hymns (VI.49,
50, 52, 61; VII.96). The only 3 full
hymns to the Sarasvati in the Rigveda are in these books: VI.61; VII.95,96,
and the most well-known ode to the river "ambitame, devītame,
nadītame" (best of mothers, best of Goddesses, best of rivers) is
again in these books, in II.41.16.
As we already saw, these four books of the Old
Rigveda (2,3,6,7) are located completely in the east:
a) they know the
eastern place names Kīkaṭa,Iḷaspada(also called vara ā
pṛthivyā or nābhāpṛthivyā, i.e. "the best place on earth"
or "the centre of the earth"), the eastern lake Mānuṣā,
and eastern animals like the buffalo, the gaur (Indian
bison), the elephant, the peacock and the spotted deer,
and the other eastern rivers Gaṅgā/Jahnāvī, Yamunā,
Dṛṣadvatī, Āpayā, Hariyūpīyā, Yavyāvatī, Śutudrī,
Vipāṣ, Paruṣṇī, Asiknī,
b) but not the western
place names Saptasindhava, Gandhāri, the western lake Śaryaṇāvat(ī)
and the western mountains Mūjavat, Suṣom and Arjīk,
or western animals (whose names are found in common with the Avesta)
like the uṣṭra, varāha, mathra, chāga, vṛṣṇi,
urā and meṣa, or the western rivers Marudvṛdhā, Vitastā,
Ārjīkīyā, Suṣomā, Sindhu and its western
tributaries Triṣṭāmā, Susartu, Anitabhā, Rasā, Śveti,
Śvetyāvarī, Kubhā, Krumu, Gomatī, Sarayu, Mehatnu,
Prayiyu, Vayiyu, Suvāstu, Gaurī, Kuṣavā.
All these western geographical
features (except three of the western river names) appear exclusively in the New
Rigveda.
Further, the only remaining book in
the Old Rigveda (Book 4) which represents the Indo-Aryan expansion
westwards (already described), and which mentions these three western rivers (Sindhu,
Sarayu, Rasā), otherwise found only in the New Rigveda, is
also the only book in the whole of the Rigveda which does not refer to the Sarasvati
at all, thereby emphasizing the fact that there was no Sarasvati river
in the vicinity of those rivers in the west (in Afghanistan) at that time.
Therefore, this Sarasvatī which is
located in such an utterly and purely eastern milieu, so totally
devoid of western associations, cannot be a river of Afghanistan but
has to be the river of Haryana.
3.
SARASVATI AS A MEMORIAL NAME:
But
to move to the next step, is it possible that the name of the Sarasvati
of the Rigveda, although located in Haryana, represented a memory of an
older Sarasvati in Afghanistan (the Haraxvaiti of the Avesta) through which the
"invading/migrating Indo-Aryans" entered India?
Some
of the Indologists, to fit the name into the AIT scenario, did suggest
that the name of the Sarasvati in the Rigveda represented a memory of an
older Sarasvati in Afghanistan through which the invading/migrating Indo-Aryans
entered India. But even they did not suggest that the Rigvedic Sarasvati itself
was the river of Afghanistan. And this is what George Erdosy (like many
other Indologists) has to say about this:
“As for Burrow’s thesis (Burrow 1973) that
some place names reflect the names of geographical features to the west, and
thus preserve an ancestral home, they once again rather rely on an assumption
of Arya migrations than prove it. […] His
cited equivalence of Sanskrit Saraswati and Avestan Haraxvaiti is a case in
point. Burrow accepts that it is the latter term that is borrowed, undergoing
the usual change of s- > h in the process, but suggests that Saraswati was a
proto-Indoaryan term, originally applied to the present Haraxvaiti when the
proto-Indoaryans still lived in northeastern Iran, then it was brought into
India at the time of the migrations, while its original bearer had its name
modified by the speakers of Avestan who assumed control of the areas vacated by
proto-Indoaryans. It would be just as plausible to assume that Saraswati was a
Sanskrit term indigenous to India and was later imported by the speakers of
Avestan into Iran. The fact that the Zend Avesta is aware of areas outside the
Iranian plateau while the Rigveda is ignorant of anything west of the Indus basin
would certainly support such an assertion” (ERDOSY 1989:41-42).
The
evidence, showing which of the two rivers, the Ghaggar-Hakra of Haryana
or the Haraxvaiti of Afghanistan, bore the original
name Sarasvati, is very clear:
1.
Linguistically, the word Sarasvati of the Rigveda is accepted by
everyone to be the older and original form of the name and the word Harahvaiti
is linguistically the derived form. There is no controversy in this.
2.
Chronologically and geographically, the word Sarasvati appears in the
Rigveda long before the word Harahvaiti appears in the Avesta,
and the actually recorded historical contexts also make the direction
of movement of the name, taken from the east to the west by the proto-Iranians,
clear. This is found in four stages:
Stage 1: As we saw, the name Sarasvati
is found recorded many times in the oldest parts of the Old Rigveda,
in which all the proto-Iranian tribes are recorded as inhabitants
of the Punjab to the west of the Paruṣṇī. As this has been dealt with in
detail elsewhere. I will not repeat the details here.
This coalition of proto-Iranian
tribes in the Punjab is led by a king Kavi: VII.18.8 (Avestan
name Kauui), and an old priest Kavaṣa: VII.18.12 (Avestan
name Kaoša). This Kavi Cāyamāna (descendant of Abhyāvartin Cāyamāna,
who is located in the oldest book of the Rigveda, in VI.27.5,8,
as an inhabitant of Haryana, and is described as a Pārthava) is clearly
the eponymous ancestral king of the Kauuiian dynasty of the Avesta, who
were supposed to be of Parthian stock.
The exodus westwards of these
defeated tribes is referred to in VII.5.3 and VII.6.3.
Stage 2: The name Sarasvati is also
recorded right up to the latest parts of the New Rigveda, which
as a whole chronologically follows the Old Rigveda.
The
New Rigveda contains the names of certain kings with proto-Iranian
names (identified as such by Indologists, including Witzel), still
remaining in the western Punjab, in the following references:
I.51.13.
VIII.4.19; 5.37-39;
6.46; 23.28; 24.28; 25.2; 26.2; 32.2;
46.21,24.
X.86.23.
These
proto-Iranian kings, extending out into the northwest as far as Bactria, are
the only kings in the Rigveda donating Bactrian camels, a new
animal of the northwest and beyond, to the Vedic priests: VIII.5.37;
6.48; 46.22,31.
Stage 3: As we already saw, the Avesta shares a
common culture of names with the New Rigveda. The -aśva names found
only in the New Rigveda are found in the Avesta in the name of an
ancestor of Zaraθuštra, the composer of the oldest part
of the Avesta (the five Gāθās): of Haēčat.aspa
In fact, the very word gāthā itself is found
only in the New Rigveda:
V. 44.5.
I. 7.1; 43.4; 167.6; 190.1.
VIII. 2.38; 32.1; 71.14; 92.2;
98.9.
IX. 11.4; 99.4.
X. 85.6.
So
the oldest part of the Avesta (the five collections of the Gāθās)
is clearly contemporaneous to, or later than, the New Rigveda,
and till this point of time there is no mention anywhere of the Harahvaiti
river of Afghanistan.
Stage
4: The word Harahvaiti is found for the first
time, and only once, in a late part of the Avesta, long after the
Gāθās:
in the Vendidad (I.13). By this time, the Iranians are settled
all over Afghanistan and southern Central Asia, the areas of which are
enumerated in the Vendidad and at a few places elsewhere in the Avesta.
Significantly,
the Avesta still remembers the earlier Saptasindhu or the Punjab
(Haptahəndu in Vd. I.19) and Mānuṣa in Haryana (Manusha
in Yt. IX.1.1) to their east.
All
this evidence proves two things:
1.
The original name Sarasvati for the river of Haryana, and the very late
(and single) record of the name Harahvaiti for the river of Afghanistan.
2.
The movement of the Iranians from Haryana to Afghanistan, taking the name of
the Sarasvati with them and giving it to a river of Afghanistan.
So
clearly, the Sarasvati is the Ghaggar-Hakra., and the Ghaggar-Hakra
is the original Sarasvati.
III. The Jahnāvi
The
Gaṅgā is the easternmost river mentioned in the Rigveda. It is
found mentioned twice in the Rigveda as Gaṅgā (VI.45.31; X.75.5),
and twice as Jahnāvī (III.58.6; I.116.19).
It
is significant that while the oldest Books of the Rigveda (6,3,7)
do not refer to any river west of the Asiknī, including even the Sindhu
(Indus), all three of them refer to the easternmost rivers: Gaṅgā
(VI.45.31), Jahnāvī
(III.58.6) and Yamunā (VII.18.6).
However,
for various reasons, the Indologists avoid translating the word as a name of a
river, in fact of the river Gaṅgā.
The
two references to Jahnāvī in I.116.19 and III.58.6
are respectively translated as follows:
Griffith:
"Jahnu's children" and "the house of Jahnu".
Wilson:
"the family of Jahnu" in both references.
Jamison:
"the wife of Jahnu" and "at (the house of) the wife of
Jahnu".
Geldner:
"Jahnavi" and "the tribe of Jahnu".
Grassmann:
same as Geldner in both references.
As
can be seen, the translations vary. The sense of the verse is a bit forced when
attempts are made to give the same meaning in both the verses: Geldner and
Grassmann both leave the word as it is in I.116.19, while
translating as "tribe of Jahnu" in III.58.6.
Jamison has to add "(the house of)" before "the wife
of Jahnu" in III.58.6 to make it look correct: "yours
the wealth at (the house of) the wife of Jahnu". However, all the
translations would have been grammatically reasonable if they had taken Jahnāvī
as the name of a river.
So
let us examine the word: is it the Gaṅgā by its other name, or does it
have anything to do with some "Jahnu"?
In
this case also, the evidence is unidirectional:
1.
The word Jahnāvī is found in these two references in the Rigveda and
nowhere else after that in this form: in later texts, Epics and Puranas
onwards, the same word is found in a different form Jāhnavī. Both
the words are two variants of the same word.
The
word in the Epics and Puranas does not refer to any female person: it refers only
to the river Gaṅgā, although a myth is manufactured to explain this
name. In later times, wherever any female child is given this name, it is
always in the clear understanding that she is being given a name of the river Gaṅgā.
Therefore the only identity of the name is as a name of the river.
There
is no logic in assuming (and that too against the grammatical
sense of the word in the two verses) that the word refers to a female person,
since there is nothing in the context of the two verses to explain why this "woman"―
who is totally unknown outside these two verses―is so important
in the Rigveda that she is mentioned twice in ambiguously-worded verses.
2.
But the context of the name in the reference in I.116.19 gives
incontrovertible evidence that Jāhnavī is the river Gaṅgā.
Here
is the full translation by Jamison of the two verses I.116.18-19 which
contain this reference:
"When
you drove the course for Divodāsa and for Bharadvāja, Aśvins, urging your
steeds onward, your accompanying chariot conveyed wealth. A bull and a river
dolphin were yoked to it.
Conveying
wealth with good rule and a full lifetime with good descendants and good men,
Nāsatyas, you two of one mind journeyed here with the prizes of victory to the
wife of Jahnu, who was setting your portion three times a day".
Note:
a)
This is the only place in the Rigveda, outside Book 6 (the Book of Bharadvāja
and Divodāsa) where the two
central figures of Book 6, the rishi and the king, are mentioned together in
one verse.
b)
Book 6 contains the only reference in the Rigveda (other than in the
list of river names in the nadī-sūkta, X.75) to the Gaṅgā
by that name: the idiomatic use of the word in that reference (VI.45.31)
shows that the river was central to Book 6 and naturally to its rishi and king.
Book 6, notably, does not mention any river west of the Sarasvati.
c)
This reference in I.116.18 is the only reference in the whole of
the Rigveda to the śiṁśumāra (the Gangetic
dolphin).
d)
This reference in I.116.19 is one of the only two references in the
whole of the Rigveda (the other being III.58.6) to the Jahnāvī―whose
only identity is as another name for the Gaṅgā.
The
cumulative evidence―of these four different and uncommon words (Bharadvāja,
Divodāsa, śiṁśumāra, Jahnāvī), all pointing to the Gaṅgā,
all brought together in this one reference contained in 2
verses out of the 10552 verses in the Rigveda―can only be called evidence,
it cannot be coincidence.
[Strangely,
Witzel himself identifies the word śiṁśumāra elsewhere as "Gangetic
dolphin" as opposed to just "dolphin" for śiśūla
(not that there is any distinction): see WITZEL 1999:30].
THE
GAṄGĀ IN VI.45:
The
biggest problem is not the data but the blatant dishonesty among the "scholars".
As we saw above, the Sarasvati was accepted as the Rigvedic name of the
present Ghaggar-Hakra by a complete consensus among the scholars,
but as soon as the AIT-OIT debate blew up in the last three decades, and the
identification exposed the untenability of the AIT, the scholars not only
started writing exactly the opposite and completely denying the identification
but even started a political media campaign to brand the identification as a new
one being invented now by the OIT supporters!
Witzel,
for example, who had consistently identified the Sarasvati with the Ghaggar-Hakra
(see above), now suddenly received divine revelations about the identity of the
Rigvedic Sarasvati:
“The
river Sarasvatī found in book 6 (T., p.102) may be discarded […]. In the hymns 6.49, 50, 52, 61, the order
of arrangement is disturbed and especially the group 6.49-52 is very
suspicious. […] All this points to
an addition of materials at an unknown time. Therefore, the Haryana river
Sarasvatī (mod. Sarsuti) is not found in the old parts of book 6” (WITZEL
2000b:§7).
But
the geographical references in the Rigveda do not differ in the Old Hymns
and Redacted Hymns in any Old Book of the Rigveda, as I have
shown clearly in my book (TALAGERI 2008:): the Sarasvatī, to take the point under
discussion, is referred to in
many hymns in the three oldest Books of the Rigveda, not only in Redacted
Hymns (VI.49, 50, 52, 61: VII.96), but also in the Old Hymns (III.4,
23, 54; VII.2, 9, 35, 36, 39, 40,
95), along with other eastern places, lakes and animals (in these
or other hymns in all the six Family
Books), while the western rivers, mountains,
lakes, places and animals are completely missing in both the Old
as well as Redacted
Hymns in
all these Books. The picture is too large and too consistent to be “discarded” on the basis of Witzel’s selective citing of the Sarasvatī-referring
hymns in Book 6 alone.
Not content with this, Witzel goes on to make
the following juvenile comments: “Incidentally,
it is entirely unclear that the physical river Sarasvatī is meant in some of
these spurious hymns: in 6.49.7 the Sarasvatī is a woman and in 50.12 a deity,
not necessarily the river (Witzel 1984). (At 52.6, however, it is a river, and
in 61.1-7 both a river and a deity ― which can be located anywhere from the
Arachosian Sarasvatī to the Night time sky, with no clear localization)”
(WITZEL 2000b:§7).
These are clearly not the words of a scholar
making serious statements on an academic subject: that the Sarasvatī of VI.49.7
“is a woman” is ludicrous, to say
the least! And if, in any reference, Sarasvatī is the name of a deity or
a woman, even an amateur student of the subject could tell Witzel that the
circumstance presupposes the
existence of a river named Sarasvatī, since the word Sarasvatī is
clearly originally the name of a river:
it means “the one with many ponds”
(WITZEL 1995a:105). The deity came into existence as a riverine deity,
and women came to be named Sarasvatī after the name of the river/deity.
So, ultimately, all the references show the existence of the river Sarasvatī.
And the claim that the Sarasvatī in VI.52.6 and VI.61.1-7 is a river “which can be located anywhere from the
Arachosian Sarasvatī to the Night time sky, with no clear localization” is
nothing but a piece of unscholarly
and juvenile temper which has to be treated with the
contempt it deserves.
But
Witzel’s primary ire is directed at the implications of the reference to the Gangā
in Book 6, the oldest Book of the Rigveda. In his review of TALAGERI
2000, he angrily dismisses " river
names ... found in what T. claims, on flimsy grounds, is the RV’s ‘oldest
book’, RV6” and tells us:
“One can immediately throw out the
reference to the Ganges that appears at RV 6.45.31 (Gāngya). […] Applying
the principles pioneered by Oldenberg, RV 6.45 can be shown to be a composite
hymn built out of tṛcas at an uncertain period. The ordering principle of the
old family books clearly points to the addition of all these hymns in mixed
meters at the end of an Indra series. Such late additions must not be used as
an argument for the age of the bulk of Book 6” (WITZEL 2001b: §7).
In
later writings, he is even more categorical: “The Ganges is only mentioned twice in
the RV, once directly in a late hymn (10.75.5), and once by a derived word, gāngya in a late addition (6.45.31).
This occurs in a tṛca that could be
an even later addition to this additional
hymn, which is too long to fit the order of arrangement of the RV, see
Oldenberg 1888” (WITZEL 2005:386, fn 76).
This
is what he writes after the
publication of TALAGERI 2000, which highlighted the lethal implications, to the
AIT, of this reference to the Gangā in the oldest book of the
Rigveda.
Now
see what he had written before
TALAGERI 2000:
1.
In his 1995 article, he refers to this reference as follows: “BOOK 6 […] mentions even the Gangā in an unsuspicious hymn (though in a tṛca section)” (WITZEL
1995b:317).
[Just
above this, he also notes that “Book 5
[…] even knows, in a hymn not
suspected as an addition, of the Yamunā”].
Although
he notes that it is in a “tṛca section”, Witzel does not see
it as an obstacle to the Gangā being counted as part of the geography of
Book 6 proper. He not only notes that this hymn is an “unsuspicious hymn” meaning "a hymn not suspected as an addition", he regularly counts the Gangā
among the geographical data in the Rigveda for Book 6 (WITZEL 1995b:318, 320,
343, 345, 348, 352).
2.
Two years later, in 1997, Witzel classifies the Rigvedic hymns
into six levels of composition. The first two levels, without specifying
any particular hymn, he names the “Indo-Iranian
level” and the “Pre-Ṛgvedic level”.
Thus he takes care of the assumed earlier stages of the Indo-Iranian period
when the common Indo-Iranian poetic traditions are assumed to have been first
formulated. The next four levels classify the actual Rigvedic hymns into
the “Early Ṛgvedic level”, “Later Ṛgvedic level”, “Late Ṛgvedic ritual compositions” and “Early Mantra type compositions”. In the
last category, he places Books 9 and 10, and in the second-last level, he
places most of Book 1. In the fourth level, he places Books 3 and 7.
In
the “Early Ṛgvedic level”, he names only the following: “Śamyu Bārhapatasya 6.45.1 [sic], some early Kaṇvas (in book 8)”
(WITZEL 1997b:293). Thus, however vaguely (and with Bārhaspatya mis-spelt
as Bārhapatasya), he categorically classifies hymn VI.45
in the “Early Ṛgvedic level”.
3.
By 2000, Witzel is even
more categorical, and much more
systematic and specific in his classification. At around the time of
publication of TALAGERI 2000 itself, Witzel writes as follows:
“Even now, however, three RV periods can be
established, as follows:
1. early Ṛgvedic period: c.1700-1450 BCE: RV books 4, 5, 6.
2. middle, main Ṛgvedic period : c.1450-1300 BCE: books 3, 7, 8.1-47,
8.60-66 and 1.51-191, most probably also 2; prominent: Pūru chieftain
Trasadasyu and Bharata chieftain Sudās and their ancestors, and
3. late Ṛgvedic period: c.1300-1200 BCE: books 1.1-50, 8.48-59 (the
late Vālakhilya hymns), 8.67-103, large sections of 9, and finally 10.1-84, 10.85-191; emergence
of the Kuru tribe, fully developed by the time of Parīkṣit a descendant of
Trasadasyu.” (WITZEL 2000a:§6).
Witzel
not only provides us with tentative dates for the different periods, but he
systematically places Book 6 distinctly
and categorically before at least Books 1-3 and 7-10.
Is
hymn VI.45 excluded from this classification? Far from it, in his
footnote to the “early Ṛgvedic period:
c.1700-1450 BCE”, he writes: “With
Indo-Aryan settlement mainly in Gandhāra/Panjab, but occasionally extending
upto Yamunā/Gangā, e.g. Atri poem 5.52.17; the relatively old poem 6.45.13
[sic] has gāngya […]” (WITZEL 2000a:§6).
Later,
he reiterates: “Even the oldest books
of the RV (4-6) contain data covering all of the Greater Panjab: note the
rivers Sindhu 4.54.6, 4.55.3, 5.53.9
‘Indus’; Asiknī 4.17.5 ‘Chenab’; Paruṣṇī 4.22.3. 5.52.9 ‘Ravi’; Vipāś 4.30.11 (Vibali) ‘Beas’; Yamunā 5.52.17; Gangā 6.45.31 with gāngya
‘belonging to the Ganges’ […].”(WITZEL
2000a:§6).
Finally,
he leaves no room for any doubt as to what he is saying: “G. van Driem and A. Parpola (1999) believe that these oldest hymns
were still composed in Afghanistan
[…]. This is, however, not the case
as these books contain references to the major rivers of the Panjab, even the
Ganges (see above).” (WITZEL
2000a:§6).
All
this above is what Witzel is writing shortly before reading TALAGERI 2000:
he repeatedly refers not only to Book 6 in general, not only to hymn VI.45 in general, but specifically to
the verse in that hymn which refers to the Gangā, as pertaining to the “early Ṛgvedic period” and as
constituting part of the geographical data of “the oldest books” and “the
oldest hymns”, and he even takes up issue with other western scholars who
think otherwise!
He
categorically places the reference to the Gangā in VI.45.31 (as well as the
reference to the Yamunā in V.52.17) before Books 1-3 and 7-10: i.e. before the Battle of the Ten Kings on the Paruṣṇī (in VII.18, 83), before the crossing of the Vipāś and the Śutudrī (in III.33), and before the establishment of the sacred fire at “the centre of the
earth” in Kurukṣetra by the ancestors of Sudās (in III.23); and naturally long
before the introduction of camels to Vedic ṛishis by kings with proto-Iranian
names (in VIII.5, 6, 46).
But
immediately after reading the analysis of the Rigveda in TALAGERI 2000, there
is a magical transformation in Witzel’s attitude: suddenly, he realizes that
this reference “occurs in a tṛca that
could be an even later addition to this additional hymn” and finds this
revelation so compelling that he has no alternative except to “immediately throw out the reference to the
Ganges that appears at RV 6.45.31 (Gāngya)”!
This
is what the scholarship of AIT-supporting "scholars" is all about.
IV. The Hariyūpīyā and Yavyāvatī
The Hariyūpīyā
and Yavyāvatī in hymn VI.27 are
two other rivers which are usually considered to have a question mark, since
the two words are almost non-existent outside this hymn (only the second name
being found once in the Panchavimsha Brahmana).
The context of the reference to the two rivers in the
hymn is a historic battle fought on their banks, and it is clear that they are
two eastern tributaries of the Sarasvati.
However, faced with what seemed to be a blank wall, many
of the Indologists assumed it to be a river of Afghanistan, and arrived at the Zhob
as the closest phonetic equivalent of the word Yavyāvatī, and some of them then identified the Hariyūpīyā
with the Ariob or Haliab river not far from it. However, Edward
Thomas, as far back as 1883, even as he was describing an invasionist scenario,
recognized the two words as referring to "a tīrath in Kurukṣetra"
(THOMAS 1883).
In his review of my 2000 book, Witzel insists that they
are “western” rivers which “point to Eastern Afghanistan, to the river Zhob,
and (perhaps) the Hali(-Ab)” (WITZEL 2000b:§7). [He places the (-Ab)
in brackets because otherwise it would give the impression that Witzel is
endorsing a connection between Rigvedic -ūp- and -āb, which is
obviously not there, since the -āb stands for "water" or
"river"].
However, the evidence
shows that the two rivers are not
the Zhob and Hali rivers, but eastern tributaries of the Sarasvati
(present-day Ghaggar-Hakra):
1. The entire geographical horizon of the six Family
Books (2-7), as we have seen in detail, shows that the east
is the habitat of the Vedic Aryans, who expanded westwards only in the
time of Sudās: Book 6, which refers to these two rivers in hymn 27,
is not familiar with the areas west of the Sarasvati: not even with the areas
of the Punjab. If these two rivers referred to the western rivers, it would
present an inexplicable contradiction.
Note that while the two rivers are mentioned in such an
important context in this hymn in this Book (6) which is located
entirely in the area in the extreme east of the Rigvedic horizon, there
is absolutely no mention of them anywhere in later Books and hymns where the westward
expansion has been completed, not even in the nadī-sūkta (X.75)!
2. The Hariyūpīyā is clearly the name of a
tributary of the Sarasvati, and in fact another name for the Dṛṣadvatī:
while the name Hariyūpīyā is a one-time word not found anywhere
outside hymn VI.27, the Dṛṣadvatī is known in later texts (e.g.
the Mahabharata III.129.7) as Raupyā= the silver-golden one. The name is clearly a
derivation of the word Hariyūpīyā both phonetically (which is obvious)
and meaning-wise: Witzel points out that "hari 'tawny, etc' = raupya 'golden'"
(WITZEL 2000b:§7).
3. The Yavyāvatī, which is clearly, again, either another name for the
same river or for another river extremely close besides it, since the battle
takes place on the banks of both, is found mentioned in only one place
outside this hymn: in a reference in the Pancavimsha Brahmana 25.7.2.
Incidentally, the geographical data in this text is examined in detail by none
other than Witzel in another paper, where he locates the text in the "Kuru
country, near Kurukṣetra" (WITZEL 1995a), and further, in another
paper later, referring in particular to the word
Yavyāvatī in this text, he points out
that "the river Yavyāvatī is mentioned once in the RV; it has
been identified with the Zhob in E.Afghanistan. At PB 25.7.2, however, nothing
points to such a W. localisation. The persons connected with it are known to
have stayed in the Vibhinduka country, a part of the Kuru-Pañcāla land”
(WITZEL 1987:193). [His earlier reference to the Zhob is also
accompanied by a doubtful “may be” and a question mark: “may be the Zhob
river in N. Baluchistan?” (WITZEL 1995b: 317)].
So it is clear that, regardless of the idle speculations
of the Indologists, the evidence in the texts shows that these two rivers were
eastern tributaries of the Sarasvati in Haryana.
V.
Ibha: the Elephant
I
have already dealt with this word in very heavy detail in a separate
article: "The Elephant and the Proto-Indo-European Homeland". However, it is an extremely important word―it is perhaps the most
important single word which helps to pinpoint the location of the
Proto-Indo-European Homeland. And, therefore, it is also the single most
controversial word in the Rigveda, that it has to be dealt with here very
briefly.
In the linguistic debate on the
subject of the Proto-Indo-European Homeland, the discussion of flora and fauna
holds a special position. As Mallory and Adams put it: "generally,
those concerned with locating the Indo-European homeland through its lexicon
tend to employ the evidence of its reconstructed fauna […] and flora"
(MALLORY-ADAMS:2006:131). But despite all
the arguments and bickering on the subject, the fact is that the reconstructed
fauna and flora generally represents animals and plants arguably found in all
the historical Indo-European areas, and so they cannot really point to any one
area as the Homeland.
The only exception is the word for the elephant/ivory:
it is found independently in four of the most ancient languages: Indo-Aryan íbha-, Greek eléphas
(Mycenean Greek erepa), Italic (Latin) ebur, and Hittite laḫpa-.
With a transfer of meaning to "camel", it is found in two more
branches: Germanic (e.g. Gothic) ulbandus, and Slavic (e.g. Old Church
Slavic) velibodŭ.
This one word is absolute proof of
the Indian Homeland because:
1. The elephant is native on the one
hand to India and southeast Asia, and, on the other, to sub-Saharan Africa.
India is the only historical Indo-European speaking land which has the elephant
native to it.
2. As per Mallory and Adams, the
criterion for determining a word to be definitely Proto-Indo-European is "if
there are cognates between Anatolian and any other Indo-European
language", to which they add: "This rule will not please
everyone, but it will be applied here" (MALLORY-ADAMS 2006:109-110).
Here, there are direct cognates between Anatolian (Hittite) and three
other independent branches, and indirectly two more.
However, honesty and objective study
is not a requirement in Indological or Indo-European studies, and so the
"scholars" keep rejecting the identity between the four (or six)
words or simply stonewall the evidence. In fact, in the process, they even
insist that the word íbha- in the Rigveda does not mean
"elephant" at all, but something like "servant, attendant"!
There is therefore a need to break
down this wall of conspiracy.
The elephant is referred to in the
Rigveda by three terms: íbha-, vāraṇá, and hastín. [Later
on there are many more: gaja, mātaṅga, kuñjara, dantī,
nāga, karī, etc. In the Rigveda itself, Griffith and Wilson
translate two more words as "elephant": apsah in VIII.45.56
and sṛṇí in X.106.6]
The tern hastín is generally
dismissed by Indologists as the meaning is very literal, "(the animal)
with a hand", and they treat this as evidence that the Indo-Aryans,
when they first "entered" India, were so struck by this magnificent and
unknown animal that they invented this very commonplace name for it.
But the word íbha- cannot be
so explained. In the AIT scenario, it would have been treated as a word
borrowed by the incoming "Aryans" from the natives. That cannot be
done here because:
1. There is no equivalent word in
any other non-Indo-European language of India, from which it could be
alleged to have been borrowed.
2. It is already an archaic word in
the Rigveda, found five times in the text, but already missing in the
Atharvaveda and later Vedic texts, till revived in the later Sutras and
Classical Sanskrit and Pali texts.
3. It is found directly in four
other Indo-European branches, and indirectly in two more.
The word would therefore not be just
an Old Rigvedic word but a very much pre-Rigvedic
word. That this is so is proved by the fact that the word íbha- has no
known etymological derivation: Pāṇini therefore merely gives the meaning in his
Uṇādi-Sūtras (which lists words for which he is not able to
provide the etymology) as hastī "elephant".
Therefore it is clear that íbha-
is that rare type of Vedic word which has already undergone a process of
Prakritization in the Rigveda. the logical pre-Prakritization form of íbha-
would be *ṛbha-. Like the related word ṛbhu in the Rigveda,
which, as MacDonell points out comes "from the root rabh, to
grasp, thus means 'handy', 'dexterous'" (MACDONELL 1897:133), this
word can also be derived from the same root. [A regular epithet of the ṛbhus
is su-hastah "deft-handed" in IV.33.8; 35.3,9;
V.42.12; VII.35.12; X.66.10].
Ironically, the name directly
found in four Indo-European branches, and indirectly in two
more, has an exactly similar etymology to the word hastin which is
dismissed by the Indologists as being too literal: the reconstructed PIE form
is *lebh/*ḷbhonth-. This
is exactly the Sanskrit root √ṛabh-/√labh-!
It explains all the variations in
the Indo-European words:
1. The initial r/l in
Greek eléphas (Mycenean Greek erepa) and Hittite laḫpa-,
as opposed to Indo-Aryan íbha- and Latin ebur.
2. The suffix *onth- in the
Greek elephantas and the Germanic words (ulbandus-, etc., and the
related Slavic words)―explained by the suffix -vanta (*ṛbha-vanta
would be "tusker", as the more regularly settled meaning of *ṛbha-
in all four branches was "tusk, ivory").
There is even more to this evidence:
right down to the fact that the ancient importance of ivory-trading in India
explains the dual meaning of ibha- in the Rigveda: ibha-
"elephant/ivory", ibhya "rich". The same root is
later associated with lābha, "profit", and the Goddess of
Wealth, Lakṣmī, is associated with elephants, and is called both Lābha-Lakṣmī
and Gaja-Lakṣmī.
This much is enough at this point to
the identity of the word íbha- with the elephant, and to round
off the subject of the clear historical message of Rigvedic geography.
Added 14/5/2020: The
Identity of the Sarayu river:
An
alert reader of another article of mine alerted me to make a correction I
should have made long ago. It is about the identity of the extremely important
river Sarayu in the Rigveda. In my very first book in 1993, I identified
it with the Siritoi river, a western tributary of the Indus, on
the basis of the identification by P.L. Bhargava in his invasionist book "India in the Vedic Age: A History of Aryan
Expansion in India". But the westward expansion of the Bharata
Pūrus (Indo-Aryans) in Book 4 was actually much deeper northwestwards
than I had taken it to be.
It
was definite that the Sarayu of the Rigveda was in Afghanistan as it
represented the westernmost thrust of the Bharata Pūrus.
But subsequently, I have found many reasons to doubt my earlier exact
identification with Siritoi rather than with the Harirud (Herat):
1.
The Siritoi is a very minor tributary, and in fact so minor that it will
be difficult to locate it on a map. It is in the south, in northern
Baluchistan, and it is a western tributary of the Zhob, which is
a southern tributary of the Gomal, which is itself a western
tributary of the Indus.
2.
In a late hymn in X.64.9, the reference is to the Three Great
Streams Sarasvati, Sarayu and Sindhu. It would be
surprising for an obscure tributary to be clubbed together with the two Great
Rivers of the Rigveda. However, if it is identified with the Harirud (Herat),
it makes sense, since these are three Great Rivers located within present-day
day India, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
3.
As a look at any map will show, any expansion across the Beas and Sutlej
(Vipāś and Śutudrī) and then across the Ravi and Chenab
(Paruṣṇī and Asiknī), and in the vicinity of the rivers Sindhu,
Kubhā and Krumu (mentioned
in V.53.9 with the Sarayu) will lead us close to the Harirud
(Herat) in Central Afghanistan and then further northwestwards,
rather than southwards in the region of the Siritoi.
The
Harirud river starts out from Central Afghanistan and flows westwards.
The Kubha (Kabul) river starts from around the same area, but
flows to the east and becomes a tributary of the Indus. This also
explains why Sarayu is mentioned in V.53.9 separately (although
in the same verse) from the Sindhu and its tributaries, Kubha, Krumu,
Anitabhā and Rasa which are mentioned together. The area of this
verse is Central Afghanistan.
4.
This is actually the central area of the Avestan Iranians.
5.
It also explains the appearance in subsequent Books of the Suvāstu (Swat
in the northernmost Khyber-Pakhunkhwa province of Pakistan), and the
Bactrian camel.
Further,
I recently find that in his original book, in 1956, Bhargava does not
specifically identify the Sarayu with the Siritoi. He identifies
it, of course, as "the river Sarayu, which was a western tributary of
the Indus" (BHARGAVA 1956:68). But he is not specific: "The
name Sarayu is mentioned more than once in the Rigveda, and the fact that is
never associated with Yamunā, Gangā or
any of the eastern rivers but is mentioned along with Kubhā, Krumu and Sindhu
proves that in Rigvedic times it was the name of a river of the north-west of
India, for there could be no meaning in associating a river of eastern India
with the rivers of the north-west frontier. Unfortunately it is not possible to
identify this river because it has changed name, as did several others"
(BHARGAVA 1956:70).
However,
in his much revised reprint of the book in 1971, which was the book
referred by me in 1993, he seems to make up his mind and specifically
writes "Gomatī and Sarayu [….] two of the western tributaries of
the Indus, now known as the Gomal and the Siritoi" (BHARGAVA
1956/1971: 132). Clearly, a wrong guess.
Having
accepted the identification in my first book, and since it tallied with the
general geography and history (i.e. the expansion into the westernmost area in
the Rigveda, west of the Indus), I simply carried on with it
out of sloth (perhaps subconsciously realizing that it would mean a correction
of all my earlier writings where I referred to the Sarayu as the Siritoi
or as a "western tributary of the Indus"!). On the same
ground, I had classified the geographical horizon of the Rigveda as "southern
and eastern Afghanistan" rather than simply as "Afghanistan"
in my earlier books, and I mechanically continued to copy-paste this phrase in
subsequent books and articles. I am grateful to reader Arunabha Roy for nudging
me into action to amend this error.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
BHARGAVA
1956:
India in the Vedic Age: A History of
Aryan Expansion in India. Upper India Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. Lucknow,
1956.
BHARGAVA
1956/1971:
India in the Vedic Age: A History of
Aryan Expansion in India. Upper India Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. Lucknow, reprint.
ERDOSY
1989: Ethnicity
in the Rigveda and its Bearing on the Question of Indo-European Origins. Erdosy, George. pp. 35-47 in “South Asian Studies” vol. 5.
London.
GRIFFITH
1889: The
Hymns of the Rig-Veda. (tr.) Griffith, Ralph T.H. Munshiram
Manoharlal, rep. 1987, Varanasi.
JAMISON-BRERETON
2014:
The Rigveda―The Earliest Religious Poetry of India. Oxford Univ. Press,
New York, 2014.
MACDONELL
1897:
Vedic Mythology. Macdonell, A.A. Verlag von Karl J. Trübner, Strassburg,
1897.
MALLORY-ADAMS
2006:
The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European
World. Mallory J.P. and Adams D.Q. Oxford University Press, 2006.
TALAGERI 2000: The
Rigveda: A Historical Analysis. Talageri S.G. Aditya Prakashan (New Delhi),
2000.
TALAGERI 2008: The Rigveda
and the Avesta: The Final Evidence. Talageri S.G. Aditya Prakashan (New
Delhi), 2008.
THOMAS 1883: The Rivers of the Vedas, and How the Aryans
entered India. Thomas, Edward. The Journal of the American Oriental
Society, 1883 (p.357-386).
WITZEL 1987: On the Localization of Vedic Texts and
Schools. Witzel, Michael. in “India and the Ancient World –History
Trade and Culture Before AD 650” ed. by Gilbert Pollet, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, vol. 25, Departement
Orientalistiek, Leuven.
WITZEL 1995b: Rgvedic History: Poets, Chieftains and
Politics. Witzel, Michael. pp. 307-352 in “The Indo-Aryans of
Ancient South Asia”, ed. by George Erdosy. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin.
WITZEL 1997b: The Development of the Vedic Canon and Its Schools: The
Social and Political Milieu.
Witzel, Michael. in “Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts”, ed. by M.Witzel,
Cambridge 1997 (being the proceedings of the International Vedic Workshop,
Harvard univ., June 1989).
WITZEL 1999: Substrate Languages in Old Indo-Aryan. EJVS 5-1,
1999.
WITZEL
2000a:
The Languages of Harappa. Witzel, Michael. Feb. 17, 2000.
WITZEL 2000b: The Home of the Aryans. Witzel, Michael. in
“Anusantyai, Fest schrift fur Johanna Norten zum” 70, Geburtstag. Ed. Almut
Hintze, Eva Tichy, JH Roll, 2000.
WITZEL 2001b: WESTWARD HO! The Incredible Wanderlust of the Rgvedic
Tribes Exposed by S. Talageri, at
http://users.primushost.com/~india/ejvs/ejvs0702/ejvs0702a.txt
Shrikant garu, I read your other blogs. However I didn't read this one. I came across this video of debate https://youtu.be/hrQ_vgfkxNg where the presenter after 27 mins says that there are five different words for wheel in tocharian and indo-iranian. I thought that is an interesting find and her reason is that they innovated but the other Indo-European didn't.
ReplyDeleteHi Ruthvik:
ReplyDeleteThat Tocharian diagram they are showing in that presentation is wrong. See the paper here by James Clackson
https://www.academia.edu/9452122/_The_Origins_of_the_Indic_Languages_the_Indo-European_model_in_Angela_Marcantonio_and_Girish_Nath_Jha_eds._Perspectives_on_the_origin_of_Indian_civilization_New_Delhi_259-287
"Thirdly,Anthony has an over-reliance on Sanskrit vocabulary: all of Anthony’s terms occur only in Sanskrit (as mentioned, the Tocharian box Figure 2 is a mistake). "
Sir I have a follow up question based on what you have typed above. You keep mentioning that the Rig Vedic people, more specifically the Bharata Purus, don't know of any places West of the Sarasvati river. Nows thats fine because the above data clearly indicates that. But on the West of the Purus were already living other Indo-Aryan tribes more specially the Proto-Indo-Iranians, as you claim. The about of data clearly points to the fact that the Rig Vedic (Purus) people moved from East to West, but it doesn't tell us the origin of the tribes further West. The Rig Vedic data doesn't shed light on the PIE homeland but rather the of homeland of the Purus and their migration West.
ReplyDeleteThe Rigveda is a book of the Bharata Purus and later of all the Purus. And it is not a history book. So it cannot tell us the origin of the other non-Puru western people, nor can it shed light on the PIE Homeland, which is a modern linguistic paradigm.
DeleteIt is the basic data in the Puranas and the linguistic evidence which proves the PIE Homeland in India. And if the overwhelming data about the proto-Iranians being to their west given in the other articles still makes it a matter of only my "claims" I cannot discuss that point further than I have already done.
If the evidence that the Purus were to the east of the Sarasvati around 3000 BCE in a purely "Aryan" area with even the rivers having "Aryan" names, can still somehow mean that India is not the Homeland, and that the Vedic Aryans (the Puru) left South Russia around 3000 BCE and stepped to the south of Central Asia after 1500 BCE, then I have no further evidence to add, and cannot repeat my three books and numerous articles in this reply.
Thanks for you reply. Very true and I agree with you. Do you have any idea what languages the Europeans spoke before adopting the Indo-European languages?
DeleteI do not claim I know everything. I only write what the available data and evidence shows. So I will not presume to be able to give satisfactory answers to every question. But ancient Etruscan and modern Basque (which is spoken in a small part of the border area between Spain and France) are two examples of non-Indo-European languages in Europe. There are no available records of other languages (known to me, though this may be my limitation of knowledge) but there must have been more whether related to these two or not.
DeleteThe fact is that when the IE language family was recognized, all the 12 branches were in different areas. There were no records in most of these areas for the earlier languages spoken in those areas, though in many of those areas the place-names and river names indicated
different languages. The Vedic area has the oldest records, the place and river names even in those olden times were purely IE, and the other textual and linguistic evidence shows that the other 11 branches migrated out from northwestern India in the pre-, Old and New periods.
Talageri ji is this a typo error?
ReplyDelete"But the western non-riverine names are completely missing in all the seven Family Books and are found only in the four latest non-Family Books of the Rigveda:"
seven Family Books and four latest non-Family books thats makes total 11 but total Mandalas/Books are 10.
Yes, there are only six family books. I will make the correction: thank you very much for pointing it out.
DeleteAnd regarding Raghavar Voltore question regarding the homeland of PIE, not sure but I think this may help a little bit.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.illinoislawreview.org/wp-content/ilr-content/articles/2012/5/Kar.pdf
Talageri ji are you aware of this author Robin Bradley Kar whose article link I have just replied.
ReplyDeleteStrangely enough he reject OIT but still places PIE in the IVC and in
its surrounding region like Bactria and eastern Iran.
No. Strange and Weird. I will keep the name in mind and check out what is his logic.
DeleteSir you could download his paper from the below link.
Delete"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=391190"
The name of the paper is "
On the Proto-Indo-European Language of the Indus Valley Civilization (and its Implications for Western Prehistory)"
I hope you will soon write a review about this paper.
Talageri ji can you please look into this paper which claims that the Language of Philistines was Indo-European.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=69428
A number of Scholars too asserted that Philistine spoke the IE dialect.
A number of Philistine-related words found in the Hebrew Bible are not Semitic, and can in some cases, with reservations, be traced back to Proto-Indo-European roots. For example, R.D. Barnett( Barnett, "The Sea Peoples" Sect. IV "The Philistines", New Cambridge Ancient History p. 17, critically remarked upon in Michael C. Astour's review article in Journal of the American Oriental Society, 92.3 (July – September 1972:457f.) traced the Philistine word for captain, seren,(Only used in Hebrew in connection with Philistine princes; the Philistine etymology ofseren, sranim was admitted by W.F. Albright in the New Cambridge Ancient History, vol. I, part I, p. 25, note 3.) which may be related to the Neo-Hittite sarawanas/tarawanas( Sandars, Nancy K., The Sea Peoples: Warriors of the Ancient Mediterranean, 1250–1150 BC, Thames and Hudson, 1978) or the Greek word tyrannos (itself possibly borrowed from one of the languages of western Anatolia).
(
Tyrannos is not a Greek word. It comes from one of the languages of Asia Minor and may have affinities with Lydian words and names," Robert Drews suggested, "The First Tyrants in Greece" Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 212 (2nd Quarter 1972:129–144) p. 138. Greek tradition recorded Gyges as the first ruler to whom tyrannos was applied (ibid.).
^ Helck W., Ein sprachliches Indiz für die Herkunft der Philister, in: Beiträge zur Namenforschung 21, 1983, p. 31.
^ Meriggi, P. "Schizzo della delineazione nominale dell'eteo geroglifico (Continuazione e fine)", in: Archivio Glottologico Italiano, 38, 1953. pp. 36-57.
^ Chantraine, P. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. Histoire des mots, vol. 4.1, 1968, p. 1146.
^ Gusmani 1969: R. Gusmani, Isoglossi lessicali Greco-Ittite, in: Studi linguistici in onore di Vittore Pisani, Brescia 1969, Vol. 1, p. 511-12.
^ Cornil, P. "Une étymologie étrusco-hittite", Atti del II Congresso Internazionale de Hittitologia, Pavía, 1995, p. 84-85.
^ Rabin, C. "Hittite Words in Hebrew", Or NS 32, 1963, pp. 113-39.
)
and Edward Sapir(Sapir, "Hebrew 'helmet,' a loanword, and its bearing on Indo-European phonology" Journal of the American Oriental Society 57.1 (March 1937:73–77). made a case for kōbá, "helmet", used of Goliath's copper helmet.[26] Some Philistine names, such as Goliath, Achish,(Achish has been connected to Greek (Ἀγχίσης) and Hurrian.) and Phicol, appear to be non-Semitic in origin, and Indo-European etymologies have been suggested.("Little is known of Philistine personal names, but the little we know seems to confirm Jacobsohn's Illyrian hypothesis", observes G. Bonfante (1946:254), who adduces Jacobsohn 1914 and Greek usages of Ἀγχίσης, the Greek rendering of Goliath.) Recently, an inscription dating to the late 10th/early 9th centuries BC with two names, very similar to one of the suggested etymologies of the popular Philistine name Goliath (compare Lydian Alyattes,(This connection was made by Georg Hüsing, according to Ferdinand Bork in AfO 13(1939–1941:227), noted by G. A. Wainwright, "Some Early Philistine History" Vetus Testamentum 9.1 (January 1959:73–84) p. 79 note 3.) Greek Kalliades, Carian Wljat) was found in the excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath.
In 2016 two scientists Giancarlo T. Tomezzoli and Reinhardt S. Stein revealed that one recently discovered Philistine inscription "LIUDI PADI PA WEDIMI" can be read as Slavic "People come and see", so they claimed that Philistine language had to be Proto-Slavic, Proto-Balto-Slavic or Indo-Iranic(Giancarlo T. Tomezzoli, Reinhardt S. Stein (2016) The Philistine Inscription 4.5 from Ashkelon (Israel). Advances in Anthropology.).
Shrikant Sir,
ReplyDeleteBut, astrophysicist Rajesh Kocchar identifies Saraswati with Helmand base on geo-morphology . The link for this --
(https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/306/contrasarav.htm&ved=2ahUKEwjfw-_xqIPsAhW7H7cAHRynAuEQFjAPegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw29clMlD9kh8eSp_cKl4yax )
Yes, he is the greatest astrophysicist in the world: his astrophysics has even proved that Ayodhya as well as the Ganga and Yamuna of the Rigveda are in Afghanistan. Clearly he has his devoted fans! But then there are flat-earth societies in many western countries, and millions of people believe anyone who does not believe (and believe only) in Christ or Mohammad will burn in hell for eternity. It takes all sorts to make this world!
DeleteAs I said, people who do not have the guts to tackle the tsunami of evidence and data presented by me should not waste my time by asking me to answer every bark.
Sir,
ReplyDeleteThe Book 2 being the latest of the Old Books (6,3,7,4 and 2) moving from East to West covering the geographical regions from Ganga to the western tributaries of Indus, why is that;
1. Book 2 is located only in the Saraswati area and not other rivers are mentioned,
2 While the immediately preceding book 4 completely leaves out Saraswati (and the eastern rivers)
Any specific reasons for this phenomena?
Thanks
Sriram
The composers did not name rivers and geographical landmarks for the express purpose of providing clues to future historians. They mentioned them naturally in some context, either of expansion or some specific event (a yajna, a battle, etc.) or in a prayer to the river, etc. The rivers of the Punjab appear in Books 3 and 7 in the context of events.
DeleteBook 2 and Book 4 both belong to the middle period: Book 2 represents the sedentary rishis around the Sarasvati engaged in rituals and composition of verses, and they do not refer to other rishis or to rivers other than the Sarasvati, and other rishis do not refer to them. Book 4 was composed by the westward expanding section of Puru Bharatas and is the only book which has no context of referring to the Sarasvati.