Chapter 8.
The Archaeological Case.
[This is chapter 8 of my book "The Rigveda and the Avesta - The Final Evidence" (2008). As the subject matter of most of the other chapters, such as the Avestan and Mitanni evidence, has been repeatedly given in my various blog articles, but the subject matter of this chapter has not been given, at least not in full and in one place, I thought it necessary to upload this chapter as a blog].
As
we have seen in the course of this book, the case for an Indo-European homeland
in India
is complete and final. But, it has long been ignored or vilified in official and
academic circles in favour of the prevalent AIT or Aryan Invasion Theory, and
politics and vested interests will see to it that this continues to be the case
for quite some time more. But we have presented new, and irrefutable, textual evidence in Section I of this book, and presented
a complete linguistic case in the previous
chapter; and the AIT will ultimately have
to collapse and make way for the OIT or the Out-of-India Theory (or the Indian
Homeland Theory) even in western academic circles ― though, of course, not without
a bitter struggle. But there are a few points to be made, and a few loose ends
to be tied. Hence this final chapter to sum up the case and present it in final
perspective.
From
the very beginning, i.e. from the first moment that the academic search for the
Indo-European homeland began, there have been three broad academic disciplines
involved in this field of study: linguistics, textual analysis, and
archaeology. We have already examined the linguistic evidence and the textual
evidence in detail. Now, in summing up, we will mainly examine the OIT case
from the archaeological perspective. This is important, since archaeology has always
been the weakest link in the AIT
chain.
In
fact, so weak, or rather so negative, has been the archaeological evidence for
the AIT that archaeologists as a class reject the AIT as it stands today. And
this is not only Indian archaeologists, but even most of the western archaeologists involved in the
study of India’s
past. So much so that (to take just one such example) in an academic volume of
papers devoted to the subject by western academicians, George Erdosy, in his
preface to the volume, stresses that this is a subject of dispute between
linguists and archaeologists, and that the idea of an Aryan invasion of India
in the second millennium BCE “has
recently been challenged by archaeologists, who ― along with linguists ― are
best qualified to evaluate its validity. Lack of convincing material (or
osteological) traces left behind by the incoming Indo-Aryan speakers, the
possibility of explaining cultural change without reference to external factors
and ― above all ― an altered world-view (Shaffer 1984) have all contributed to
a questioning of assumptions long taken for granted and buttressed by the
accumulated weight of two centuries of scholarship” (ERDOSY 1995:x).
Of
the papers presented by archaeologists in the volume (being papers presented at
a conference on Archaeological and Linguistic approaches to Ethnicity in
Ancient South Asia, held in Toronto from 4-6/10/1991), the paper by K.A.R.
Kennedy concludes that “while
discontinuities in physical types have certainly been found in South Asia, they
are dated to the 5th/4th, and to the 1st
millennium B.C. respectively, too early and too late to have any connection
with ‘Aryans’” (ERDOSY 1995:xii); the paper by J. Shaffer and D.
Lichtenstein stresses on “the indigenous
development of South Asian civilization from the Neolithic onward” (ERDOSY
1995:xiii); and the paper by J.M. Kenoyer stresses that “the cultural history of South Asia in the 2nd millennium
B.C. may be explained without reference to external agents” (ERDOSY
1995:xiv).
Erdosy
points out that the perspective offered by archaeology, “that of material culture […] is
in direct conflict with the findings of the other discipline claiming a key to
the solution of the ‘Aryan Problem’, linguistics […] In the face of such conflict, it may be difficult to find avenues of
cooperation, yet a satisfactory resolution of the puzzles set by the
distribution of Indo-Aryan languages in South Asia demands it […] to bridge the disciplinary divide […]”
(ERDOSY 1995:xi).
In
short, archaeology not only does not form part of any genuine case for the AIT,
but it actually stands in sharp opposition
to the AIT.
The
basic fact that archaeology fails to provide any evidence for the AIT is often
acknowledged even by scholars who represent the AIT side in the AIT-vs.-OIT
crusades. In the above volume, for example, it is Witzel’s papers which are
pitted against the papers of the archaeologists. But note what Witzel, in a
separate paper elsewhere, has to say on the matter:
“To begin with,
the details for the import of IA
language and culture still escape us […] None of the archaeologically identified post-Harappan cultures so far
found, from Cemetery H, Sarai Kala III, the early Gandhara and Gomal Grave
Cultures, does make a good fit for the culture of the speakers of Vedic […]
At the present moment, we can only state
that linguistic and textual studies confirm the presence of an outside,
Indo-Aryan speaking element, whose language and spiritual culture has
definitely been introduced, along with the horse and the spoked wheel chariot,
via the BMAC area into northwestern South Asia. However, much of present-day
Archaeology denies that. To put it in the words of Shaffer (1999:245) ‘A
diffusion or migration of a culturally complex ‘Indo-Aryan’ people into South
Asia is not described by the
archaeological record’ […] [But] the
importation of their spiritual and material culture must be explained. So far, clear archaeological evidence has just
not been found” (WITZEL 2000a:§15).
Therefore,
the question is: should the evidence of archaeology be treated as standing in
sharp opposition to the AIT or should archaeology merely be treated as having
no role to play in the AIT-vs.-OIT debate
(until actual decipherable
inscriptional evidence is discovered, either in the Harappan sites,
conclusively proving the language of the Harappans to be Indo-European or non-Indo-European, or in
archaeological sites further west and north, in Central Asia or further, revealing
a language which can be conclusively shown to be a form of pre-Rigvedic)?
[Either
way, it means that the entire AIT case is based only on linguistic and textual arguments. If so, the battle is
already won: the textual case we have presented in Section I of this book is
invincible and irrefutable; and so is the linguistic case presented by us in
the previous chapter (chapter seven), in contrast with the textual and
linguistic cases presented by the AIT scholars. We have already exposed most of
their arguments in our two earlier books ― arguments which are based on wholly
subjective and extremely flawed interpretations, and formulated by sweeping
numerous inexplicable facts under the carpet. But even if the textual and
linguistic arguments presented by the
scholars are still to be considered to be in the running, they are definitely
weak and subjective compared to the massive textual and linguistic evidence presented in this book].
If
the AIT scholars were to accept the latter proposition, that archaeology has no
role to play in the AIT-vs.-OIT debate, we could rest our case at this point.
But AIT scholars leave no stone unturned in trying to demonstrate an
archaeological case for the AIT. At the same time, for example, Witzel tries to
turn the tables on the OIT, on the principle that attack is the best form of
defence, by demanding archaeological evidence for the OIT: “Further, if the Iranians (and IEs)
emigrated from India, why do we not find ‘Indian bones’ of this massive
emigration in Iran and beyond? […] Again,
autochthonists would have to argue that mysteriously only that section of the
Panjab population left westwards which had (then actually not attested!)
‘non-Indian’ physical characteristics, ― very special pleading indeed”
(WITZEL 2005:368). [Witzel, as usual, decides for himself what the
“autochthonists” or OIT writers would argue, and then goes on to show that “their” arguments amount to “special pleading”!]
Therefore
it becomes necessary for us to demonstrate conclusively that archaeology is not neutral in the debate so far as the
AIT case is concerned: archaeology stands in sharp opposition to the AIT and conclusively disproves it. At the same
time, archaeology is more or less neutral
so far as the OIT case is concerned: although there is obviously no conclusive archaeological
evidence for the OIT scenario, this circumstance does not disprove the OIT. There
are many basic reasons why archaeological evidence is vital for the AIT to be
accepted as valid, but archaeological evidence is not vital for the OIT to
be accepted as valid, and we will see this in detail in this chapter.
We
will examine the case under the following heads:
8A.
The Archaeological Case Against the AIT.
8B.
The Case for the OIT.
8B-1. The PGW (painted grey ware) Culture as
the Vedic Culture.
8B-2. The Harappan Civilization as the
Rigvedic Culture.
8B-3. The Indo-European Emigrations.
8C.
The Importance of the Rigveda.
8A. The Archaeological Case Against the
AIT.
As
we have seen, the archaeologists are almost unanimous on the point that there
is absolutely no archaeological evidence
for any change in the ethnic composition and the material culture in the
Harappan areas between “the 5th/4th
and […] the 1st
millennium B.C.”, and that there was “indigenous
development of South Asian civilization from the Neolithic onward”; and further
that any change which took place before “the
5th/4th […]
millennium B.C.” and after “the 1st
millennium B.C.” is “too early and too late to have any
connection with ‘Aryans’”.
This
deals a death blow to the AIT, since there is no way in which the postulates of
the AIT can be readjusted so as to bring the “Aryans” into India before the 5th/4th
millennium BCE or after the 1st millennium BCE. Therefore, the main concern of historians and linguists
involved in the AIT-vs.-OIT debate, or even merely in the study of ancient
Indian history in the light of the Aryan problem, is to find ways and means by
which the AIT can still be maintained within the required time-frame without
prejudice to the archaeological situation.
Witzel,
for example, suggests that the Aryan arrival into, and subsequent presence in
and domination of, the region resulted in a change in language and spiritual
culture rather than in material
culture, and that, therefore, it would not necessarily reflect in the
archaeological record: “much or most of
the IA cultural and spiritual data can simply not be ‘seen’ by Archaeology: it
would look just like the remains of any other group of second millennium
pastoralists […] the South Asian
discontinuity of the second millennium is not one of the local food (or
pottery) producing cultures, but one of language, poetry, spiritual culture,
though it also includes some material culture, such as the ― not yet discovered
― Vedic chariots” (WITZEL 2000a:§15).
This is clearly “special pleading”:
Aryan “language, poetry and spiritual culture” did not come into northwestern
India in the form of telepathic waves which mysteriously engulfed the entire
population of the northwest (and later, progressively, the whole rest of
northern India), rather like in modern Hollywood blockbusters about alien
invasions, resulting in a complete
collective amnesia in the local population and replacing their earlier
“language, poetry and spiritual culture” with the new Aryan ones. If these came from outside, they must have been brought in by new people,
who, in any reasonable hypothesis must have been of a distinctly different race
from the indigenous population, numerous and powerful enough to affect the
change. So we have to very definitely
find evidence of this complete transformation reflected in the archaeological and
anthropological record ― if it ever
occurred. The fact that no such evidence is found (not even the Vedic
chariots, whose “material” nature at least is accepted by Witzel above) is evidence in itself ― evidence against the AIT.
To
fully comprehend the utterly incredible
and impossible nature of the scenario that the AIT wants us to accept, it
is important to first examine certain fundamental
aspects, the where, what, when and how of the AIT case:
A transformation is alleged to have taken place in the Harappan areas in the
second millennium BCE. Where
is this transformation alleged to have taken place? What is the exact transformation that is alleged to have
taken place? When, or within
how long a period of time, is this transformation alleged to have taken place? How is this transformation
alleged to have taken place?
1.
Where is this
transformation alleged to have taken place? This transformation is alleged
to have taken place in the area of one of the Great Civilizations of the
ancient world: a full-fledged, highly developed (in terms of technology as well
as civic organization) and highly populated civilization, the largest and most organized civilization of the time.
2. What is the exact
transformation that is alleged to have taken place? The first and foremost
point is that the people of the Harappan areas, who were allegedly speaking a
totally unrelated (to Indo-European) language, or languages, Munda, Dravidian,
proto-Burushaski or Language X, completely
abandoned that language, or those languages, and switched over to speaking
Indo-European (specifically “Indo-Aryan”) languages. And this switchover was so total that not a trace remains of the
original language (except stray words in Vedic or later Indo-Aryan, which are
alleged by certain linguists to be substrate
words from those languages, but which, by their nature, would appear, if
anything, more to be non-basic adstrate words adopted from neighbour or
visitor languages: for example, a word which appears to be undoubtedly of
Dravidian origin, the Vedic word kāṇa,
“one-eyed”, from Dravidian kaṇ,
“eye”).
This
situation is unique, extraordinary and unparalleled in more ways than one: the
linguistic transformation was allegedly so complete that even the names of places and rivers in the area
were so completely Indo-Europeanized
or “Aryanized” that not a trace remains, even in the oldest hymns, of any
alleged earlier “non-Aryan” names.
About
place names, Witzel points out that most of the place-names in England
(including all names ending in -don,
-chester, -ton, -ham, -ey, -wick,
etc. like London, Winchester, Uppington, Downham, Westrey, Lerwick, etc) and America (like Massachussetts,
Wachussetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Chicago, etc.), are remnants of older
languages spoken in these areas. But about India,
he writes: “In South Asia, relatively
few pre-Indo-Aryan place-names survive in the North; however, many more in
central and southern India.
Indo-Aryan place-names are generally not very old, since the towns themselves
are relatively late” (WITZEL 1995a:104). Witzel talks about “relatively few pre-Indo-Aryan names” in
the North, but does not bother to give details about these “few” names. That there should be “many more in central and southern India”, in
and close to the Munda and Dravidian speaking areas, is not surprising, and is
irrelevant to the discussion here. The excuse that the paucity or lack of “pre-Indo-Aryan” place-names in the
North is due to “the towns themselves”
being “relatively late” is extremely
strange: it is the allegedly “pre-Indo-Aryan”
Harappans who had innumerable towns and cities, while the Vedic “Indo-Aryans” were allegedly pastoral
nomads “on the move”, and yet Witzel
proffers the above excuse, after having just pointed out that the pre-colonial
place-names of the native American Indians of the USA, who had no towns and cities, have survived in large numbers to this
day!
About
river-names, likewise, Witzel writes: “A
better case for the early linguistic and ethnic history of India can be
made by investigating the names of rivers. In Europe,
river names were found to reflect the languages spoken before the influx of
Indo-European speaking populations. They are thus older than c. 4500-2500 B.C.
(depending on the date of the spread of Indo-European languages in various
parts of Europe).” (WITZEL 1995a:104-105).
But, in sharp contrast, “in northern India rivers in
general have early Sanskrit names from the Vedic period, and names derived from
the daughter languages of Sanskrit later on.” (WITZEL 1995a:105).
Witzel
makes the situation very clear: “To sum
up, what does the evidence of hydronomy tell us? Clearly there has been an
almost complete Indo-Aryanization in northern India […] This leads to the conclusion that the
Indo-Aryan influence, whether due to actual settlement, acculturation or, if
one prefers, the substitution of Indo-Aryan names for local ones, was powerful
enough from early on to replace local names, in spite of the well-known
conservatism of river names. This is especially surprising in the area once
occupied by the Indus Civilisation where one would have expected the survival
of older names, as has been the case in Europe and the Near
East. At the least, one would expect a palimpsest, as found in New
England with the name of the state of Massachussetts next to the Charles river,
formerly called the Massachussetts river, and such new adaptations as Stony
Brook, Muddy Creek, Red River, etc., next to the adaptations of Indian names
such as the Mississippi and the Missouri”. According to Witzel, this
alleged “failure to preserve old
hydronomes even in the Indus Valley” is indicative of “the extent of the social and political collapse experienced by the
local population” (WITZEL 1995a:106-107).
What
is more, the transformation is not restricted to language alone: “What is
relatively rare is the adoption of complete
systems of belief, mythology and language from neighbouring peoples […] Yet, in South Asia we are dealing precisely
with the absorption of not only new languages but also of an entire complex of
material and spiritual culture, ranging from chariotry and horsemanship to
Indo-Iranian poetry whose complicated conventions are still actively used in
the Ṛgveda. The old Indo-Iranian religion, centred on the opposition of Devas
and Asuras, was also adopted, along with Indo-European systems of ancestor
worship.” (WITZEL 1995a:112).
Therefore,
the transformation that is alleged to have taken place in the Harappan areas
was absolutely total. It is alleged
to have left almost no traces whatsoever of the original “belief, mythology and language”, or of the original “complex of material and spiritual culture”, other than “complex” clues that scholars like Witzel, and his predecessors and
colleagues in the AIT cottage industry, have occasionally managed to dig out
for our benefit. The local people not only adopted “Indo-European systems of ancestor worship”, they completely abandoned
and forgot their own actual ancestors and their own actual ancestral history,
and adopted the ancestors and ancestral history of the “Indo-Aryans” as their own.
3.
When, or within how long a
period of time, is this transformation alleged to have taken place? It is
alleged to have commenced some time after 1500 BCE, and was more or less
completed within a period of 200 to 400 years.
4.
How is this transformation
alleged to have taken place? The earlier versions of the manner in which
this transformation took place (outright old-fashioned invasion and conquest)
have been progressively watered down in the face of the open rejection by
archaeologists and anthropologists: from invasion to immigration, and from
immigration to “trickling in”.
Here
is Witzel’s now standard version of how this transformation took place (note
that he, typically, refers to the unanimous scientific observations of Indian and western archaeologists and
anthropologists as the views of “autochthonists”):
“Autochthonists […] maintain
that there is no evidence of demographic discontinuity in archaeological
remains during the period from 4500 to 800 BCE, and that an influx of foreign
populations is not visible in the archaeological record.
The
revisionists and autochthonists overlook, however, that such refutations of an
immigration by ‘racially’ determined IAs still depend on the old, nineteenth
century idea of a massive invasion of
outsiders who would have left a definite mark on the genetic set-up of the
local Panjab population. Presently we do not know how large this particular
influx of linguistically attested outsiders was. It can have been relatively
small, if we apply Ehret’s model (1988, derived from Africa,
cf. Diakonoff 1985) which stresses the osmosis
(or a ‘billiard ball’, or Mallory’s Kulturkugel)
effect of cultural transmission.
Ehret (1988)
underlines the relative ease with which ethnicity and language shift in small societies, due to the cultural/economic/military
choices made by the local population
in question. The intruding/influencing group bringing new traits may initially
be small and the features it contributes can be fewer in number than those of
the preexisting local culture. The newly formed, combined ethnic group may then
initiate a recurrent, expansionist
process of ethnic and language shift. The material record of such shifts is
visible only insofar as new prestige equipment or animals (the ‘status kit’,
with new intrusive vocabulary!) are concerned. This is especially so if pottery
― normally culture-specific ― continues to be made by local specialists of a
class-based society
[…] the
descriptions given just now fit the Indus/Ved. evidence perfectly.” (WITZEL
2005:347).
Elsewhere
Witzel adds another fairy-tale dimension to this story:
“small-scale
semi-annual transhumance movements between the Indus plains and the Afghan and
Baluchi highlands continue to this day (Witzel 1995:322, 2000) […] Just one ‘Afghan’ IA tribe that did not
return to the highlands but stayed in their Panjab winter quarters in spring
was needed to set off a wave of acculturation in the plains by transmitting its
‘status kit’ (Ehret) to its neighbors” (WITZEL 2005:342).
The
above attempt, to downplay or bypass the archaeological evidence by trying to
suggest a way in which the “Indo-Aryans” could have brought about the alleged
transformation in the Harappan areas in the 2nd millennium BCE
without leaving any trace of it in the archaeological record, is full of
anomalies, contradictions and impossible
assumptions:
1.
The totality of the alleged transformation itself
is clearly unparalleled and unprecedented, and in every way contrary to the normal: Witzel himself,
see above, repeatedly describes different aspects of it as “surprising”, “relatively rare” and against
what “one would have expected” in
such cases. The case becomes impossible
when we consider all the aspects together: (a) the transformation was total, (b) the people who brought about
this transformation were illiterate, pastoral nomadic tribes “on the move” who “trickled” into the area in miniscule numbers, (c) the people who
were transformed were the inhabitants of the most densely populated urban
civilization of the time, covering a larger area, and having a relatively
longer continuity without much change, than any other contemporary
civilization, (d) the change took place within a few hundred years, and (e) it
left absolutely no traces in the
archaeological record, either of the conflicts and struggles involved or the necessarily resultant changes in
ethnic and material composition of the areas after the transformation. It
requires extraordinary “special pleading” to advocate such a
case.
What
is particularly notable in this special pleading is that it asks us to believe
in a combination of abnormal
phenomena and lack of evidence. Thus, for example, we could have accepted, in
principle, that the river names of the Harappan areas (in an AIT scenario) may
have been “Indo-Aryanised”, if
transformation of river names were the norm in such cases, even in the absence of evidence in this case of any
earlier names. But it is not the
norm: as Witzel points out, the names of most European rivers, to this day, “reflect the languages spoken before the influx of Indo-European
speaking populations [and] are thus older
than c. 4500-2500 B.C.” Again, we would have had to accept that such a transformation took place here, even if
it went contrary to the norm, if earlier “non-Indo-Aryan” names of these rivers
were on record at least in the texts. But there is not the faintest clue, even
in the oldest hymns, that any such names ever existed. This pleading therefore
goes both against the norm as well as
against the available evidence.
What
adds to the force of the archaeological evidence (of continuity in material and
ethnic culture) is the fact that there is
considerable acceptable archaeological, as also hydronomic, evidence, for the
Indo-European intrusions, in the case of the earliest habitats of most of the
other Indo-European branches, although the immigrants either entered over long
periods of time into totally prehistoric or primitive areas (in most of
Europe), or they entered historic, civilized areas but were quickly absorbed
into the local culture and gradually became extinct (e.g. the Hittites etc. in
West Asia). So here, more than in any
of the other cases, we should have
found massive and unambiguous evidence of the “Indo-Aryan” intrusions, if they ever took place. The total absence of any indications in the material remains of the area, of such a
cataclysmic transformation, constitutes massive
evidence for the rejection of the very idea that such a transformation took
place at all.
2.
Witzel’s attempt to co-opt Ehret’s theory (whatever its supposed merits), which
pertained to cultural transmissions in Africa, to the situation in northern India,
proves, at the very outset, to be untenable. There are many obvious points, in
Witzel’s own description of his
so-called “Ehret’s model”, which
show it, far from “fit[ting] the Indus/Ved. evidence perfectly” as
he claims, to be totally inapplicable
as an analogy to the “Indus/Ved.” situation:
(a)
The Harappan civilization was not a “small
society”: it was a densely populated
civilization, covering a larger area,
and remaining unchanged over a longer
period of time, than any other
contemporary civilization of the time.
(b)
The “local population”, inhabitants
of one of the world’s largest, most organized and advanced civilizations of the
time, would be extremely unlikely to have made conscious “choices” to replace their culture and language with the culture and
language of miniscule (invisible to the
archaeological record) intruding groups of a pastoral, illiterate, nomadic
people “on the move”.
(c)
The total replacement of the “preexisting local culture” and language
with the new culture and language (so total that not a shred remains of the earlier culture or language), which is alleged
to have taken place in the Harappan areas, clearly can not be analogical to a
situation where an “intruding/influencing
group” brings “new traits [which] may initially be small and [where] the features it contributes can be fewer in number than those of the
preexisting local culture”.
(d)
When Witzel himself repeatedly accepts that the horses and chariots of the
“Aryans” are yet to be found in the archaeological record, how is it analogical
to a situation where apparently “the
material record of such shifts is visible only insofar as new prestige
equipment or animals (the ‘status kit’, with new intrusive vocabulary!) are
concerned”? (Note, also, that here Witzel cites the evidence of horses and
chariots, when admittedly not found,
as “visible” evidence, while
explaining away the actually visible
evidence found, of continuation in pottery types, as culture-irrelevant in this
case even when he admits it to be “normally
culture-specific”).
3.
Moreover, Witzel cites “Ehret’s model”
(totally inappropriate and inadequate as we have just seen it to be) when he is
dealing with the archaeological
evidence against the AIT, to try to illustrate
how linguistic and cultural transformations can take place with minimum effect
on the visible material environment, and even goes so far as to suggest that
the total transformation of the
Harappan areas was due to a “wave of
acculturation” set off by one small tribe of “Indo-Aryans” from
Afghanistan, who overstayed their annual migration from Afghanistan to Punjab
and back. Fully aware that “a massive invasion of outsiders […] would have left a definite mark on the
genetic set-up of the local Panjab population”, which is totally missing, he dismisses the very idea of
such an invasion as an “old, nineteenth
century idea”. In his earlier paper in 1995, he tells us that the “idea of a cataclysmic invasion has, in fact,
been given up long ago by Vedic scholars […] In view of these facts, it would not be surprising if physical
anthropologists failed to unearth any ‘Aryan skeletons’ […]” (WITZEL
1995b:323).
But,
when he is analyzing the textual data
to try to find evidence for the AIT, it is a different story. In typical
Witzellian style, i.e. in the very same
pages where he is disowning the idea of a “cataclysmic invasion”, Witzel presents us with a full-fledged invasionist account of the Aryan
intrusion in the Harappan areas: as per this account, the “Indo-Aryans” fought
their way through the mountains of Afghanistan, storming innumerable mountain
fortresses, sometimes after long and bitter 40-year campaigns, and finally
reached the Harappan areas. “On the
plains of the Panjab, the Indo-Aryans had further battles to fight”, with numerous
“explicit descriptions of campaigns”,
recorded in the Rigveda, in which the “Indo-Aryans” “destroyed” hundreds of forts and, on different occasions, “put to sleep”, “put down” or “dispersed”
30,000, 50,000 and 100,000 natives (WITZEL 1995b:322, 324). Ultimately, there
was a total “social and political
collapse experienced by the local population” (WITZEL 1995a:106-107).
So,
clearly, the make-believe “model” of a magical transformation brought about by
“a process of acculturation” “triggered” by “a limited number of Indo-Aryan speakers” (WITZEL 1995b:323) is
meant to be brought out only when required as a counter to the undeniable
evidence of an undisturbed archaeological and anthropological continuity in the
Harappan areas between “the 5th/4th
and […] the 1st
millennium B.C.” In other contexts,
there are other “models”.
Witzel
is finally compelled to fall back on open pleading as follows: “any archaeologist should know from experience
that the unexpected occurs and that one has to look at the right place”
(WITZEL 2000a:§15). In other words, “there is no archaeological evidence, true.
But it must be there somewhere, it is just that no-one has found it as yet; it
is only just waiting to be found”! As if some yet-to-be-discovered sites could provide the archaeological and
anthropological evidence, for a total
transformation which affected the entire
region, which is missing in all the discovered
sites from the same region. This is the sort of wishful appeal-to-faith
pleading that Indians are (not unjustly) accused of resorting to when their
ideas of ancient India
are out of tune with the material evidence: see discussion on spoked wheels in
section 6B of this book. By Witzel’s logic, even the claim of many Indians that
ancient India
had aeroplanes should not be dismissed simply because aeroplanes have not yet
been found in any archaeological record!
In
continuation of the above, Witzel pleads: “people
on the move (such as the Huns) leave few traces” (WITZEL 2000a:§15). This
explanation does not apply to the alleged immigrations, since the alleged
immigrants were not “on the move”: they allegedly came to a
halt in northwestern India,
their earliest attested historical habitat, where they completely transformed
the linguistic, social and cultural ethos of the area and established the
historically important Vedic civilization depicted in the Rigveda. [On the
other hand, emigrants from India would be more likely to be “on the move” and therefore to “leave few traces” in Afghanistan or Central Asia].
This
was the evidence against the AIT from the point of view of the alleged
transformation in the Harappan areas: i.e. we examined certain fundamental aspects, the where, what, when and how of the AIT case for the
transformation that is alleged to have taken place in the Harappan areas in the
second millennium BCE, and found that the case is utterly untenable in view of the undisturbed archaeological and
anthropological continuity in the Harappan areas between the “the 5th/4th and […] the 1st millennium B.C.”.
But
the case can be seen from another point of view: from the point of view of the
reconstructed proto-Indo-European language and culture. For this, we will
examine two more fundamental aspects of the AIT case: the who, and another what,
of the AIT case: Who exactly
were the people who brought about this alleged transformation (apart from the
fact that they were “Indo-Aryans”)? What
was the relationship of this transformed culture (as reflected in the Rigveda)
with the reconstructed proto-Indo-European culture?
1.
Who exactly were the people
who brought about this alleged transformation? They were, of course,
“Indo-Aryans”; but what exactly does this mean?
As
per the AIT, the original homeland of the Indo-European family of languages was
in South Russia, or “somewhere within a
vast area ‘from East Central Europe to Eastern Russia’” (HOCK 1999a:16);
and it was in this area that the original proto-Indo-European language split up
into various different Dialects (the later branches), two of which were
proto-Iranian and proto-Indo-Aryan, or, according to some, one of which was
proto-Indo-Iranian. The original
Indo-Iranians were the original speakers of this proto-Indo-Iranian Dialect
in South Russia:
a)
These original Indo-Iranians were separated
from the other Indo-European groups at very early periods: according to Victor
H. Mair (MAIR 1998:847-853), for example, the Indo-Iranians were already
separated from the speakers of the Anatolian and Tocharian Dialects by 3700
BCE, from the speakers of the Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic and
Albanian Dialects by 3200 BCE, from the speakers of the Greek Dialect by 2500
BCE, and from the speakers of the Armenian Dialect by 2000 BCE.
b)
After separating from most of the other Indo-European groups (perhaps only the
Armenians remained with them for some time after), these original Indo-Iranians
started migrating eastwards from South Russia.
In the course of their long and stage-wise journey from South Russia to Central
Asia, they were part of different cultural complexes on the way at different
points of time: suggested stages in the Indo-Iranian migrations have the
Indo-Iranians as part of the Andronovo Culture in the Pontic-Caspian area and later
the Afanas’evo Culture to the north of Central Asia.
All along the way, the original Indo-Iranians underwent ethnic changes as they
mixed with different local populations.
c)
Finally, they reached Central Asia, where they
formed part of the BMAC or Bactria-Margiana Cultural Complex. Here, the
original Indo-Iranians, now differentiated into two distinct groups,
proto-Iranians and proto-Indo-Aryans, merged into the local population. As
Witzel puts it, by the time the Indo-Aryans “reached the Subcontinent they were already racially mixed […] they may have had the typical somatic
characteristics of the ancient populations of the Turanian/Iranian/Afghan areas
[…] even before their immigration into
South Asia [they] completely ‘Aryanized’
a local population, for example, in the Turkmenian-Bactrian area which yielded
the BMAC, involving both their language and culture. This is only imaginable as
the result of the complete acculturation of both groups. To an outside
observer, the local Bactrians would have appeared as a typically ‘Vedic’ people
with a Vedic civilization. Later on, (part of) this new people would have moved
into the Panjab, assimilating (‘Aryanizing’) the local population” (WITZEL
1995a:113).
Hock
also makes the same plea: “it is
unrealistic to believe that the āryas descended on India in a sudden movement, and
from far-away lands. It is more likely that they migrated slowly, in small
tribal groups […] from one habitable
area to the next, settling for a while, and in the process, assimilating to the
local population in terms of phenotype, culture, and perhaps also religion. By
the time they reached northwestern India they would, therefore, have been
fairly similar to the population of that area in terms of their physical
appearance and culture” (HOCK 1999b:160-161).
Therefore,
the “Indo-Aryans” who brought about
the transformation in the Harappan areas were not the original Indo-Aryans at all. They were a “new people” totally unrelated to the
other Indo-European groups, except perhaps the Iranians of the BMAC areas, and
only related to the original
proto-Indo-Aryans of the original homeland (who were themselves separated
from the other Indo-European groups at very early periods in distant lands) to
the same extent as a drop of homoeopathic tincture many times diluted in water is
related to the original tincture.
It
was this “new people”, these highly diluted new “Indo-Aryans”, who “trickled
into” the Harappan areas in miniscule groups and, gradually over a period of
time, brought about the total transformation that we saw earlier. The Rigveda
was composed at the end of this whole
process, after the whole
transformation had more or less taken place: Witzel quotes and endorses F.B.J.
Kuiper’s linguistic opinion that “between
the arrival of the Aryans … and the formation of the oldest hymns of the
Rigveda a much longer period must have elapsed than is normally thought”,
and insists that “Vedic Sanskrit is
already an Indian language”
(WITZEL 1995a:108).
[Incidentally,
Hock, quoted above, goes on to argue, like Witzel, that this model of Aryan
entry into India explains the skeletal continuity in the second millennium BCE,
and he even gives other supposedly parallel cases in India: “Interestingly, skeletal continuity seems also to hold for later, historical periods ─ even though we know for certain that there
were numerous migrations or invasions into South Asia, by groups as diverse as
the Greeks, the Central Asian Huns, the Iranian Sakas, and Muslims from Iran,
Central Asia, and even the Arab world” (HOCK 1999b:161). As in all such AIT
arguments, the parallels cited prove exactly the opposite of what is claimed. The Greeks, Huns and Sakas were
genuinely small in number, and they simply got merged into the local
populations, in terms of “phenotype,
culture, and […] religion”, and language, and lost their original
identity; unlike the “Indo-Aryans” who are supposed to have preserved their original identity: in
fact it is the local populations all over northern India who are alleged
to have got merged into the small group of Aryan immigrants in terms of at
least “culture, and […] religion”, and language, and to have completely lost their original identity!
Likewise, the Muslims were also small in number, but, unlike the Vedic Aryans,
they were armed with a militant proselytizing ideology which compelled them to merge local
populations into themselves in terms of at least “culture, and […] religion”,
in spite of which the local populations managed to retain their original “culture, and […] religion” on a major scale. And in all these instances, detailed records and memories, and other
factors like the original hydronomy and languages, have remained as witnesses
to these numerous “migrations or
invasions”; unlike in the case of the alleged Indo-Aryan “migrations or invasions”, which have
had to be repeatedly sought to be “proved” in the course of the last two
centuries to a bemused Indian populace, in the absence of such witnesses].
2.
What was the relationship
of this transformed culture (as reflected in the Rigveda) with the
reconstructed proto-Indo-European culture? The answer is that this
transformed culture was extremely close
to, and most representative of, the
reconstructed proto-Indo-European culture, both in language as well as in
religion and mythology. As Griffith
puts it in the preface to the first edition of his translation of the Rigveda:
“The great interest of the Ṛgveda is, in fact, historical rather
than poetical. As in its original language we see the roots and shoots of the
languages of Greek and Latin, of Kelt, Teuton and Slavonian, so the deities,
the myths, and the religious beliefs and practices of the Veda throw a flood of
light upon the religions of all European countries before the introduction of
Christianity.”
Any
number of detailed quotes can be cited here, from linguists and historians
through two centuries, to show how Vedic is the most archaic, and the most representative,
of the different Indo-European languages. This is totally without prejudice to
the fact that it is also supposed to represent many changes from the original; and
that other archaisms, of different kinds, are found preserved in different
other branches of Indo-European languages so that, for example, even the
Avestan language contains certain phonetic archaisms not found in Vedic.
Here
we are concerned with the nature of the culture of the Rigveda as represented
in what Griffith
above calls “the deities, the myths, and
the religious beliefs and practices of the Veda”. Rigvedic mythology is
undoubtedly the most archaic and
representative of all the Indo-European mythologies [This subject has
already been dealt with in detail in earlier books (TALAGERI 1993:377-399,
TALAGERI 2000:477-495; TALAGERI 2005:334-336), and what follows is mainly taken
from the last, which summarizes the situation in brief. AIT scholars have determinedly persisted in failing to recognize the
vital significance, importance and relevance of this actual evidence of
comparative mythology, their idea of comparative Indo-European mythology
being restricted to purely subjective, and allegedly
mythological, concepts like “tripartite functions”]:
a)
The mythology of the Rigveda represents the most primitive form of
Indo-European mythology: as Macdonell puts it, for example, the Vedic gods “are nearer to the physical phenomena which
they represent, than the gods of any other Indo-European mythology” (MACDONELL
1963:15).
In
fact, in the majority of cases, the original
nature myths, in which the mythological entities and the mythological events
are rooted, can be identified or traced only
through the form in which the myths are represented in the Rigveda.
b)
All the other Indo-European
mythologies, individually, have numerous mythological elements in common
with Vedic mythology, but very few
with each other; and even these few (except those borrowed from each other in
ancient but historical times, such as the Greek god Apollo, borrowed by the
Romans) are ones which are also found in Vedic mythology.
Thus,
the only Indo-European element in Hittite mythology is the god Inar, cognate to the Vedic Indra. Likewise, Baltic Perkunas (Parjanya) and Slavic Pyerun
(Parjanya), Svarog (Svarga), Ogon (Agni) and Bog (Bhaga) have their parallels in the
Rigveda.
In
many cases, it is almost impossible
to recognize the connections between related mythological entities and events
in two Indo-European mythologies without a comparison of the two with the
related Vedic versions. Thus, for example, the Teutonic Vanir are connected with the Greek Hermes and Pan, but it is
impossible to connect the two except through the Vedic Saramā and Paṇi (see
TALAGERI 2000:477-495 for details).
The
main Vedic myth which relates to the Saramā-Paṇi theme is found in the Rigveda
in X.108, and it is found in later
developed forms in the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa (II.440-442) and the Bṛhaddevatā
(VIII 24-36). And it is found in both the Teutonic and Greek mythologies in
versions which bear absolutely no similarities with each other, but which are
both, individually, clearly
recognizable as developments of the
original Vedic myth.
The
myth, as it is found in X.108,
incidentally, is itself an evolved and anthropomorphized form, located in the latest of the ten Books of the Rigveda,
of an original nature-myth, found referred to at various places in earlier
parts of the Rigveda, according to which “Saramā
is the Dawn who recovers the rays of the Sun that have been carried away by
night” (Griffith’s note to I.62.3) or by the Paṇis who are “fiends of darkness” or “demons who carry away and conceal the cows
or rays of light” (Griffith’s note to I.151.9).
c)
Iranian mythology, which should share to some extent at least the same
character as Vedic mythology (since it is held that it was the undivided Indo-Iranians, and not the
Indo-Aryans alone, who separated from the other Indo-European groups in South
Russia and migrated to Central Asia where they shared a common culture and
religion), on the contrary, has no
elements in common with other Indo-European mythologies (other than with
Vedic mythology itself).
To
sum up: AIT scholars seek to explain away the archaeological evidence (of an
undisturbed archaeological and anthropological continuity in the Harappan areas
between the “the 5th/4th
and […] the 1st
millennium B.C.”) by postulating an impossible scenario (that the
population over the entire vast area of the most densely populated and highly
organized civilization of ancient times, was completely transformed in language, religion and culture to an
extent unparalleled anywhere else in the world and contrary to all norms, by a
small group of nomads “trickling” into their midst, within a few centuries, without
leaving any trace of it in the
archaeological and anthropological record or in the memories of either of the
peoples concerned or of their joint progeny ─ further, note that this process
continued in a similar manner in successive stages till it covered most of
northern India). Then they compound this further with an equally impossible
corollary scenario (that this small group of nomads, who were the highly diluted cultural-linguistic descendants of a totally different “Indo-Aryan”
race which lived in a far off land many centuries earlier, transformed this ancient
civilization into an extraordinarily close and representative version of the
ancient proto-culture of the “proto-Indo-European” ancestors of that different “Indo-Aryan” race in that far-off land)!
As
we can see, the AIT case is made up of a
great number of different extremely unlikely to impossible scenarios and
postulates which contradict each other hopelessly: each scenario or
postulate is concocted in order to explain away certain very valid objections
to the AIT, but it ends up contradicting most of the other scenarios or
postulates concocted to explain away various other equally valid objections.
The net result is a “complex” mess
of chaotic scenarios and postulates which explain nothing and lead nowhere:
except that all of them are intended to somehow prove the AIT case. But this
does not affect the credibility of the AIT scholars because each scenario or
postulate is dealt with in isolation, and no-one is expected to raise
uncomfortable questions about the other
scenarios and postulates when discussing any one particular scenario or postulate. Any one foolish enough to do
so would, of course, only be exposing his own unscholarly inability to
comprehend “complex” scenarios.
[Incidentally, there are many more “complex”
postulates, equally integral parts of the AIT case, which have not been taken
into account here, such as for example the postulate about two or more “waves”
of Aryan invasions (or “trickles”), which would compound the case further: see
section 7F in chapter 7].
But
it is time this state of affairs came to an end and accountability is brought
into the AIT-vs.-OIT debate. AIT scholars can not be allowed to get away with this
kind of compartmentalized discussions any more, where they can postulate any
theory or situation to answer the objection, or the uncomfortable fact which
cannot be swept under the carpet, that is before them at the moment, even when
this theory or postulated situation sharply contradicts, or is totally
incompatible with, what they postulate in other contexts.
So
far as the archaeological evidence is concerned, the only possible conclusion
that can be reached is that the
undisturbed archaeological and anthropological continuity in the Harappan areas
between the “the 5th/4th
and […] the 1st
millennium B.C.” constitutes formidable, and lethal, evidence against the
AIT, which just simply can not be
explained away.
8B.
The Case for the OIT.
The
AIT-vs.-OIT debate must, strictly speaking, be conducted totally without
reference to archaeology, until actual
decipherable inscriptional evidence is discovered, either in the Harappan
sites, conclusively proving the language of the Harappans to be Indo-European or non-Indo-European, or in
archaeological sites further west and north, in Central
Asia or further, in a language which can be conclusively shown to be a form of pre-Rigvedic.
However,
if we must consider and discuss
provisional archaeological possibilities (keeping the above proviso in mind),
we have definite archaeological candidates in India: the Harappan civilization
for the “Indo-Iranian”/Rigvedic phase, and the PGW or painted grey ware culture
for the post-Rigvedic Vedic phase.
8B-1.The PGW (painted grey ware) Culture as the Vedic Culture.
The
PGW or painted grey ware culture has often been mooted as a candidate for the
Vedic culture, but the main argument against this identification has been that
this culture is a totally indigenous development and does not show any
connections with any movement into India from the northwest (i.e., it can not
be connected with any earlier culture outside India). This is clearly a
circular argument. The identification fails to explain anything when we try to
identify it with the culture of the Vedic Aryans of the AIT: i.e. as the
culture of the early Rigvedic people who entered India from the northwest,
transformed the local population completely, and became the linguistic
ancestors of the major part of the subcontinent. But it does explain everything when we identify it with the later culture of the Vedic Aryans of the
OIT hypothesis outlined by us (and confirmed by the textual and linguistic
evidence): i.e. as the post-Rigvedic
phase of the culture of the Vedic Aryans, the Pūrus.
Curiously,
Southworth makes this identification, combining linguistic, textual and
archaeological identities, while describing the classification of Indo-Aryan
dialects or languages into “Inner IA” (Vedic) and “Outer IA”
(non-Vedic):
“The linguistic
division correlates fairly closely with the other divisions: 1. that between
PGW (or Painted Gray Ware) and BRW (Black and Red Ware), and 2. the locations
of two major lineages as described in the Puranas (OIA purāṇa-), namely the Pauravas or descendants of Pūru, who by
tradition inherited the madhyadeśa
(‘middle country’) and the Yādavas or descendants of Yadu, who according to the
tradition was banished by his father Yayāti to the south/west (Thapar 1978:243)”
(SOUTHWORTH 1995:266).
[Further,
Southworth points out the proximity of the Yadus to the southern interior of India by
deriving their name, very plausibly, from Dravidian: “This word, which has no Indo-European etymology, may well be Dravidian,
meaning ‘herder’ (from a PDI *yātu-van
‘goat/sheep-herd, see DED 5152 * yātu
‘sheep/goat’). This would imply that the term yādava- is original, and the mythical Yadu derived from it by
back-formation […])” (SOUTHWORTH 1995:266)].
8B-2. The Harappan Civilization as the Rigvedic Culture.
The
idea that the Harappan civilization could represent the Rigvedic culture has
always been rejected on specious grounds: mainly the lack of conclusive
evidence for the substantial presence of horses in the Harappan sites, and the
urban nature of the Harappan civilization as opposed to the allegedly “pastoral”
nature of the Rigvedic-Avestan culture, etc. However, the basic fact is that
the only real objection to the identification of the Harappan civilization with
the Rigvedic culture has been the utter
incompatibility of the chronology of the Harappan sites with the hitherto
accepted theoretical chronology of the Rigveda (and its coordination with the known
chronology of other Indo-European cultures outside India in the context of the
prevalent homeland theories).
We
have already seen (in chapter seven) the utter inapplicability of the so-called
“equine argument” as an objection to identifying the Rigvedic culture with the
culture of the Harappan civilization. The same goes for the claims about the opposition
between the urban nature of the Harappan civilization and the “pastoral” nature
of the Rigvedic culture. The Harappan civilization consisted of numerous
cities, which form the most well-known feature of the civilization, but the
vast area covered by the civilization included thousands of villages as well,
without which the civilization would never have survived. The culture of the
hymns ― religious hymns embodying myths, rituals and prayers ― undoubtedly
reflects the atmosphere of the rural or forest settings, or perhaps just the orthodox
sacrificial settings, in which they were composed, but there is nothing in the
hymns to show that the ṛṣis were unacquainted with urban culture.
But,
it has become mandatory to interpret the Rigveda through AIT glasses. And when established
scholars can discover west-to-east movements, “extra-territorial memories”
(leading west as far as the Ural mountains), “non-Aryan” native enemies, and
even an “Iranian” Vasiṣṭha (crossing the Indus from west to east, from Iran),
in the hymns of the Rigveda, it can not have been too difficult to establish
and maintain the dogma that the cultural ethos of the texts is incompatible
with the cultural ethos of the Harappan civilization.
Although
the Vedic culture had been interpreted as pastoral from the beginning (because
of the obvious importance of cows and dairying in the Vedic texts), it was
earlier recognized that pastoral cultures could be a part of larger
civilizations (as, for example, the pastoral ethos of Krishna
in Braj, Vrindavan and Gokul, within a larger urban civilizational framework):
“Pischel and
Geldner have done well to point out that these poems are not the productions of
ignorant peasants, but of a highly cultured professional class, encouraged by
the gifts of kings and the applause of courts (Einleitung p.xxiv). Just the
same may be said of the Homeric bards and of those of Arthur’s court […]”
(ARNOLD 1904:217)
"[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).
But
this interpretation of the Vedic ethos was swiftly abandoned after the
discovery of the Harappan civilization: Before its discovery (and the necessity
of declaring it to be “pre-Aryan” and “non-Aryan”, since it would have led to a
complete overturning of the AIT if it was held to be “Aryan”, as the “Aryan
invasion” had been dated to around 1500 BCE), it was generally assumed that the
invading “Aryans” were a highly civilized and cultured race who invaded a
mainly barbaric and uncivilized native populace. This conclusion was allegedly
based on the logical analysis and interpretation of the Vedic texts. And every Vedic reference was interpreted
according to this paradigm.
But
after the discovery of the Harappan sites, and their early dating to the fourth
and third millennia BCE, the “Aryans” suddenly became the barbarians and the
native populace became the civilized and cultured ones.
The
very same texts, and the very same references in these texts,
which apparently showed that the Vedic Aryans were civilized and their
“indigenous” enemies barbarians, now suddenly showed exactly the opposite: that
the Vedic Aryans were barbarians, and their “indigenous” enemies civilized! No
explanations were found necessary for this complete volte face.
In
the process, there was a further gross
violation of normal scholarly practice on at least two counts:
1.
The very fact that the Harappan sites were discovered in roughly the same broad
geographical area which had been postulated for the Vedic Aryan civilization
(on the basis of the references in the Vedic literature) should have led to
their identification as Vedic sites. They were, of course, dated to a period
(fourth to mid-second millennium BCE) earlier
than the period (late second millennium BCE) postulated for the Vedic civilization; but this (even if the postulated dates for the Rigveda
were to be treated as sacrosanct) should merely have been taken to mean
that the Vedic civilization succeeded the Harappan civilization in that area.
Just
as an accused is to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, the linguistic
identity of any archaeologically excavated ancient civilization is to be
assumed to be the same as the linguistic identity of the civilizations which
succeeded it on that site, unless and until there is specific linguistic evidence (decipherable records within that
ancient civilization itself, or clear testimony in the records of other
contemporary civilizations, or unambiguous and detailed accounts in the
traditional records of the succeeding civilizations) testifying to the identity
of the language of that ancient civilization being different, or there is unchallengeable archaeological and
anthropological evidence showing that the population of that ancient
civilization was supplanted by ethnically and linguistically different populations found in the subsequent
civilizations in that area.
In
the absence of such evidence, it does not require any prejudice or pleading to
assume the language to be the same, but it does indeed require a great deal of
deep prejudice and special pleading to assume that the language was different.
In the absence of such evidence, the burden of proof does not lie on the
persons assuming the language to have been the same, it lies on the persons claiming it to have been different.
If
sites of an ancient civilization, dateable from the fourth to the
second millennium BCE, are discovered in the heart of Tamilnadu, it will be
logical to assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that the sites
represent a Dravidian language speaking civilization. Likewise if prehistoric
sites are discovered in the heart of China
or Saudi Arabia,
it will be logical to assume that they are Sinitic or Semitic language speaking
civilizations respectively. Pre-Greek and pre-Roman civilizations (Etruscan,
etc.) are accepted as non-Indo-European, and the Sumerian and Hittite
civilizations in West Asia are accepted as
non-Semitic, only because linguistic
evidence to this effect is available.
The
Harappan civilization is situated deep within Indo-European (“Indo-Aryan”)
territory. The closest non-Indo-European families are at some distance: Semitic
far to the west, Burushaski well to the north, Austric considerably to the east,
and Dravidian far to the south [Brahui does not change the picture, since, as
Witzel points out, “its presence has now
been explained by a late migration that took place within this millennium
(Elfenbeim 1987)” (WITZEL 2000a:§1). Likewise, Southworth, even while
urging a Dravidian presence in the Harappan areas, admits that: “Hock (1975:87-8), among others, has noted
that the current locations of Brahui, Kurux and Malto may be recent”
(SOUTHWORTH 1995:272, fn22)]. There is no linguistic, archaeological or
anthropological evidence indicating that the Harappan civilization was
supplanted by a linguistically different race of people: on the contrary,
archaeologists and anthropologists insist on continuity in the anthropological
situation from Harappan times well into post-Vedic
times. In these circumstances, the Harappan civilization should have been
assumed to be Indo-European until proved otherwise. However, in gross violation
of normal scholarly practice, it has been assumed to be non-Indo-European.
2.
Secondly, all the above questions arise only in the circumstance that the
chronological position of the Vedic civilization stands archaeologically established as post-Harappan.
But the postulated dates of the Vedic civilization as a post-Harappan civilization have not been archaeologically proved,
only linguistically assumed. There is no archaeological
evidence that the Vedic civilization succeeded
the Harappan civilization in the area.
The
Vedic civilization has produced a vast corpus of literature which gives a
detailed picture of the religio-cultural ethos of the Vedic Aryans; and this
picture has been elaborated by mainly western Vedic scholars in over two
centuries of scholarship. That this is not a fictional civilization has been
confirmed by comparative studies with the known religio-cultural evidence of
other Indo-European cultures outside India. However, this civilization,
reconstructed from the literature, has not been archaeologically traced in any
period. Yet, as pointed out earlier on in this chapter, no scholar has ever
doubted that the Vedic Aryans, and their culture depicted in the Rigveda, did exist, but they are treated as
having existed in a total archaeological
vacuum.
So
we have scholars accepting two different paradigms, both of which complement
each other and should therefore have been treated as two parts of a whole: on
the one hand, a widespread network of archaeological sites of a vast,
highly-developed civilization (the Harappan civilization) lasting over
thousands of years, which has allegedly left no literary records at all although it had a writing system; and, on the other, a
full-fledged developed culture and civilization (the Vedic civilization) which
has left a vast and detailed body of organized literature (unparalleled by any
other known civilization of the same period) although it had no system of writing at all, but which has left
absolutely no archaeological traces behind, both located in more or less the
very same area! [This contradiction was first pointed out by David
Frawley].
Clearly,
this unreasoning refusal to consider the obvious represents another gross
violation of normal scholarly practice.
In
the circumstance, it is clear that the archaeological situation should have
been treated as neutral in the entire AIT-vs.-OIT debate, until unambiguous and
dateable linguistic evidence was found. Or, as a secondary alternative, at
least until a material culture was found “that
presents us with exactly those material remains described above (chariots,
handmade pottery used in rituals, fire altars, Soma residue, etc.)” (WITZEL
2000a:§15). However, no sites have been found in India with exactly those material
remains interpreted from the Rigveda.
But
this has not prevented some linguists and historians (with support from stray
archaeologists involved in the excavations of the particular sites concerned)
from trying (in the absence of actual linguistic evidence) to identify Indo-Iranians,
or Indo-Aryans on their way towards India, on the basis of material evidence
(or symbolic or imaginative interpretations of that material evidence) in
archaeological sites in Central Asia and
beyond which fit into their hypothetical time/space predictions of where
the migrating Indo-Iranians should have been at a particular time: i.e., in the
BMAC (Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex, also called the Oxus
Civilization) in Central Asia, in the Afanas’evo Culture to the north of
Central Asia, and in the Andronovo Culture in the Pontic-Caspian area. And each
of these efforts has attracted a large number of adherents in certain academic
circles. However, most archaeologists completely reject these attempts, and
many of them have made their rejection very clear in detailed studies: we will
take here, as examples, papers by H.P.Francfort
(FRANCFORT 2001:151-163) and Carl C.
Lamberg-Karlovsky (LAMBERG-KARLOVSKY 2005:142-177). These papers should be
read in full, but here we will only note the main substance.
As
these archaeologists point out, these identifications by linguists and
historians are not based on intrinsic evidence, but on forced attempts to
substantiate their linguistic and historical theories by providing
archaeological illustrations for them:
“The question
of identifying archaeological remains of Indo-European populations in Central Asia has been one of the main questions that has
occupied a number of linguists and historians for many years […] when written
records are not available, a reconstructed time-space framework is generally
used to substantiate the reconstruction with some relevant illustrative
material. The linguistic attributes are mapped onto archaeological correlates:
artifacts are selected, like the chariot, as well as ecofacts, like
agriculture, or whole archaeological cultures (material assemblages). The
archaeological correlates become some sort of labels or tags that one may
employ in order to trace the supposed Indo-European populations. But, in fact,
very little of the illustrative archaeological material actually exhibits
specific Indo-European or Indo-Iranian traits; a question therefore arises:
what is the relevance of archaeological material if any sort of assemblage
present at the expected or supposed time/space spot can function as the tag of
a linguistic group?” (FRANCFORT 2001:151).
As
he repeatedly makes clear: “apart from
the time-space expectations, there is not much in the archaeological material
that could be taken as tags for tracing the Indo-Iranians/ Indo-Aryans […] no one of these archaeological correlates
is beyond question […] Briefly, not
only have they nothing strictly Indo-European or Indo-Iranian or Indo-Aryan in
them, but if we look closely at them in their general cultural context, they
appear to be selected isolated traits not always compatible with each other
[…and] are attested in various cultural
contexts, not all necessarily Indo-European” (FRANCFORT 2001:153-154).
He
points out that the whole process is based on “the simple linguistic space-time argument for locating the speakers, in
which case a study of the archaeological record is useless since anything
goes […] there is no factual
evidence apart from the linguistically reconstructed time-space predictions
[…] There is no point in trying to
illustrate ethno-linguistic theories by irrelevant or uninterpretable
archaeological material” (FRANCFORT 2001:163).
The
interpretations of the archaeological material are sought to be made by “drawing parallels between the
archaeological record and the Rigvedic and Avestan texts. The parallels drawn
are, at best, of a most general nature and do not convince, that is, Andronovo
houses were large (80-300 square meters), capable of accommodating extended
families. A ‘reading’ of the Indo-Iranian texts, the Avesta and Rigveda,
attests to the existence of extended families, thus, the Andronovo were
Indo-Iranian” (LAMBERG-KARLOVSKY 2005:155) Or, “the ethnohistorical parallels and the textual citations are of such
general nature that they do not convince. Thus, in the Rigveda there is an
injunction against the use of the wheel in the production of pottery. As
Andronovo pottery is handmade, this is taken as evidence of their Indo-Iranian
identity. Ethnic and linguistic correlates are generally not based on vigorous
methodology; they are merely asserted” (LAMBERG-KARLOVSKY 2005:144).
The
archaeological material is culturally so ambiguous that it can very well be
representative of almost any
linguistic group: Francfort points out that the material culture cited “proves nothing about the language of their
owners. Otherwise we would have to admit that the Bronze Age Chinese were
Indo-European” (FRANCFORT 2001:157). Likewise, Lamberg-Karlovsky points out
that the “ethnic indicators” cited, “horse-breeding,
horse rituals, shared ceramic types, avoidance of pig, sherd burial patterns,
and architectural templates, can be used to identify the Arab, the Turk and the
Iranian; three completely distinct types” (LAMBERG-KARLOVSKY 2005:145). “Passages from the Avesta and the Rigveda
are quoted by different authors to support the Indo-Iranian identity of both the
BMAC and the Andronovo. The passages are sufficiently general to permit the
Plains Indians of North America an
Indo-Iranian identity” (LAMBERG-KARLOVSKY 2005:168).
And,
in fact, as both these archaeologists point out, the cultural features of the
said archaeological sites are actually distinctly non-Indo-European, and could actually be more compatible with a
Uralo-Altaic culture than an Indo-European one: the concluding section of
Francfort’s paper is titled: “Iconography
and symbolic systems: pointing to non-Indo-European worlds, possibly Uralic or
Altaic” (FRANCFORT 2001:157-163). Lamberg-Karlovsky (LAMBERG-KARLOVSKY
2005:169) also accepts this possibility.
In
such circumstances, it becomes clear that the only logic behind identifying these archaeological cultures as
Indo-Iranian or Indo-Aryan is that they fit in with the time-space expectations of the linguists and historians as to where
the Indo-Iranians/Indo-Aryans must have been at a particular period of time: “they are ‘in the right place at the right
time’” (LAMBERG-KARLOVSKY 2005:157). “In
short, apart from the time-space expectations, there is nothing in the
archaeological material that could be taken as tags for tracing the
Indo-Iranians/Indo-Aryans” (FRANCFORT 2001:153).
But
these time-space predictions and expectations are based wholly on purely hypothetical estimates of the
chronological dates of the Rigveda and the Avesta, or rather mainly of the
Rigveda (with the Avesta being dated in accordance with it): “Iron is found only in later Vedic (Ved.)
texts […] It makes its appearance in
South Asia only by c.1200 or 1000 BCE. The RV,
thus, must be earlier than that. The RV also does not know of large cities such
as that of the Indus civilization but only of
ruins (armaka, Falk 1981) and of
small forts (pur, Rau 1976).
Therefore it must be later than the
disintegration of the Indus cities in the
Panjab, at c.1900 BCE” (WITZEL 2005:342). Apart from the fact that the
ruins of the Indus sites (armaka)
appear only in one hymn in the latest
part of the Rigveda (see Section I of this book), the general subjective manner
in which Witzel dates the Rigveda as a
whole to later than 1900 BCE
smacks of the kind of free-style analysis referred to by Francfort and
Lamberg-Karlovsky above. It is on such criteria that the dates of the Rigveda
are calculated and the dates of the earlier Indo-Iranian phases
backtracked!
However,
in the case of the Harappan civilization, we have (apart from all the points
noted earlier) a time-space schedule which is based on solidly established archaeological dates from West
Asia, and massive and
uni-directional textual evidence from the Rigveda and the Avesta. Let us go
over this time-space schedule again step by step:
1.
Firstly, we have the solidly established
dating of the Mitanni kingdom in
northern Iraq/Syria to at least 1460-1330 BCE (WITZEL 2005:361) and the even earlier dating of
the Kassite conquest of Mesopotamia by at least 1677 BCE (WITZEL 2005:362).
2.
Secondly, we have the established fact that in the case of the Mitanni (and
possibly also in the case of the Kassites, since the Kassites, like the
Mitanni, spoke non-Indo-Aryan, and non-Indo-European, languages), “the Indic elements seem to be little more
than the residue of a dead language in Hurrian, and that the symbiosis that produced the Mitanni may
have taken place centuries earlier” (MALLORY 1989:42). Centuries
earlier than 1460 BCE, perhaps even than 1677 BCE.
3.
Thirdly, we have the irrefutable fact (see Section I of this book) that the
Indo-Aryan elements in the Mitanni and Kassite records are cultural elements
which are found massively
distributed in the Books of the Late Rigvedic period composed in areas of
northern India (including present-day northern Pakistan), but are completely missing in the earlier Books
of the Middle Rigvedic period and the Early Rigvedic period which were composed
in areas of northern India further east, and
which show no acquaintance with western areas. So these cultural elements undoubtedly
developed inside northern India in the Late Rigvedic period.
If
cultural elements which developed
wholly within northern India
appear in West Asia, then they were undoubtedly brought into West Asia by migrants from northern India.
Since
they are found already as “the residue of a dead language” in 1677
BCE among non-Indo-Aryan peoples in a
symbiosis which took place centuries earlier, then those migrants from northern
India arrived in West Asia centuries
earlier than 1677 BCE: by the very early second millennium BCE at the most
conservative estimate.
Further,
the migrants must have left India
much earlier, and this Late Rigvedic culture must have been fully developed in
northern India by the time the migrants departed from India, perhaps sometime in the late
third millennium BCE.
Further,
this Late Rigvedic culture, fully developed
in northern India by the
time the migrants left, must have started
developing in northern India
long before the migrants left India: i.e. well
into the mid third millennium BCE at the least.
4.
Finally, if these cultural elements started
developing in northern India in the mid-third millennium BCE, then the
Middle Rigvedic period, and, before that, the Early Rigvedic period, in the
Books of which these cultural elements are completely
missing, must go back well into the early third millennium BCE at the very
least.
It
is in this Early Period of the Rigveda, in the early third millennium BCE at
the most conservative estimate, that the testimony of the geographical data in
the Rigveda shows the Vedic Aryans long settled in the area to the east of the
Sarasvatī, and the proto-Iranians (let alone certain other Indo-European groups
identified by us in the last chapter, and in our earlier books) long settled in
the central parts of the Land of the Seven Rivers in present-day northern
Pakistan.
These
time-space correlates, at reasonably conservative estimates, place the joint
Indo-Iranians exactly in, and all over, the area of the Harappan civilization,
exactly in the period of the heyday of that civilization.
These
time-space correlates are based on solid chronological evidence from West Asia, and massive textual evidence from the Rigveda
and the Avesta, unlike the purely hypothetical time-space estimates of the
historians discussed earlier, and they conclusively establish the identity of
the Harappans and the Indo-Iranians.
With
the Indo-Iranian nature of the Harappan civilization thus established, the
culture of the Harappans=Indo-Iranians will have to be examined in a new light.
Already, we have textual studies (e.g. BHAGWANSINGH:1995) which have
established (allowing for some exaggerations) the highly developed
technological and commercial nature of the Rigvedic civilization; we have
archaeological excavations which have revealed the presence of fire altars and
other elements of Rigvedic/Iranian religion and ritual in the material remains
of the Harappan sites; we have literary-epigraphical analyses which have established
the depiction of certain Vedic themes in the pictorial representations on the
Indus seals; and there are various other categories of evidence which have,
likewise, not been treated with the seriousness they deserve. All these need to
be re-examined very seriously indeed.
8B-3. The Indo-European Emigrations.
As
we saw, Witzel, on the principle that attack is the best form of defence, asks:
“if the Iranians (and IEs) emigrated
from India, why do we not
find ‘Indian bones’ of this massive emigration in Iran and beyond?” (WITZEL
2005:368).
We
could, of course, argue that since the AIT has been consistently maintained and
upheld for centuries without any
valid archaeological evidence being cited for it, such evidence can not be
demanded from the OIT after such an irrefutable textual and linguistic case has
been made for it: archaeology should be left out of the debate. But we need not
leave it at that. The fact is that there are several very basic reasons why
archaeological evidence is vital for
the AIT to be accepted as valid, but
archaeological evidence is not vital
for the OIT to be accepted as
valid:
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.
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.
8C. The Importance of the Rigveda.
We
have examined more or less all the different aspects of the question,
linguistic, archaeological, and textual, but the central focus of our entire study has been the Rigveda. This
one ancient text has provided us with the key to solve the biggest historical
problem of all time ― the problem of the geographical location of the original homeland
of the numerically and historically most important language family in the
world, the Indo-European family of languages.
Our
earlier book (TALAGERI 2000) also dealt with the same subject; but, thanks to
some very effective needling by AIT scholars like Michael Witzel, it became
necessary to go even more deeply into, and into many more aspects of, the
Rigvedic evidence.
Before
resting our case, it is necessary to fully understand once and for all: Why is
the Rigveda so important as the final authority in the matter of ancient
Indian, Indo-Aryan, Indo-Iranian and Indo-European proto-history?
After
our last book (TALAGERI 2000), Michael Witzel, in particular, launched a major
campaign against what he called my use of “what
is essentially the wrong Ṛgveda text ― the late Vedic compilation by Śākalya,
which had already been subjected to several earlier redactions, and which mixed
up materials from several eras in each of the books. Talageri, unlike all
serious Vedic scholars after Oldenberg, makes no attempt to reconstruct the
more ancient text on which that compilation was based. The result is that all
the far-flung historical conclusions that he draws regarding the time and
location of individual books, their authors, etc., are totally unreliable. many
of his individual items of ‘proofs’ (such as the designation of the Gangā in RV 6, Gāngya) immediately fall off the board as
late, not as being part of the ‘earliest RV’ as T. claims” (WITZEL
2001b:§1).
We
have already seen, earlier on in this book (in chapter 3, F-2), Witzel’s
writings on the subject of “the Gangā in
RV 6, Gāngya” before the
publication of TALAGERI 2000 as contrasted with his writings on the same
subject after the publication of
TALAGERI 2000. His writings on the subject of the “right” Rigveda, as opposed
to the “wrong” Rigveda, follow the same pattern.
He
now claims that the Rigvedic text used by me ― the only Rigvedic text in
existence, and the only Rigvedic text known (leaving aside the usual
traditional claims about there originally having been many different Rigvedas) to
any analyst of the Rigveda, right down from the days of Śākalya through Sāyaṇa
through Oldenberg down to Witzel and “T.”
― is the “wrong Ṛgveda text”, a “late Vedic compilation” dateable to “say, 500 BCE” (WITZEL 2005:386, fn 75).
Because of this, I “repeatedly confuse
late-Vedic redactions and interpretations with what is found in the original RV
text” (WITZEL 2001b: Critique Summary), and arrive at wrong, “unreliable” and “far-flung historical conclusions”
The proof of the pudding is in the
eating: our analysis of the Avestan
names in chapter 1 of this present volume would not have yielded results fully
in tune with our earlier chronological analysis of the Rigveda if our analysis
in TALAGERI 2000 was wrong: the way in which the Avestan names and name-elements
fall into distinct categories in line with our classification of the Books of
the Rigveda into Early, Middle and Late would not have been the case if there
were “mixed up materials from several
eras in each of the books”. As Witzel himself pontificates, when writing
about the science of linguistics (WITZEL 2005:352), the correctness of the set
of rules established by a theory, when it is based on hard scientific criteria,
is established and proved by the ability to make “predictions” based on that
set of rules. Witzel writes: “just as
the existence of the planet Pluto was predicted by astronomy, so were the
laryngeals, in both cases decades before the actual discovery” (WITZEL
2005:352). So, also, the correctness of our classification (in TALAGERI 2000)
of the Books of the Rigveda into Early, Middle and Late, and the fact that this
is the “right Rigveda”, is
established and proved by the way in which it “predicted” the pattern of
distribution of the Avestan names and name-elements (and other important words
like ara, “spokes”) years before that
distribution was demonstrated in this present book. A more fitting reply to
Witzel’s criticism could not have been found.
Nevertheless,
because it is so well put (and stands so sharply in contrast to what he writes after TALAGERI 2000), here is what WITZEL
had to say about the Rigveda (yes, basically about the present Rigveda of 1028
hymns!) before TALAGERI 2000 [and
indeed, knowing Witzel, he may still
be saying all this when speaking or writing in contexts other than the
AIT-vs.-OIT debate! Note that one of the quotations is from an article or paper
published in 2006, but which was already included in an earlier pre-print version entitled “Early Loan Words in Western Central Asia: Substrates, Migrations and Trade”
already out in 2002 and probably written much earlier. Along with the ability
to write contradictory things, often even on one and the same page, without any
apparent loss of credibility in the eyes of his admirers, Witzel also has the
tendency to just go on lazily and print what he has already prepared before even
when circumstances, in the meanwhile, suggest that some change is necessary]:
“Right from the beginning, in Ṛgvedic times,
elaborate steps were taken to insure the exact reproduction of the words of the
ancient poets. As a result, the Ṛgveda still has the exact same wording in such
distant regions as Kashmir, Kerala and Orissa,
and even the long-extinct musical accents have been preserved. Vedic
transmission is thus superior to that of the Hebrew or Greek Bible, or the
Greek, Latin and Chinese classics. We can actually regard present-day Ṛgveda
recitation as a tape recording of
what was composed and recited some 3000 years ago. In addition, unlike the
constantly reformulated Epics and Purāṇas, the Vedic texts contain contemporary materials. They can serve
as snapshots of the political and cultural situation of the particular period
and area in which they were composed. […] as they are contemporary, and faithfully preserved, these texts are
equivalent to inscriptions. […] they
are immediate and unchanged evidence, a sort of oral history ― and sometimes
autobiography ― of the period, frequently fixed and ‘taped’ immediately after
the event by poetic formulation. These aspects of the Vedas have never been
sufficiently stressed […]” (WITZEL 1995a:91).
“[…]
the Vedas were composed orally and they
always were and still are, to some extent, oral
literature. They must be regarded as tape
recordings, made during the Vedic period and transmitted orally, and
usually without the change of a single word.” (WITZEL 1997b:258).
“It must be underlined that just like an
ancient inscription, these words have not changed since the composition of
these hymns c.1500 BCE, as the RV has been transmitted almost without any
change […] The modern oral recitation
of the RV is a tape recording of
c.1700-1200 BCE.” (WITZEL 2000a:§8).
“The language of the RV is an archaic form
of Indo-European. Its 1028 hymns are addressed to the gods and most of them are
used in ritual. They were orally composed and strictly preserved by exact
repetition through by rote learning, until today. It must be underlined that
the Vedic texts are ‘tape recordings’ of this archaic period. Not one word, not
a syllable, not even a tonal accent were allowed to be changed. The texts are
therefore better than any manuscript, and as good as any well preserved
contemporary inscription. We can therefore rely on the Vedic texts as
contemporary sources for names of persons, places, rivers (WITZEL 1999c)”
(WITZEL 2006:64-65).
In
all these assertions, it must be noted very carefully that:
1.
Witzel is talking very, very specifically about the Rigveda of “present-day Ṛgveda recitation”: the “modern oral recitation of the RV” with “its 1028 hymns”.
2.
It is this Rigveda that Witzel tells
us “still has the exact same wording
in such distant regions as Kashmir,
Kerala and Orissa”, words which “have
not changed since the composition of these hymns” and have been so “faithfully preserved” that “not one word, not a syllable, not even a
tonal accent were allowed to be changed”.
3.
It is this Rigveda that Witzel describes
as “equivalent to inscriptions” or “just like an ancient inscription” or “better than any manuscript, and as good as
any well preserved contemporary inscription”. Or, even more categorically, as
“a tape
recording of what was composed and recited some 3000 years ago” or “tape
recordings, made during the Vedic period and transmitted orally, and
usually without the change of a single word” or “‘tape recordings’ of this archaic period” or “a tape recording of c.1700-1200 BC” which
has been “strictly preserved by exact
repetition through by rote learning, until today”.
4.
And it is this Rigveda on whose hymns
Witzel tells us we can “rely […] as contemporary sources for names of persons,
places, rivers”.
Does
Witzel qualify these assertions in any way? Or does he perhaps, while repeatedly
making each and every one of these above very
specific, detailed and categorical assertions, just happen to not mention major, and vital, exceptions or
qualifications to what he is saying, so that OIT yokels fail to understand what Witzel is talking about: that what Witzel
really means is that there are actually many
interpolations and late additions in the present day Rigveda, dating to as late
as “say, 500 BCE”, which it was not
necessary for him to touch upon while making the above assertions, because what
he was writing was only “a short summary” of the full picture which was
intended for “later” publications?
Not
really. Witzel does provide us with
qualifications for all the above assertions, but these are qualifications, equally specific, detailed and categorical,
which only emphasize and strengthen
the above assertions:
“We have to distinguish, it is true, between
the composition of a Vedic text, for example of the RV which was composed until
c. 1200 B.C., and its redaction sometime in the Brāhmaṇa period (ca. 700
B.C.?). But the redaction only selected from already existing collections and
was mainly responsible only for the present phonetical shape of the texts. The
RV of late Brāhmaṇa times only differed from the one recited in Ṛgvedic times
in minor details such as the pronunciation of svar instead of suvar, etc. The
text remained the same” (WITZEL 1995a:91, fn 13).
“[…]
transmitted almost without any change.
i.e. we know exactly in which limited cases certain sounds ― but not words,
tonal accents, sentences ― have changed.” (WITZEL 2000a:§8).
“The middle/late Vedic redaction of the
texts influenced only a very small, well known number of cases, such as the
development Cuv > Cv” (WITZEL 2002:§1.2, fn 18).
In
short: “The text remained the same”,
the same “tape recording of c.1700-1200 BC”.
As
Witzel tells us elsewhere, “we need to
take the texts seriously, at their own
word. A paradigm shift is necessary
[…]” (WITZEL 2000b:332).
Unfortunately,
instead of taking the texts seriously at their own word, writers like Witzel have spent umpteen years and plenty
of energy in producing voluminous piles
of pure and incomprehensible nonsense based only on wild flights of their
imagination, full of masses of chaotic details, wild speculations, mutually
contradictory interpretations and conclusions, and ludicrous fairy tales, all
of it leading nowhere.
We
have presented the whole case for the Indian Homeland Theory, and it only
remains to be seen how it is received by the established AIT scholars,
especially those directly or indirectly involved in the AIT- vs.-OIT debate.
Will they continue to steadfastly ignore it (at their own peril, as I pointed
out in the preface)? Will they fall back
on a haughty dismissal, without bothering (or daring) to take up specific
issues, and without bothering to examine, or even acknowledge, the irrefutable
evidence presented in this book? Or will they launch an all-out blistering
campaign of character-vilification and name-calling?
Or will they show an open-mindedness and willingness to examine issues
afresh and undertake, if necessary, an honest and thorough reappraisal of what
Erdosy calls “assumptions long taken for
granted and buttressed by the accumulated weight of two centuries of
scholarship” (ERDOSY 1995:x)? We can only wait and see.
And
on this point, we rest our case.
