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.
Shrikant ji, you have almost made your entire book online.
ReplyDeleteThe etymological search for direct loans from proto-tamizh continues. Latest the word "brilliant" <- https://www.etymonline.com/word/beryl?ref=etymonline_crossreference <- cat's eye - pUnaikkaN <- viDaran( verugu (Tamizh) - wild cat ) <- viDu to leave -> viDar - valley
ReplyDeletea gap left in mountain chain -> vaiDurya gemstone ( cat's eye) . Ref: https://agarathi.com/word/%e0%ae%b5%e0%ae%bf%e0%ae%9f%e0%ae%b0%e0%af%8d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysoberyl#Cymophane
Essentially a cat's eye expands and shines like the gemstone - all antrhopologically grounded from stone age!!
DeleteRef: https://youtu.be/9_F5TWT4yqg?t=1943 - nostratic studies and tamizh!
DeleteNow the way Samskrit owns the root of the word brilliant as noted in the preface section quoting Sri Sri - is the samskrit root bha - which is just postulated right out of the blue with no accompanying evolutionary detail! https://www.amazon.com/Dhatupatha-Panini-Accented-English-Meanings-ebook/dp/B072J4NDSZ
Delete>>>>>>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.
ReplyDelete>>>>
This is there in EVEN recent history. An accusation from evangelist: caturvEdi mangalams were all throughout tamizh nAdu since Vijaya nagar and not a single school from tamizh was there! That is why U.Ve svaminatha Iyer and others had to dig out plam leaves to reinstate all of tamizh literature!! If it can happen just on the backdrop of a small Islamic invasion/retreat and subsequent take over by Telugu language people of Vijayanagar kingdom, the entire tamizh country, why would it be so difficult in ancient times with lot more timespan for the change???
By the way: The very word Arya is rooted in tamizh - "ar" means higher, arivu is knowledge!
DeleteTalageri, the andronovo is said to be the indo iranian ancestor but the mittani people are contemporary to it and may precede it. Clearly the scholars are doing something peculiar.
ReplyDeleteExactly. The Andronovo culture is dated 2000-1450 BCE in Siberia. The Sintashta culture is dated 2050-1750 BCE at a much greater distance from India at some distance north of the Aral Sea. Even without the Mitanni evidence, it was a matter of grimly determined dogma to try to describe the Rigvedic culture as descended from people coming from these two cultures. With the Mitanni evidence it is a complete impossibility.
DeleteIt shows the very low level of intellect, logic, honesty and shame of people who still make or repeat claims about Sintashta and Andronovo.
Shrikant ji, I just watched first two episodes of 'Bharat Ek Khoj'. After watching those episodes even PN Oak sounds reasonable.😑
ReplyDeleteIn addition, there are several images of chariots with spoked wheels which are synchronous Sintashta in the Middle East, here is one of them:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.pinterest.es/pin/477311260485654463/
Eight-spoked wheel pattern from Uruk - 3500-3000 BC.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1938-0727-115
archeology of bronze age: if one tries to think about archeology of bronze age, and spread of bronze age agro pastorilst in central and north europe around 2500 BC , that surpassed the earlier stonehenge culture in britain...then it is easy to understand the european scenario. That is how IE langauges spread in europe around 2500 BC.... These bronze age pastoralist farmers not only brought carts ( not chariots)...but also ropes, bronze age swords/ axes...and more. NOW if we turn back to India....it becaomes hard to support AIT theory...as bronze age started in India way before 2500 bc..that is porbably 3300 bc or more...Also if one looks at BMAC culture..there is no genetic contribution of BMAC to India.... These factc if digged and analyzed correctly...i.e. archeology of bronze age india and associated genetics..then this very well supports the OIT theory. Also on side note, it is interesting to know what was the source of TIN used by indic culture....we still don't know where the tin source came from that sustained the bronze age indus civilization.
ReplyDeletefor example iron age was supported by mines in bstar-jharkhand region, later medieval period or earlier...important zinc mines ( necessary for producing brass) were located in mewar. ....similarly what was the source of tin in indus valley civilization...and bronze age technology developed by indus valley...this will throw light on many things...
Deletethe great game in 1890s and archeology / anthropology/ exploration of Cacausus Indicus/hindukush: I feel along with archeology, textual evidence, linguistics, genetics....another domain that can support OIT is anthropology....if one looks at the religious practices of Nuristani, kalash people...then those are very close to vedic culture. These are sister cultures to the vedic culture of punjab plains....but this was never been highlighted. I feel the early EXPLORATION of this area was very much affected by the GREAT game that was going on in this region. So all the NARRATIVE has been constructed to support the great game cause...This is the time when norristani were forcefully converted to islam...The early archeologist used to work as 'spy' as well, so they probably had strong reasons to create story in one way or other. One of three britishers who explored pamirs -hindukush in 1890s was Lord Curzon...probably this great work later got him praise and promotions...so the early BIASES have this very important angle...and the story they created got entrenched in academia.
ReplyDeletealso it has been said that east-iranian languages ( bactrian/ gandhari/ avestan/ sogdian/ chorsmian/ pamiri/ saka ) is DIFFERENT than indic languages of the same region ...i.e. dardic languages....kashmiri, khowar, chitral more...are these languages at the base are genetically so seperate to put into different families all together? or is there continuum between these languages? So even linguistically there may be a lot that has been not understood from NEW PERSPECTIVE on these language families...East iranian languages and then dardic languages....and then norristani langauges..what is their connection with each other?
Deletein general Sri Talageri ji thanks for all these efforts....and all the posts...I have read few of them since few years..and have made many comments... the last comment for today...Indus valley civilization...can be further understood by textual evidence of saraswati river...environmental change that grappled the world from 1900 bc to 1300 bc...with droughts and enviornmental changes....and how that lead to deurbanization and spread from indus valley may also explain many things...This 600 year drought eventually lead to bronze age collapse...in many arts of the world...including hittite..in 1200 bc..so environmental history and archeology too may throw some light.
ReplyDeleteYes, Prof. Sing Chew in his trilogy (World Ecological Degradation, The Recurring Dark Ages and Ecological Futures: what history can teach us) explores this in detail. He too subscribes to the view that the Indus-Sarasvati civilization collapsed due to ecological reasons, and he also identifies the Sarasvati river with the Ghaggar-Hakra river.
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ReplyDeleteCould the argument 'absence of evidence doesn't necessarily imply evidence of absence' be used against the points you have made here? I'm a supporter of the OIT, but I felt like asking this 'devil's advocate' question just to be extra sure.
ReplyDeleteI think this kind of question is answered in the article itself:
Delete1. "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)?"
2. "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]."
Instead of talking about "absence of (archaeologioal) evidence" for the OIT, shouldn't the objectors be dealing with the linguistic and textual evidence which is so overwhelming and which is not negated by the "absence" of archaeological evidence? Or provide us with real linguistic, textual, as well as archaeological, evidence for the AIT, of which there is all-round "absence"?
"provide us with real linguistic, textual, as well as archaeological, evidence for the AIT"...very well said.
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DeleteAnd now a prominent tweeter who is an AIT proponent says uruvam and ulagam in tamizh is a loan from samskrit rUpa!
ReplyDeletehttps://t.co/lQ4Doe8A0R - you can ready my tweets back responding to the same. Absolutely "ul" ( root for valaital - bending), uru, uruL uruDai, rODa (telugu), rOTA (latin) is a tamizh root! It could be a precursor to rUpa also - but tamizh is the one that keeps the relation between uruvam (rUpa) and ulagam (lOka) together in a single root. Samskrit roots look like constructed roots for the grammatical era, absolutely no innate logic of anthropological evolution!
See : https://youtu.be/sLLeGKzF1ys?t=645
I do not want to be rude, and I cannot prevent anyone from writing what they want (which is why I do not want to enter the messy world of twitter and facebook where every Tom, Dick and Harry finds it expedient to let himself go at full speed), but I really must request you not to clutter up and monopolize the comments sections of my articles by this kind of PN Oakish expositions of Tamil-as-the-mother-of-all-languages tripe. As long as there were a few such comments by you, I did not want to say anything, but I am beginning to feel I am being victimized by a relentless troll. If you really have such a lot to say about the Tamil origin of everything, please put it in the form of a book and do not use the comments section of my articles as your own blogspot. This is a humble request.
DeleteSir request you to join twitter. You can limit who can reply to your tweet and also you decide who can follow you. Plus you can also ban, mute people who are trolling. And also you can set agenda and electrify OIT debate. Just a request.
DeleteAnatolian urban dispersal is the more probable one and have happened much before also.It already has words derived from tamizh roots. Shrikanthji in Indology conference says then we cannot explain, many word dispersals like cakra for wheel etc. if we took the timeline to times older than 1800- 1500 BC for any migration into India. But Root for wheel itself is *kwel - there in tamizh as kAl - the word for leg also is a word for wheels of a tEr ( the grand chariot where deities are taken).
ReplyDeleteSir, can you tell us anything about the akkadian inscription about meluhan king " --ibra"?
ReplyDeleteI have no idea about this at all. What do the scholars, if any, said, who have something to say on it.
DeleteI haven't seen any scholar talk about this at all, I only asked this because it seemed important to me and I was surprised that nobody had anything to say about it, like is there any samskrita name ending with "ibra"?
DeleteSir I used to completely belive in AMT but after reading your book I became agnostic in this matter.Earler u confidently say AMT is accurate and OIT is fantasy but now I say I can't say what really happened .
ReplyDeleteYour book humbled me .
Thank you for your work and may God bless u with health and good luck .