Why a Faulty “OIT” Case Can Be More Deadly Than a Direct AIT Case

 

Why a Faulty “OIT” Case Can Be More Deadly Than a Direct AIT Case

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

Recently, I have been asked by many people why I am so strongly critical of the writings of Jijith Nadumuri Ravi, the writer of the book “Rivers of the Rigveda”, who, apart from the fact that both of us are on the same “side” of the “AIT-vs.-OIT” divide, regularly refers to my books, asks others to read them, features my books on his website, and regularly refers to me (or, at least, has done so till very recently) in public as his “mentor” and “guru”.

Before going into more detail, let me point out why I consider Jijith’s writings more lethal to the OIT than the writings of out-and-out staunch AIT supporters (including the Hindu Invasionists, and particularly the Racist-Brahminist sections among them, about whom I have already written more than enough) or of those other anti-AIT groups among Hindus who attack me and my OIT case for their own reasons. It is not because, as Jijith seems to assume and has on occasion claimed, I feel apprehensive (or possessively jealous) about others intruding on what he claims I consider to be my own personal and private turf (the field of OIT Rigvedic analysis). It is because, all the Hindu − and presumably anti-AIT − groups, or all the different multitudes of AIT-supporting writers (who also fall within many distinct categories) represent distinctly different groups who can in no way be identified with my OIT case, and can in no way subvert my OIT case from within, since none of them claim to be, or are believed by others to be, representing a developed form of the OIT case presented by me. Even when any of them, like Nilesh Oak himself, openly expresses his support, approval and acceptance of most of the other aspects of my OIT case (other than, in his case, the aspects of Absolute Chronology), no-one would actively describe his writings as an extension of, or improvement over, or the “next stage” of, my OIT case: everyone would agree that he represents a totally different perspective not to be confused with mine, and his supporters openly criticize me for my views on ancient chronology. So there is no possibility of any confusion between what he writes and what I write, or of the views of one of us being confused (by intelligent people) for those of the other. Everything is open and above-board.

There is nothing personal in what I am writing here in this article, howsoever it may appear to the reader. I have nothing personal against anyone. But yes, I have everything personal in defending the OIT from attacks. The OIT is my life’s work. Whenever I face the totalitarian stonewalling of the OIT in the academic and media world, I always have only one real and genuine comfort in my mind (as I have repeatedly stated in many articles): if not now, then at least a hundred years from now, people will examine (or will have already examined by then) my case as well as the cases of all the different AIT groups and the (opposed to me) anti-AIT groups; and I know for a fact that my OIT case will stand completely vindicated and all the rival cases will stand exposed and rejected. I have dealt with every aspect of the debate raised before me, and answered each aspect in full, and am fully ready to leave the verdict to the future. But for that, the first and primary requisite is that my OIT case (as well as the opposing ones) should naturally be available for comparative examination in future.

But, Jijith’s writings represent an insidious attempt (whether intended to be so or not is irrelevant) to destroy my case from within (a really masterful strategy of internal sabotage) and supplant it completely, so that when the OIT case is compared to the AIT and the other (opposed to my OIT) anti-AIT cases, it will be his distorted and metamorphosed version of the OIT (since it will be assumed that his version represents a fuller and more complete logical development of my case) which will be compared and not mine (since it will stand supplanted by an “improved” and more “complete” version): the OIT will be judged by his faulty reasoning and logic and fictitious data, and the OIT will lose:

1. Jijith, as I wrote above, does not position himself openly as the formulator of a completely rival case. He regularly refers to my books, asks others to read them, features my books on his website, and regularly refers to me (or, at least, has done so till date) as his “mentor” and “guru”, only suggesting that there are minor differences. But his entire analysis is based on extremely faulty methods and logic, and he regularly claims that his analysis is based on the same methods and logic used by me, and even an extension of those, thus adding insult to injury.

2. What the common internet warriors and trolls say, or what the (generally ignorant on such matters) lay public (whether AIT-supporting or OIT-supporting) says, is not important; but warning bells ring (for me) when I see what seasoned and influential supporters of the OIT are saying:

Jataayu, in “Book Review: A journey Into The Rigveda With The Rivers as Signposts” in Swarajyamag, 8 March 2022:

“A few years later, I had felt a thrill reading the path breaking book The Rigveda: Historical analysis of Shrikant Talageri (2000), impressed by its original research, insights and refreshing perspectives that had the power to act as the last nail in the coffin of the already crumbling Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT). Through this book, Jijith has taken the research to the next level, building a comprehensive, convincing and compelling narrative”.

Koenraad Elst in an email dated 3 Jan 2023, addressed to Jijith and myself, wrote:

“Dear Jijith,

Am in the train from Coimbatore to the south, and reading your Ramayana book. Amazing!

You candidly admit that you are building on Talageri's work and taking it further. Here and there you disagree with him, but in full consciousness of his findings. Here you don't just praise his work, as I regularly do, but treat it as a base camp that allows you to climb even farther. You are the first one to treat his findings as established, no longer in need of proof yet being proven further by its newer applications.

So I trust that in your new book on MBh geography, you will provide even more spectacular information.”

No, this is not petty resentment or paranoia: it is my reaction to a full-fledged Trojan Horse attack on my OIT case. My writings have never been based on the principles recommended by people who presume to teach us how to make friends and influence people. It is based solely on the principle of presenting the Truth (and, whenever an error in my data or logic is brought to my notice, I check it out and correct myself accordingly, since it is not my ego or my popularity which has to win out, but the Truth). So, I honestly do not care how anyone chooses to interpret my criticism of Jijith’s writings − he himself, in an email thread, expressed his belief that I think Rigvedic analysis is my personal turf and I resent intrusion on my turf by others, which is why I criticize him! Whoever chooses to believe that is free to do so, though it is not true.

If either Jataayu, or Koenraad, had pointed out, item by item, how, and on which points, Jijith’s writings represented a “furtherance” or “next level” by listing out where his version differs from and improves upon mine and is more correct than mine, and therefore if they had openly proclaimed that they find his version different and better than mine, I would genuinely have had no objections: after all, everyone has the right to their opinions.

The fact is that, without openly expressing their agreement on the very numerous specific issues where his views clash with mine (and thereby escaping having to take on the onus of having to answer for the correctness of his views against mine), his praisers praise his version as being a new and improved version of mine, thereby, without stating it in so many words, giving the go-ahead for his version to supplant mine. It is like a silent coup; or, intellectually, in the same category as Bibek Debroy’s endorsement of both Tony Joseph’s book as well as Jijith’s book, on the respective blurbs of the two books, when the two books actually represent diametrically opposite conclusions.

The main battle, of course, is between the OIT and the AIT. Other viewpoints (see Appendix) are not important, and, even if they have millions of adherents and fans, they will never stand serious scrutiny. So the AIT cannot win the battle against the OIT in the long run, unless my OIT case is completely supplanted and replaced by this pseudo-OIT (AIOIT) case put forward by Jijith and already praised by intelligent OIT supporters as an improved version. Hence, whatever interpretation may be put on my opposition to Jijith’s writings, I find his writings to be more lethal to the OIT than the writings of the (AIT or anti-AIT) others.

I already listed the major flaws in my review of Jijith’s book. If I go through the full book in detail, I can come up with a long list of fabricated stories, whimsical and arbitrary identifications, wrong interpretations, fictitious (geographical and other) entities, events and migrations, etc. But I think my earlier review of the book is sufficient in itself:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/03/a-review-of-rivers-of-rgveda-by-jijith.html

Also the following article which puts things in perspective:

 https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/03/rigvedic-vis-vis-epic-puranic-geography.html

Further, recently, a tweet by Jijith, and the map he put up along with it, exposed him as a full-fledged supporter of the Dravidian Invasion/Immigration Theory (DIT), and, more basically, showed what results when fabrication and fiction are substituted for facts and data, leading to greater and greater distortions:

Here not only does he support the Dravidian Invasion/ Immigration Theory (DIT) out of a mistaken belief that it somehow helps in disproving the AIT, but, in the process, he goes even further than full-fledged AIT supporters like Witzel and Hock (who now at least agree that Brahui in the NW of India was a migrant from the Dravidian south) by making Brahui a remnant and piece of evidence of the Dravidian Immigrants from NW Iran passing through Baluchistan and Gujarat on their way towards South India. Further, he thereby also indirectly deprives the Dravidian language speakers of the South of the credit for having developed the oldest Iron Technology in the world!

See the above map: IE languages originated in the NW of India, and Dravidian languages in far-off SW Iran. The whole of India proper was linguistically colonized by these two families of languages! And all this when the DIT is actually even more untenable than the AIT:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2024/12/the-dravidian-invasionmigration-theory.html

 

My criticism of what I have described in the second of my above two articles as the AIOIT (Aryan-Invasion+Out-of-India Theory) is not something new arising from a reaction to Jijith’s book. Before this, I have criticized in detail a similar stand by Narahari Achar:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/07/a-reply-to-prof-narahari-achars.html 

Even before that, in my very first book, “The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism” (1993), I had similarly criticized in detail a similar AIOIT theory (though obviously I had not coined this term then) by P.L.Bhargava: TALAGERI 1993: 302-307, etc.

And even earlier, when I was still in the process of writing my first book, Sita Ram Goel had sent me a copy of K.D.Sethna’s “Karpāsa”. in my correspondence with him, I had criticized Sethna’s similar AIOIT theory. While I do not have my own correspondence of that time, I have preserved Sita Ram Goel’s inland letters of the time. In his inland letter dated 19 August 1991, he writes (underlining as in his original letter):

“Coming  to your comments after reading Karpasa, I agree with you wholeheartedly that locating the Aryans in the Punjab, even though autochthonously, and then spreading them east and south, is only a footnote in the invasion theory. You have got to the bottom of it. I published this book because it at least places the Rigveda prior to the Harappan culture, and makes the Aryans autochthonous. You go on from there. [....] I agree with you that a Rgvedic-centred view of Hinduism is narrow and leaves loopholes through which the invasion theories pour in.”

So I certainly do not want my OIT case to be supplanted by an AIOIT case (described by responsible people as an “advancement” and “next level” of my OIT case), which is based almost entirely on large-scale fabrication of fictitious personalities, tribes and events, on whimsical and arbitrary identifications of rivers, and fictitious migration stories (based on misinterpreted Puranic-Epic references) and utter chronological confusion.

 

Sadly, one fictitious creation and fabrication in this AIOIT case seems to lead to another, and yet another, in a continuous chain. Thus, the need to locate the Ikṣvākus in the northwest (Sarasvati region) leads to the creation of three new fictitious Sarayu rivers in the area: two of them as alternative names for the Sarasvati and the Dṛṣadvatī, and one as the real Rigvedic name for the present-day Haro. So (since the Haro is already correctly identified with the Rigvedic Ārjīkīyā), a new identification for the Rigvedic Ārjīkīyā is required: so it is now identified with the present day Sil river. But, cannot the Sil river actually be the Rigvedic Sīlamāvatī? To avoid that, the Rigvedic Sīlamāvatī is now identified (for no logical reason) with the present day Zanskar river in Ladakh!

Then, to locate the Ikṣvākus in Kurukṣetra, the “capital” of the mythical Manu Vaivasvata and his mythical daughter Iḷā is located in Kurukṣetra (on the basis of the place names Mānuṣa and Iḷāspada in that region). This location then automatically stands proved as the capital of his “son” Ikṣvāku, and even proves that the original Ayodhya was in Kurukṣetra! Further, even the exact archaeological culture which represented the alleged earliest Ikṣvākus in Kurukṣetra is proved to be the “pre-Harappan Hakra-Ware culture”!

Then, to somehow bring the Ikṣvākus into Sudās’ battles in the Rigveda (and also to account for the Vasiṣthas being the family priests of the Ikṣvākus in the Epics and Puranas when the Rigveda gives nothing to indicate this), a new battle is concocted, “the battle of Asiknī”, in which the protagonists of the dāśarājña battle become the enemies, to account for the Vasiṣṭhas “switching over” in the Rigvedic period and area itself from Sudās to his “enemies” the Ikṣvākus. In this melee, “the battle of Asiknī” becomes earlier to the dāśarājña battle in one description, but, in another description, takes place later at the time of “Kalmāṣapāda Saudasa”, (according to some Epic-Puranic genealogy) the “son of Sudās”. In the process, a long list of Epic-Puranic figures of the Solar dynasty enter the story in different ways.

Since the Ikṣvākus cannot be brought directly into Rigvedic battles (since there is no mention of them anywhere in the Rigvedic descriptions of these battles), a fictitious second group of protagonist Bharatas is concocted (the “Saṁvaraṇa Bharatas”) as the allies of the Ikṣvākus, and therefore the enemies of the “Tṛtsu Bharatas” represented by Sudās. This brings another long list of Epic-Puranic figures into the story in different ways.

The main thrust is of course the long list of Epic-Puranic Ikṣvāku kings brought into the story, highlighting stray and innocuous references to these kings in connection with some river or the other, all of this interpreted as evidence of the west-to-east migration of the Ikṣvākus from Kurukṣetra to the Avadh region actually associated with them.

And, to fit into the Ikṣvāku agenda, Trasadasyu and his father Purukutsa (who are kings in the period of the New Rigveda) are made older or earlier than Sudās, a king from the earliest period of the Old Rigveda. This completely smashes the internal chronology of the books of the Rigveda, which is a fundamental factor in the analysis of Rigvedic history. 

And then, the crowning glory is that this is an AIOIT case which supports a Dravidian Invasion/ Immigration Theory (DIT)!

 

Obviously there are many opportunities for further research in the matter of the Indian (PIE) Homeland in the context of the Rigveda. But not in the senseless way done in the book “Rivers of the Rigveda” by trying to force-fit odd pieces of Epic-Puranic data into Rigvedic modes in pursuit of pre-decided agendas. In the field of Linguistics alone, there can be much further research. For example, as I have researched into the new words which appear only in or from the New Rigveda, there could be research into old words already fading away in the Vedic texts, which have counterparts in other branches of ancient IE (like Hittite, Tocharian, Mycenean Greek, etc.). Or into foreign words (other than the two Babylonian words bekanāṭa and manā in the Rigveda) connecting Vedic with other ancient cultures. There could also be a more honest, rather than dishonest AIT-agenda-based, investigation into possible Dravidian, Austric, Burushaski, Sino-Tibetan, etc. words in the Rigveda. Or, in the opposite direction, into Vedic words found in other ancient languages outside India pertaining to the Vedic-Harappan period. Or there could be more detailed studies (again not as part of a dishonest AIT-agenda) of the development of new words in later Vedic texts, perhaps influenced by other non-IE languages. Also, there can be honest and rational investigation of genuine astronomical references, if any, in the ancient texts. And. yes, there may actually be many more (and more genuine) real clues in the Epic-Puranic texts to further fill in details of Vedic, Indian, Indo-Iranian and Indo-European history. The key word is genuine.

 

APPENDIX: The Anti-AIT critics of my OIT Case.

In the attacks on my OIT case, three of the groups from (presumably) the anti-AIT “side” are most prominent.

The first group consists of those who reject Linguistics, PIE, the IE language family, etc. I have replied to them in my following articles (though let me clarify that Michel Danino, referred to in the second article, is not really a “critic” but a highly respected scholar):

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2017/11/are-german-and-french-closer-to.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/08/examination-of-indo-europeancloudland.html 

 

In the second group, there are the Hindu counterparts of Abrahamic fundamentalist people like Zakir Naik and Billy Graham, who attack me for not treating the Vedas as an eternal “revealed” text which cannot possibly contain such a mundane and transient subject as human history. Recently, in an article, I referred to the tweet of one such person (not criticizing me as such, but expressing such fundamentalist views):

This original tweeter https://x.com/adithya  had tweeted as follows:

https://x.com/adithya/status/1898635930283704352

“"Appa, how old are the Vedas?" "They are older than you can ever imagine. They have veen existing since time immemorial" "Oh! Did they exist even before dinosaurs?" "Yes!" "Did they exist before the big bang also?" "Yes, Vedas existed even before the creation of this universe and even before the Pralaya or the dissolution of the earlier universe! Vedas are the breath of the eternal Brahman and were discovered (not invented) from the cosmos by the Rishis through their special ears. Hence the Rishis are called Mantra Drashta (discoverers of Veda Mantras) and not Mantra Karta (inventor or composer). The only thing that is ALWAYS there and has stood the test of time are Vedas. Can you imagine that the Rudram you are learning now was chanted in the exact same way by our ancestors thousands and thousands of years ago?" "WOW! THIS IS AMAZING Appa!"”

But, shortly after that, I have received two comments on my articles from such people. The first comment (which was deleted after someone else counter-commented against his comment) was a particularly abusive comment by someone named “Jeshthadeva” to my article “Pointless Discussions on the Nature of the Mitanni Data”:

“It is quite easy to falsify your fake data of "new words" (many of which are demonstrated to be descended from the so-called PIE) in the so-called New Rigveda. For example, if I take a random chemistry book and a random physics book, there will be some vocabulary present in the physics book which would be absent in the chemistry book and vice versa, even if the physics book and the chemistry book are written and published in the same year. Similarly, there are massive amount of vocabulary in the so-called Old Rigveda that is absent in the so-called New Rigveda and vice versa. So, you cannot say that the so-called New Rigveda is later in time than the so-called Old Rigveda. You will even find the same thing if you do your modernist analysis with any two books of the Rigveda.
See how easy it was for me to falsify your work of more than one decade. That is what happens when a nastika like you tries to attack the apaurusheya nature of the Veda (which includes the Samhita, Brahmanan, Aranyaka and Upanishad). Now, mend your ways or else, good luck in your journey to hell.”

The second comment, in Hindi by a “Ravi Kumar Verma”, was less abusive, but equally stupid:

“ऋग्वेद आदि 4 वेद इतिहास के ग्रंथ नहीं हैं...लेखक की यह सबसे बड़ी मौलिक गलती है”.

I think this second group does not even require to be answered by me. The kind of points they raise are not ones on which I can debate them. They must debate issues of this kind with Abrahamic fundamentalists, who hold views of this kind on matters of religions and religious texts, like Zakir Naik and Billy Graham, and countless of their followers and imitators.

 

The third group, needless to say, is the Nilesh Oak school of historical chronology which dates ancient Indian historical events back to fantastic dates. I have written a lot about them. Just one article will do:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/03/dating-ancient-indian-history.html

 

Usually, I would prefer to allow the countless fans of these latter two Hindu schools of thought to be contented and happy with their ideas and views, and only react when I am personally attacked or criticized in terms relevant enough to make me want to reply. They cannot be taken seriously, and are self-evidently wrong.

Jijith Nadumuri Ravi is a great authority on the Epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata) and has a huge database of the data in the two Epics. If he had chosen to write detailed analyses and descriptions of the data in the two Epics, it would have been a really immense contribution to ancient Indian studies.

Unfortunately, he prefers instead to pursue an agenda: an AIOIT agenda. And in pursuit of that agenda, he chooses to pick out stray references from the Epics (finalized in their present form in the Mauryan and post-Mauryan eras) and misinterprets them to produce fictitious personalities, tribes, wars, rivers and events, all of whom and which he transports to the Rigvedic (and even pre-Rigvedic) period and into the geographical area of the Rigveda.

His AIOIT is now a done deed. He will not, and perhaps cannot, retract the massive misinformation that he has put out; and certainly not with all kinds of people egging him on. If he meets with success in acquiring a huge following, I definitely have no objections. See the massive success of AIT writers worldwide. Or the massive popularity and success of Nilesh Oak’s chronological arguments among lay Hindus. Like them, Jijith also deserves to have his own massive fan following of like-minded people.

I only object to his AIOIT being confused with my OIT, and to the possibility of my OIT being disastrously supplanted in the AIT-vs.-OIT debate by his AIOIT (or even being judged on the basis of his AIOIT, and the methods employed by him in expounding that AIOIT). And I have no compunction in being frank about it.