Interesting
Ending to Manu-in-Ayodhya Imbroglio
Shrikant G. Talageri
After my last three articles on the subject, this article had to be written. After Koenraad Elst gave his reply (in five parts), in all fairness I cannot ignore it, can I? It is a very interesting reply in itself as I will point out below, and indeed there is need to point out what his rather complicated reply tells us.
I. His five part reply:
“In
expectation of an article about the Manu-in-Ayodhya controversy (which I ought
to have taken more seriously), already this comment on the true story as per
the horse’s mouth. I was apparently right in locating Ikṣvāku’s dynasty as per
the horse’s mouth in Ayodhya, & at any/1”
Last edited
12:02 PM · Jun 18, 2025
“2/ rate in the east,
whence Aikṣvāku/Solar king Māndhātā came to help his Paurava in-laws, then to
return to his Aikṣvāku seat in Ayodhyā. Ikṣvāku was the successor (&
perhaps figuratively, "son") of Manu. The most economical hypothesis
is that he was born in Manu's Palace.”
Last edited
12:24 PM · Jun 18, 2025
“3/ But this isn't
strictly proven. Since only 6000y have passed, I should have done better than
to make this hazy assumption. So, Talageri's confirmed position about the Solar
dynasty's eastern location does indeed imply nothing about Manu. Sorry there,
Shrikant.”
Last edited
12:49 PM · Jun 18, 2025
“4/ It so happens that
in this case, the Purāṇa-based picture, of Manu's Lunar descendents trekking
west from the Ayodhyā area, is supported by 2 Vedic data: the east-to-west
rivers sequence, and the early reference to the Gaṅgā landscape as proverbially
well-known.”
Last edited
12:53 PM · Jun 18, 2025
“5/ It is this
convergence of evidence that persuaded me, & it is what I have remembered
since. This is a perfectly innocent psychology; at worst a "mistake"
can be involved, but no indication of a "lie", a word I've lately had
to hear a dozen times in this context.”
Last edited
1:12 PM · Jun 18, 2025
II. The meaning of his reply:
Here is how a reader of his comments (the same one who prodded him into replying) takes his reply:
(After tweet no 3):
“Sir Mr Talageri was
extremely upset due to your taking this issue lightly. But now that You have
said 'sorry' and admitted to misconstruing Talageri's position, you have set
the record straight. Thanks (Don't forget to check out the article that he has
addressed directly to U)”
1:01 PM · Jun
18, 2025
Was it a “sorry”? Well, I had never asked for or wanted a “sorry”, but for a clarification of a repeatedly repeated canard which was grossly misrepresenting my OIT case. Was his reply even a clarification of a repeatedly repeated canard? He calls it “innocent psychology”: so innocent that he stuck through it for months until a reply was practically forced out of him. He could have clarified that it was a “mistake” months ago instead of determinedly repeating it again and again against my repeated denials, and then comparing my alleged “location in Ayodhya” with Jijith’s stated “location in Haryana” to my detriment (repeatedly asserting that he found Jijith’s actually stated location more credible than “my” alleged location which I had never-ever-stated or even hinted).
Nevertheless
this matter is closed: let us assume it was a mistake he is now admitting.
But is he
admitting it? In any case, what is the new picture that rises from his reply?
His reply concedes that “Talageri's confirmed position about the Solar dynasty's eastern location does indeed imply nothing about Manu”. So I am out of the picture.
But this present round of discussion on Manu-in-Ayodhya started with Koenraad’s following tweet just six days ago:
“So much the better. Sometimes one is glad to have been wrong. At any rate, the only extant alternative to Shrikant Talageri's locating Manu in Ayodhya is Jijith Nadumuri Ravi, locating him in Haryana. I have no new arguments to add to their respective positions.”
4:08 PM. June 12, 2025.
But while Koenraad now concedes that I have not located Manu in Ayodhya, his above reply seems to indicate that he himself now locates Manu in Ayodhya:
1. “Ikṣvāku was the successor
(& perhaps figuratively, "son") of Manu. The most economical
hypothesis is that he was born in Manu's Palace.”
2. the Purāṇa-based picture,
of Manu's Lunar descendents trekking west from the Ayodhyā area, is supported
by 2 Vedic data: the east-to-west rivers sequence, and the early reference to the
Gaṅgā landscape as proverbially well-known.”
I have never
spoken of Manu and Ikṣvāku as actual human historical kings with
kingdoms, capitals, palaces and courts. or other geographical and chronological
specifics (except in quoting the formulations of other Purana-based scholars). I
have held that they were hypothetical ancestral figures
postulated for actual existing tribal conglomerates which covered different
parts of India at the point of time when the writers of the Puranas started
collating their traditional history. I have started the historical Puranic
narrative at the point where the Ikṣvākus are in the east, and
the other five “Lunar” tribes in the west in their respective
locations, and have never spoken about earlier people “trekking” in any
direction, east or west, before those historical locations. Thus, I have never
ever spoken of “Manu's Lunar descendents trekking west from the Ayodhyā area”.
[Yes, in my linguistic analyses, I have postulated that there were other “Indo-European” branches spoken to the east of the Vedic Pūru area, whose languages, lost to the actual record, contained linguistic features found in other IE branches outside India but not in “Vedic Indo-Aryan” or “Indo-Iranian”, and also suggested that the original PIE originated further east and had contacts with other eastern speeches. I have even suggested that the Ikṣvākus and other eastern and southern tribes must have spoken these languages which got completely Sanskritized in the course of time and have therefore not left detailed records. But I nowhere connected these with textual descriptions of migrations of Puranic tribes, and certainly not with hypothetical ancestral figures.]
Koenraad, however still treats the earliest names of ancestors as historical, and talks about Puranic tribes trekking in different directions before arriving in their historical Puranic original locations.
After Koenraad’s above tweet no 4, note someone’s comment and Koenraad’s reply:
(After tweet no 4)
“Manu
is as real as Unicorn”
12:53
PM · Jun 18, 2025
“In "rationalist" circles you'll
harvest some success w/ it, but it's hopelessly obsolete, from the scientistic
wave of late 19th century. Of Laozi, Jesus, Mo & other founders it has been
questioned whether they existed. By now their names are still doubted, but of
course /1”
1:27
PM · Jun 18, 2025
2/ someone on whose life events his foundational story
was based, did exist. Unlike the names of his children, "Manu" was
first a figure from myth (the Creator, together w/ Yemo/Yama, his
"twin"), then the (possibly postumous) title of a founder-king. Greco-Roman
sources call
3:23
PM · Jun 18, 2025
“3/ him Dis Pater, "divine
father". So many literarily attested figures (Troy, the Hittites, Jesus,
Zarathuštra, Rāma) have been declared non-existent until their existence was
corroborated, often from unexpected quarters.”
5:00
PM · Jun 18, 2025
So Koenraad clearly accepts Manu as an actual historical human being of that name having “Lunar descendents trekking west from the Ayodhyā area”. I have no argument with that: it just happens to not be my position: that is all.
Should Koenraad’s earlier tweeted “alternative” now be restated as follows: “the only extant alternative to Koenraad Elst's locating Manu in Ayodhya is Jijith Nadumuri Ravi, locating him in Haryana”? My views on this point are in a different category altogether: I don’t locate Manu, Ikṣvāku, Iḷā etc. anywhere in particular.
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