“Indra” and Textbookworm Etymologists

 

“Indra” and Textbookworm Etymologists

Shrikant G. Talageri 

 

I have written many articles referring in strongly critical terms to what I call “textbookworm etymologists” who claim to be having divine prophetic insights into mystical Laws of Nature which dictate that certain words in Indo-European languages can only change form according to unalterable etymological rules, and that words which do not seem to have forms fitting into those unalterable etymological rules are not Indo-European words at all but words borrowed from non-Indo-European sources, even when there is zero evidence for such conclusions.

Having just uploaded an article “Parjanya and Indra” today morning, I will stake my all on this subject by concentrating on just one single word: Indra.

 

According to Witzel, “Proto-Indo-Iranians” migrating from the Steppes, on their way to India and Iran through Central Asia, jointly borrowed a number of words in common from an unknown and unrecorded “BMAC language” spoken by the inhabitants of the “Bactria-Margiana-Archaeological-Complex” then flourishing in Central Asia. I will concentrate only on the one word which constitutes the most reckless, insolent and brazen of these claims about “Indo-Iranian” words “borrowed” from this hyper-hypothetical “BMAC language”: the word or name Indra.

These “textbookworm etymologists” are more fanatical about their claims about “etymological rules” than the most fundamentalist religious fanatics could be about their religious laws and beliefs.

Nothing so utterly exposes the extremely low intellectual and (un)scholarly level of their claims, and of their etymological rules, and their vacuous formulations – or should we say the totally fraudulent nature of their “scholarship” − as this single word “Indra”.

 

This whole issue seems to have been started by A.Lubotsky in his paper/article “The Indo-Iranian Substratum” (2001) where he declares that “*indra- shows irregular vocalization” (LUBOTSKY 2001:304), and goes on to elaborate: “*indra- m. name of a deity: Skt. indra- name of a god; LAv. iṇdra- name of a daēva. Mayrhofer (EWAia s.v.) offers several etymologies, none of which is convincing, however. From a semantic point of view, the most plausible etymology is Slavic *jędrъ `strong, fresh', but the primary meaning in Slavic is clearly `pit, kernel'. Note the “wrong” vocalization, if this were an IE formation (form *(H)indro- we expect IIr. **ḭadra- )” (LUBOTSKY 2001:311).

After uttering these mystic words, Lubotsky firmly decides that Indra is a non-IE word borrowed by “IIr” from the “BMAC language”.

Witzel takes up the refrain in various articles after 2001: Just two examples from 2005 and 2019 will suffice:

“…recently discovered evidence reveals a substantial body of loan words from Central Asia that have been preserved independently from each other both in the oldest Indian and Iranian texts. They reflect the non-indo-European, pre-Indo-Iranian language(s) spoken in the areas bordering N. Iran and N. Afghanistan, i.e. the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex. These loans include numerous words from agriculture, village and town life, flora and fauna, ritual and religion. They were taken over and then exported to Iran and N. India by the speakers of the various Old Iranian and Old Indo-Aryan languages” (WITZEL 2005:87).

“The most prominent words are those of certain rituals, deities and priests: *anc’u “Soma plant”, *yātu “black magic”, atharwan “priest” (however see EWA I 60), *ṛši “seer”, *uc’ig “sacrificing priest”, *c’arwa “name of Rudra”, *indra, *g(h)andharw/b(h)a “demi-god or demon”” (WITZEL 2005:121).   .

“there was a major impact on IA by the (unknown) BMAC language of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC). It included even major Ṛgvedic gods such as Indra, Śarva (Rudra), Gandharva etc.” (WITZEL 2019:5).

 

In my earlier books and articles, I have already pointed out in detail that these so-called “BMAC words”, if they had entered into proto-Indo-Aryan and proto-Iranian as the speakers of those two languages moved from the north through the BMAC areas of Central Asia into Afghanistan and NW India, should have been found in the oldest parts of the Old Rigveda. However, they are found only in the New Rigveda, and many of them even only in post-Rigvedic texts. This alone demolishes the whole AIT-through-BMAC theory.

But here, in this article, I will deal specifically only with this one word or name “Indra”.

The utter stupidity, or insolently fraudulent nature, or both, of the “Indra is a non-IE BMAC loan-word” propaganda campaign becomes clear from every angle:

1. Not a single trace of this so-called “BMAC language” has been discovered anywhere to this date. There is no evidence that a single one of the so-called “BMAC words” was ever a part of any non-IE language ever spoken in the BMAC area.

In 1999, Witzel had accused NS Rajaram of having pulled a “Piltdown horse” hoax by inventing an Indus horse on a seal where no horse existed. Lubotsky and Witzel can very definitely be accused of having pulled a “Piltdown language” hoax by inventing a BMAC language with specific linguistic features and vocabulary which simply never existed.

 

2. The word Indra is found in three distinct Indo-European branches: Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Anatolian (Hittite).

Even if one tries to assume, with these fraudulent “scholars”, that there was indeed a non-IE BMAC language in Central Asia in which this word or name “Indra” originally existed, no-one would be able to explain why this word was “imported” only into three distinct Indo-European branch languages and into no other language anywhere else in the world. Even if this imaginary non-IE BMAC language of Central Asia became extinct itself, why did it not leave traces of this word in any other language other than three IE languages Vedic, Avestan and Hittite? [Or, if one goes by their claim that the Mitanni Indo-Aryans migrated directly from Central Asia to West Asia, then that makes the word migrate in different directions into four IE languages]

According to the brilliant study by Johanna Nichols quoted in detail in my books:

“The vast interior of Eurasia is a linguistic spread zone [….] where [….] a single language or language family spreads out over a broad territorial range” (NICHOLS 1997:122).

“The central Eurasian spread zone (Figure 8.4), as described in Volume II, 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. The dispersal for each entering family occurred after entry into the spread zone. The point of dispersal for each family is the locus of its proto-homeland, and this locus eventually is engulfed by the next entering language [….] the locus is one of the earliest points to be overtaken by the next spread” (NICHOLS 1997:137).

As per this “standing pattern”, many different families of languages moved through the BMAC area. So this word should have been found in many different families. Yet the only languages ever recorded, which contain this so-called BMAC word “Indra”, are three different IE languages only and no other language (not even the so-called original non-IE BMAC language itself).

 

3. This word or name Indra is found throughout the Rigveda: Indra is the most important god in the Rigveda, and has over 250 hymns addressed to him or glorifying him (out of a total of 1028 hymns in the Rigveda). Indra is present in every part of the text, old and new, and is mentioned (by this name alone, not counting his other numerous special epithets) 2415 times in 538 hymns.

Indra’s negative  presence in the Avesta as a demon rather than a god clearly shows an inimical attitude towards a specific Vedic god rather than to a god borrowed by the “Indo-Iranians” in common from elsewhere.

The presence of Indra in Hittite mythology also cannot be fitted into an AIT paradigm with a Homeland in the Steppes or in Anatolia. In the Steppe Homeland theory, Hittite would never have come into contact with the BMAC area in its migration from the Steppes to Anatolia, and this proves that Indra also has no original connection to the BMAC area.

On the other hand, the presence of Indra in these three languages (Vedic, Avestan, Hittite) fits perfectly into the OIT paradigm, with Hittite moving from India into Central Asia and remaining there for many centuries still in contact with the Indian area as Vedic culture later expanded into Central Asia from India.  

 

The main point I want to make in this article is that these academic “scholars” can pull truly grand hoaxes on absolutely zero bases and zero evidence, and the “Indra is a non-IE BMAC loan-word” propaganda campaign is the best illustration of the fraudulent nature of  mumbo-jumbo “etymological” rules (i.e. “*indra- shows irregular vocalization”).

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

LUBOTSKY 2001: The Indo-Iranian Substratum. Lubotsky, Alexander, in “Early Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic & Archaeological Considerations”, Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura, Univ. of Helsinki, Helsinki, 2001.

NICHOLS 1997: The Epicentre of the Indo-European Linguistic Spread. Nichols, Johanna. Chapter 8, in “Archaeology and Language, Vol. I: Theoretical and Methodological Orientations”, ed. Roger Blench & Matthew Spriggs, Routledge, London and New York, 1997.

WITZEL 2005: Central Asian Roots and Acculturation in South Asia: Linguistic and Archaelogical Evidence from Western Central Asia, the Hindukush and Northwestern South Asia for Early Indo-Aryan Language and Religion. Witzel, Michael, in “Linguistics, Archaeology and the Human Past”, edited by Toshiki Osada, in “Indus Project Research Institute for Humanity and Nature”, Kyoto, Japan, 2005.

WITZEL 2019: Early ‘Aryans’ and their neighbors outside and inside India. Witzel, Michael, in Indian Academy of Sciences online journal,  http://www.ias.ac.in/jbiosci dt. 5 July 2019.