Conservative religious groups are once again making grade school textbooks the battleground. In California, supremacists and revisionists are trying to make radical changes to kids’ textbooks, inserting propaganda and absurd assertions that are not supported in any way by legitimate scholars. The primary effort is to mangle history, but they’re also trying to make ridiculous claims about scientific issues.
Such as that civilization started 111.5 trillion years ago, and that people flew to the moon and set off atomic bombs thousands of years ago.
(OK, everyone, let’s all do our best imitation Jon Stewart double-take: “Whaaa…??”)
Yeah, these aren’t fundamentalist Christians, but Hindu nationalists with very strange ideas—still, it’s the same old religious nonsense. Two groups, the Vedic Foundation and Hindu Education Foundation, have a whole slate of peculiar historical ideas driven by their religious ideology, and are pressuring the California State Board of Education to modify textbooks. They want to recast Hinduism as a monotheistic religion, whitewash the caste system and the oppression of women, and peddle racist notions about Aryan origins.
This is what happens when religious dogma is allowed to dictate educational content—reality and evidence and objective analysis all become irrelevant. The earth is neither 111.5 trillion years old, nor only 6,000 years old, and the errors and misperceptions of old priests are not a sound foundation for science. It doesn’t matter whether those priests spoke Sanskrit or Hebrew, since their ideas are the product of revealed ‘knowledge’ rather than critical, evidence-based research, they don’t belong in a public school classroom.
Heck, what am I saying? It’s just another idea, right? Let’s teach the controversy and allow orthodox Hindu supremacists to battle it out with fundamentalist Christian dominionists in front of sixth graders. It should be exciting and enlightening.
(via Butterflies and Wheels)
“Let’s teach the controversy and allow orthodox Hindu supremacists to battle it out with fundamentalist Christian dominionists in front of sixth graders.”
I’m all for it! Let the games begin!
Cage match!
Yes! Let two religions duke it out in front of the kids! It’ll be funny to watch, and the kids will hopefully figure out that neither group knows what they’re talking about.
They want to recast Hinduism as a monotheistic religion
Which is more accurate than saying it is polytheistic. If you read the Rg Veda, the philosophy progresses from naturalistic polytheism (gods for fire, sun, water…) to henotheism to monotheism (and much later, due to Adi Shankara, to monism).
“and the kids will hopefully figure out that neither group knows what they’re talking about.”
Breeding this kind of skepticism in kids is probably not the best thing unless we are just as good about making them trust in the scientific method. A lot of the more superstitious and non-scientific-minded people I know consider themselves skeptical enough, but they don’t consider science any more valid than numerology or astrology. This is a dishearteningly common attitude, and universal skepticism is, unfortunately, very compatible with it, and ultimately serves to make one even more gullible.
111.5 trillion years? That’s on the order of the expected lifespan of the universe (assuming that protons decay). Love the “.5” in the number; four significant digits of accuracy. Guess the old guys weren’t using slide rules.
Why isn’t anyone talking about those turtles? It’s turtles all the way down, you know.
Hey, if Christians can call themselves monotheistic – with their Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Satan, Angels, Demons, etc., – why can’t Hindus?
But gosh. 111.5 trillion years? Imagine the compound interest!
Yet more evidence that religion trivializes every field it touches. Science, history, ethics, it’s all just another toilet to them.
Was waiting for this to get posted here. Glad to see you give equal treatment to Hindus.
Nationalalists have been trying to legislate how history should be taught since the beginning of public education. Think of the battles since the sixties between minority studies and old-fashioned white guy triumphalism.
A curriculum written by pressure groups in the legislature makes the product of a good old academic committee look like an enlightened, literary masterpiece. I doesn’t matter whether they go after history, biology, geology, or astronomy, politicised curricula suck.
At first, I thought you were talking about Scientology..
-jcr
“…peddle racist notions about Aryan origins”
I do not think that word means what you think it means. “Aryan” in these articles refers to the group of people who historically conquered India, not to Hitler’s bastardized version of the term.
From the article:
“…most established historical research contends that the cornerstone of Indian civilization – the practice of Hindu religion – was codified by people who came from outside India, specifically Aryan language speakers from the steppes of Central Asia.”
Sorry to be nitpicky, unless of course you mean to attack the intertwining of the caste system with those Aryans, in which case ignore me.
Otherwise, P.Z., great job as usual. 111.5 trillion! Stark, raving mad.
Actually, it appears that the Hindu nationalists are the Aryan deniers. Don’t know how they explain their use of the swastika, though ;)
The nationalists insist that Hinduism is an autochthonous religion, not something imposed by invaders.
My favorite quote from one of the linked articles is “That makes Hinduism billions of years older than the Big Bang.” Yes indeed. Quite a few billions.
My impression on reading the linked article is that Hindu nationalists want to claim that everything was homegrown, so there could not have been “Aryan” or any other influxes from the outside. Linguistic and historical evidence is contrary to this revisionist history; India, like pretty much every country, was made of local tribes and tribal migrations. Since the revisionists are proud of their religion and its ties to their land it can only have come *from* their land. Sounds about like how Jews, Muslims and Christians might react if they found out that actually, Abraham came from Madagascar by boat.
I openly confess ignorance about Hinduism. However, is it possible that these outrageous claims are being pursued by folks who are simply trying to run a test case against the Christian Fundies?(CF’s) I’m pretty sure they must know that, without the kind of political power the CF’s have, this is a non-starter. But if they establish some kind of precedent against the interjection of religeous dogma regarding origins of life, age of earth, mechanisms for change, etc, then they have made an end-run on the CF’s.
To me, it just seems too ridiculous to be a legitimate proposal.
Jim,
The Hindus, not just the nutjob fringes of Hinduism, have been using the swastika as a good luck symbol for millennia (though not for 111.5 billion millennia).
It was the Nazis wot stole it. I think it may have been something to do with their perverse take on “Aryanism”, but I can’t be bothered to make sure.
A heck of a lot of people used to use spirals as good luck symbols. I myself had a sticker with a lauburu (Basque) on the back of my car until a collision obsolesced the piece of metal it was attached to. Clearly there was a limit to the amount of luck it provided.
Shows you what a determined campaign to smear Hindus will do.
California has certain rules about how religion should be presented in school textbooks.
These standards were not followed for various minority religions.
Here is the Jewish protest:
http://www.jewishaz.com/issues/story.mv?051007+textbook
Hindus protested similarly (and not with all the stuff that PZ Myers wrote upstairs).
Here are the kinds of changes being debated over:
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/hpi/2005/12/4.shtml
The full set of edits requested (for Judaism, Islam and Hinduism) are available here:
http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ag/ag/yr05/documents/bluenov05item05.doc
I’m really sorry this is the first time in reading Pharyngula that I’ve seen PZ Myers fall prey to total misinformation.
It’s one thing to ask for accurate information about a religious group. It’s another to promote wackiness. That link to the story about UFOs and the moon up there goes to a page by the Hindu Education Foundation — this isn’t other people falsely accusing the group of peddling nonsense, it’s HEF proudly admitting that they peddle nonsense.
Regarding possible Aryan incursions into India, bringin the Indo-European languages, Hinduism, etc., there are many reasons not to believe in that story:
The first is archaeological – there is no arch. evidence of any such incursion.
The second is textual. The Vedic corpus of texts remembers back to the time when (due to the precession of the earth) the Pleiades rose on the equator. Yet it preserves no memory of a migration. Compare and contrast with the Iranian Avesta, which recalls excursions in several lands before reaching Iran (including the Indus Valley). There are all kinds of traditions in the texts, including of the river Saraswati, which is no longer extant, but which matches the traces of a dried up river bed that flows from the Siwaliks down through Rajasthan to the Arabian Sea. This river started vanishing well before any theorized Aryan invasions.
The third is genetic data.
Please see
http://arunsmusings.blogspot.com/2005/12/on-origins-of-indians.html
http://arunsmusings.blogspot.com/2006/01/more-on-origins-of-indians.html
for two recent citations from the American Journal of Human Genetics and the Proceedings of the (US) National Academy of Sciences.
Please note there is absolutely *NO* *historical data* to support the Aryan invasion theory. The main reason to believe in the theory is historical linguistics.
Some non-expert thoughts of mine on this controversy:
http://arunsmusings.blogspot.com/2005/12/on-origins-of-indians-contd.html
Reconstructions of the River Saraswati:
http://arunsmusings.blogspot.com/2005/12/maps-relevant-to-riddle-of-saraswati.html
One last, I don’t have the URL for this any more, producing in full:
Om Sivamayam
The Hindu Family Magazine Affirming the Dharma and Recording the
Modern History of Nearly a Billion Members Of a Global Religion in Renaissance.
Hinduism Today
Kauai�s Hindu Monastery
Editorial Offices
107 Kaholalele Road
Kapaa, Hawaii 96746�USA
Phone: (808) 822-7032, ext 227 Fax: (808) 822-4351
WWW: http://www.hinduismtoday.com/
E-mail: ar@hindu.org
November 27, 2005
TO:
Ruth Green, President
California State Board of Education
Fax: (916) 319-0175
E-mail: RParker@cde.ca.gov
Thomas Adams, Director
Fax: (916) 319-0172
RE:
Hindu View on California History Social Science Adoption
Dear President Green, Director Adams and Board Members:
Hinduism Today, which is the world�s foremost Hindu publication, has followed
the textbook issue for many years. In 1991, in an article dealing with
the California books, I wrote, �Aside from one of the six California textbooks,
Hinduism does not get very good treatment. It is presented as an outdated,
caste-ridden, priest-dominated 3,000-year accretion of beliefs and customs.
There is little mention of Hinduism�s sophisticate theological systems, exquisite
devotional practices or high-powered techniques of yoga to reach the spiritual
heights. Christianity is given far more space and its tenets presented in a
more appealing manner than any other religion. In addition there remains the
powerful undercurrents of ethnocentric thinking, that somehow American and
European history is more important than other history.� You will note the similarity
between that 14-year-old evaluation and what you are hearing in 2005.
As you can see from the letter from Prof. Michael Witzel of Harvard University,
there is a vast disconnect between ordinary Hindus concerned with what children
in California are taught about Hinduism and the non-Hindu scholars who
study our religion and Indian history. Of the some four dozen scholars who
co-signed his letter, just eight have Indian names, and an unknown number
of those eight are practicing Hindus. This letter highlights the problem Hindus
have faced for the last two hundred years: the scholastic community which
studies our religion is almost entirely non-Hindu, and often hostile to Hinduism.
We believe in the review of the Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Islamic sections
of these books you are largely, if not entirely, hearing from scholars who are of
the faith, and not secular outsiders.
Fortunately, you have Dr. Shiva Bajpai, who is well known to us, as a consultant.
You may be interested to know that in the original e-mail sent to Dr. Witzel
bringing the California text issue to his attention, Dr. Bajpai was referred to as
�very religious.� It was not meant as a compliment, but is an indication of hos-
tility toward Hindu religion. We understand the Board is going to bring in another
consultant on the Hindu issues. We specifically recommend that this person
be a practicing Hindu, and not an outsider to our faith. This will give Hinduism
representational parity with the other religions.
The California Framework
The texts under evaluation, of course, reflect the California Framework for
World History and Geography: Ancient Civilizations, and that Framework has
problematic aspects. There are some very questionable lines of advice, such
as �Buddhism, a great civilizing force…� Well, that�s like saying the Protestant
reformation was a great civilizing force for Europe, something Protestants
would agree with and Catholics wouldn�t. The major lapse, however, is that
for Judaism, the theological aspects are detailed: Old Testament, stories of
creation, Noah, Psalms, Proverbs, etc., and for Christianity, stories from the
New Testament so �the students will learn about those teachings of Jesus that
advocate compassion, justice and love for others.� For Hinduism, there is only
one text mentioned, the Bhagavad Gita, with no mentioned of the Vedas and
Upanishads which are the highest scriptural authority for the religion. These
great works� which most certainly also advocate compassion, justice and love
for others�remain unknown to the students.
The Framework allows for inclusion of our scriptures, for it states right in the
chapter introduction to include �the literature produced by their finest poets,
narrators and writers.� Later in the content standards, 6.5, �Sanskrit literature�
is mentioned, but again, nothing specific. Since it is not spelled out, the
textbook writers make no effort to include our primary scriptures and hence
broader theology. The result is the students learn Christian, Jewish and, to
some extent, Buddhist theology and little of Hindu theology. A better focus on
our revealed scriptures will ameliorate this shortcoming.
The Aryan Invasion
Then there is the one aspect of Indian history that has gotten a lot of attention
in this textbook process: the Aryan Invasion. In most respects, the textbooks
and even the Framework are out of date. In the recent book, The Indo-Aryan
Controversy, edited by Edwin Bryant and Lauie Patton, Dr. Witzel himself in his
chapter refers to, �The old-nineteenth-century idea of a massive invasion of
outsiders… Presently we do not know how large this particular influx of … outsiders
was. It can have been relatively small…� Likely none of the scholars who
signed Dr. Witzel�s letter hold that there was a violent conquest of Indus Valley
by Aryan warriors, yet this concept still shows up in the text books.
Dr. Witzel is very much involved in the Aryan Invasion issue. What he argues,
with considerable expertise and largely on linguistic evidence, is that speakers
of an Indo-European language entered India sometime around 1500 bce,
and these people were the authors of the Vedas. By some means, their Indo-
European language displaced whatever language was spoken in Indus Valley.
This influx of a language is quite a different phenomenon from an actual conquest.
However, even this revised theory has problems. Dr. Witzel explains one problem
himself in the same book��The obvious continuity of local cultures in
South Asia, as prominently seen in archeology, is another matter.� He then
states that a clear-cut �Aryan� archeological site �has not yet been discovered.�
In other words, despite the compelling linguistic evidence, there is no
physical proof of an influx of outsiders with the culture described in the Rig
Veda.
The second problem with the invasion scenario is genetic. In 2003 in the
American Journal of Human Genetics, a professional publication, 18 geneticists
led by Dr. Toomas Kivisld of the Estonian Biocenter, reported their research on
the genetics of India. They specifically investigated whether there was evidence
of gene flow from central Asia into India. Their conclusion: �The Indian tribal
and caste populations … have received limited gene flow from external regions
since the Holocene (8,000 years before the present to 1.2 million years before
the present). In other words, they found no genetic evidence of an invasion
3,500 years ago.
In a lecture in 1999, �The Aryan Question Revisted,� Romila Thapar, whom
Dr. Witzel refers to as �India�s most famous historian,� concluded, �The Aryan
question is a very complex question, and I hope you are all absolutely staggered
by the complexity and reeling under all the complexities that I have
pointed out to you. So please, do not take one version as �the� version.�
So why does this Aryan Invasion scenario matter to Hindus? Does it matter
to Jews that the Exodus really happen? Does it matter to Christians that
Jesus really lived? It does matter, obviously, and one book was rejected by
the Board, we understand, for the reason that a historian was cited as questioning
whether the Exodus ever happened. The Jews objected to doubting
a central event in their history, one that is important to their theology. Hindus
already have two histories of India, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which
traditionally are dated back thousands of years. If an Aryan Invasion occurred,
or even if Sanskrit came from outside India, then these two histories have to
be relegated entirely to myth. We are not suggesting these traditional histories
supplant sound scientific study, but it is useful to understand how most ordinary
Hindus in India look at our history. We do not want our traditional history
to be dismissed as myth at the recommendation of Dr. Witzel and his supporting
group of scholars. If that is to happen, then the same group can be polled
for their opinion on the Exodus and the historicity of Jesus. I think you will find
they also hold both to be myths. If a representative of the group attends one of
your meetings, you should ask these quesions.
Our Plea and Recommendations
Finally, we object to the tone of Dr. Witzel�s letter, that categorizes anyone who
objects to these texts as a �danger to religious freedom.� Yes, in India, there
are political issues over India history, but we can assure you that the most
non-political Hindu parent in this country is shocked by the presentation of
Hinduism in these books. The children themselves are shocked. Edwin Bryant
warns of such a tone, �I have expressed concern at what I have termed a type
of Indological McCarthyism creeping into areas of Western, as well as certain
Indian, academic circles, whereby anyone reconsidering the status quo of
Indo-Aryan origins is instantly and a priori dubbed a nationalist, communal or
even worse, a Nazi.�
We realize the Board is only able to make relatively small changes to texts
which in some cases need complete overhaul. We also realize that at this time
you are not reconsidering the Framework, which is where real improvements
could be made. We don�t expect you to adjudicate a scholastic disagreement
involving the leading scholars of the world. At the same time, we do request
that our faith be treated fairly, with the same respect and comprehensiveness
of other faiths. And to the extent this can be done with small changes recommended
by the Hindu representatives, please, let it be done.
Yours in peace.
Hinduism Today
Sannyasin Arumugaswami
Managing Editor
Actually, the news article cited by PZ Myers is remarkable in its ignorance. There are many Hindu cosmologies, but in the most prevalent ones, the universe cyclically is destroyed and recreated on a scale of about 4.3 billion years. It is very unlikely that there is any Hindu group that claims that civilization began on a scale of trillion years ago.
Here is one of the Hindu organizations of time:
Krati =34,000th of a second
Truti =300th of a second
2 Truti =1 Luv
2 Luv = 1 Kshana
30 Kshana =1 Vipal
60 Vipal = 1 Pal
60 Pal = 1 Ghadi (=24 Minutes)
2.5 Ghadi = 1 Hora (=1 Hour)
24 Hora = 1 Divas (1 Day)
7 Divas = 1 Saptah (1 Week)
4 Saptah = 1 Maas (1 Month)
2 Maas = 1 Ritu (1 Season)
6 Ritu = 1 Varsha (1 Year)
100 Varsha = 1 Satabda (1 Century)
10 Shatabda = 1 Saharabda
432 Saharabda = 1Yug(Kali Yuga))
10 Yuga = 1 Maha Yuga (4,320,000)
1000 Maha Yuga = 1 Kalpa
1 Kalpa = 4.32 Billion Years.
At the end of a Kalpa, there is a Pralaya (dissolution) of the world, and it starts afresh.
Therefore, claiming that someone claims that civilization is a trillion years old or older, is, IMO, a smear.
But gosh. 111.5 trillion years? Imagine the compound interest!
How do you think someone like me could have afforded to eat at Milliways?
“non-scientific-minded people I know consider themselves skeptical enough, but they don’t consider science any more valid than numerology or astrology. This is a dishearteningly”…..
And the daily proof of turning on a light or starting the car or thawing frozen (anything) in the microwave doesn’t do it for them, eh? Wow! That’s beyond skeptical: That’s non-thinking. And that’s why these jack asses think they can get away with this crap in our schools.
So a Pal lasts longer than Luv. How true, alas…
Everyday experiences aren’t proof for this, though. They’re just phenomena that science has particularly detailed explanations for. But to someone who doesn’t understand physics, and who doesn’t understand how the same methods have yielded both our knowledge in physics and our knowledge about, say, evolution, they don’t have any good reason to trust in science’s ability to show the liklihood of evolution. It’s more of an ignorance issue. You need a lot of exposure to science to realize how scientific consensus works and what kind of trust you can put in it, why it’s about much more than authoritative-sounding or technical-sounding language. (Remember, conspiracy theorists and new-age writers can be really technical sounding, adopting a thin veneer of scientific language.)
Actually, the news article cited by PZ Myers is remarkable in its ignorance. There are many Hindu cosmologies, but in the most prevalent ones, the universe cyclically is destroyed and recreated on a scale of about 4.3 billion years. It is very unlikely that there is any Hindu group that claims that civilization began on a scale of trillion years ago.
Here is one of the Hindu organizations of time:
Krati =34,000th of a second
Truti =300th of a second
2 Truti =1 Luv
2 Luv = 1 Kshana
30 Kshana =1 Vipal
60 Vipal = 1 Pal
60 Pal = 1 Ghadi (=24 Minutes)
2.5 Ghadi = 1 Hora (=1 Hour)
24 Hora = 1 Divas (1 Day)
7 Divas = 1 Saptah (1 Week)
4 Saptah = 1 Maas (1 Month)
2 Maas = 1 Ritu (1 Season)
6 Ritu = 1 Varsha (1 Year)
100 Varsha = 1 Satabda (1 Century)
10 Shatabda = 1 Saharabda
432 Saharabda = 1Yug(Kali Yuga))
10 Yuga = 1 Maha Yuga (4,320,000)
1000 Maha Yuga = 1 Kalpa
1 Kalpa = 4.32 Billion Years.
At the end of a Kalpa, there is a Pralaya (dissolution) of the world, and it starts afresh.
Therefore, claiming that someone claims that civilization is a trillion years old or older, is, IMO, a smear.
So, Arun, are we near the end of one Kalpa, or have we recently started a new one?
Also,
You don’t find anything a little bit silly and entirely unscientific in all of this?
It gets worse; new article today in the Wall Street Journal. Check out the orchestrated attack on the Harvard professor that came about as a result of this. (Sorry, too stupid to figure out how to link — also it is subscription only, I think..)
Arun, you’re calling the Indian graduate student quoted in the article- who specifically says the trillion-year claim was found on the Vedic Foundation website but was later pulled- a liar. I doubt that. The “history” currently on that site is quite sufficiently absurd, in any case. Not a monopoly of Hindus of course- I’ve even seen Parsi-chauvinist literature claiming that Zarathushtra lived around 6000 B.C.E. Of course Parsi wackos have a great deal less power to bo harm than RSS fascists.
By the way, no serious scholar still believes the old-fashioned Max Mueller “Aryan Invasion” scenario- that’s merely a favorite strawman of Hindutva nutjobs. But the Indo-Iranian language family quie clearly originated outside India (and Iran for that matter), and there are even still those who maintain, based on disputed claims of relatedness to other language families, that the same is true of the Dravidian languages which in that case conceivably arrived in a much earlier wave of migrations. In any case, don’t sweat it- if you go back far enough we’re all descended from immigrants from Africa. Propaganda of the “I’m autocthonous and you’re not” variety is as ugly as it is pointless and intellectually disreputable. And I have no respect for anyone who insists on confusing legends- no matter whose- with history. There’s a good reason why Bertrand Russell once suggested that the history of any country should always be taught by natives of other countries…
What on Earth did the ancient Hindus use a krati for? Can you use a 34,000th of second at all without atomic clocks?
Krati have a use. Not to get into any details, but my first sexual experience could have been most accurately measured in krati.
What on Earth did the ancient Hindus use a krati for? Can you use a 34,000th of second at all without atomic clocks?
.
to pretend to ignorant peasants that their religion has an astonishing knowledge of the world, I suppose…
I can’t say that I’m surprised that the wedge of intelligent design has opened a crack for other religions to get their two cents in–the National Center for Science Education’s newsletter recently carried a review of a book about a Hindi version of intelligent design. I have been expecting just this. Take a deep breath, everyone, the fun has just begun! Why should we be surprised that other cultures would go through the same turmoil as science calls into question their religious beliefs, too? This is THE issue facing our species, in my opinion.
Yes, this is all very silly, but not more so than is Christian creationism. The author Vine Deloria, Jr., for whom I have much respect but who is not a scientist and should not be dissing evolution, has pushed his own Native American version of creationism that proposes “a third theory,” that old “hey, everything you have been taught is wrong” crap. Think about it, the majority of the world believes in some kind of creationism, whether it be Buddhist or Jainist or Islamic or (gulp) Scientologist, or what-have-you. That’s what we’re up against.
Here’s a very informative article, which I boneheadedly tried to tell PZ about in December (sans link, and accidentally using my mother-in-law’s e-mail–I was on vacation and in a latte euphoria over the Dover decision) that describes our human tendancies to anthropomorphize as the result of our faulty wiring. It lays out everything that I’ve suspected.
http://bill.srnr.arizona.edu/classes/596b/Schaffer/God-Accident.html
One eloquent and tireless critic of Hindutva’s postmodernistic attempts to conflate modern science and Vedic mythology is Meera Nanda. See here and here, and at Butterflies & Wheels.
“Let’s teach the controversy and allow orthodox Hindu supremacists to battle it out with fundamentalist Christian dominionists in front of sixth graders. It should be exciting and enlightening.”
We want justice! We want THUNDERDOME!
First, the textbook that had the errors such as a picture of a Muslim identified as a Brahman should have been excluded from consideration, period.
It is appalling that such a text made the cut.
Second, religion, as such, does not have to enter into these debates. California school kids have been taught for years that the Chinese built the Central Pacific railroad, which is sort of like saying that an automobile rolls because of its right front wheel.
Third, there can be no question that Aryan (polite term: Indo-European) speech came into India from somewhere else.
The where else is a mighty big place. J.P. Mallory’s “In Search of the Indo-Europeans” narrows it down to somewhere between Asia Minor and Afghanistan, with a slight preference for the Iranian plateau.
DNA evidence is irrelevant. English came into India from somwhere else, too, and is common today, although DNA evidence would not show that any English people were ever there.
Regarding possible Aryan incursions into India, bringin the Indo-European languages, Hinduism, etc., there are many reasons not to believe in that story:
The first is archaeological – there is no arch. evidence of any such incursion.
There are many things that are not documented arcaheologically which are accepted. For example, the entry of humans into the New World via the Bering Sea land bridge. As the saying goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
The second is textual. The Vedic corpus of texts remembers back to the time when (due to the precession of the earth) the Pleiades rose on the equator. Yet it preserves no memory of a migration. Compare and contrast with the Iranian Avesta, which recalls excursions in several lands before reaching Iran (including the Indus Valley). There are all kinds of traditions in the texts, including of the river Saraswati, which is no longer extant, but which matches the traces of a dried up river bed that flows from the Siwaliks down through Rajasthan to the Arabian Sea. This river started vanishing well before any theorized Aryan invasions.
Very interesting stuff, but I thought we knew that sacred religious texts are not scientific evidence.
Please note there is absolutely *NO* *historical data* to support the Aryan invasion theory. The main reason to believe in the theory is historical linguistics.
And that evidence is irrefutable. Sanskrit is not an autochthonous language of India. Sanksrit is an Indo-European language. It is most closely related to the ancient languages of Persia, but it is also unquestionably related to Latin, Greek, Germanic, Slavic, Celtic, Albanian, etc. And the evidence for the origins of Indo-European places it somewhere around the Russian steppes. There is no way Indo-European originated in India. Indo-European (i.e., Sanskrit) was a later (tho still very long ago) entry into India from the northwest. Period.
We know what languages were spoken in India before Indo-European. Dravidian languages, which are still what people speak in the southern half of India to this day, and Munda languages, spoken by pockets of scheduled tribes to this day.
I’m not qualified to discuss the origins of Hinduism — to what degree it’s Indo-European versus to what degree it was shaped by the indigenous Dravidians whom the Indo-Europeans encountered when they entered the subcontinent — but that is a separate issue.
Steve: “…no serious scholar still believes the old-fashioned Max Mueller “Aryan Invasion” scenario- that’s merely a favorite strawman of Hindutva nutjobs….”
But that’s not the complaint of most (underline most) Hindus either. Look at quote the letter from Hinduimsm Today that Arun posted:
“…Likely none of the scholars who signed Dr. Witzel’s letter hold that there was a violent conquest of Indus Valley by Aryan warriors, yet this concept still shows up in the text books.”
It is simply not the case that Hindutva types are the only ones to object to such textbooks. More importantly, the argument in California centers on the differential treatment meted out to Hinduism in these texts, and not solely on whether Aryans came from outside.
I, along with many other Hindus, do not ask for (or support) those changes which minimize, say, the effects of the caste system. I certainly do not support Hindutva policies. Or the version of ID peddled by some Hindu organizations. Indeed, as a biology grad. student, I’ve vigorously argued with creationists of all stripes, Hindu and Christian.
Rather, the objection is that the focus on Hinduism centers mostly on such facets of ancient and current Hindu practice, unlike other religions. The net result is that the persistence of Hindus and Hinduism is rendered somewhat puzzling, again unlike other religions portrayed in elementary school textbooks. In effect, the result of such a portrayal is to make a person wonder why anyone would adhere to such an ‘obscurantist’ and ‘repellent’ faith.
Many Hindus notice the disparate treatment accorded our practices and beliefs, and wonder why other religions are not treated in the same manner. My preference is to allow the study of inter-religious argument(and anti-religious argument); a study of such arguments gives a better understanding of what’s at play in religious beliefs of all sorts. But absent a universal application of this policy, I think I am entirely justified in asking that Hinduism be treated in the same manner as other religions.
Kumar
Years ago, the Canadian troupe, the Frantics, aired a sketch called “Theories of Creation” (mirror) (see here for original link). It’s a bit dated, since it talks about the Moral Majority and the creationist is a YEC, but large parts of it are still relevant today.
Mr. Eagar:
“Third, there can be no question that Aryan (polite term: Indo-European) speech came into India from somewhere else. The where else is a mighty big place. J.P. ….DNA evidence is irrelevant.”
I quite agree that ‘Aryan’ speech was not ‘native’ to India. But the manner and mode of transmission is still a subject of (vigorous) scholarly (and non-scholarly) dispute. And it’s in this area that ‘DNA evidence’ is quite relevant. Such evidence has ruled out, for example, a large migration.
More importantly, such evidence can test the best current models of transmission (here, I mean the ‘elite dominance’ model or, say, one of Colin Renfrew’s suggestions that such languages might have arrived with farmers). Simply put, such models–combined with a hypothesis about the ancient ‘geographical source’ of ‘Aryan speech’–imply the existence of a cline in some genes (say, on the Y chromosome) from the putative geographical source to modern day Indian (sub)-populations. It’s for this reason that a great deal of very interesting research is being done in this area, most recently in PNAS (Sahoo et al., A prehistory of Indian Y chromosomes: Evaluating demic diffusion scenarios PNAS 2006 103: 843-848).
Regards,
Kumar
Kumar, I treat Hinduism just as I do other religions- it has inspired art and other cutural artifacts worthy of the highest respect, but its myths if claimed to be “true” deserve no respect at all from the rational. In what specific ways do you think Hinduism gets rougher treatment than other religions, and by whom? In the absence of such specifics your generalized complaint is unimpressive. And I vigorously dispute your implied wish that it, or any other religion, should have its metaphysical claims pandered to or that anyone writing about it should somehow be at pains to avoid making it seem “repellent”. I find religion repellent per se- it belongs to the mental infancy of the human species, which lamentably few have outgrown all these millenia. If it makes you feel any better, I find Christianity and Islam both significantly more repellent than Hinduism because of their histories of intolerance and persecution. I would hate to see the Hindutva types succeed in dragging Hinduism into that category.
I don’t give a crap what Hindus as Hindus, Christians as Christians, etc “want”. Such claims to dictate to others how one’s tribe is to be viewed ought to be dismissed with complete contempt. I look to dispassionate scholarship for the facts; apologists of all stripes need not apply.
Just to provide some context here, about where the hindutva brigade is coming from
“In a barrage of books and essays, most recently summarised in the 1995 publication, In Search of the Cradle of Civilisation, Subhash Kak has claimed to find, in a coded form, advanced knowledge of astronomy and computing in the Rig Veda. According to Kak, the design of the fire altars prescribed in the Rig Veda – how many bricks to put where and surrounded by how many pebbles – actually code such findings of modern 20th century astronomy as the distance between the sun and the earth, the length of solar and lunar years and the speed of light. All the Vedic values match exactly with the values we know through modern 19th and 20th century physics. The number of bricks and pebbles, moreover, corresponds with the number of syllables in the Vedic verses. The conclusion: “the Vedas are books of physics.” ”
Just to remind you all, lots of people in India don’t agree with the RSS ‘scientists’ on everything. But I will admit, they have the upper hand when in comes to people with net access AND time to spare.
For the rest of the article see
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=46
I was brought up as a Hindu in India, and during all of my school and college education there I have never seen a conflict between religion and science (at the very least being reported in the media). Science education was kept more or less clear of this kind of stuff. This was in spite of the general nature of Indians as being seen as overly religious. People who did claim things like “ancient Indians had nuclear weapons and flying machines” were never taken seriously by scientists there. To be sure, India has had an extremely rich history, and some of the early civilizations did take root there — but people who confuse mythology with fact are nutjobs, whichever country they reside in (and every country has their share of those). I am frankly very surprised that people who consider the Vedas to be inerrant (much like the AIG crowd here) are getting this much attention at all…
P.S: Chris is correct in saying that the Swastika has been used as a religious symbol by Hindus for centuries; this has nothing to do with the fact that the Nazis conveniently used it as their own..
Steve:
“…I treat Hinduism just as I do other religions- it has inspired art and other cutural artifacts worthy of the highest respect, but its myths if claimed to be “true” deserve no respect at all from the rational….”
With respect Steve, the dispute does not center around your (or my) views of Hinduism. You most certainly are entitled to your views of the irrationality of any particular religion or all religions.
“….In what specific ways do you think Hinduism gets rougher treatment than other religions, and by whom? In the absence of such specifics your generalized complaint is unimpressive…..”
Well, actually, I had not intended to document in detail the state of Hinduism’s portrayal in American education. That’s hardly possible in the space of a comment. Rather, it was meant to underline to you (and other readers of this blog) that the concern of many American Hindus ought not to be dismissed out of hand as the ravings of “…Hindutva nutjobs….”.
First, I certainly don’t agree with many of the proposed changes. But many of them strike me as sound. Briefly, however, I will expand on what I find objectionable about the general textbook portrayal. The basis of my objections is that the portrayal of Hinduism in elementary school texts tends to focus far more on ‘cows, caste, curry and communalism’.
Note that I don’t wish to expunge the ‘4 C’s’. Rather, just like other religions, I hope that coverage of Hindu ‘theology’ and Hindu ‘practice’ is expanded. The result of the current portrayal is that–as I wrote earlier–the persistence of Hindus becomes puzzling. Greater coverage of Hindu ‘theology’ and ‘practice’ would make its continued existence less puzzling.
.And I vigorously dispute your implied wish that it, or any other religion, should have its metaphysical claims pandered to or that anyone writing about it should somehow be at pains to avoid making it seem “repellent” .
I am not quite sure how you drew that implication. Greater coverage of the content of Hindu theological concepts does not amount to pandering. It can, and ought to be done in a neutral manner, just as with other religionsI was quite explicit about that.
Here’s an analogy specificially aimed at those who think Hinduism/all religions are wrong: Aristotelian physics is false, but a historian of science can highlight why–in its time–Aristotelian physics enjoyed the allegiance of many scholars. This shows, I think, that pandering is not necessary in covering the content of Hindu practices and concepts. The textbooks, of course, don’t attempt this task in the case of Hinduism to the extent that is done for other religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam etc.).
.I don’t give a crap what Hindus as Hindus, Christians as Christians, etc “want”. Such claims to dictate to others how one’s tribe is to be viewed ought to be dismissed with complete contempt .
Note that the problem of Hinduisms seeming repellant qualities is not merely problematical for Hindus. If any ideololgy or religion is wholly or mostly repellent then its continued existence should indeed puzzle scholars.
In any case, what I and many other Hindus are asking for is full coverage of our religionwarts and all, but not mostly warts. Again, just the sort of coverage other religions receive in this country.
Moreover, there is not an attempt to dictate; rather, some American Hindus are petitioning their government while others are opposing these attempts. On both sides, I see no attempt at dictation–just local democracy in action.
Regards,
Kumar
I’ll simply say that I’m quite unmoved by Kumar’s apologetics. American education (and culture in general) have a hell of lot of problems with blissful ignorance of the rest of the world, and this one, such as it is, doesn’t rank very high on my list.
Steve: “I’m quite unmoved by Kumar’s apologetics…”
Astonishing really, that you dismiss my concerns as ‘apologetics’. The arguments I proffered are not premised on Hindu ‘theological concepts’. In any case, these concerns are shared by non-Hindus as well.
Steve: “American education….[has]….a…lot of problems with blissful ignorance of the rest of the world, and this one….doesn’t rank very high on my list.”
You will grant, I hope, that as a Hindu living in this country my concern about such matters isn’t eccentric. I would suggest, however, that all Americans ought to be concerned about the coverage of South Asia (including, e.g., Hinduism and South Asian varieties of Islam) in textbooks (and the media more generally), given the likely long-term American involvement in that region.
Regards,
Kumar
I do believe that the swastika, albeit sometimes appearing flipped around (also called the whirling log), appears in some Native American symbolism, in the Southwest particularly. I also think that it was originally a pagan Germanic earth symbol, and this what the Nazis stole in an attempt to appeal to some sort of Germanic pre-Christian emotionalism. One could actually call the swastika a universal native design, for it pops up so often (sometimes in Buddhist symbolism too) and has absolutely nothing to do with those %@&*#@ Nazis.
PZ Myers:
Hindu cosmology is what it is – nobody that I know of is asking it to be included in the science textbooks or the history textbooks, except as part of the history of ideas.
Certainly, there are people who believe in something or the other, but as the Adi Sankaracharya said – paraphrasing – no declaration of the scriptures can render fire cold; namely reality rules.
Incidentally, the book by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler, “Gravitation” does include excerpts from Hindu cosmology, because they were the only ancient people who thought in terms of billions of years instead of thousands of years, and because there is something poetic in their particular excerpt about how the Universe dies and is reborn in an endless cycle. I’ll provide the quote if anyone is interested.
Steve LaBonne:
Whatever the Vedic Foundation put up on its website, it did not ask the California textbook commission to say that the civilization began umpteen trillion years ago – I am calling that Indian graduate student a liar, most certainly.
By the way, no serious scholar still believes the old-fashioned Max Mueller “Aryan Invasion” scenario- that’s merely a favorite strawman of Hindutva nutjobs.
Actually, the founder of Hindutva, Veer Savarkar, believed in the Aryan Invasion Theory, as did another (older) icon of Hindutva, Balagangadhara Tilak. It is a strawman erected by some Indologists that it is the old-fashioned “Aryan Invasion” theory that people are skeptical about, or that the people who are skeptical are all Hindutva nuts. As is likely, Indo-Iranian languages originated somewhere else, but there is still an issue of when exactly did they first enter India, about which there are legitimate grounds to be skeptical of the standard historical linguistics theory.
As to letting other countries teach one one’s history, it was British historians, attempting to teach Indian nationalists that prior Muslim rule of India was much worse than anything the British did that gave rise to the Hindutva consciousness in the first place. So I reject your last point. E.g., read the introduction to “The History of India as told by its own Historians” by Elliot and Dowson, 1867. I cannot provide the quote to you here, but Romila Thapar mentions it,
http://www.countercurrents.org/comm-thapar030404.htm
I do not have much respect for the lady, but I include here because I have raised an accusation of lying, and so must prepare myself for counter-charges.
-Arun
Someone here asked what a “krati” was used for – 1/34,000 of a second. I have no idea of what it was used for, but I have a plausible idea of how it might have arisen.
The ancient Hindus invented the decimal point and zero – and I think in their exuberance, simply because they knew how to represent them, they invented both very large and very small numbers with no practical use (just like our “googol”).
In Bhaskara’s (6th century AD) commentary on Aryabhatta’s (4th century AD)work, we find the following:
“The time elapsed, in terms of years, since the commencement of the current kalpa is zero, three, seven, three, twelve, six, eight, nine, one (years written in figures) are 1,986,123,730”.
So that answers one question above. Aryabhatta was no idiot, by the way,
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Aryabhata_I.html
The textbook issue is the following (said to be an excerpt from the California standards) and whether they were being followed in the case of Hinduism, Judaism and Islam.
Let’s teach the controversy and allow orthodox Hindu supremacists to battle it out with fundamentalist Christian dominionists in front of sixth graders.
It won’t work. If Hindus were 30% of California’s population, it would spark the same conflicts that led to the development of liberalism and separation of church and state in England in the late 1600s. Right now they’re too small a minority to matter.
Please note there is absolutely *NO* *historical data* to support the Aryan invasion theory. The main reason to believe in the theory is historical linguistics.
…and the main reason to believe in the theory of evolution is historical geology. Historical linguistics is an immensely powerful tools when the mother language’s descendants are plentiful and well-attested as PIE’s are; there’s no question that its urheimat couldn’t have been India for reasons of climate and geography – more likely candidates are various areas around the Black Sea.
Incidentally, the book by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler, “Gravitation” does include excerpts from Hindu cosmology, because they were the only ancient people who thought in terms of billions of years instead of thousands of years, and because there is something poetic in their particular excerpt about how the Universe dies and is reborn in an endless cycle.
Sure, and there’s something poetic about how every minority group in every country that treats it better than the US treated blacks in 1800 considers reality checks to be a form of oppression. Scientists must butt out of Kennewick Man because it contradicts Native American creation myths; veiling isn’t really a form of exclusion of women but merely care and protection (as was denying women the right to vote a hundred years ago); and Hindutva is an earnest attempt to combat anti-Hindu prejudice rather than the Hindu equivalent of the Christian Coalition. You don’t even need to be oppressed for that – just look at how fundamentalist Christians act like especially obnoxious post-colonialists in pretty much every country, including those they’re absolute majorities in.
And for the record, the three clauses of the previous paragraph’s second sentence were brought to you by the Graverobbers’ Secret Association (motto: what Columbus started, we will finish), the Global Zionist Conspiracy (motto: don’t cross the people who made up the Holocaust), and the Islamic Coalition for Corrupting India (motto: today, India; tomorrow, the world) respectively. And of course, the last sentence of that paragraph was brought to you by the Evil Atheist Conspiracy (motto: we don’t exist – move along).
The above is mostly a pile of cr**. You can find Kak’s papers on his web-site and even in arxiv.org.
e.g.,
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9804020
Abstract:
100 bucks says a careful look at Kak’s argument will reveal it to be as idiotic and after-the-fact as the argument for the Bible’s very accurate estimate of pi (in a nutshell: one verse states that pi = 3, but scaled by the ratio of the gematric values of the two alternate spellings of the word “circumference,” it becomes correct to within 0.0001 of the actual value).
Alon Levy:
This is Jim Schaffer, an American archaeologist, not a Hindutva nut
If you’re going to make every skeptic of historical linguistics into a Hindutva nut, well, here is another set of Hindutva nuts for you, propounding on the Paleolithic continuity theory.
http://www.continuitas.com/workgroup.html
From the introduction:
No one can deny meaningfully deny the connections between the languages in the Indo-European group. What one has to reexamine is the time-depth at which the languages dispersed.
-Arun
This fracas just illustrates why the public schools should keep out of religion, especially when the curricula is state mandated. Every believer will want his/her faith taught in the most favorable light. Maybe all states should follow Bertrand Russell’s suggestion that the history of any country should always be taught by natives of other countries: American history taught by French, Italians of Mexicans. AND that an overview of any religion should be taught by the follower of another faithâor, better yet, an atheist or agnostic.
From the paper quoted by Arun. Nothing pseudoscientific.
Kumar, those clines work only if IE speech was limited to one ancestral group.
No scholar in the field (that I know of) thinks that was so.
Unfortunately, a lot of people — not all of them rightwing Aryan racists — have confused common speech=common descent, which it does not.
As for portraying Society X (in this case India) in 6th-grade texts, I’d say leave theology out of it entirely.
I went to Catholic school and our 6th-grade geography text told us how little Catholic boys and girls lived and what they wore and ate in India, China, Japan, Arabia etc.
It came as a shock to me later on to discover that most Indians were not Christians. (On the other hand, still later I was vastly amused to learn that when Da Gama reached Calicut he and his men attended regular rites at a [I believe] Khsitrya temple for SIX MONTHS under the impression that these were local versions of the Roman Mass. As
Rodney King once said, why can’t we all just get along?)
I think I am on your side, maybe, in wanting an introduction to Indian society to include as much of the four c’s as it takes to describe the social scene, along with, for example, descriptions of land tenure, village organization and current and former educational systems. Leave theology for later.
What it looks like to me (based not only on today’s links but what I read in my kids’ social studies texts a few years ago) is that the quality of American primary and secondary social studies texts is extremely poor.
You don’t have to be a Hindu to object to them.
No one can deny meaningfully deny the connections between the languages in the Indo-European group. What one has to reexamine is the time-depth at which the languages dispersed.
They’ve done that countless times. No one seriously suggests a date earlier than 7000 BCE or later than 3000 BCE.
conservation is the law of language and languages, and change is the exception, being caused not by an alleged biological law of language, but by major external (ethnic or social) factors, i. e. by language contacts and hybridization, in concomitance with the major ecological, socio-economic and cultural events that have shaped each area of the globe (Alinei 1996).
This is a crock of shit. The bulk of language change is in fact internal rather than external. The idea that languages change primarily in response to other languages is a common myth, whose sole supporting evidence is in the area of grammatical simplicity. You can argue that languages’ structures simplify as a result of hybridization; but the main vehicle of language change is sound-shifting, which is almost exclusively language-internal.
Furthermore, research into unwritten languages of which there are written records from nearby civilizations, such as Quechua, show that in pre-literate societies, change is the law of the land even more.
These still prevailing interpretations are significantly diminished by European ethnocentrism, colonialism, racism, and antisemitism.
Which will probably explain why Europeans were so quick to declare Sanskrit a classical language on a par with Greek and Latin… if there’s direct evidence that theories of the external origin of (IE) Indians are due to European racism, show it to me.
As is likely, Indo-Iranian languages originated somewhere else, but there is still an issue of when exactly did they first enter India, about which there are legitimate grounds to be skeptical of the standard historical linguistics theory.
What aspect of the ‘standard historical linguistics theory’ are you skeptical of, and why?
This is a crock of shit. The bulk of language change is in fact internal rather than external.
What does this mean?
The idea that languages change primarily in response to other languages is a common myth, whose sole supporting evidence is in the area of grammatical simplicity. You can argue that languages’ structures simplify as a result of hybridization; but the main vehicle of language change is sound-shifting, which is almost exclusively language-internal.
Um, no. Not really. Languages can perfectly well change in total isolation, but they also quite often change under the influence of other languages. There’s good reason to believe that the languages that change their grammars or phonologies fastest do so under the influence of other languages, often by acquiring large numbers of second language speakers, or by extensive bilingualism. There is very good reason to believe that this is why English is such an abnormal Germanic language, compared to German or Icelandic — that its grammar was radically altered by a large influx of Norse invaders who imperfectly acquired English as a second language. There are several other languages I could cite that are strikingly different from the other members of their families, and where historical reasons similar to that can be posited.
But don’t assume this means I’m claiming this is the ONLY way languages change.
And I would REALLY disagree with the statement ‘the main vehicle of language change is sound-shifting’. Languages change their grammar, syntax, and morphology continuously, just as continuously as they change their phonologies. Unless what you were referring to is the fact that phonetic change proceeds a lot FASTER than grammatical change, which I would accept.
Oh, and by the way:
Language and languages are much more ancient than traditionally thought. Consequently, also the record of their origins, change and development must be mapped onto a much longer chronology, instead of being compressed into a few millennia, as traditionally done, and as the NDT also obliges to do. While traditional linguistics, by reifying language, had made change into a sort of biological, organic law of language development, the extraordinary tempo of it would fit the short chronologies of the recent invasion or of the earlier Neolithization, the new, much longer chronologies of language origins and language development impose a reversal of this conception: conservation is the law of language and languages, and change is the exception, being caused not by an alleged �biological law of language�, but by major external (ethnic or social) factors, i. e. by language contacts and hybridization, in concomitance with the major ecological, socio-economic and cultural events that have shaped each area of the globe (Alinei 1996).
…this IS a lot of gibberish. I have no idea what he’s talking about and I expect he doesn’t really either. If he’s trying to claim historical linguists think language contact has no influence on language change, he’s full of shit.
There is very good reason to believe that this is why English is such an abnormal Germanic language, compared to German or Icelandic — that its grammar was radically altered by a large influx of Norse invaders who imperfectly acquired English as a second language.
That only explains grammatical simplification, and even so, Dutch and Swedish are both fairly analytic. The main thing that would inhibit you from understanding English speech in 700 CE is not the grammar, but about two major sound shifts and a third one ongoing, all of which were/are entirely internal to the language.
It’s one thing to say that external contact simplifies languages. In addition to English, you can cite as evidence the analyticity of Arabic-influenced Persian, the phonological and phonotactic simplicity of Mongolian-influenced Mandarin compared with Southern Chinese languages, and the relative analyticity of colonial-influenced Romance languages. It’s another to posit that languages are inherently conservative and will not change in isolation. Alinei could have just as well claimed English will be static for as long as mass media survives.
“Incidentally, the book by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler, “Gravitation” does include excerpts from Hindu cosmology, because they were the only ancient people who thought in terms of billions of years instead of thousands of years, and because there is something poetic in their particular excerpt about how the Universe dies and is reborn in an endless cycle. I’ll provide the quote if anyone is interested.”
If I’m not mistaken you are doing something dishonest here. I can find one excerpt, not several.
In my 1st ed copy pg 752, Indian cosmology is referenced as the first of several cosmologies in a box titled “Some steps in comology on the way to wider perspectives and firmer foundations”.
It starts with: “Concepts of very early Indian cosmology [summarised by Zimmer (1946)]: “One thousand mahayugas – 4,320,000,000 years of human reckoning – constitute a single day of Brahma, …”” and ends with: “”At that terrible time, every single atom dissolves into the primal, pure waters of eternity, whence all originally arose.””
It is thus merely the first, and one may assume, the least informed example of a cosmology. And none of your stated motivations of long time or poetry are mentioned as motivating the excerpt.
Mr. Eagar:
Let me begin with the last portion of your comment first.
What it looks like to me (based not only on today’s links but what I read in my kids’ social studies texts a few years ago) is that the quality of American primary and secondary social studies texts is extremely poor. You don’t have to be a Hindu to object to them.
We are in perfect agreement here, on both the quality of many American elementary school textbooks and that one need not be a Hindu–let alone a ‘Hindutva nutjob’–to be concerned by this state of affairs. However, we are about to part company. ;)
I think I am on your side, maybe, in wanting an introduction to Indian society to include as much of the four c’s as it takes to describe the social scene, along with, for example, descriptions of land tenure, village organization and current and former educational systems. Leave theology for later.
Yes to the inclusion of ‘4 C’s’ (cows, caste, curry and communalism) but ‘theology’ in the sense I intend can’t really be put off. I don’t suggest that 6th graders read, say, Thomas Aquinas or Adi Sankaracharya in the original (Latin and Sanskrit, respectively) or even in translation. Rather, an elementary introduction to the rituals, beliefs and practices of various Hindu communites or Christian or Islamic communities is necessary to forming a coherent view of what has gone on and is going on in various societies around the world.
those clines work only if IE speech was limited to one ancestral group. No scholar in the field (that I know of) thinks that was so.
I also do not think IE speech, certainly IE speech dating to the time of its dispersal into India, was limited to one ancestral group. This does not, however, entail that clines would not exist. Recall that many models of IE dispersion to India (say, the elite dominance model) assume that such dispersion occurred via a particular geographical path through non-IE speaking territory. In such cases, one would indeed expect to find clines.
Note, however, that even if the cline signal is obscured by ‘noise’ (later population and language movements, etc.) one would still expect to find genes in present-day ‘high’-caste Indian populations which ought to be associated with–and dateable to–the ‘arrival’ time of IE speech into India (on, say, the Y chromosome of ‘high’-caste Indian males).
This take on the possible utility of genetic data is not mine alone, but one that is widely shared in the field. Currently, for example, several labs are focusing on the J2a haplotype as one such putative marker; this is the sort of research that can test models drawn from historical linguistics.
Regards,
Kumar
That only explains grammatical simplification, and even so, Dutch and Swedish are both fairly analytic. The main thing that would inhibit you from understanding English speech in 700 CE is not the grammar, but about two major sound shifts and a third one ongoing, all of which were/are entirely internal to the language.
You’re not listening. The main things that make English a very different Germanic language are a whole raft of typological changes, none of which really began in earnest until the time of the Norse invasions. (Which was after 700CE, BTW.) This is not the same thing as becoming ‘analytical’. Most of the sound changes that differentiated English from the rest of Germanic didn’t happen til after that anyway, such as the Great Vowel Shift. If you want, I can provide a reference that lays all this out.
It’s another to posit that languages are inherently conservative and will not change in isolation.
Um, I never made that claim. What I did claim is that language contact often triggers the most rapid grammatical change. Languages in isolation certainly change. One notable example is Icelandic, which hasnt changed much grammatically in the past millenium, but whose phonology has changed quite a lot in that time.
Alon Levy, George Cauldron:
The Paleolithic Continuity Theory is not my theory – if you feel it is bullshit, please argue with its proponents who appear to be non-trivial academics (i.e., non-Behes).
As to why I’m skeptical of the standard theory of historical linguistics – according to the standard theory, the Indus Valley Civilization could not have spoken an Indo-European language; Vedic is a later incursion. Genetics says there wasn’t any large scale transfer of people into India in the theorized time-frame (2000-1400 BC). Therefore the Vedic language could predominate only by elite dominance or whatever. Now, the RgVeda was written with its authors firmly ensconced in India. The vocabulary of the RgVeda comes to some 10,000 different words, Kuiper and Witzel identify only 400 of them (4%) as having non-Indo-European roots. So, the speakers of this language dominated the earlier Indus people spread over an area of a million square kilometers (I believe larger than ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt combined), completely erased their language leaving at most a 4% trace – compare with ancient Greek where I think Mallory says 35% of the words are non-Indoeuropean, or Hittite, which initially people even doubted whether it was Indoeuropean – which supposedly were also intrusions, but on a much smaller scale. There is no evidence for any Jared-Diamond New-World scenario (where upto 95% of the natives died due to new diseases, where the technological gap between Europeans and Aztecs was much more significant) for language replacement. Moreover, placenames, which are supposed to be conserved across language changes, are also Indo-European. Finally, the RgVedic tradition mentions the river Saraswati as a mighty river, which most easily maps to the river that according to geologists vanished around 2000 BC.
The easiest answer to all this to me is that Indo-European was in India well before the standard theory says so. There is much more to be said, but the above is the core.
-Arun
Tobjorn, consider I was writing from memory, having read both Zimmer and MTW. And don’t miss the point – that three physicists thought this worth mentioning in a science textbook, which according to what is advocated here is strictly forbidden. As to the motives of including that specific excerpt, you tell me, why that one out of so many possible.
-Arun
Tobjorn:
In my edition of Zimmer, “One thousand mahaayugas – 4,320,000,000 years of human reckoning- constitute a single day of Brahma”, occurs in a commentary by Zimmer on page 16, which has the substance of the cosmology. The “I have known the dreadful dissolution….” is in the middle of a translation of a story from the Brahmavaivarta Purana, in the previous chapter on page 5.
-Arun
As to why I’m skeptical of the standard theory of historical linguistics – according to the standard theory, the Indus Valley Civilization could not have spoken an Indo-European language; Vedic is a later incursion. Genetics says there wasn’t any large scale transfer of people into India in the theorized time-frame (2000-1400 BC). Therefore the Vedic language could predominate only by elite dominance or whatever.
Well, HERE we’re not arguing about linguistics so much as to whether the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was Indo-Aryan or not. That’s not really a question to be solved by linguistics, since we have no idea at all what language the Indus Valley people spoke. It seems to me that the first place one would have to look for an answer to that would have to be archaeology. And I am FAR from an expert on this, but it looks to me like there really is no consensus on ethnic identity of the IVC. It looks to me like there’s a pretty good argument for saying that the Indo Aryans arrived in the Indus Valley at about the time the IVC was falling apart, presumably from drought. There seems to be compelling archaeological evidence that the *original* Indus Valley Civilization, at least, were not Indo-Aryans, tho perhaps they influenced each other later, after the Indo-Aryans arrived. A not-too-bad summary of this is at the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_migration
Now, the RgVeda was written with its authors firmly ensconced in India. The vocabulary of the RgVeda comes to some 10,000 different words, Kuiper and Witzel identify only 400 of them (4%) as having non-Indo-European roots. So, the speakers of this language dominated the earlier Indus people spread over an area of a million square kilometers (I believe larger than ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt combined), completely erased their language leaving at most a 4% trace –
I’m not sure how this is relevant — the lack of non-IE roots in Vedic Sanskrit would actually harmonize quite well with a scenario whereby the IVC collapsed *before* the Indo-Aryans arrived, and their speakers scattered. And it’s not at all unheard of for two languages in contact not to borrow very much, especially if one language is dominant. If the Indo-Aryans were politically dominant over the descendants of the IVC, it wouldn’t be unusual at all for the Indo-Aryans not to borrow many words from them.
Moreover, placenames, which are supposed to be conserved across language changes, are also Indo-European.
Again, that would be compatible with a scenario whereby the Indo-Aryans entered AFTER the IVC collapsed. All it means is that the Indo-Aryans didn’t borrow place names from the previous inhabitants. If the Indo-Aryans were much stronger, this is not surprising. Look at California — there are very few place names in California of American Indian origin. Almost all place names in California are Spanish or Anglo. This is because the aboriginal residents of California were suppressed very harshly in the wake of the first white contact, and the invaders didn’t borrow any words from them.
The easiest answer to all this to me is that Indo-European was in India well before the standard theory says so. There is much more to be said, but the above is the core.
Well ultimately, this decision is really an archaeological decision, not a linguistic decision. But if all we’re quibbling about is the time of entry of Indo-European into India, we’re not disagreeing about much. To me it’s a fact that Proto-Indo-Aryan had to have come into India from outside. The only real questions are whether this was a matter of a large number of Indo-Aryan PEOPLE invading, or whether it was a small entry, and more a matter of the LANGUAGE spreading in and swiftly replacing whatever else had been previously spoken in north India (Dravidian?). My feeling is that the language had to come in with SOME people — Sanskrit didn’t just blow in on the wind. But I couldn’t presume to be more specific than that. This just isn’t my specialization.
Kak presents no arguments in the paper. He looks for consistency in the distances and dimensions and begins to speculate what ideas could have led those unnamed writers to come up with such numbers. Nowhere does he credit Sayana with deducing the speed of light and refers to the first scientific calculation by Roemer. Kak refers to two texts a Purana (sacred folklore) and a later commentary on a work of astronomy.
Anyone who thinks their community is “special” or that the tangled historical mess of their linguistic and cultural antecedents, migrations and mixings can be unraveled and neatly explicated (whether in support of political goals or to burnish some religious or other communal self-image) is nuts, though in the most commonplace, everyday human way.
Nationality, ethnicity, identity…these things are all imagined and invented (and constantly reimagined and reinvented) in the present, in every individual. It doesn’t mean they’re not powerful and important concepts with fancy implications…but all this debate about evidence from migrations and linguistics and y-chromosomes: fascinating of course, but it’s not really the issue, is it?
It’s the same old shit…someone wants to superimpose their will on others, someone wants their personal self-fantasy pandered to. There is no point in marshalling rational arguments in this kind of scenario. What a different world it would be if there was.
You know, this kind of thing, along with comments about how they had the right idea about the age of the earth in billions of years, completely miss the point of science. Science is a process, not the collection of facts, and someone who guesses at an answer is not doing science to a degree measured by how close he gets to the correct value.
“Tobjorn, consider I was writing from memory, having read both Zimmer and MTW.”
That is no excuse. Rather, that would have told you that you were reading things into the use of the excerpt that wasn’t true.
“And don’t miss the point – that three physicists thought this worth mentioning in a science textbook, which according to what is advocated here is strictly forbidden.”
I call bull! They mentioned it as an early and wrong example of cosmology, not a faith per se.
And there is nothing that say that you are forbidden to mention religion in science. In fact, there are sciences of sorts on religions, their history and texts. But in the case of natural sciences, you can’t do anything useful with faith. Except as a bad example of course.
You could argue that a school book text used in lower schools should not mention religions because it would be unconstitutional. But this is no such text, either.
“As to the motives of including that specific excerpt, you tell me, why that one out of so many possible.”
I am not sure what you mean exactly. The authors intention by including earlier cosmologies are clear from the inclusion box title.
“In my edition of Zimmer, “One thousand mahaayugas – 4,320,000,000 years of human reckoning- constitute a single day of Brahma”, occurs in a commentary by Zimmer on page 16, which has the substance of the cosmology. The “I have known the dreadful dissolution….” is in the middle of a translation of a story from the Brahmavaivarta Purana, in the previous chapter on page 5.”
So what? I cited MTWs excerpt, which _you_ introduced as a nice example for _you_.
“You know, this kind of thing, along with comments about how they had the right idea about the age of the earth in billions of years, completely miss the point of science.”
It also inadvertently brings out the method of how to construct these coincidences.
The number is supposed to describe the speed of the _Sun_. Then it doesn’t, with either of _two_ different measure systems used, they check both numbers for the speed of light. Since there now is a better agreement (ie not wrong with a factor of 10 or 1000) with one of whose numbers, they say that it is a ‘coincidence’.
You know, this kind of thing, along with comments about how they had the right idea about the age of the earth in billions of years, completely miss the point of science. Science is a process, not the collection of facts, and someone who guesses at an answer is not doing science to a degree measured by how close he gets to the correct value.
I see your point, but I still have to admit, I’m a lot less irritated by a bunch of religious people saying the earth is 11 trillion years old than I am by a bunch of dingbats who want to say it’s 3,000-6,000 years old.
“You know, this kind of thing, along with comments about how they had the right idea about the age of the earth in billions of years, completely miss the point of science. Science is a process, not the collection of facts, and someone who guesses at an answer is not doing science to a degree measured by how close he gets to the correct value.”
Interesting point there. Maybe the biggest danger to science is NOT the people who deny its utility in describing phenomena. Instead, the danger may be greater from people who say that their holy books have all the answers; and when any new discovery is made, they take another look at the holy book and say, why here it is right here, only we thought you knew that already.
Maybe the real part of science is not in the conclusions, but in the process it uses to reach those conclusions. You COULD get the value of the charge of the electron by reading Section D of Holy Book Z in a suspiciously convoluted way. But the real beauty is in the physics textbook description of the Millikan experiment where he makes oil droplets hang in midair by electric fields and then ‘weighed’ them by seeing how fast they fell in air.
This is beauty; this is comprehensible; this is repeatable; and if it is ever found to be wrong later; the debate will have no irrelevant religious connotations.
Um, I never made that claim. What I did claim is that language contact often triggers the most rapid grammatical change. Languages in isolation certainly change. One notable example is Icelandic, which hasnt changed much grammatically in the past millenium, but whose phonology has changed quite a lot in that time.
I never said you made that claim. I was attacking Alinei, not you.
The Paleolithic Continuity Theory is not my theory – if you feel it is bullshit, please argue with its proponents who appear to be non-trivial academics (i.e., non-Behes).
There’s a very big difference between non-trivial and anything-approaching-mainstream. The way you cite a strangely non-mainstream theory of linguistics that contradicts a lot of things that are known to be true from evidence of written languages makes me feel that even if Alinei et al are sincere, you are not. The evidence we know supports the dominant historical linguistic paradigms, which you criticize for reasons that seem less intellectual and more ideological.
As to why I’m skeptical of the standard theory of historical linguistics – according to the standard theory, the Indus Valley Civilization could not have spoken an Indo-European language; Vedic is a later incursion. Genetics says there wasn’t any large scale transfer of people into India in the theorized time-frame (2000-1400 BC).
It’s not the only occasion on which cultural domination caused indingenous people to adopt the dominant group’s language. The most obvious though least blatant example is immigrants to the United States: most of them have abandoned their ancestral languages in favor of English, whose “original” speakers represent only about a quarter of the USA’s population. Genetics will tell you that there’s continuity between Africans and African-Americans; cultural comparisons will tell you that there is scarcely any. For an even more complete example, look at the dominance of English in Ireland, though in that case there’s a large degree of continuity of culture.
If I’m not mistaken, it’s already well-known that the Germanic peoples do not descend genetically from the Proto-Indo-Europeans, even though there’s no doubt they descend from them culturally. Why, then, is it so surprising that similar evidence reveals that the same thing holds for Indians?
I see your point, but I still have to admit, I’m a lot less irritated by a bunch of religious people saying the earth is 11 trillion years old than I am by a bunch of dingbats who want to say it’s 3,000-6,000 years old.
I’m equally irritated by all people who believe their religion’s scripture has anything to teach us about physical reality, or for that matter about anything except how to use propaganda to perpetuate a parasitic ruling class of priests.
Teach the controversy. Our students are entitled to hear about all viewpoints. I suggest a state requirement that every high school student must read Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” and engage in a discussion of the evidence supporting the idea that Jesus was married and fathered a child. There are plenty of other supporting books such as “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”. Obviously the church is trying to force their doctrine on their members, and unwilling to seriously discuss the many flaws in their position and the overwhelming evidence against it. :-)
Well, if we want to be completely viewpoint-blind then we should also demand schools teach that there is no evidence Jesus ever existed, but I don’t think it will fly well with Christians.
Alon Levy,
The example of immigrants taking up English in America proves what? That the incoming Indo-Aryans should have taken up whatever pre-existing language there was? To use your analogy, it is more like immigrants to the US cause it to change its language to German.
Secondly, your example of African Americans also leaves me scratching my head. Yes, there is genetic continuity and cultural discontinuity with their African relatives. But that cultural discontinuity would show up in the archaeological record.
Finally, everyone here is missing the point. . Whatever the people of the Vedic Foundation may believe, they did not ask the California textbook board to include all those beliefs in the textbook. I’ve provided you a link to the edits.
-Arun
Tobjorn,
First, if you’re so **honest**, why don’t you read the link to the California gov. that I provided, and acknowledge that the entire premise of PZ Myers’ article is false, that no one asked the California textbook commission to say that the earth is 111 trillion years old, or that the ancients had flying machines? The specific set of edits requested by the groups is there.
Second, I didn’t take Hindu cosmology to be science or anything. The cosmology that MTW quote is in fact in the middle of a story where Indra is being told about the immensity of the universe to help curb his vanity, the purpose of the story is not to explain cosmology. It is not even from one of the books of traditional science, e.g, like Aryabhatta’s Aryabhatiya or e.g., the Surya Siddhanta. But when MTW could have chosen from among many other Hindu texts, or better yet, any number of Middle Eastern cosmologies they didn’t. You don’t agree with my saying why they included that particular ancient cosmology and just that one – so give the reason why you think they chose that particular one. Let’s see you come up with a reason different from mine.
-Arun
Alon,
A few more points – nobody knows who the proto-Indo-Europeans were, and so no one has descended from them. If we knew who descended from them, we would be able to identify the proto-Indo-Europeans. PIE currently is purely hypothetical – we believe it must exist but cannot identify where; and I believe this is partly a problem of when. I think part of the problem is that historical linguistics is making us look in the wrong era.
Second, it is possible that the US become Spanish-speaking. But would be through an influx of non-culturally-dominant people who come in large enough numbers to leave a genetic trace (assuming that there is a trace to be had).
Finally, anything is possible, the question is how probable is it? Please give me a narrative that answers my objections on how Northern India was Sanskritized. Tell me what was the language family of the Indus Valley Civilization and where it left its traces. The only condition I put on the narrative is plausibility.
-Arun
@george cauldron and Alon Levy:
I hope you might still be checking this thread. I am really fascinated by linguistics and by the argument you are having on this thread. Is there a good book introducing intelligent laypeople to this topic – a Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan or Jared Diamond of linguistics?
Thanks,
Nick
A few more points – nobody knows who the proto-Indo-Europeans were, and so no one has descended from them.
Why does that follow? What Alon was saying (hey, ‘Alon’ is close to ‘Arun’) about Germanic speakers is that they’re pretty certainly not descended from Indo-Europeans, since there’s very strong evidence that Germanic is the result of a group of non-IE speakers switching to IE. We know this because Germanic is actually quite simplified from other archaic IE languages, and also because Germanic has a very high proportion of non-IE vocab, as these things go. So the evidence is pretty clear in their case.
If we knew who descended from them, we would be able to identify the proto-Indo-Europeans.
Well, I think this is a red herring. It’s obvious that IE spread by both means — by its speakers expanding, as well as by people switching to IE languages. The relative proportions are all that would vary. I think everyone agrees there is no such thing as an Indo-European ‘racial type’ — compare people from, say, Ireland, Portugal, Lithuania, Kurdistan, Punjab, and Sri Lanka. None of these places were empty before IE speakers moved in, or before the language(s) spread in. IE replaced the previous languages, no doubt for social, political, or economic reasons. The slow loss of the Basque language is another example of the same thing happening in western Europe right now. So linguists are not claiming that IE speakers are all descended from IE ‘invaders’.
PIE currently is purely hypothetical – we believe it must exist but cannot identify where; and I believe this is partly a problem of when. I think part of the problem is that historical linguistics is making us look in the wrong era.
Well, I’m not a specialist in this, but I think you’re making this too hypothetical. Of course Proto-Indo-European existed. People cannot totally agree where, tho there is some broad consensus. (For example, it can’t have been in western Europe, Siberia, or north India.) People usually place it either in western Russia, the Ukraine, or Turkey. There are a dozen language families descended from it and over a hundred IE languages total. It’s real. And an ultimate ancestor language is inescapable.
I think you’re overestimating how much historical linguistics is directing us toward any particular time period. I personally have very little faith in the ability of linguistics to generate dates or time depths. Relative time depths are pretty much all it can do for us. I think the archaeological record has shaped the chronology of the history of ancient India far more. Linguistics has just provided us with a general framework within which the other facts must fit.
Second, it is possible that the US become Spanish-speaking.
But highly unlikely.
But would be through an influx of non-culturally-dominant people who come in large enough numbers to leave a genetic trace (assuming that there is a trace to be had).
Numbers of speakers alone generally won’t do it — language shifts generally result from unequal power or economic relations. And English speakers are obviously dominant in the US, while Spanish speakers are not, so a switch to Spanish is highly unlikely. This is something the ‘English only’ crowd doesn’t understand.
Please give me a narrative that answers my objections on how Northern India was Sanskritized. Tell me what was the language family of the Indus Valley Civilization
Absolutely no one knows that. Could have been Dravidian. Could have been an isolate that left no traces. (There are language isolates in Pakistan to this day.) Could have been some Indo-European language we never heard of. I wouldn’t presume to say.
and where it left its traces. The only condition I put on the narrative is plausibility.
Again, I am a total nonexpert on the history of India. So I couldn’t presume to lay out a chronology of this. But I think it’s very easy to believe that Indo-Aryan spread thru north India simply by being the language of the economically and politically most dominant group. There’s good reason to believe that the Indo-Aryans were agriculturally advanced, while many of the non-IE peoples of north India (Dravidians, Mundas) originally had no agriculture at all. (As you know, to this day there are still dozens of little tribal groups in India who still don’t have agriculture.) It had thousands of years in which to happen, and, with the current process of people in north India switching to dominant languages like Hindi, Nepali, and Bengali, it’s still happening now. Languages spread — that’s been the normal course of events for the last couple thousand years. It doesn’t have to happen thru epidemics, warfare, or violence.
And also, this is all so long ago, I think it’s entirely possible that the language of the IVC would leave no traces. If the language died out early enough, there would be no clearly detectable traces. There were numerous pre-Indo-European languages of western Europe that died out leaving few to no traces.
(Or, who knows, maybe some of that 3-4% non-IE vocab in Sanskrit is IVC lexicon.)
I hope you might still be checking this thread. I am really fascinated by linguistics and by the argument you are having on this thread. Is there a good book introducing intelligent laypeople to this topic – a Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan or Jared Diamond of linguistics?
Yeesh. Good question! I don’t teach linguistics, so I’m a bit out of touch with what the current good introductory ‘popular linguistics’ books are. Let me think about it. Alon, is there any such book you can think of?
Does the ‘M’ in NickM stand for ‘Matzke’?
To use your analogy, it is more like immigrants to the US cause it to change its language to German.
Actually, the analogy Wikipedia uses to illustrate this is Ireland switching to English, which is exactly like what Aryan migration theories posit happened in India.
Second, it is possible that the US become Spanish-speaking.
It’s extremely unlikely. The current wave of Hispanic immigrants speak English natively by the second generation, despite the shrill, racist lies promulgated by Samuel Huntington.
Alon, is there any such book you can think of?
Actually, I’m not a linguist, either, so I don’t know of any such book. I know a few good online sources about linguistics, but nothing in print.
Arun,
“First, if you’re so **honest**,”
I didn’t say that I was honest. What I did say is that you were dishonest.
From your description it looks like you made a couple of mistakes (citing from memory, projecting intention) without realising the consequences of how the result would look. So you were not intentionally making wrong statements, so you were not dishonest.
Perhaps you should have acknowledged that the mistakes were mistakes early on instead, if my initial analysis made you feel bad. I made it based on the faith that you knew what you were doing, and that no one could mistakenly project such distorted intentions. Apparently that was _my_ mistake.
“why don’t you read the link to the California gov. that I provided,”
Because I’m not involved in that debate.
“You don’t agree with my saying why they included that particular ancient cosmology and just that one – so give the reason why you think they chose that particular one. Let’s see you come up with a reason different from mine.”
I already have. They gave examples of the evolution of cosmologies, beginning with early and wrong cosmologies.
According to you they picked one of several possibles from that time and culture. Well, it is a long list with such choices.
You seem to be making an effort to show that this cosmology was picked for its merits. Which is totally beside how this discussion started: that the initial reference was wrong.
In fact the title say it was picked for its demerits: “Some steps in cosmology on the way to wider perspectives and firmer foundations” so of course the very first cosmology (and perhaps all referenced) has a narrow perspective and unfirm foundation.
Alon Levy:
The area of where the Indo-Aryans were – the Punjab – was previously well within the Indus Valley Civilization. That civilization had wheat, cotton, rice; the cow may have been independently domesticated there. That civilization had city planning, brick, standardized weights and measures, writing, extensive trade with the Middle East, oxen-drawn plows, etc., etc. Against this, the Indo-Aryans had the horse (according to the standard theory, while lacking many of the things I mentioned.) Now tell me, what agricultural improvements improvements did the Indo-Aryans bring in? We even have a fossilized plowed field uncovered in the Indus Valley Civilization site of Kalibangan; and the same pattern of plowing continues to this day! It is very easy to say that the Indo-Aryans must have been the economically or politically dominant group – but that is a circular argument unless you can show how it happened that they were. (BTW, the not-advanced Mundas may have been the people who domesticated rice.)
Anyway, the point is that none of the examples you give had a very wide flung large population that switched languages, and all of them left more traces than the Indus Valley Civilization. Regarding the England-Ireland example, it is not analogous, because in Ireland you had an external kingdom constantly reinforcing its language. There was no such external force constantly reinforcing Indo-Aryan speech and preventing nativization.
The standardized weights used by the Indus Valley civilization are found in every excavated site (says Kenoyer) and are still in use today. So the weights lasted, but the language vanished without trace?
Anyway, enough said.
-Arun
Tobjorn,
Yes, the particular Hindu cosmology was picked for its merits – not its scientific merits, which I never claimed it to have; nor for its antiquity – because it is not the oldest – but because it is the only ancient cosmology with large numbers. And because of its poetry. Just as one might quote one sentence of Shakespeare. Let me give you some context, the bolded part is the latter part of the quote from Zimmer.
The first part of the MTW quote is a chapter and some pages later.
Arun,
Now you are projecting intentions again, intentions that not only is missing in MTW but contrafactual with a simple analysis of their text.
This time it’s clearly not a mistake, but on the other hand we have been arguing this at length so readers are forewarned, which is why you wont find me repeating my first analysis. ;-)
“Anyway, enough said on this, whether you find my reasons sufficient or not.”
Agreed.
Torbjorn”…so of course the very first cosmology (and perhaps all referenced) has a narrow perspective and unfirm foundation.” That’s you speaking.
So, Arun, how do you come to be posting on a computer in English?
OK, Tobjorn, you win, we cannot infer the intentions of someone who provides a quote; writing, like the universe is intentionless.
Anyway, you’ll find citation 4 of this Phys Rev D article amusing:
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0101448
Harry Eagar, English would vanish from India in a few decades if there was constant reinforcement from outside – that is if I read the intention of your question right. If it is a straightforward question that you ask – I was born in Pennsylvania. Even so, I might be writing more in Hindi if it was convenient; my own efforts at making it so not being very successful (look up xdvng).
Science is a process, not the collection of facts, and someone who guesses at an answer is not doing science to a degree measured by how close he gets to the correct value.
That’s a strange definition of Science. If one observes a protein but cannot explain how it works or is created, I guess, that would be non-science.
BTW, reading the post and early comments, it’s hard for me to believe many of you are any different from the religious right-wingers who take things out of context to make their point.
No, that’s a pretty standard idea about science. If I observe a protein, I ought to be able to explain how I observed it—that process stuff—and it is not sufficient to just declare it.
Saying “I read it in a book” is not science.
What is the constant outside reinforcement today?
The area of where the Indo-Aryans were – the Punjab – was previously well within the Indus Valley Civilization. That civilization had wheat, cotton, rice; the cow may have been independently domesticated there. That civilization had city planning, brick, standardized weights and measures, writing, extensive trade with the Middle East, oxen-drawn plows, etc., etc.
Your point being?
Against this, the Indo-Aryans had the horse (according to the standard theory, while lacking many of the things I mentioned.) Now tell me, what agricultural improvements improvements did the Indo-Aryans bring in? We even have a fossilized plowed field uncovered in the Indus Valley Civilization site of Kalibangan; and the same pattern of plowing continues to this day! It is very easy to say that the Indo-Aryans must have been the economically or politically dominant group – but that is a circular argument unless you can show how it happened that they were. (BTW, the not-advanced Mundas may have been the people who domesticated rice.)
The IVC was not dominant over most of north India — only the western fringe of it. There is very good reason to believe that the Indo-Aryans introduced agriculture to the rest of north India. And there is good reason to believe that most of north India used to be Dravidian or Munda speaking. Nothing you’re saying precludes the idea that the Indo-Aryans obtained agriculture in the Indus Valley and then later spread it into the rest of north India.
Anyway, the point is that none of the examples you give had a very wide flung large population that switched languages, and all of them left more traces than the Indus Valley Civilization. Regarding the England-Ireland example, it is not analogous, because in Ireland you had an external kingdom constantly reinforcing its language. There was no such external force constantly reinforcing Indo-Aryan speech and preventing nativization.
You don’t need an oppressive force mandating the use of their language. An economically and technologically dominant group speaking a certain language is more than enough to prompt economically subordinate groups to drop their languages. This is basically how pre-Indo-European languages vanished from western Europe (except for Basque).
You know, Arun, Tamil Nationalist types and other Dravidians don’t object to the historical explanation of the Indo-Aryans being a later entry postdating the Indus Valley Civilization… :-)
George,
The IVC was not dominant over most of north India — only the western fringe of it. There is very good reason to believe that the Indo-Aryans introduced agriculture to the rest of north India. And there is good reason to believe that most of north India used to be Dravidian or Munda speaking. There are many more sites along the dried bed of the Sarasvati than along those of the Sindhu. There are in fact no reason at all to believe that the Indo-Aryans (who no one knows now to have been a distinct “people”) introduced agriculture to the rest of “northern india”. Ancient Tamizh literature has absolutely no record leave alone references to any lands north of present day Salem. The five regions described in Tamizh literature – Kurinji (hills), Mullai (forests), Marudam (river valleys), Palai (barren lands), Neydhal (seashore) – are all well within present day Tamizh Naadu. The term Dravidian itself is from Sanskrit and refers to a region and not a people. Tamizh chauvanist myth making is an entirely different thing.
Your explanation renders certain scenarios plausible but by no means conclusive.
Tamizh chauvanist myth making is an entirely different thing.
I know, I mostly included that last remark to gently remind Arun that there are some Indians who don’t mind the ‘Aryan Invasion’ scenario. :-)
When I spoke about Dravidians in north India, I wasn’t referring to the Tamils at all. I meant people speaking Dravidian languages. As you may or may not know, speakers of Dravidian languages occupy the entire southern half of India. There are isolated pockets of Dravidian-speaking (not Tamil) scheduled tribes in northeast India (Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal), and even into Bangladesh and Nepal. There’s even a stray Dravidian language spoken in southwest Pakistan (Brahui). There are at least different 25 Dravidian languages in India. I wasn’t talking about southern India at all.
Just on linguistic evidence it is extremely likely that Dravidian languages have been in India considerably longer than Indo-Aryan languages, simply because Dravidian languages are not provably related to any languages outside of the Indian subcontinent, while Indo-Aryan languages have relatives all over Europe and the middle east.
Your explanation renders certain scenarios plausible but by no means conclusive.
I never said it was conclusive. :-)
shiva,
“That’s you speaking.”
It is a really simple text analysis since narrow and broad are nonoverlapping perspectives. They say “not broad” so I say “narrow”.
Arun,
“OK, Tobjorn, you win, we cannot infer the intentions of someone who provides a quote; writing, like the universe is intentionless.”
Now you are projecting purpose yet again. First, I don’t “win”. Second, I didn’t say that we could not infer intentions, I said the very opposite: I infered the intentions from the title of the excerpt box.
“Anyway, you’ll find citation 4 of this Phys Rev D article amusing: http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0101448”
They cite that excerpt and another cosmology as examples of old cyclic cosmologies. Well, they are old cyclic cosmologies. That doesn’t mean that they are correct. In fact, since they go on to present their own cosmology it is of course easy to infer that the authors believe they are incorrect.
shiva and Arun, it seems you get your hackles up from what started out as me pointing out an error in a quote, a mere detail in the otherwise interesting discussion going on here. I have now said more than enough on this matter and hope I don’t need to go here again on this.
Just on linguistic evidence it is extremely likely that Dravidian languages have been in India considerably longer than Indo-Aryan languages, simply because Dravidian languages are not provably related to any languages outside of the Indian subcontinent, while Indo-Aryan languages have relatives all over Europe and the middle east.
Actually, there’s some evidence that in very, very distant time depth, there was contact between Uralic and Dravidian languages.
It is very easy to say that the Indo-Aryans must have been the economically or politically dominant group – but that is a circular argument unless you can show how it happened that they were. (BTW, the not-advanced Mundas may have been the people who domesticated rice.)
They domesticated the horse first.
http://www.india-forum.com/articles/86/1/HATING-HINDUS-IN-A-%91SCHOLARLY%92-WAY
for a view from the “Hindu Right”.
When the AIT crowd is confronted with evidence of fossils of horses their response is not very different from that of the Creos to hominid fossils “..just a jawbone.. a few teeth here and there..”
Alon,
Tamizh words find similarities with words in Magyar and IIANM even Finnish. Friends of mine from India (Tamizh and non-Tamizh speaking) tell me that it is not very difficlut to pick up spoken Japanese if you can speak Tamizh. I have no idea why or how.
Alon, Tamizh words find similarities with words in Magyar and IIANM even Finnish. Friends of mine from India (Tamizh and non-Tamizh speaking) tell me that it is not very difficult to pick up spoken Japanese if you can speak Tamizh. I have no idea why or how.
I don’t believe it for a second. Examine a dictionary of any of these 3 languages if you don’t believe me.
Besides, Tamizh is just one Dravidian language in a family that is thousands of years old. Tamizh is not the same thing as Proto-Dravidian.
While Dravidian is typologically vaguely similar to Japanese, Magyar, and Finnish, typological similarity does not equal genetic relation. Several attempts have been made to relate Dravidian to other language families in the world. (The two main attempts seem to be Finno-Ugric and Elamite.) However, none of these hypotheses have met with acceptance by reputable linguists.
Linguistics is a whole science, with, like, books and peer-reviewed articles by scholars with PhD’s who’ve devoted their whole lives to it. I recommend you examine that literature rather than third-hand rumors from friends of friends who tell you that Tamizh and Japanese are practically the same language.
In light of some of the comments made here, people may find the following hilarious (or extremely annoying)
http://www.rediff.com/news/jan/29sagan.htm
It’s not AIT but AMT. AIT is the Hindutva pejorative term, like “Darwinism.”
George
I don’t believe it for a second. Examine a dictionary of any of these 3 languages if you don’t believe me.
I know Tamizh and have heard this thing about Japanese from a few Tamizhans (one of whom was a dear friend of mine who did her PhD in Japan and is since deceased) as well as from quite a few non-Tamizhans from India so your beliefs don’t count for much. If you know to speak Tamizh there’s something to discuss or else… Apart from the Tamizh chauvanists of the past (notably Perunchitranar) who made their careers writing about these correspondences there is quite a bit of serious scholarship on the similarities between Tamizh and the Magyar-Finnic.
…rather than third-hand rumors from friends of friends who tell you that Tamizh and Japanese are practically the same language. What I have learnt from friends who have lived in Japan isn’t “third-hand rumour” unless you are accusing them of imagining things. And you can’t be reading what’s posted here if you think that I believe “that Tamizh and Japanese are practically the same language”.
Linguistics is a whole science, with, like, books and peer-reviewed articles by scholars with PhD’s who’ve devoted their whole lives to it. Wow! I didn’t know that.
Alon,
The AIT was the accepted ‘history’ when I started grade school in India about 35 years ago. Check out Nehru’s “Discovery of India”. OK I grant your point. It isn’t AIT. The ‘theory’ simply states that the TFTA Aryans thundered down the valleys on horse drawn chariots and drove the short-stubby-dark Dravidians out of the North into the South. And at school where I was a bit fairer and among the shorter ones surrounded by some TDH dudes we were left wondering what this bakwas was about!
While on the subject of the newly discovered horses of harappa, here’s a link that some might find amusing. This is a classic article by professor Witzel, dealing with the level of RSS scholarship, not to mention the historic decipherment of the indus valley script.
http://www.flonnet.com/fl1720/17200040.htm
Linguistics is a whole science, with, like, books and peer-reviewed articles by scholars with PhD’s who’ve devoted their whole lives to it.
Wow! I didn’t know that.
Apparently not.
Beyond the disagreements over what ought to be said about one religion, this exercise raises a few important questions over what can be validly taught in classrooms. The standards (and how they are applied) open the way for dogma to take priority over historical research.
( Granted – the subject IS religion, and it may be impossible to teach it without strongly held beleifs coming in the way. )
First. here are parts of the standards to be followed while making the textbooks.
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/documents/socialcontent.pdf
“Adverse reflection. No religious belief or practice may be held up to ridicule and no religious group may be portrayed as inferior.”
“Purpose. The standards enable all students to become aware and accepting of religious diversity while being allowed to remain secure in any religious beliefs they may already have.”
The exercise seems to encourage knowledge of, and tolerance for, religions as their adherents now like to present themselves.
The standards do NOT intend that the opinions of historical experts have any place in the making of the textbooks.
The problem is that a religion can vary from place to place. To take a paricularly offensive example, the caste system is a taboo word to the progressive Hindus in California, but religiously sanctioned contempt is alive and well among Hindus in modern India, not universally, but it continues, makes the news from time to time, and shows no signs of dying.
Religions also vary over time. The caste system was definitely accepted by devout hindus as a part of their religion till very recently, The manu smriti recommends horrific punishments for lower castes that tried to learn the hindu scriptures. They punishments are still in the religious law book but cannot be followed in modern times. More modern apologies and justifications of caste differences can be found in works from the early twentieth century. Undoubtedly, similar sentiments still continue to be held, as the caste system is by no means dead.
Completely erasing the negative references to the caste system may be a triumph for the hindutva bunch, but it is a victory of the shouting brigade over the truth, or a victory of spin over ugly reality. However, it may fulfil the educational standards which say “No religious belief or practice may be held up to ridicule and no religious group may be portrayed as inferior.”
TO some people, religion can entwine itself with a sort of nationalism, which gets them into opposition with serious historical research. As an example we can cite the fantastic theories of a golden age of high technology in the distant past in ancient india, which is so old that it could not have borrowed anything from any other culture. Another would be the concerted attempts to find alternative explanations for the apparently less urbanised pastoral Aryan Culture appearing AFTER the more urban Indus Valley Culture. This particular event poses two problems- one their origin outside India, and the fact that they appear less urban (and to some eyes, less sophisticated) than the preceding IVC. Attempts to solve this problem have focussed on the offensiveness of the word “aryan” as being racist, in addition to such useful terms as etnnocentric, simplistic, antisemitic and colonialist.
Most of what the RSS lot would like their listeners to beleive is countered by just resorting to the facts by people like Professor Witzel. He has often done just that, and he will not be easily forgiven for that.
The RSS is enjoying this moment, because, helped by a set of tolerant educational standards, they have had a partial public victory over the Professor’s inconvenient facts.
So, with all this, perhaps it is the standards that are the problem. Maybe the solution for this is to put stickers on the front of the textbooks, a solution that would go down well with their friends in the ID crowd! The stickers would have the “no ridicule” standard, as well as statements such as –
– the textbooks HAD to be made with significant inputs from the ‘nationalistic’-religious folk,
– who were anxious to put their best foot forward,
– they are grateful to the educational authorities for making them look like the Authentic Defenders of Indian Culture
– there has been no bias shown in favour of objective scientific opinion.
Religions also vary over time. The caste system was definitely accepted by devout hindus as a part of their religion till very recently, It still is by some Hindus (and Christians, Muslims, Sikhs as well in India). There are also many Hindus (this time devout ones) such as MK Gandhi and about a few 1000 others who rejected caste in as many ways as you can think of. Let’s have all the history we can get. We could start here http://www.sulabhinternational.org/pg05.htm.
The manu smriti recommends horrific punishments for lower castes that tried to learn the hindu scriptures. They punishments are still in the religious law book but cannot be followed in modern times. When was the Manu Smriti enforced in India? And it is not a “law book”. Who was Manu and when did he live? More modern apologies and justifications of caste differences can be found in works from the early twentieth century. Undoubtedly, similar sentiments still continue to be held, as the caste system is by no means dead. In fact the critics within far outnumber the apologists. Like these people http://www.shastras.org/. Caste of course is an ugly reality and that is the reason why people who care have tried to reform attitudes and customs. At this point “evidence” of pastoral Aryan Culture is sketchy. Further few historians from India are conversant with Sanskrit or any other Indian language. The “Aryan Culture” theory as taught in India today in fact is racist . Check my earlier posts on this thread. When you have the time you might want to read this http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB113815619665855532-lMyQjAxMDE2MzI4NTEyNTU2Wj.html.
“Caste of course is an ugly reality and that is the reason why people who care have tried to reform attitudes and customs”
“There are also many Hindus (this time devout ones) such as MK Gandhi and about a few 1000 others who rejected caste in as many ways as you can think of. Let’s have all the history we can get.”
The reforms that have been promoted in hinduism are something we can be proud of. My point was that you and I can have all the history ‘we can get’, right here, in the comments page of a forgotten post- but it won’t make it to the textbooks, as all negative reference to religion, (or to a religion), is forbidden. The textbooks have been corrected to delete valid references to the evils of the caste system, even as far as they undoubtedly existed or exist today.
If you meant to say, that, while describing the caste system, the textbooks should include condemnations of the caste system originating WITHIN hinduism – I couldn’t agree more.
Sadly that does not appear to be in the textbooks either.( I only have access to the corrections, though..If they are there in the uncontroversial parts of the books, I would be happy )
‘When was the Manu Smriti enforced in India? And it is not a “law book”. Who was Manu and when did he live?’
I wanted to say that there is a work that is regarded as reinforcing the caste system- and I did mention that it is not followed now.
But regarding its previous status as a law book….. well, here we go. ……Pay close attention to the URLs ;-)
(Laws of Manu (Manu Dharma Shastras) written. Its 2,685 verses codify cosmogony, four ashramas, government, domestic affairs, caste and morality …………
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1992/01/1992-01-02.shtml)
(Manu, the famous lawgiver, said that the state was needed to enforce discipline in the life prone to act in unrighteous ways.
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1994/12/1994-12-04.shtml )
That website has been quoted earlier in this comments page as carrying the ‘official’ hindu viewpoint on the textbook problem.
“Books such as Manu Shastra which underpin Brahminism were the law till yesterday, kept the Harijans away and ostracised them and their descendents.”
http://www.shastras.org/Kumudamarticle.html
The above page is from a website YOU suggested I read. If they have no credibility with your side, I don’t know who else to suggest.
These are a couple of sites I found. Spend a while and tell me that they all got it wrong.
The Manava-dharma-shastra or Laws of Manu constitute a classic of Indian juridical theory…..
Manu is here the primordial man who receives the revelation of the supreme designs of Brahman…….
http://www.vedicastro.com/treasure.html
“More compendiously than any other text, it provides a direct line to the most influential construction of the Hindu religion and Indic society as a whole….Over the course of the centuries, the text attracted nine complete commentaries, attesting to its crucial significance within the tradition, and it is cited in other ancient Indian texts far more frequently than any other dharma-shastra (it has been estimated that between a third and a half of Manu is in the Mahabharata, though it is not certain which was the source and which the borrower)” (xvii-xviii).”
http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/ambedkar/web/texts/6899.html
And Yes, I am aware of the new theory that the manu smriti was really popularized by the british as to divide and rule India.
and No, I don’t think that is true. Whan it comes to oppression, we need no lessons from anyone. :-(
Each and every edit requested by VF and HEF are listed here:
http://jitnasa.india-forum.com/Docs/Critique-WitzelCRP.pdf
Let me do a Colbert imitation of the word ‘truthiness” while asking – where did you find these Hindu requests pertaining to civilization starting 111.5 trillion years ago or 111.5 billion years ago? Figment of some FOSAs imagination? Or Witzel or Farmer writing concocting stories here?
And Yes, I am aware of the new theory that the manu smriti was really popularized by the british as to divide and rule India.
Let us by all means problematize Indian/Hindu society and let us work to remedy its flaws. There is a long tradition of such reformations from within without Iraq-style invasions or Colonialization or Imperialism by Western powers to bring “human rights” to us. Meanwhile, let us not force Manusmriti’s 6 abusive verses (out of nearly 2000), that are unfortunately abusive, as the be-all and end-all of Hinduism.
http://www.sulekha.com/blogs/blogdisplay.aspx?contributor=Rajiv%20Malhotra
No Hindu gets up in the morning and reads Manusmriti. Rajiv Malhotra has a nice table in his blog, please read if possible.
There is a long tradition of such reformations from within without Iraq-style invasions or Colonialization or Imperialism by Western powers to bring “human rights” to us.
Hmm, let’s see. Isn’t it a fact that caste discrimination is stil with us despite ” a long tradition of such reformations from within” ?
And isn’t it also a fact that some of the laws we use to fight these abuses date from less than 200 years ago; from a time when “Colonialization or Imperialism by Western powers” was at its height ? ; that there is much resistance even now to the application of these laws ? ; Even that the laws were drafted in the same language as the aricles in this post ? Would you even consider the possibility that human rights were not invented in India ?
In my view, many concepts we take for granted, like personal, universal freedoms, and the worth of the individual, in their present form did come to india with colonial invaders, or with idea diffusion in persons who were exposed to western thought. That is not to deny that colonialism was an horrific abuse itself – But, ideas and peoples have always come into India throught the centuries, and we are where we are now, and the present is something we can be proud of.
Maybe if we continue this revisionist thinking far enough, there could be blog entries in 50 years time denouncing the “myth” of british invasion. that India could never possibly be colonised, that the dates for the arriival of the invasion are have been recently disputed, and so on.
The abuses in Hinduism negatively impact the lives of hindus who have had the bad karma to be born in the wrong caste. No hindu reads the manusmriti like the morning paper, but religously sanctioned discrimination does happen 24 hours a day to many humans on this planet- this seems to be able to happen without the perpetrators reading the a book for guidance every day.
Perhaps ordinary people in 1930s germany didn’t need to read Mein Kampf daily to beleive that the jews were ‘different’ !
Meanwhile, let us not force Manusmriti’s 6 abusive verses (out of nearly 2000), that are unfortunately abusive, as the be-all and end-all of Hinduism.
They may be 6 abusive worses, but to the victims of caste, they are six too many. Condemning a class of people to an inferior status till the end of time, is IMHO, about as bad as genocide.
Sir/Madam, Having read your website and the controversy with the California State Board and others who would like to influence it ,I will set out my subject on two very important fronts. The horse and chariot. These two innovations are the key to an Aryan occupation of India and despite what other revisionists say, there was an Aryan or IE migration of a new people who came and settled in India bringing their culture and lifestyle and absorbing the indigenous people they met. As you know the revisionists such as Elst, Rajaram and others not finding their arguments such as the horse and chariot to clinch their theories in the Indus, are flooding the Internet and other publications that horse remains are found in the Indus and as such the Indus people knew about horses. Up to now none of them can prove with concrete evidence that horses and chariots existed in the Indus and not 3000 years ago in India. We are not talking about existence of horses in India that long ago. This is the method the revisionists always come up with to refer to something that existed long ago, especially Elst and others. The case I now put foward for the non-existence for horses in the Indus is the following:
The Absence of the Integration and Interaction
of the Horse and Chariot with the People, History
and the Archaeological Data of the I V C.
This is an article which I am dedicating to the revisionists of your websites and to all those who believe
that the Indus is of Aryan origin. Far too long the
revisionists have been trying to influence the people
inside and outside India into believing that the Indus
is an Aryan civilization. Dr Amartya Sen, a laureate literary professor whose evidence is so overwhelming on
this matter, also dismisses the notion that the Indus is an
Aryan entity. Apart from this, I will prove that the Indus by virtue of its nature and peculiar lifestyle and culture, is not of Aryan origin. A child could recognize this. The following principles of integration and interaction are lacking in the society and lifestyle of the Indus people and are necessary components for the existence of the horse and chariot which is missing in the archaeological digs of this ruined civilization Thus we have:
1) We all know and accept the fact that the archaeological evidence has not revealed any depictions of the horse and the battle chariot. No one denies this,maybe I guess the revisionists.
2) The Indus people knew all the animals that existed in their society and since these were integrated in their civilization, and lifestyle, they appeared on the seals and in the writings. Not so the horse and chariot which is conspicuously absent in its integrated form. I guess we all agree on this also.
3) The question asked is why all the animals the Indus people knew appears on seals and writing and not the integrated form of horse and chariot? This appears on frescoes, carvings, images, walls and tombs of other civilizations. There isn’t a civilization that doesn’t display its history and prowess with depictions and
carvings in its society. Can somebody name me one?
4) It is an archaeological and historical fact that the societies of Sumer and Mesopotamia possessed the primitive transportation of asses, onagers and heavy wooden wheeled wagons and carts. We all acknowledge that the Indus also possessed the ass and onager because it was the type of technology existing at the time. Just like in our contempory time, the motor car is present in every society on earth. So if the Indus people came to trade with America , they will naturally send back motor vehicles back to the Indus. Similarly, if the empires of Sumer and Mesopotamia had possessed the horse and battle chariot at that period in time, the traders of the Indus would have bought horses and chariots and bring them back to their cities. This was not so. The technology of these empires of Sumer, Indus and Mesopotamia possessed only the ass and cart and bulls. Thus, the Indus couldn’t have had the horse and chariot.
5) Mr. D. Frawley continously fill the Internet and other publlications with the idea that the Indus did not reveal any depictions of the horse because only the elitist of the Indus rode and possessed horses and it was taboo for the ordinary people to own horses. What stupidity! I can’t believe that a man of some education writing something like this. But let’s suppose that this was so for argument sake. Then, what about the chariot? Was this taboo too? Come revisionists , you’re not dealing with children. What a ludicruous excuse for the absence of the horse at the Indus!
6) At this point in time , we all know that it was not until the end of the 3rd Millennium that horses and chariots made their appearance in Asia. Horses and chariots first appeared on the seals of Mesopotamia on the cliff walls in the form of carvings at Tassi-N-Ajjer after the IE swept down from the Black Sea. These seals depict soldiers in chariots drawn by horses and going into battle. None such seals appear in the Indus. Perhaps, revisionists should concentrate more on Central Asia where all the action was taking place.
7) The Indo-Iranians were one people, with one language, with one religion,with one custom, with one ritual, with same Gods, possessed horses, chariots and in an earlier time cremated their dead. The Vedas is known as containing Vedic Hymns, and the Zend Avesta also means Vedic Hymns. All this is ignored by the revisionists who try to push back the Vedic civilization to 3100 BC , in order to fit in their feather brained theory of a Vedic Indus. My God, isn’t it realistic that if the Aryans were living in India from 3100BC, the whole of the north west of India would have yielded a vast amount of horse culture?
Is this not reasonable easy to figure out? I don’t think that we Indians are so dumb! If the Indus had possessed the horse and chariot, they would have conquered the whole of India. This absence of interaction of the Indus empire with the rest of India is too glaring and the revisionists is trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
8) The conspicuous lack of integration of the Indus people with the horse and chariot is enough evidence that they did not know its integrated form nor its accompanying culture. It is reasonable to assume that if a person does not know a bicycle or car, how can they interact with it? How can they drive it, repair it or even print its image on a seal or a drawing board? For example, when the computer first made its appearance in America, how did Indians acquire possession of it? It could only have arrived in India by traders, students, merchants and by commerce. If this did not happen , then the computer would not have made its appearance in India. As a result of this, we have the form of the computer on paper, in pictures and other media. Am I making sense?
9) The Aryans put down on paper, in the Vedas what they worshipped and did in daily life. This interaction with the grooming of the horse, singing praises and extolling the virtues of the horse as battle machine, describing the chariot and parts of the chariot and repair of the chariot are all detailed in the Vedas. The Aryans knew what they were talking about, singing about and doing about because they knew the horse and chariot from their homeland. The Indus does not have this in their chronicles, seals and writings. Since , the Vedas is a religious book, the Aryans described how the Gods ride horses and used horses to pull their chariots and other animals. Nothing like this interaction shows up in the archaeological record of the Indus. But wait a minute, why don’t the revisionists reveal these things to us? Maybe they have a sinister purpose and are paid to do and say certain things. Suspicions point in this direction.
10) The Indus society is the complete opposite to that of the pages of the Vedas. Here in its colorful pages are the worship of the horse and chariot, its praises, its sacrifices and its cremation and burial, reminiscent of the steppes of Russia, where horse remains , are buried with humans and chariots. These are the same societies from the steppes of Russia who brought their rites and customs to India. Did the supposedly (Aryan Indus kings)allowed their wives to copulate with the horse before its sacrifice? Was this a custom on the Aryan Indus or do the revisionists have to push back the date and paint over the people of the Indus to say that it was an Aryan custom?
11) Another lack of intergration and interaction on the Indus seals is the mention of cremation. An important custom as this is nowhere seen in writings but a signboard is found! All of the archaeologists , historians and writers KNOW that the Indus people buried their dead because of their custom their ancestors brought over from Africa. This practice of inhumation is widespread in the Indus and still the revisionists insist that the Indus is Aryan!This is tantamount to saying that Bose the Nazi is the father of India ,rather than Ghandi. This is exactly what the revisionists are saying and a lot of educated Indians believe this.
12) The frantic claims of revisionist writings, articles, books and other publications has no foundation whatsoever. The claims of terracota horse figurines and horse remains in India is indicative of the Indus as Aryan is false and without any concrete foundation. All the revisionists are claiming that horse remains as bones from 3600 years ago found in Harappa, Surkotada, Kalibangan, Malvan and Kuntasi(2300) years ago are authentic , despite what the archaeologists say that all of these are remains of asses or onagers. This long time period if it is correct does not necessarily prove that the horse existed in the Indus. We are talking here of the Indus and the secrets that it is yielding up. None of the cities have yielded up authentic horse remains and that is why they and Prof. Witzel are at odds. Okay , if those are the remains of the horse , then where are the remains of the battle chariots , and where are the descriptions of the wars and campaigns that they fought, like how we have it recorded in the Vedas and other texts? These terracota figurines and supposedly horse bones when given a closer look does not have the clear cut features of the horse nor the DNA matches those of the horse.
13) The integration and interaction of the horse and chariot in the pages of the Vedas is lacking in the history of the Indus. Even if it is taboo to etch the horse on the seals, why aren’t there any other image carved or etched or drawn in the houses of the Indus? Is
there no one who dare to trangress this law in secret? Was everyone so coward as to put pen to paper? What happened to the great writers of the Indus? They invented writing and they forgot to put the figure of the horse on the seals and why don’t they have a word for the horse if as the revisionists insist that it existed at the Indus? Finally , how come a great civilization as this which discovered writing, did not give us a word for the horse? Can the high falutin revisionists answer this question or someone on this website?
14) The forgery committed by N.Rajaram with the insertion of the image of the horse has an obnoxious smell for Indian and Western history alike. This act is excused by Mr. Elst, who I assume consider forgery as part of the discipline of academics. To rewrite history books with this kind of dishonesty , revisionists does not cater well for Indian school books and education. However well the intention, this should not have been done and it casts deep suspicious shadows on Indian archaeological discipline and its attendant subjects. Further, if the revisionists think that they are doing a good service to the children of India, they are mistaken. Indian teachers and professors will be teaching false history to children who will question the existence of the horse and chariot at the Indus and when they advanced in life , they will investigate the supposedly body of evidence and find that the horse and chariot did not exist at the Indus because of its lack of integration and interaction with the people of the Indus. They will find out that they are dealing with a fraudalent history, forced upon them by old and dead revisionists. The children of India, in the future will see that still no evidence of the authentic horse and chariot ever existed in the Indus.
15) Last but not least, the children of India as humans will experience that the principle of integration as applied in their daily lives with someone or something is real. They will experience that when their relatives die documents and photos are left behind to remind them that their family or loved ones were once integrated in their family and that their past interaction bring back memories. What they are acknowledging here is their past familiarity with their departed ones. This past integration and interaction is now gone and is a strong reminder in photos and other papers. If this was the case of the Indus people in their relation with the horse and chariot, we would have seen its images and carvings in the seals and its name in the scripts. This simply is not the case and the revisionists who are highly educated people are not telling us the truth. Therefore, the only logical conclusion I can come to is that the Indus for all its glory did not possess the horse and chariot. Now do you believe me? PS See we as Indians garland our departed loved ones with flowers around their pictures. Now , that is one clear example of a past integrative and interactive principle that someone did exist. Isn’t it?
Thanks for letting me use this website and I hope you print my article. And thanks for reading it, Mr. Editor.