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Gill Harley
22 May 2006, 04:43 PM
I’m wondering whether anyone has read Shrikant Talegeri’s excellent book “The Rig Veda – An Historical Analysis. http://voi.org/books/rig/index.htm (http://voi.org/books/rig/index.htm)

To me, it’s quite astounding as by simply studying both the Rig Veda and the Iranian (Zoroastrian) Zend Avesta, and by putting together the geographical place names named in both, he has come to the conclusion in a quite logical and rational way that the Indo-Iranian homeland was in the Punjab, Harayana and Uttar Pradesh regions of India.


Here is a map that shows (circled in blue) the area that Talegeri's talking about. I've also circled in red where the archaeological finds are. The blue area extends into Afghanistan as Talegeri says there was a general move ttowards the north-west.


http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/gillharley/mapofIndia.jpg

Talegeri has also done something that, as far as I’m aware, no other Western "Indologist" has done. By studying the Anukramanis, the indices of the Rig-veda, he has put together a chronology of who wrote which bits and in what order.

From this, Talegeri came to the conclusion that most of the early mandalas (books) were written by the Puru family of Angirasa rishis, and that the Bhrigu family (also Purus) came along at a later date, invented the fire ceremony and wrote Book 10.

He says that the Angirasa rishis came in from the east of India and gradually pushed out the Bhrigus, who were in the Punjab. So apart from one Bhrigu family who married into the Angirasas and who went on to write much of the later wider Vedas (Ramayana, Srimad Bhagavatham etc), the rest of the Bhrigus migrated to Iran and one of these families, called the Spitamas, produced Zoroaster who was responsible for the Zend Avesta and Zoroastrianism.

Talegeri published his book in the year 2000, which was at least five years before the archaeological discoveries in the region he describes as the Indo Iranian homeland. Here is a news item about the finds: http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=270163&sid=FTP (http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=270163&sid=FTP)

Needless to say, he’s been slated by the Western establishment for his theory, especially by a Harvard professor named Michael Witzel whose whole reputation as a linguistic rests on there being an Aryan invasion from the area now known as Turkey, or at least from the Central Asia or even possibly Russia, with the Indians migrating east from Iran to present-day India. Thus, Witzel and his cohorts believe that the Zend Avesta and the Vendidad in particular are early prototypes of the Vedas, instead of the other way round.

Witzel has done such a good job of discrediting Talegeri – he has this disgusting habit, when he can’t disprove the message, of shooting the messenger – that Talegeri’s excellent theory seems to have sunk without trace. I really would like to find a way to promote his theory and so am planning to start hitting Western “Indologists” over the head with it very soon!

But I’d be very grateful to hear other’s views on it here first! :)

sarabhanga
23 May 2006, 08:05 AM
Namaste Gill,

What is meant by “civilization”?

Modern humans (Homo sapiens) were present in India from about 50,000 BC; and it has been known for some time that small agricultural settlements, built with sun-dried clay bricks, were present about 7,000 BC (e.g. at Mergarh, now in Baluchistan).

Irrigation methods were developed after about 6,000 BC (apparently first in Mesopotamia), and by 4,000 BC there were large urban settlements in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India. And in the 4th millennium BC, wheels and sails and written scripts appeared in each of these great ancient civilizations.

The first civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Sindhu-Sarasvati, arose at about the same time, and their boundaries were always fairly loose. There is little objection to including the regions now covered by Pakistan and Afghanistan as integral to ancient India; and if the neighbouring areas of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and Iran (cf. Aryan) are also included ~ which seems to me not unreasonable ~ then Aryan “Invasion” Theory is merely suggesting an ancient radiation of Aryan culture from the north-western corner of Arya-desha (i.e. from around the Aral Sea, just north of Afghanistan).

The theory also proposes that Aryan culture invaded (i.e. moved into) Europe from the same region (north of Iran and modern Afghanistan). And Europeans did not invade India in any significant way until about 1500 AD !


a Harvard professor named Michael Witzel whose whole reputation as a linguistic rests on there being an Aryan invasion from the area now known as Turkey, or at least from the Central Asia Does Witzel actually claim that the original Aryans came from Turkey? It has always been generally accepted by serious scholars that the original Aryan homeland was somewhere around the Aral Sea, which is only a little north of modern Afghanistan ~ i.e. “central Asia”.

The ancient Aryans were probably nomadic hunters and herdsmen, who never saw the need to establish fixed dwellings, but that does not mean that they were uncivilized. Their wanderings were at first limited to the wide shores of the Aral and Caspian Seas, but for some reason (perhaps environmental changes) they were displaced.

The so-called “Dravidians” lived further south and had always had somewhat darker skin because of the stronger sunlight. And these dark (or Krishna) people were highly civilized, at least in the huge urban areas that had developed around their fixed agricultural and trading communities.

The two groups of people (one born on the northern slopes of the Himalaya, and the other born on the southern slopes of the Himalaya) perhaps came into conflict when the paler, nomads began moving in numbers into the long established communities of the Sindhu and Shatadru, but there were great changes happening anyway around the Sindhu-Sarasvati plains, as some once mighty rivers dried up completely and others flooded suddenly with multiplied force, and whole cities were swallowed by the sea.

The two traditions, languages, etc., were successfully merged over time, and it is partly due to this great ancient merging of apparently opposite cultures and natures that India and Hinduism are what they are today.

From India’s point of view, the so-called Aryan Invasion is only a trans-Himalayan migration, and it is the same Aryans who invaded Europe at about the same time.

There is some argument as to how destructive the Aryan entry into Indus Valley society really was. There is some evidence of destroyed cities, but exactly what happened is unclear. As I said, there were large scale geological and hydrological changes happening in the area from about 2000 BC, and many Dravidians would have been displaced by this anyway, and who knows what internal conflict may have been occurring in that confused situation. It is thought that the trans-Himalayan Aryans began arriving in numbers around 1500 BC, but they moved into a population that was already sorely disrupted.

When the poetic and philosophical Aryan nomads entered the ancient cultured settlements of Sindh, an even greater nation eventually arose from the ecological disasters and social turmoil that plagued the region after 2000 BC.

But when those same nomads entered the dark forests of totally uncivilized Europe, the effect was quite different. It took Europe another 1,500 years to even begin to get civilized, and their knowledge was either re-invented or (mostly) imported back from the East!

Today, all that remains obvious is the close linguistic connexion of all Indo-European cultures; and if the untruths of Nazi fascists and British imperialists are removed from the “theory of Aryan migration and cultural integration” then it becomes quite an innocuous theory that is actually very helpful in understanding both the Aryan and the Mleccha.

There are some northern European languages that seem to be near the root language of “original Sanskrit”, but Sanskrit itself (especially Vedic Sanskrit) is extremely close to the root!

There are of course many questions still to be answered scientifically, but the academic AIT theory does not suggest that the Aryans came to India from Europe; and it is equally false to imagine that everything in Hindu culture today is completely derived from within the current borders of India!

In the attached satellite images, logical migration routes away from the Aral and Caspian Seas (along major rivers) can easily be seen.

pratardana
23 May 2006, 08:19 AM
sarbhanga with regard to yor above post, i do think that your theory though made with good intentions is unfortunately just as destructive as the infamous AIT. on the other hand i do not think that if it is the truth it should be hidden or denied, but mordern genetics has provided proof to show that the AIT theory is at best actually an Out Of iNDIA movemnt and at worst has at least completely disproved the AIT theory.
would like to point you to the book "the real eve" by "Robert Ophhenhiemar", on this topic.
dont internalise the "facts " dished out by our dear scholars like max muller.....to romila thapar.
regards.

sarabhanga
23 May 2006, 08:38 AM
Namaste Pratardana,

I always hope to destroy ignorance, but please explain how my comments might be destructive in any onther way. :confused:

And I have NEVER read anything regarding the movement of Aryans by Max Muller or Romila Thapar! I prefer always to think for myself. ;)

Please actually read my post, and examine the attached images, before making further comment on the destructive infamy of my remarks. :rolleyes:

Gill Harley
24 May 2006, 02:19 PM
Namaste Sarabhanga

Many thanks indeed for such a considered reply.

My own research, though, has shown me that there could possibly be a different story, and that this other theory bears as much weight as the AIT theory.

I’ve been working in this area for some time, and talking to academics about it, and I’ve come across such prejudice (that borders on racism) that I feel compelled to at least give the other side of the argument a good airing, because that’s more than many of those are doing. Because Western Indologists have such influence, all major textbooks and encyclopaedias talk about an Aryan invasion into India despite there being little to no archaeological or genealogical evidence for any invasion or migration (the latter being the more preferred theory nowadays) into the Indian subcontinent of fair-skinned Aryans from northern Europe or central Asia.

The only evidence of any significance that appears to exist is language-based, with Western linguists showing a breadcrumb trail of language into the Indian subcontinent from the north. However, as several eminent archaeologists have pointed out, linguistics is an inexact science, to say the least, and this breadcrumb trail could equally well run in the opposite direction, i.e. out of India, a direction that would support the “out of India” theory for the spread of Vedic culture.

This telling quote is from the late AB Keith, a renowned Sanskrit scholar and author who was a professor of philology at Edinburgh University.

“...taking the linguistic evidence too literally, one could conclude that the original Indo-European speakers knew butter but not milk, snow and feet but not rain and hands...”

As Edwin Bryant, Assistant Professor of Religion at Rutgers University said:

“...linguistics palaeontology has not provided much uncontroversial data to exclude an eastern homeland that cannot be reversed to support the same. Neither has evidence of loanwords, nor dialect geography, nor arguments based on homogeneity versus heterogeneity. Philology and linguistics can actually offer surprisingly little to compel disenchanted Indian scholars to modify their suspicions of the ability of those disciplines to make authoritative pronouncements of the Indo-Aryan peoples in pre-history...”

And in fact....

“...The one-way borrowing of Indo-Aryan (or Indo-Iranian) loans into the Finno-Ugric language might enhance the possibility that the Indo-Aryans were migrating out of the north-west of the subcontinent towards such regions, and not emigrating away into the subcontinent.”

Talegeri, in the aforementioned book, proposes that there was actually a westward movement from the east of the India across Uttar Pradesha, Harayana, the Punjab, Indus valley and out to Afghanistan. This is the breadcrumb trail in reverse.

As you know, the great patrarich Yayati from the Srimad Bhagavatham had five sons, Puru, Anu, Turvashu, Druhyu and Yadu.


Talegeri says that the Purus were the ‘Aryans’, but that the battles that occurred in the Rig-veda were between two Puru families: the Angirasa family were pushing out the Bhrigu family (who had settled in the Punjab after migrating south from Kashmir) as the Angirasas moved westwards from Uttar Pradesh.

He also says that around the same time the Druhyus and Anus were being pushed out (to become Mlecchas) into the north west and Afghanistan. It is my view that these were probably the infamous Proto-Celts who were responsible for the Gundestrop cauldron dated 1000 BC and found in Denmark.


http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/gillharley/Gundestrop1.jpg

And this is an Indus seal:

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/gillharley/shivaimg.jpg

Yes sorry Sarabhanga. I was mistaken. Witzel believes that the Aryans came from the BMAC (Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex), which is just south of the Aral and Caspian seas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMAC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMAC)

But his criticism of Talegeri’s book were petty and insubstantial, mainly attacking the man rather than his theory. This, though, has been damaging for Talegeri, and so I believe that his theory deserves to be heard more widely and discussed more objectively.

I think it’s fairly well-known that migration routes often (if not usually) followed rivers). However, I can’t see from your maps that these routes are actually coming into India. On the other hand, I never was much good at map reading!:)

sarabhanga
24 May 2006, 10:32 PM
major textbooks and encyclopaedias talk about an Aryan invasion into India despite there being little to no archaeological or genealogical evidence for any invasion or migration (the latter being the more preferred theory nowadays) into the Indian subcontinent of fair-skinned Aryans from northern Europe
It has always been generally accepted by serious scholars that the original Aryan homeland was somewhere around the Aral Sea, which is only a little north of modern Afghanistan ~ i.e. “central Asia”.

And I am surprised that any learned person is still bothering to refute the long discredited exaggerations of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi cronies!

I hope that you can understand the attached satellite image that very clearly shows the simple immigration route from the southern shores of the Aral Sea, which was once much larger than it is today. On the far left is the current Aral Sea, and around it the wide plains that have at times been completely submerged, and which at the time when the original Aryans lived there were probably covered with marshes, broad grasslands, and forests, and populated with large numbers of grazing animals.

The Oxus (or Amu Darya ~cf. Arya) flows directly from Afghanistan into the Aral Sea, and it has been an important trading and migration route for many thousands of years.

I assume that any large scale migration of the ancient Aryans through what is now called Afghanistan and onto the northern plains of Bharata (and also westwards into Europe) was caused by the eventual desertification of their once bountiful homeland.

There is little objection to including the regions now covered by Pakistan and Afghanistan as integral to ancient India; and if the neighbouring areas of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (and Iran) are also included ~ which seems to me not unreasonable ~ then Aryan “Invasion” Theory is merely suggesting an ancient radiation of Aryan culture from the north-western corner of Arya-desha (i.e. from around the Aral Sea, just north of Afghanistan).

Gill Harley
27 May 2006, 02:34 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga

Thanks for replying to this.

It looks to me as if you and I have been getting some different information on this subject, so I think it will be interesting to have this discussion. I hope you agree. If by “any learned person” you mean me, I’m highly flattered but it’s not true. I’m not particularly learned – it’s just that I have been discussing this subject for some time with people on both sides of the debate, which, in academic circles, is split right down the middle - and probably won’t be resolved to any great degree until the Indus seals are transcribed to everyone’s satisfaction.

Of course, Adolf Hitler’s views on the subject been completely discredited. But, in my experience, the idea of paler skinned “super race” that tamed the “savage, darker skinned and indigenous” Dravidians is still current in academic circles, whether these so-called Aryans came from central Asia or northern Europe. (They are also called “Indo Europeans”, so please note the “European” bit.) And rather like the Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, the “theory” bit continually gets dropped or ignored in debate, so that it’s become a given that the Aryans (or Indo-Europeans) came from the north into India, carrying the Vedas with them (or at least composing it when they got there) and any other opinion (learned or otherwise) on this subject is treated with scorn and derision. So for these Western Indologists (many of whom have never been to India) it’s not a question of “was there an race of Aryans who invaded from the north?” but “where in the north was the Aryan homeland?” All this, despite there being no archaeological or genealogical evidence for this theory, only linguistics which, as I said in my last post, can work in either direction.

So where does this idea of the paler skinned Aryan race from the north come from? As I’m sure you know – but I’ll go into a little more detail for others who may be reading this - it came from Professor Max Muller, an 19th century Oxford academic who translated the Rig-veda for the British Raj when they were ruling India, and came to the conclusion that the Rig-veda described an invasion into India of paler-skinned Aryans.

This fitted in well with the linguists’ theories of the time. They had discovered that Sanskrit ran through many European languages, including Greek, Latin, Celt and Germanic. Thus they decided that these Europeans invaded India, bringing their language with them.

Writings from Max Muller prove that his aim (and that of his paymasters, the British Raj) was to destroy the Hindu religion and replace it with Christianity. Here a quote from a letter he wrote to his wife:

“This edition of mine and the translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India and the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion and to show them what the root is, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during three thousand years of history.”

Now my understanding – and I’m sure your knowledge on this is much greater, so please correct me if I’m wrong, Sarabhanga – is that the word Aryan comes from “arya” which means “noble” in Sanskrit, and "noble" referred to those living by Vedic principles. So this misunderstanding on Muller’s part has carried on to the present, (despite Muller at the end of his life saying that he’d made a mistake - no one would listen to him). And this has led to learned scholars, like Michael Witzel, chasing around central Asia after a fair skinned race that has never been proved to have existed and that were led by a rampaging war lord called Indra.

Athough as your map clearly shows, there were people living around the Aral Sea and surrounding areas, and that there are migrations routes from there, there is no archaeological, genealogical or literary evidence that a) the Aryans or Indo Europeans as a separate race existed and b) that anyone, Aryans or not, invaded the Indian subcontinent from the north.

However, what Talegeri has done in his book – and this is why I think he deserves a hearing instead of being ridiculed by Witzel and his cronies – is to go back to the literature that started this whole debate off – the Rig-veda – and compare it with the writings of the Zend Avesta. From this, he has put together place names and rivers to come up with another theory – in my view, as equally valid as the “Aryans-In” one – which we could call for our purposes here, the “Aryans-Out” theory (i.e. the migration of the children of Yayati, recorded in the Srimad Bhagavatham Canto 9, Chapter 19, out of India).

My own view is that while we can prove that there were migratory trails around the Aral sea, recent archaeological finds now tell us that there was also a thriving population prior to the Indus valley civilisation in just the area (Uttar Pradesh, Harayana and the Punjab) where Talegeri says the composers of the Rig-veda migrated across from the east. Talegeri published his findings in the Year 2000, whereas the archaeological evidence has only much more recently come to light.

So for these reasons, I believe that Talegeri should be given a fair hearing by the academic establishment. So far, he hasn’t had one.

sarabhanga
28 May 2006, 06:43 PM
Namaste Gill,

The European Fascist view was that of a paler skinned “super race” from Northern Europe who tamed the “savage, darker skinned and indigenous” Dravidians.

There current academic view is that of the paler skinned Aryans from northern Afghanistan migrating into the Punjab and reforming the preexisting society of darker skinned “Dravidians”.

Please note that the term “Indo-European” was coined for a group of related languages, which all stem from an early version of Sanskrit. And it is assumed that these linguistic relations are also indicative of the cultural and genetic relationships of the societies using those languages.

“Indo” comes before “European”, and everyone agrees that the root language is very close to old Sanskrit; so (given that Hitler’s views have been completely discredited) why should anyone assume that the term is indicative of some European priority in this extended linguistic family?

The current academic view, as expressed by Michael Wizel, is that the earlier parts of the Rig Veda were composed in Afghanistan and Kashmir, with the later parts being composed in the Punjab. S.G. Talageri’s view, however, is that the earliest parts of the Rig Veda were composed in the east, with the later parts composed in the north-west.

Academics generally understand that EVERYTHING they assume to be true is ultimately only a theory!

The current theory is based in Linguistics and it is supported by Archaeology, and also by analysis of the Vedas themselves.


And this has led to learned scholars, like Michael Witzel, chasing around central Asia after a fair skinned race that has never been proved to have existed and that were led by a rampaging war lord called Indra.
Skin color is the least important part of the theory and it could be completely discarded without affecting the argument ~ although the Vedas are quite clear about the lightness and fairness of the Aryan appearance, which would make sense if the Aryans originated in Afghanistan rather than in Harayana!

And has Witzel actually said anything like “the Aryans were led by a rampaging war lord called Indra”??

The disagreement between Witzel and Talageri is in the methods used for establishing a relative chronology for the hymns of the Rig Veda ~ and Witzel does have some valid concerns about Talageri’s method, which have not yet been properly addressed by Talageri.

Sindhu-Sarasvati civilization has been discovered at numerous sites, from Afghanistan across to the Doab in Uttarpradesh, from the Punjab, and Harayana, and south into Maharastra ~ and all of these were known well before the year 2000!

Gill Harley
29 May 2006, 06:53 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga

Thank you for your comments.

Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I read MW’s views that Indra was an actual human war lord, as I have read so much of his writings that it would take me a while to dig it out. However, I will continue to bear it in mind and if I can find the relevant quote, I will post it here. You only have to read any of his papers, though, to realise that he has little understanding of mythology.




Skin color is the least important part of the theory and it could be completely discarded without affecting the argument ~ although the Vedas are quite clear about the lightness and fairness of the Aryan appearance, which would make sense if the Aryans originated in Afghanistan rather than in Harayana!



I agree that skin colour shouldn't be important. But it is continually raised by scholars when they say that "arya" means "fair or pale" and therefore "Aryans have pale skins" and, therefore, must have come from Afghanistan.

But Afghanistan is not the only place north of India where people developed paler skins and also, imho, "arya" does not mean "fair skinned."

For our purposes here, I have looked up the word ‘arya’ in the Monier Williams Sanskrit dictionary and it gives the following:

arya:
kind, favourable
attached to
true, devoted, dear
a master
lord

Aryaman:
" Name of an (RV ) Aditya who is commonly invoked together with Varuna and Mitra, also with Bhaga, Brihaspati and others; he is supposed to be chief of the Manes; the Milky Way is called his path (aryaannah panthah); he presides over the Nakshatra Uttaraphalguni, VarBrs."
(Incidentally, the path of the Mayan Quetzacoatl is also the Milky Way.)

There is no mention in the Monier Williams dictionary of “arya” meaning “fair or pale-skinned”. I also think it would not be unreasonable to conclude, from the above definition, that “arya” means one devoted to Aryaman and his spiritual principles.

That said, it should be abundantly clear to anyone who has ever been or lived in India that there are taller, fairer skinned Indians who tend to live in the north, and that many who come from south of the Deccan are smaller and darker skinned. So is this proof that there was an invasion/migration of fairer skinned people from the north? Not necessarily...well, certainly not in the time period that the Rig-veda was supposed to have been composed (according to the Encylopaedia Brittanica, it was between 1500 BC and 800 BC) because the genealogists’ studies show that there has been no significant change in the genetic mix of the Indian race for at least 10,000 years.

So could there be another explanation for the existence of fairer-skinned Indians? Possibly. It’s well known that those who developed and evolved in mountainous regions have fairer skins than those who evolved on the plains. I forget the details of the scientific explanation, but it’s something to do with altitude and oxygen.

In the Vendidad, (which is thought to be a precursor to the Zend Avesta) the first story is about the patriarch Yima leading a migration south from regions that had become too icy and snowbound to support life. Some believe this to be the Polar Regions and that the migration south was prompted by the last Ice Age that began in 18,000 BC.

However, Talageri in his book claims that the Bhrigus (who he believes are the Proto Iranians) were originally from Kashmir. The name of Kashmir comes from Kashyapa Muni, the patriarch from the Srimad Bhagavatham, which Talageri also believes that offshoots of the Bhrigus were responsible for).

If you look at this map showing the areas that were iced over during the last Ice Age, you will see that the Himalayas are included. Kashmir’s highest mountains, the Kolahoi and the Harmukh, are both more than 5000m above sea level.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/gillharley/Lasticeage.jpg









The disagreement between Witzel and Talageri is in the methods used for establishing a relative chronology for the hymns of the Rig Veda ~ and Witzel does have some valid concerns about Talageri’s method, which have not yet been properly addressed by Talageri.

And vice-versa! I agree, though. I'm just trying to establish a level playing field here! :) At the moment, imho, Witzel's whole tone is to attack the young johnny-come-lately Talageri personally as uneducated Indian bank clerk of no importance. I think that if Witzel was more certain of his position, he wouldn't feel the need to do that.

I think it is also worth noting that while Talageri has established his chronology by studying the Anukramanis (the indices of the Rig-veda) and building it from there, Michael Witzel appears to have constructed his chronology around his own pre-existing theory of fair skinned Aryans invading from Afghanistan. For this reason, and this reason only, he puts Book 2 as the oldest book, whereas Talageri has the oldest books as 3, 6 and 7.

sarabhanga
30 May 2006, 01:39 AM
Namaste Gill,

The whole theory is based on the “Indo-European” or “Aryan” language group, which arose from a common ancestral tongue that existed perhaps as early as 4,000 BC, somewhere around the Aral and Caspian Seas.

The expansion of “Proto-Aryan” began about 3,000 BC, and it developed along two distinct lines ~ Indo-Iranian (Indo-Aryan) and “European”. The now extinct Anatolian (including Hittite) branch was established by about 2,000 BC.

In India, Vedic Sanskrit was spoken ONLY by Brahmanas, who generally have paler skin than the genetic members of other Varna. And ALL of the European language speakers have paler skin.

So, if one imagines that the original Aryan population was more dark skinned, none of the “Indo-European” language-group theory can make any sense!

And if one does not accept the whole argument of an “Indo-European” relationship, it is foolish to use the same arguments to suggest an expansion of darker-skinned Aryans out of India, who were miraculously transformed into pale Europeans over a period of a few hundred years!

In Sanskrit, Arya is synonymous with Brahma, and as mentioned above, the descendants from Brahmana Gotras have ALWAYS been assumed to have a paler complexion.

It is no mere coincidence that “fair” means both “kind or noble” and “pale or light”!!

The Himalayas were covered with ice during the last Ice Age, and they still are today! Why do you think they are called Hima-Laya ~ “Ice-Land”?

And you seem to have no understanding of Witzel’s method for establishing the RV chronology (which was well established more than 100 years ago and is currently accepted by all academics (except Talageri, who has NOT explained why the accepted method should not be followed)!

I agree that Witzel’s tone is rather dismissive and arrogant, but that has no bearing in a rational examination of the facts of the matter.

The Witzel-Talageri argument is only a vehicle for fascist Europeans and fascist Indians to promote their own misguided agendas, and I would prefer to avoid what has become rather a fierce personal argument with rowdy gangs shouting from the side-lines.

And since most fundamentalist Hindus would deny that ANY “chronology” can be established for the Rig Veda, which was received as one complete divine utterance that has never been edited or adjusted, any involvement in this particular debate is quite ridiculous!!

As I said before, the debate has become an international stage for ignorant fascists who think that they are arguing something about the supremacy of white skin or defending the honor of black skin.

Gill Harley
30 May 2006, 03:10 PM
I’m so sorry, Sarabhanga, if I have irritated you with my beliefs in this thread. It certainly wasn’t my intention.

I have had a genuine interest in this subject for years and long before I came across Talageri’s views, which was only recently. I have been studying this subject in the hope of writing a book about it. And I’ve had to do my best to chart a course between, as you put it, the “facist Europeans and facist Indians” and because of this, I have developed something of a ear for the sound of the grinding of axes and usually know when to make a quick exit! :)

For the above reasons, I’d hoped that we could avoid the flaming language of the extreme camps in this argument and look at the facts head on. I still hope we can do that.

According to my research, the person who invented the Aryans was Max Muller who misunderstood the term “arya”. As mentioned earlier, the Monier Williams dictionary, which is highly respected, does not mention anything about “arya” meaning “fair or pale skinned.” Of course, as you say, “kind” can also mean “fair”, but this is a different sense of the word. We have to ask ourselves, why did Monier Williams not include “pale” or “fair-skinned” in his definition of the word “arya”? I would suggest that it is because of mistranslation, which, in my experience, is rife when it comes to the Rig-veda.

Max Muller was a contemporary of a certain Sir William Jones who, at around the same time that Max Muller was finding these invading Aryans in the Rig-veda, discovered that the language of Sanskrit seemed to permeate many different languages.

Then another German linguist, Augustus Schleicher, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Schleicher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Schleicher)) took on this work on and came up with the following chart:

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/gillharley/Schleichersmodel.jpg

This is the first chart to show the imagined Proto Indo European language, of which, as it shows here, Sanskrit was just part of one branch. As you can see, without any of the sophisticated logistics of what modern linguists tell us this “science” has now been developed from, Schleicher immediately decided that Greco-Roman combined with Proto Indo European was the parent language to all the other languages, including Sanskrit.

So this is the work that modern-day linguists have been building on. In my experience, they have not been asking the question: “Was there a Proto Indo European language?” but “Where is the Proto Indo European homeland?”

So although you say: “This whole theory is based on the “Indo-European” or “Aryan” language group, which arose from a common ancestral tongue that existed perhaps as early as 4,000 BC, somewhere around the Aral and Caspian Seas.” this is still pure speculation. This PIE or even IE homeland, or even its ancestral language, has never been found. In fact, according to my research, there is about as much evidence for a Proto Indo European homeland that spawned a race of pale skinned Aryans who invaded the Indian subcontinent as there is for the Loch Ness Monster. In fact, there might be slightly more evidence for the Loch Ness Monster, as some people claim to have seen it...which is more than can be said of the Proto Indo Europeans, or indeed, any trace of them.:)

As far as the homeland for the Indo Iranians being Iran, and then a branch splitting off to migrate into the Indian subcontinent, there is also no evidence for this. The earliest archaeology they have for Iran is somewhere around 800 BC. That’s not to say that there wasn’t an Indo Iranian homeland in Iran. Just that there is no proof or evidence that this was the case.

And I believe that you’re incorrect in your statement that Witzel’s methods are accepted by all academics. He would have you believe that, and he’s very good at smoke and mirrors. But this argument has been going on for centuries, even within the Western establishment itself, and I could quote eminent academic after eminent academic who point out, with the good reason, that the emperor has no clothes on, or at least is very flimsily attired.


What you (and Witzel) found annoying Talageri’s methodology was what I found most refreshing about it. He ignored the whole white towered edifice built on sands of Proto Indo European industry, and went back to the drawing board. He’s not a raving nationalist nutter (although Witzel and his pals would have us believe that he is). He just looked at the indices to see who wrote the hymns and from that, compiled the family trees of various families, particularly the main composers, the Bhrigus and the Angirasas. This, in my view, is a perfectly legitimate methodology and it should be condemned just because it’s not based on linguistics.

From the indices, we can see that various rishis, or their families, wrote these hymns at different times. So this would conflict with your view that it was “one divine utterance”.

The language of the 10th book too, is very different to the rest. As BK Gosh puts it:
“On the whole ... the language of the first nine MaNDalas must be regarded as homogeneous, inspite of traces of previous dialectal differences... With the tenth MaNDala it is a different story. The language here has definitely changed.
Talageri has also gathered from these indices that the process of formation of the Rigveda took place in four stages, and it was only after these that it was “frozen” so to speak, and passed down, word for word, syllable by syllable.


So I think we should also approach this subject with an open mind and listen to both sides of the argument. :)

sarabhanga
31 May 2006, 10:01 PM
Namaste Gill,

Max Muller made the very first English translations of many Sanskrit texts, and even without any knowledge of Hinduism it is quite possible to make an accurate ‘word-for-word’ translation. Muller did not deliberately falsify any of his translations ~ they are literally correct, although often superficial and missing important details of interpretation.

[Those modern “Hindus” who (following the lead of Christianity and Islam) require that scripture should be read absolutely literally to find the true message from God, which is expected to always be quite explicit, should be quite happy with Max Muller’s translation efforts!]


In Sanskrit, Arya is synonymous with Brahma, and as mentioned above, the descendants from Brahmana Gotras have ALWAYS been assumed to have a paler complexion. It is no mere coincidence that “fair” means both “kind or noble” and “pale or light”.

The whole theory is based on the “Indo-European” or “Aryan” language group, which arose from a common ancestral tongue.
If we begin by accepting the idea that languages as apparently divergent as Gaelic and Gujarati are actually related, then we MUST begin by assuming that these languages have some common ancestral root. There is no reason to assume that this ancient parent tongue is still spoken anywhere exactly as it was originally, and the source must be inferred from the various commonalities of each language.

Exactly as the relationships between different groups of living things may be inferred by considering their degree of similarity with regard to many varied characteristics, the same process may be applied to the problem of language relations to arrive at the most likely common ancestor ~ which in this case has been termed “Proto-Indo-European”.

It is likely that the divergence began before the invention of writing, so it is unlikely that any example of the posited Proto-Indo-European will ever be discovered. But that should not prevent us from proposing the most likely nature of that tongue based on all kinds of other information.

Even a cursory examination of any of the Indo-European languages will reveal many similarities ~ it really doesn’t require any great scholarship to notice that Sanskrit seems to permeate all of the languages grouped as “Indo-European”.

Anyone who asks, “Was there a PIE language?” is automatically excluded from the whole debate, since they are doubting the very basis of the whole theory (i.e. that there is an intrinsic relationship between the various IE languages)!


So, if one imagines that the original Aryan population was more dark skinned, none of the “Indo-European” language-group theory can make any sense! And if one does not accept the whole argument of an “Indo-European” relationship, it is foolish to use the same arguments to suggest an expansion of darker-skinned Aryans out of India, who were miraculously transformed into pale Europeans over a period of a few hundred years!

Who has suggested that Iran is the original homeland for PIE? It has long been assumed that old Sanskrit and old Iranian are BOTH derived from an even more ancient common ancestor!

The attached chart was abstracted from Grierson (1927) “Linguistic Survey of India” ~ see Peoples And Languages In Pre-Islamic Indus Valley (http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html).

Perhaps you do not understand Witzel’s actual concerns about Talageri’s work, so I will repeat Dr Witzel’s words verbatim:

“Talageri has still not read Oldenberg’s seminal work (1888) which describes the ordering of Rgvedic hymns and the way they were collected in several stages. Oldenberg’s work stands unopposed by modern scholars, Talageri excepted of course, but Talageri offers no systematic refutation.

“This is best illustrated by Talgeri’s misunderstanding of the principle underlying the order of deity collections appearing after the usual Agni and Indra hymns that are found at the start of each Mandala. The various post-Agni/Indra collections (to Brahmanaspati, Visvedeva, Rbhu, etc.) are not a ‘second set consisting of other hymns ... placed at the end of the collection’ and later ‘inserted into the hymns of the first [collection]’ ~ how does he know all of this? Instead, their position simply depends on the number of hymns allotted to the deity in question.

“This extremely simple fact can be checked by any grade-school reader of a RV edition or translation: deities with the most hymns come first (after Agni/Indra); others follow in numerical decreasing order. No Vedic mathematics is needed either to understand that. All additions to the original RV text are clearly visible on this and on similar grounds (e.g. later combinations of Trca and Pragatha sets, Oldenberg 1888, Witzel 2001).

“The upshot is that Talageri’s RV is not that of the time of the RV authors, and any conclusion based on it also reflects the Brahmana era additions, made until Sakalya’s Padapatha.”

Please give some reference to ANY serious academic who does not accept Oldenberg’s idea and has actually given some reason for ignoring it.

Neither you nor Talageri have annoyed me in the least! I appreciate your interest in the subject, and I find Talgeri’s research very interesting; but I refuse to engage in the basically racist argument that has been raging among misguided fascists all around the globe.

My strong words are not intended to “flame” or pointlessly abuse, but some basic misunderstandings have led some otherwise reasonable people to make all kinds of quite unjustifiable remarks. Max Muller and Michael Witzel have been needlessly demonized, and then mindlessly attacked by “fundamentalist” Hindus over these matters.

When Talageri actually makes some coherent refutation of Oldenberg’s relative chronology, then Witzel and other academics will take his new chronology seriously; but until then no amount of shouting or “hitting over the head” will make one iota of difference to the academic viewpoint!

Quoting Witzel again: “Talageri does not say which Anukramani he used and how he reached the conclusion that it is coeval with the RV. Instead, and rather surprisingly, he now tells us that he did not use any Anukramani at all, but instead, the names of Rsis, deities and meters printed in the various RV editions before each hymn. Also, he does not want to take notice of the fact that his (now, indirect) source of the Rsi ascription in the editions, the Sarvanukramani, was not even fixed by 500 AD (Scheftelowitz 1922, Witzel 2001) ~ as was its counterpart, the Brhaddevata. In addition, Talageri simply neglects all other Anukramanis, Rgvedic or other.

“In sum, Talageri uses one particular Late Vedic Anukramani to establish the history of Rigvedic times, and compares that with a Rgveda of equally Late Vedic redaction.

“This is what I called ‘garbage in garbage out’: By using Late Vedic texts, what can one expect but the Late Vedic/Epic and Puranic point of view that differs from the truly Rgvedic one by the changes made over centuries?

“Enough said.”


So I think we should approach this subject with an open mind and listen to both sides of the argument.

sarabhanga
31 May 2006, 11:12 PM
And since most Fundamentalist Hindus would deny that ANY “chronology” can be established for the Rig Veda, which was received as one complete divine utterance that has never been edited or adjusted in any way, any involvement in this particular debate is quite ridiculous!

So this would conflict with your view that it was “one divine utterance”.
My views are orthodox, but I would certainly not class myself among the “fundamentalists”, who often do insist that the whole Veda “was received as one complete divine utterance that has never been edited or adjusted in any way”.

These fundamentalist Hindus will generally also insist that the whole of Sanskrit language and Aryan Dharma was developed entirely within the land of Bharata (with borders as defined by comparatively late Hindu texts).

So I would suggest that it is your own views that are actually more aligned with the fundamentalist camp!

Gill Harley
03 June 2006, 11:18 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga

I am going to have post my reply in two parts as the software won't let me post it all at once. So here we go:


Namaste Sarabanga

Good. I'm glad you're enjoying this debate. So am I. I don't know, though, if I can answer all your points here, though, as for some of them you've have to be a linguist, and a German speaker too boot, and I am neither. However, I'll make a stab at it.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that Max Muller deliberately falsified anything. I think that he did the best that he could with the Vedic texts, coming from a Christian and imperialistic viewpoint. However,the road to hell. as they say, is paved with good intentions.

I heard too, that Muller recanted the whole thing and admitted that there was no Aryan invasion into India at the end of his life, but no-one would listen to him. He is quoted as saying then:

“Whether the Vedic hymns were composed 1000, 1500 or 2000 or 3000 BC, no power on earth will ever determine.”



Exactly as the relationships between different groups of living things may be inferred by considering their degree of similarity with regard to many varied characteristics, the same process may be applied to the problem of language relations to arrive at the most likely common ancestor ~ which in this case has been termed “Proto-Indo-European”.



Yes, in fact that is what the linguists always say. However, language is a living thing and has a habit of going off and doing it's own thing. I say this as a writer and an editor. Even in my lifetime, I've seen the English language do some very odd things and the Oxford dictionary eventually has to accept them. This is why I don't think that linguistics can be considered a science. In my view, trying to force languages into a linguistic template is like trying to measure the ocean with a teaspoon.

As the late AB Keith, a renowned Sanskrit scholar and author who was a professor of philology at Edinburgh University, said:

“...taking the linguistic evidence too literally, one could conclude that the original Indo-European speakers knew butter but not milk, snow and feet but not rain and hands...”


I don't think it's difficult to doubt the whole basis of the linguists’ theory when there's barely a shred of archaeological and absolutely no geneological evidence to back them up. Also, the basis of this theory was put together before the discovery of the Indus valley civilisation and the rediscovery of the river Saraswati, two more nails in the coffin of the "PIE in the sky" brigade, imho.

There is a school of thought that believes that the original Aryans were the Iranians and that the Aryans (writers of the Vedas) came from Iran into India. They say that 'Iran' means 'Aryan' but of course a) it's only recently been called Iran, and in Sanskrit, I'm told, Iran means 'barren salty land." So that's why I was answering that point about there not being archaeological evidence in Iran pre 800 BC - another nail in the coffin for that theory.




Perhaps you do not understand Witzel’s actual concerns about Talageri’s work, so I will repeat Dr Witzel’s words verbatim:

“Talageri has still not read Oldenberg’s seminal work (1888) which describes the ordering of Rgvedic hymns and the way they were collected in several stages. Oldenberg’s work stands unopposed by modern scholars, Talageri excepted of course, but Talageri offers no systematic refutation.



Sarabhanga, I do understand that Witzel believes that no-one can have a view on the Rig-veda unless they've read a book called Prolegomena which was published in 1888 by a contemporary and colleague of Max Muller (who edited some of his books) and is only available in German (I've checked). Witzel, conveniently, is German.

It always amuses me when the linguists say “Oh, we’ve come a long way from Max Muller. It’s all much more scientific now.” when they’re basing their whole “science” on a theory of one of his chums – both post “Enlightenment” thinkers to a man.

As Witzel would say, "Enough said!".




Please give some reference to ANY serious academic who does not accept Oldenberg’s idea and has actually given some reason for ignoring it.



There are many eminent academics that don't believe the Western linguists' view of an Aryan invasion or migration into India gleaned through study of the Rig-veda, although whether they pinpoint the source of their disbelief to Hermann Oldenberg’s theories, I couldn’t say.

Anyway, here is a selection, starting with my favourite from James Mallory, Indo-Europeanist archaeologist and professor at Queens University, Belfast and editor of the Journal of Indo European Studies:

“We call the people who spoke this ancestral language the Indo-Europeans or Proto Indo-Europeans. But although we can give them a name, they are unlike almost any other ancient people we are likely to encounter. As the linguistic ancestors of nearly half the planet’s population, they are of one of the most important entities in the prehistoric record – and yet they are also one of the most elusive. No Proto-Indo-European text exists; their physical remains and material culture cannot be identified without extensive argument; and their geographical location has been the subject of a century and a half of intense yet inconclusive debate.

“...This quest for the origins of the Indo-Europeans has all the fascination of an electric light in the open air on a summer night: it tends to attract every species of scholar or would-be savant who can take pen to hand. It also shows a remarkable ability to mesmerise even scholars of outstanding ability to wander far beyond the realm of reasonable speculation to provide yet another example of academic lunacy...One does not ask “where is the Indo-European homeland?” but rather “where do they put it now?”

Here's another:

Koenraad Elst, a PhD at the Catholic University, Leuven, Belgium:

“...what is this linguist evidence? In the 19th century, the Indian Urheimat theory was gradually abandoned because a new linguistic insight, known as linguistic palaeontology (though political fashions, especially nationalism and Eurocentric colonialism, may have contributed).

“But many assumptions at the basis of linguistic palaeontology have been questioned and are not taken seriously any more. Furthermore, the type of lexical exchange between IE and Dravidian do not fit the "Aryan Barbarians conquered Dravidian Harappa" scenario ... nor do they necessitate any other invasion scenario.

“Wherever we look, we cannot find the clinching "linguistic evidence" for a European Urheimat and an Aryan invasion into India. An Indian Urheimat has not been firmly proven either, but at any rate, linguistics has not disproven it, so that other types of evidence (such as literary indications of migrations from rather than into India) must now be given a fair and serious hearing.”

Lord Colin Renfrew, Cambridge Professor of Archaeology, says in his book: Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins:

“As far as I can see, there is nothing in the Hymns of the Rig-veda which demonstrates that the Vedic-speaking population were intrusive to the area.”.



end of part 1 - please go to next post.

Gill Harley
03 June 2006, 11:20 AM
Here is part 2 of the previous post.

And here's Edwin Bryant, who I quoted earlier, professor of Rutgers University.

“...linguistic paleontology has not provided much uncontroversial data to exclude an eastern homeland that cannot be reversed to support the same. Neither has evidence of loanwords, nor dialect geography, nor arguments based on homogeneity versus heterogeneity. Philology and linguistics can actually offer surprisingly little to compel disenchanted Indian scholars to modify their suspicions of the ability of those disciplines to make authoritative pronouncements of the Indo-Aryan peoples in pre-history...

“...The one-way borrowing of Indo-Aryan (or Indo-Iranian) loans into the Finno-Ugric language might enhance the possibility that the Indo-Aryans were migrating out of the north-west of the subcontinent towards such regions, and not emigrating away into the subcontinent. "

Finally, here's an extract from an abstract fromRam Swarup Sharma, Ph.D. a reader at the department of Hindi at Delhi University.

"For the last two centuries, the Western scholars have been busy in establishing a theory that Aryans were the invaders of pre-historic ages from Central Asia to Indian soil. A good number of unthoughtful Indian historians have also fallen in line with them. The net result is that the theory finds place in the curriculum of Indian educational system at all levels and this misinformation is being passed along through generation after generation among Indian masses.

"Efforts have also been made to substantiate the hypothesis through archeaological and linguistic material. It is high time to analyze the whole doctrine on an objective platform and prove that Aryavarta-- India is the original homeland of the Aryan race. The present paper is an effort in this direction through linguistic methods. Following are the prime features of the paper :

(1) With the full respect to the school of historical linguistics, it is submitted that the operative part of the 'Comparative Method and Reconstruction' (including Phonetic Laws of Grimme and Wherner) is not based on sound footings, because in these theories Sanskrit, Greek and Roman have been treated as contemporary languages, which is far from being true.

(2) The whole dogma of a pre-historic language (Hittite) is uncalled for. It is deliberate attempt to establish that Vedic Sanskrit is not the oldest language on earth.

(3) The idea that north Indian languages and European languages are constituents of the same family, i.e. Indo-European languages and South Indian languages belong to separate family (Dravidian languages), is totally misconceived according to syntactic structures and semantic shades of these languages. Structural analysis of Indian languages and their socio-cultural frames prove beyond doubt that India is one linguistic area all along.

"With examples from a number of ancient languages, it may be proved that the whole of the Indian people belong to Aryans and that the so-called Arya-Dravid conflict tale is a creation of vested interests to cause unnecessary tension between North and South India. It is about time to reject this age old fiction."

Sarabhanga, thank you for posting your tree of PIE languages. However, I have seen many such diagrams, all differing slightly as the linguists move their goalposts.

I have to say, though, I don’t understand Witzel’s reference to “Garbage in, garbage out” with reference to Talageri’s Anukramanis. (Interestingly, that they’re even called Anukramanis tells us a lot. The Bhrigus, who Talageri says compiled the Rig-veda later on, and went on to compose much of the Puranas, were Anus.) I disagree with Witzel’s view that:

“By using Late Vedic texts, what can one expect but the Late Vedic/Epic and Puranic point of view that differs from the truly Rig-vedic one by the changes made over the centuries.”

I think this a misunderstanding on Witzel’s part and typical of someone who doesn’t really understand the mythological understory of Rig-veda, but just uses the Rig-veda to further his own interests and career.

In my understanding and experience, you cannot compare the two (the Rig-veda and the Puranas) because you’re not comparing like with like.

The Rig-veda comprises the hymns that the aryas and sages sung while carrying out sacred and ritualistic ceremonies at auspicious times of the year which were worked out by astrologers.

The Puranas – I’m thinking here of the Srimad Bhagavatham, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata etc – are given over to an entirely different medium. The Puranas are pure storytelling at its very best, with stories designed to do what stories originally were meant to do. Not to entertain, but to teach the spiritual adept spiritual truths and appeal to his subconscious in the form of allegory to help him make the metaphysical journey from darkness to light.

Having said that you cannot compare them, I do believe however that you can see that the thinking in the Puranas is hardly different to that of four core books of the Vedas, including the Rig. The names of most of the gods may be different, or they may have slightly altered their function, but the inner core story is just the same. So instead of having Sarama being rescued from the caves of the Panis by Indra (in the RV) you have Sita being rescued by Rama from Ravana and the Rakshasas (in the Puranas). Or Krishna (who is often described as “dark as a thundercloud or rain cloud” in the SB, thereby keeping the Indra thunder-god motif going) rescuing so many princesses from their evil king husbands that he ended up with over a 1,000 wives.

If Western Indologists (who are mostly either Christian, Jewish or secular) could for just one moment extricate themselves from specialising down ever decreasing lines of enquiry, they would notice that the motif story that is common to both the Vedas and the Puranas also runs right across the pre Christian sacred literature of most of civilised world in the last couple of millennia in the BCs. In Mespotamia we had the Descent of Ishtar, in Greece - Demeter and Persephone and Orpheus and Eurudice, then there’s the Norse legends of Scandinavia and the Celtic countries that are also based on three worlds, including an Underworld.

In this common story, there is usually an underworld (or cave) that a goddess falls into or goes into, and she has to be rescued and brought back up by the male god figure. This is the famous Mystery story used before an initiation into the Eleusian Mysteries.

You might think this a bit of a detour, but in my view, it’s not. Because once you understand the core story, and what it represents, you can extract it and then probably what you have left (as the backdrop) is history and geography. But it is purely there as a backdrop – these books are not history books as such.

I'd better stop now before it tells me I've got too many characters again!

Best wishes to you

sarabhanga
18 June 2006, 10:04 PM
Namaste Gill,


Exactly as the relationships between different groups of living things may be inferred by considering their degree of similarity with regard to many varied characteristics, the same process may be applied to the problem of language relations to arrive at the most likely common ancestor ~ which in this case has been termed “Proto-Indo-European”.

Yes, in fact that is what the linguists always say. [However] I don't think that linguistics can be considered a science.

Anyone who asks, “Was there a PIE language?” is automatically excluded from the whole debate, since they are doubting the very basis of the whole theory (i.e. that there is an intrinsic relationship between the various IE languages)!
By denying the validity of Linguistics, you have (once again) excluded yourself from any debate over the details of PIE expansion!

iraNa means “desert” or “salt or barren (soil)”. The term, however, is derived from iriNa, which in later texts (e.g. Mahabharata) refers to “a desert, an inhospitable region, a bare plain, barren soil or salt soil”.

The original understanding (as in the Vedas) knows iriNa (from irA) as “a water-course or rivulet” or “a well or any excavation in the ground”.

irA is closely related to iDA and iLA ;) , indicating “any drinkable fluid, a draught (especially of milk), food, refreshment, comfort, enjoyment, water, speech or the goddess of speech (Sarasvati)”.


I have seen many such diagrams, all differing slightly as the linguists move their goalposts.
Whatever variations you may have seen, EVERY such diagram is the same at its root!

Gill Harley
20 June 2006, 03:48 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga

It's very good to hear from you again. My reply today will have to be fairly brief as I'm at work.

I have never doubted that there is a link between all the so-called IE languages, and I don't think that I have ever expressed a view to the contrary here. If I have given that impression, I apologise for misleading.

What I've done in the last two posts is to quote eminent academics (as requested by you) who doubt the logic of the linguists argument that there was an invasion/migration of Aryans from the north or northwest. That is not the same thing as doubting that there was a common language. Far from it. It's just that the Western linguists are determined, to a man, that it cannot be Sanskrit - but never give their reasons for saying so. However, Sanskrit is the only language that runs through all IE languages.

In fact, I'm having some wonderful realisations at the moment, working with the Norse mythology and spotting commonalities not only in the stories that make it up, but also the language. I was particularly pleased the other day to find the root of the "fire"(as used in sacred rituals in the Edda) is "bhri". I cannot help suspect that this comes from the Bhrigus. Talageri tells us that they were the original fire priests who were mainly responsible for Book 10 of the Rig-veda, and that they were Anus. As we know, the Anus migrated out of the Indian subcontinent via the west and northwest. It's been obvious to me for some time that the Norse mythology is too similar to the Vedic not to be linked. But this is the closest I've come to identifying the link. Historians call these people the Proto Celts.

Thank you for your interpretation of Iran - it agrees with my assessment (mentioned in a previous post) that the word "Iran" is not derived from "Aryan" but from the nature of the land they inhabit.

Gill Harley
25 June 2006, 06:07 AM
I have never doubted that there is a link between all the so-called IE languages, and I don't think that I have ever expressed a view to the contrary here. If I have given that impression, I apologise for misleading.

Namaste Sarabhanga

I think we’ve got a bit stuck in this discussion – possibly in the same way that there appears to be a stand off now in the academic world between the archaeologists, who can find no evidence of an Aryan invasion or migration, and the linguists, who believe that there was one.

It has to be said, though, that the linguists, who are currently being led by Michael Witzel’s, have modified their views, in the light of the archaeological evidence (or lack of it!). The current linguistic theory is that Aryans invaded, from the north, the Bactria-Margiana region south of the Aral sea, and passed their culture and language on to those who were already living there (“Indic types”, whatever that means) and then eventually moved off west.

Here’s a map of the BMAC area.
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/gillharley/BMAC.jpg

Then, so MW’s theory goes, these “Indic types” with their new culture and language adopted from the Aryans, slowly migrated east and infiltrated their Vedic ideas and language into the subcontinent of India.

This is from Witzel:

"These new “Vedic people” (ie. people belonging to the racial stock of the original non-Aryan inhabitants of Bactria, but with language, mythology and culture of the Indic people who had earlier migrated into Bactria from further outside) “later on… moved into the Panjab, assimilating (‘Aryanising’) the local population”.

“By the time they reached the Subcontinent… they may have had the typical somatic characteristics of the ancient population of the Turanian/Iranian/Afghan areas, and may not have looked very different from the modem inhabitants of the Indo-Iranian Boderlands. Their genetic impact would have been negligible, and… would have been ‘lost’ in a few generations in the much larger gene pool of the Indus people. One should not, therefore, be surprised that ‘Aryan bones’ have not been found so far (Kennedy, this volume; Hemphill, Lukas and Kennedy, 1991).


I have to say though, this all sounds a bit to me like the dragging noise goal posts make when they’re being moved.

However, my main area of study is mythology and it is in this area – plus the experience of my own spiritual practice – that has convinced me that the “Aryans-out” thesis is AT LEAST AS likely as the “Aryans-in” one.

As Talageri points out in Chapter 7 of his book:

“What Witzel, like other scholars who suggest similar scenarios, is doing, is suggesting that the Aryans who migrated into India were not the original Indoaryans, but groups of people native to the areas further northwest, who were “completely Aryanised” in “language and culture”, and further that they were so few in number that “their genetic impact would have been negligible” and “would have been ‘lost’ in a few generations in the much larger gene pool of the Indus people”.

"The scholars thus try to explain away the lack of archaeological-anthropological evidence by postulating a fantastic scenario that is totally incompatible with the one piece of solid evidence which is available to us today: THE RIGVEDA.

“The Rigveda represents a language, religion and culture which is the most archaic in the Indo-European world. As Griffith puts it in his preface to his translation: “As in its original language, we see the roots and shoots of the languages of Greek and Latin, of Celt, Teuton and Slavonian, so the deities, the myths and the religious beliefs and practices of the Veda throw a flood of light upon the religions of all European countries before the introduction of Christianity. As the science of comparative philology could hardly have existed without the study of Sanskrit, so the comparative history of the religions of the world would have been impossible without the study of the Veda.”

“Vedic mythology represents the most primitive form of Indo-European mythology: as Macdonell puts it, the Vedic Gods “are nearer to the physical phenomena which they represent, than the gods of any other Indo-European mythology” . Vedic mythology not only bears links with every single other Indo-European mythology, but is often the only link between any two of them (as we will see in Appendix Three, Chapter 10)”

So Sarabhanga (and anyone else who would like to join in) I am proposing that it might be a good idea to now leave behind the wranglings of the linguists and the archaeologists and pursue this discussion in the light of mythology...

Do you agree?

sarabhanga
29 June 2006, 09:23 AM
The two traditions, languages, etc., were successfully merged over time, and it is partly due to this great ancient merging of apparently opposite cultures and natures that India and Hinduism are what they are today.

From India’s point of view, the so-called Aryan Invasion is only a trans-Himalayan migration, and it is the same Aryans who invaded Europe at about the same time.

When the poetic and philosophical Aryan nomads entered the ancient cultured settlements of Sindh, an even greater nation eventually arose from the ecological disasters and social turmoil that plagued the region after 2000 BC.

But when those same nomads entered the dark forests of totally uncivilized Europe, the effect was quite different. It took Europe another 1,500 years to even begin to get civilized, and their knowledge was either re-invented or (mostly) imported back from the East!

Today, all that remains obvious is the close linguistic connexion of all Indo-European cultures; and if the untruths of Nazi fascists and British imperialists are removed from the “theory of Aryan migration and cultural integration” then it becomes quite an innocuous theory that is actually very helpful in understanding both the Aryan and the Mleccha.

There are some northern European languages that seem to be near the root language of “original Sanskrit”, but Sanskrit itself (especially Vedic Sanskrit) is extremely close to the root.

It has long been generally accepted by serious scholars that the original Aryan homeland was somewhere around the Aral Sea, which is only a little north of modern Afghanistan.

The Oxus (or Amu Darya ~ cf. Arya) flows directly from Afghanistan into the Aral Sea, and it has been an important trading and migration route for many thousands of years.

There is little objection to including the regions now covered by Pakistan and Afghanistan as integral to ancient India; and if the neighbouring areas of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are also included then the Aryan “Invasion” Theory is merely suggesting an ancient radiation of Aryan culture from the north-western corner of Arya-desha (i.e. from around the Aral Sea, just north of Afghanistan).

If we begin by accepting the idea that languages as apparently divergent as Gaelic and Gujarati are actually related, then we MUST begin by assuming that these languages have some common ancestral root. There is no reason to assume that this ancient parent tongue is still spoken anywhere exactly as it was originally, and the source must be inferred from the various commonalities of each language.

Exactly as the relationships between different groups of living things may be inferred by considering their degree of similarity with regard to many varied characteristics, the same process may be applied to the problem of language relations to arrive at the most likely common ancestor ~ which in this case has been termed “Proto-Indo-European”.

It is likely that the divergence began before the invention of writing, so it is unlikely that any example of the posited Proto-Indo-European will ever be discovered. But that should not prevent us from proposing the most likely nature of that tongue based on all kinds of other information.

Even a cursory examination of any of the Indo-European languages will reveal many similarities ~ it really doesn’t require any great scholarship to notice that Sanskrit seems to permeate all of the languages grouped as “Indo-European”.
Note that in 60 the term Aryan indicates Sanskrit.

The original understanding (as in the Vedas) knows iriNa (from irA) as “a water-course or rivulet” or “a well or any excavation in the ground”.

irA is closely related to iDA and iLA, indicating “any drinkable fluid, a draught (especially of milk), food, refreshment, comfort, enjoyment, water, speech or the goddess of speech (Sarasvati)”.
This understanding dates from before the desertification of the Aryan homelands and the disappearance of the original Sarasvati river (i.e. pre-2000 BC).

The map you have provided is exactly the same as the image I have already provided in 51, which supports what I have been saying all along.

I would be pleased to move on to a discussion of mythology.

Gill Harley
02 July 2006, 04:47 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga

It’s good to hear from you. Yes, let’s move on to mythology. But first, I’d like to answer your last post.

I see that you have repeated a number of points from some of your previous posts. Perhaps you thought that I hadn’t heard you, or misunderstood you. But I had heard you, and understood. All contributors to this debate are pretty much unanimous in their belief that there was a settlement around the BMAC/Aral Sea area. There is much evidence to support it. So it’s a given. But what there isn’t evidence for is a migration east and then south into India. There is, however, archaeological evidence for (if we look at the “Kurgan wave” or “Corded ware” culture, dated around 4500 BC) a westwards expansion from the area today known as Turkmenistan (just west of the Aral Sea) and into Europe.

So here it is in a nutshell. All we have is two facts. a) That there were human settlements in the BMAC/Aral Sea area and b) That there was an expansion westwards around 4500 BC. These two facts may or may not be linked. But we definitely have no evidence of any expansion either north and east, or south and east, or east. It’s only the linguists who think that they’ve found one. But they’ve found it based on the rules of a game that they’ve have invented themselves. And even when one of their own rules is found to work against their theories, they still maintain their position.

Here is one small example, and it also has the benefit of getting us into mythology at last.

I’m sure you’ve heard the children’s fairy tale entitled The Sleeping Beauty.

The story starts when a beautiful baby girl is born to a king and queen who had been childless for many years. So when Aurora ((for that is what they named her) was born, there was much rejoicing up and down the land. Flags and multi-coloured bunting was hung out, the streets were strewn with flowers, and the people danced well into the night at street parties and festivals held in Aurora’s honour.

The king then sent out a decree. He ordered that a great party should be held at which Aurora would be christened and blessed. All the great and good up and down the kingdom received gold-embossed invitations. And the invitees included Aurora’s three fairy godmothers, Freda, Almeida and Breda.

However, Breda’s invitation got lost in the post.

Freda and Almeida tried to comfort about this, saying that it must surely be a silly error and that her invitation would arrive any day soon. But Breda was not so sweet- natured as Freda and Almeida. In fact, she could be downright evil on occasions.

So when the day of the party dawned, and her invitation had still not arrived, Breda was beside herself with rage.

Frieda and Almeida had to leave their sister in high dudgeon as they picked up their presents and proceeded to the palace. When they got there, they walked into the enormous ballroom, where all the court was assembled around the cot of Aurora. They quickly flew over to her, and started giving her their presents and blessings (long life, good health, happy marriage, that sort of thing).

But suddenly, a loud noise made everyone jump. The enormous doors of the ballroom had been flung open with a thump. Breda had arrived. She stormed into the ballroom, stomped up to Aurora’s crib and then muttered over the baby the darkest curse:

“This child will never see it’s 16th birthday. She will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die”

The king, queen and the whole court were completely devastated. They burst into floods of tears.

But Freda and Almeida quickly looked at each other meaningfully. Then they stepped forward. They told the king and queen that they couldn’t revoke the curse, but they could mitigate the worst of it. Instead of her dying before her 16th birthday, Aurora would instead fall asleep for 100 years.

Well, I’m sure you know the rest of the story. How, despite the king ordering that every spinning wheel in the kingdom be banished, Aurora, on the day before her 16th birthday, managed to find one, prick her finger on it, and fall into a sleep for one hundred years. :sleeping:

And how, after that time had elapsed, she was awoken by the kiss of a prince. And they fell in love, got married and lived happily ever after.

But where does this story come from? What is really about? And how is it relevant to this discussion?

What it’s about should be fairly obvious to students of Vedic mythology. How we cannot avoid the dictates of our karmic inheritance. How the atma gets covered by the sleep of Maya, and we only wake up to the true reality by divine love, etc etc.

Where does it come from? Most of the English-tongue fairy stories come from old folk tales that were gathered by the German brothers Grimm and the Dane, Hans Christian Andersen in the late 18th/early 19th century. They were developed, orally, from the original Norse and Icelandic mythology. They gradually spread into Germany, and eventually the UK, as the tribes migrated south and over the North Sea. In the last century, J R Tolkein based his Lord of the Rings on them and to this day, JK Rowling is plundering this rich seam for mythical characters and ideas to use in her Harry Potter series.

I’ve only told this story briefly. But when it’s told well, it’s a rich, multi-layered cake of Vedic allegory, of which I’m sure that you will be able to supply even more examples. There is so much in mythology of Scandinavia that resonates with Vedic mythology, not least that Skanda was a Vedic god. Even their numerology is based on 432,000. And we know that Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are Indo-European languages. So, so far so good. Nothing too controversial there.

In the Norse sagas, the three fairy godmothers are known as the three Sisters of Wyrd, or the Norns, who sit at spinning wheels, spinning our destiny at the root of the World Tree, Yggdrasil. They are a favourite staple right through Anglo-Saxon and English literature. Shakespeare used them in Macbeth as the three witches stirring the cauldron and casting the fate of Macbeth.

So I think the question is, did the Scandinavian mythology come from Vedas, or vice-versa? Well, we don’t know. We just have a few clues scattered around. But let’s try to work it out through one of the linguists’ own rules.

Most linguists believe that those in original PIE homeland used something they call the “voiced aspirated stop” (this means “bh”, “dh” and “gh” — as opposed to “voiceless aspirated stops” which are ‘ph’, ‘th’ and ‘gh’) Their opinion is that as the language spreads from the homeland, these aspirated stops convert into unaspirated stops (‘b’, ‘d’ and ‘g’).

Well, we know that the fire priests of the Anus were called the Bhrigus. And we know that the fire priests of the Scandinavians were called ‘brisingrs”. In other words, India did (and still does) retain the voiced aspirated stop while the Norse converted to unaspirated stops. Therefore, by following this linguistic rule, India should be the homeland or at very least, should not be ruled out as such.

Now you might think that this is a petty point. But the linguists’ whole case is based on lots of petty points like this one. This means that in order to unravel their case, you have to take one point at a time. Yet they never answer this point.

Sot it's my view that the original three witches/sisters/fairy godmothers were the three Rig-vedic goddesses who are always referred together: Ila, Saraswati and Mahi.

The linguists have also found that the Greeks and the Indians share the most linguistic commonalities among the PIE family. The Greek Gnostics carried on this idea of guardian goddesses being emanations from the ultimate Godhead, and spinning the fates, in the form of Sophia and Achamoth.

sarabhanga
04 July 2006, 12:59 AM
Namaste Gill,

The source of the Aral Sea is the Amu Darya, and the Amu Darya is fed by five head-waters. And the Darya-ye Panj flows less than 100 miles away from the Sindhu! How much physical evidence is required to validate the suggestion of such a trifling migration?

And since aspects of “Kurgan culture” are living today in the eternal Aryan traditions of Hinduism, I wonder what archaeological remnants would be necessary to qualify as acceptable scientific evidence!

Gill Harley
04 July 2006, 07:04 AM
Namaste Gill,

The source of the Aral Sea is the Amu Darya, and the Amu Darya is fed by five head-waters. And the Darya-ye Panj flows less than 100 miles away from the Sindhu! How much physical evidence is required to validate the suggestion of such a trifling migration?

And since aspects of “Kurgan culture” are living today in the eternal Aryan traditions of Hinduism, I wonder what archaeological remnants would be necessary to qualify as acceptable scientific evidence!

Namaste Sarabhanga

All these are valid comments. But I strongly urge you once again to read Talegeri's book.

The question isn't "where these people there?" but rather "how did they get there, and why?". Talageri makes a very good case (at least as good as any of the cases of the Aryans-in school) for the BMAC being a secondary homeland for the Druhyus as they migrated out of India.

There are two migrations recorded in the Rig-veda and the Srimad Bhagavatham.

The first one by the Druyhus came about after they tried to push the other tribes, principally the Purus, further east. They were attacked and forced out of India by the other tribes, and took a route out which went north-west.

The second migration out of India came about after the Battle of the 10 Kings on the Ravi river. Sudas led the Purus, and the Purus won that battle, forcing out many of the Anus who went due west.

So there is literary evidence for migrations going out of India. The first one is recorded at least as far north-west as Afghanistan. There is no evidence for any migration going south, or east, or south east.

Therefore, the Kurgan culture would be found in India. According to this theory, it's where it came from.

I strongly urge you to read this book.

sarabhanga
05 July 2006, 01:36 AM
The Bhagavata Purana is far too recent to be a literal guide to actual historical events, and even the Rig Veda was compiled (from undoubtedly more ancient sources) after the proposed migration and integration had already occurred.

The Rig Veda is the most ancient Aryan composition that we know; and if literature is our guide, then the Rig Veda is certainly the most appropriate place to look for some reliable historical indications of Aryan pre-history.


There are two migrations recorded in the Rig-veda.

The first one by the Druyhus came about after they tried to push the other tribes, principally the Purus, further east. They were attacked and forced out of India by the other tribes, and took a route out which went north-west.

The second migration out of India came about after the Battle of the 10 Kings on the Ravi river. Sudas led the Purus, and the Purus won that battle, forcing out many of the Anus who went due west.

So there is literary evidence for migrations going out of India. The first one is recorded at least as far north-west as Afghanistan.
Unless you are referring to some obscure esoteric interpretation of RV 7.18, I can see no mention of any such things in the Rig Veda!


In sum, Talageri uses one particular LateVedic Anukramani to establish the history of Rigvedic times, and compares that with a Rgveda of equally Late Vedic redaction.

This is what I called ‘garbage in garbage out’: By using Late Vedic texts, what can one expect but the Late Vedic/Epic and Puranic point of view that differs from the truly Rgvedic one by the changes made over centuries?

Gill Harley
05 July 2006, 05:12 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga

I know that's Witzel's view, and he's entitled to it. However, you haven't explained why it's your view. How do we know that these are late Anukrunamis? And even if they are, how do we know that that makes them inaccurate, given the tradition of preserving everything, word for word, so strictly?

Secondly, on the Puranas with regard to the first migration – that of the Druhyus by the north-west passage - we can choose not to believe the Puranas that record this, or we can say that this is the earliest historical record of any migration. It is a matter of choice. My view is that it is odd that the Puranas goes to great trouble to record all the geneaologies of the sons of the patriarch Yayati – it is these sons who then go on to form the Anu, the Druhyus, the Purus, the Turvashus and the Yadavas. It is the same book of the Srimad Bhagavatham where we find the story of Yayati and the geneaologies that we find the account of the migrations of these tribes. If none of it is true, we have to ask the question: Why would they bother to make it all up. It’s too comprehensive a database.

One of the arguments is that the Puranas contain mythology, which I agree with. But these Yayati stories, unlike the Krishna ones, do not follow a mythological structure. So why would they record all these names and events if they were not true?

On the second migration, which came about as a result of the Battle of the Ten Kings, I find Griffiths translation quite clear:


Rig-veda Book 7, Hymn 18

ALL is with thee, O Indra, all the treasures which erst our fathers won who sang thy praises.
With thee are milch-kine good to milk, and horses: best winner thou of riches for the pious.
2 For like a King among his wives thou dwellest: with glories, as a Sage, surround and help us.
Make us, thy servants, strong for wealth, and honour our songs wirth kine and steeds and decoration.
3 Here these our holy hymns with joy and gladness in pious emulation have approached thee.
Hitherward come thy path that leads to riches: may we find shelter in thy favour, Indra.
4 Vasistha hath poured forth his prayers, desiring to milk thee like a cow in goodly pasture.




Vasistha was the family preceptor of the Bharatas, Sudas’s family within the Purus.



All these my people call thee Lord of cattle: may Indra. come unto the prayer we offer.
5 What though the floods spread widely, Indra made them shallow and easy for Sudas to traverse.




A reference to the battle on the river Ravi, (then called Parusni)



He, worthy of our praises, caused the Simyu, foe of our hymn, to curse the rivers' fury.
6 Eager for spoil was Turvasa Purodas, fain to win wealth, like fishes urged by hunger.
The Bhrgus and the Druhyus quickly listened: friend rescued friend mid the two distant peoples.
7 Together came the Pakthas, the Bhalanas, the Alinas, the Sivas, the Visanins.




The above tribes were the members of the Anus. The priests of the Anus were the Bhrigus. The Alinas went on to be the Alans, the Hellenes, then eventually the Greeks. The Turvasa and Simyu tribes are also mentioned.


Yet to the Trtsus came the Arya's Comrade, through love of spoil and heroes' war, to lead them.




The Trtsus were Iksvakus (sun dynasty of Rama) and friends of the Purus.



8 Fools, in their folly fain to waste her waters, they parted inexhaustible Parusni.




The Parusni is the river that is now called the Ravi that runs through the Punjab. Commentators believe that it used to be a tributary of the Saraswati. This would add to the theory that the Purus were moving west into Anu territory as the Saraswati dried up. Others believe they were pressing west because they wanted the herb that created Soma.



Lord of the Earth, he with his might repressed them: still lay the herd and the affrighted herdsman.
9 As to their goal they sped to their destruetion: they sought Parusni; e'en the swift returned not.
Indra abandoned, to Sudas the manly, the swiftly flying foes, unmanly babblers.
10 They went like kine unherded from the pasture, each clinging to a friend as chance directed.
They who drive spotted steeds, sent down by Prsni, gave ear, the Warriors and the harnessed horses.
11 The King who scattered one-and-twenty people of both Vaikarna tribes through lust of glory-
As the skilled priest clips grass within the chamber, so hath the Hero Indra, wrought their downfall.
12 Thou, thunder-armed, o'erwhelmedst in the waters famed ancient Kavasa and then the Druhyu.




The Kavasa were the Kavis who were also Anus. The Kavis are known to have migrated to what is now Iran/Iraq.



Others here claiming friendship to their friendship, devoted unto thee, in thee were joyful.
13 Indra at once with conquering might demolished all their strong places and their seven castles.
The goods of Anu's son he gave to Trtsu. May we in sacrifice conquer scorned Puru.
14 The Anavas and Druhyus, seeking booty, have slept, the sixty hundred, yea, six thousand,
And six-and-sixty heroes. For the pious were all these mighty exploits done by Indra.
15 These Trtsus under Indra's careful guidance came speeding like loosed waters rushing downward.
The foemen, measuring exceeding closely, abandoned to Sudas all their provisions.
16 The hero's side who drank the dressed oblation, Indra's denier, far o'er earth he scattered.
Indra brought down the fierce destroyer's fury. He gave them various roads, the path's Controller.
17 E'en with the weak he wrought this matchless exploit: e'en with a goat he did to death a lion.
He pared the pillar's angles with a needle. Thus to Sudas Indra gave all provisions.
18 To thee have all thine enemies submitted: e'en the fierce Bheda hast thou made thy subject.
Cast down thy sharpened thunderbolt, O Indra, on him who harms the men who sing thy praises.
19 Yamuna and the Trtsus aided Indra. There he stripped Bheda bare of all his treasures.
The Ajas and the Sigrus and the Yaksus brought in to him as tribute heads of horses.
20 Not to be scorned, but like Dawns past and recent, O Indra, are thy favours and thy riches.
Devaka, Manyamana's son, thou slewest, and smotest Sambara from the lofty mountain.
21 They who, from home, have gladdened thee, thy servants Parasara, Vasistha, Satayatu,
Will not forget thy friendship, liberal Giver. So shall the days dawn prosperous for the princes.
22 Priest-like, with praise, I move around the altar, earning Paijavana's reward, O Agni,
Two hundred cows from Devavan's descendant, two chariots from Sudas with mares to draw them.
23 Gift of Paijavana, four horses bear me in foremost place, trained steeds with pearl to deck them.
Sudas's brown steeds, firmly-stepping, carry me and my son for progeny and glory.
24 Him whose fame spreads between wide earth and heaven, who, as dispenser, gives each chief his portion,
Seven flowing Rivers glorify like Indra. He slew Yudhyamadhi in close encounter.
25 Attend on him O ye heroic Maruts as on Sudas's father Divodasa.
Further Paijavana's desire with favour. Guard faithfully his lasting firm dominion.

Rig-veda 7, 83, 4-8

1. THESE who wear hair-knots on the right, the movers of holy thought, white-robed, have won me over.
I warned the men, when from the grass I raised me, Not from afar can my Vasisthas help you.
2 With soma they brought Indra from a distance, Over Vaisanta, from the strong libation.
Indra preferred Vasisthas to the Soma pressed by the son of Vayata, Pasadyumna.
3 So, verily, with these he crossed the river, in company with these he slaughtered Bheda.
So in the fight with the Ten Kings, Vasisthas! did Indra help Sudas through your devotions.
4 I gladly, men I with prayer prayed by our fathers have fixed your axle: ye shall not be injured:
Since, when ye sang aloud the Sakvari verses, Vasisthas! ye invigorated Indra.
5 Like thirsty men they looked to heaven, in battle with the Ten Kings, surrounded and imploring.
Then Indra heard Vasistha as he praised him, and gave the Trtsus ample room and freedom.
6 Like sticks and staves wherewith they drive the cattle, Stripped bare, the Bharatas were found defenceless:
Vasistha then became their chief and leader: then widely. were the Trtsus' clans extended.
7 Three fertilize the worlds with genial moisture: three noble Creatures cast a light before them.
Three that give warmth to all attend the morning. All these have they discovered, these Vasisthas.
8 Like the Sun's growing glory is their splendour, and like the sea's is their unflathomed greatness.
Their course is like the wind's. Your laud, Vasisthas, can never be attained by any other.

This is very obviously a battle on a river where the Purus wiped out, or banished, the other tribes – Anus and Druhyus. I don’t see how it could be otherwise.

sarabhanga
07 July 2006, 12:26 AM
Namaste Gill,

The Bhagavata Purana is very much later than the Vedas!


By using Late Vedic texts, what can one expect but the Late Vedic/Epic and Puranic point of view that differs from the truly Rgvedic one by the changes made over centuries?


“Talageri does not say which Anukramani he used and how he reached the conclusion that it is coeval with the RV. Instead, and rather surprisingly, he now tells us that he did not use any Anukramani at all, but instead, the names of Rsis, deities and meters printed in the various RV editions before each hymn. Also, he does not want to take notice of the fact that his (now indirect) source of the Rsi ascription in the editions (the Sarvanukramani) was not even fixed by 500 AD. In addition, Talageri simply neglects all other Anukramanis (Rgvedic or otherwise).”

It will take some time for me to properly consider RV 7.18.

Gill Harley
07 July 2006, 03:50 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga

I shall look forward to your reply.

I am aware that the Puranas are much later than the Rig-vedas. But my point was: are we throwing the baby out with the bath water by saying that there is no historical truth in them. And while "later" automatically means that the story is being retold further away from the event itself and so factual errors could occur, it does not, imho, automatically mean that these stories were cynically made up to create a false history for India.

There are some scholars that believe that the story of the Mahabharata is a reworking of the Rig-vedic Battle of the 10 Kings, and I must say, the same thought struck me too, quite independently, as I read it. Also, neither Yudhistira or Krishna appear in the kings lists.

So I believe that our task is either to separate mythology from history, or discover whether these mythological stories (designed for the purposes of spiritual teaching) are based on historical events . As I've said before, the stories of Yayati and his five children, which led to the five tribes and their consequent migrations, do not fit into any known mythological structure - or known by me anyway!:) It also seems unlikely to me that the creaters of the Bhagavatham would create pages and pages of fake geneaologies.

sarabhanga
08 July 2006, 06:32 PM
Āprī ~ Rigveda 10.110.1-11



समिद्धो अद्य मनुषो दुरोणे देवो देवान्यजसि जातवेदः ।
आ च वह मित्रमहश्चिकित्वान्त्वं दूतः कविरसिप्रचेताः ॥ १॥

samiddho adya manuṣo duroṇe devo devānyajasi jātavedaḥ |
ā ca vaha mitramahaścikitvāntvaṁ dūtaḥ kavirasipracetāḥ || 1 ||


तनूनपआत्पथ ऋतस्य यानान्मध्वा समञ्जन्स्वदयासुजिह्व ।
मन्मानि धीभिरुत यज्ञं ऋन्धन्देवत्रा चकृणुह्यध्वरं नः ॥ २॥

tanūnapaātpatha ṛtasya yānānmadhvā samañjansvadayāsujihva |
manmāni dhībhiruta yajñaṁ ṛndhandevatrā cakṛṇuhyadhvaraṁ naḥ || 2 ||


आजुह्वान ईड्यो वन्द्यश्चा याह्यग्ने वसुभिः सजोषाः ।
त्वं देवानामसि यह्व होता स एनान्यक्षीषितो यजीयान् ॥ ३॥

ājuhvāna īḍyo vandyaścā yāhyagne vasubhiḥ sajoṣāḥ |
tvaṁ devānāmasi yahva hotā sa enānyakṣīṣito yajīyān || 3 ||


प्राचीनं बर्हिः प्रदिशा पृथिव्या वस्तोरस्या वृज्यते अग्रे अह्नाम् ।
व्यु प्रथते वितरं वरीयो देवेभ्यो अदितये स्योनम् ॥ ४॥

prācīnaṁ barhiḥ pradiśā pṛthivyā vastorasyā vṛjyate agre ahnām |
vyu prathate vitaraṁ varīyo devebhyo aditaye syonam || 4 ||


व्यचस्वतीरुर्विया वि श्रयन्तां पतिभ्यो न जनयः शुम्भमानाः ।
देवीर्द्वारो बृहतीर्विश्वमिन्वा देवेभ्योभवत सुप्रायणाः ॥ ५॥

vyacasvatīrurviyā vi śrayantāṁ patibhyo na janayaḥ śumbhamānāḥ |
devīrdvāro bṛhatīrviśvaminvā devebhyobhavata suprāyaṇāḥ || 5 ||


आ सुष्वयन्ती यजते उपआके उषासानक्ता सदतां नियोनौ ।
दिव्ये योषणे बृहती सुरुक्मे अधि श्रियं शुक्रपिशं दधाने ॥ ६॥

ā suṣvayantī yajate upaāke uṣāsānaktā sadatāṁ niyonau |
divye yoṣaṇe bṛhatī surukme adhi śriyaṁ śukrapiśaṁ dadhāne || 6 ||


दैव्या होतारा प्रथमा सुवाचा मिमाना यज्ञं मनुषोयजध्यै ।
प्रचोदयन्ता विदथेषु कारू प्राचीनं ज्योतिःप्रदिशा दिशन्ता ॥ ७॥

daivyā hotārā prathamā suvācā mimānā yajñaṁ manuṣoyajadhyai |
pracodayantā vidatheṣu kārū prācīnaṁ jyotiḥpradiśā diśantā || 7 ||


आ नो यज्ञं भारती तूयमेत्विळा मनुष्वदिहचेतयन्ती ।
तिस्रो देवीर्बर्हिरेदं स्योनं सरस्वतीस्वपसः सदन्तु ॥ ८॥

ā no yajñaṁ bhāratī tūyametviḻā manuṣvadihacetayantī |
tisro devīrbarhiredaṁ syonaṁ sarasvatīsvapasaḥ sadantu || 8 ||


य इमे द्यावापृथिवी जनित्री रूपैरपिंशद्भुवनानिविश्वा ।
तमद्य होतरिषितो यजीयान्देवं त्वष्टारमिह यक्षि विद्वान् ॥ ९॥

ya ime dyāvāpṛthivī janitrī rūpairapiṁśadbhuvanāniviśvā |
tamadya hotariṣito yajīyāndevaṁ tvaṣṭāramiha yakṣi vidvān || 9 ||


उपावसृज त्मन्या समञ्जन्देवानां पाथ ऋतुथाहवींषि ।
वनस्पतिः शमिता देवो अग्निः स्वदन्तु हव्यम्मधुना घृतेन ॥ १०॥

upāvasṛja tmanyā samañjandevānāṁ pātha ṛtuthāhavīṁṣi |
vanaspatiḥ śamitā devo agniḥ svadantu havyammadhunā ghṛtena || 10 ||


सद्यो जातो व्यमिमीत यज्ञमग्निर्देवानामभवत्पुरोगाः ।
अस्य होतुः प्रदिश्यृतस्य वाचि स्वाहाकृतं हविरदन्तु देवाः ॥ ११॥

sadyo jāto vyamimīta yajñamagnirdevānāmabhavatpurogāḥ |
asya hotuḥ pradiśyṛtasya vāci svāhākṛtaṁ haviradantu devāḥ || 11 ||



1. Thou in the house of man this day enkindled worshippest Gods as God, O Jatavedas.
Observant, bright as Mitra, bring them hither: thou art a sapient and foreknowing envoy.

2. Tanunapat, fair-tongued, with sweet meath balming the paths and ways of Order, make them pleasant.
Convey our sacrifice to heaven, exalting with holy thoughts our hymns of praise and worship.

3. Invoked, deserving prayer and adoration, O Agni, come accordant with the Vasus.
Thou art, O Youthful Lord, the Gods’ Invoker, so, best of Sacrificers, bring them quickly.

4. By rule the Sacred Grass is scattered eastward, a robe to clothe this earth when dawns are breaking.
Widely it spreads around and far-extended, fair for the Gods and bringing peace and freedom.

5. Let the expansive Doors be widely opened, like wives who deck their beauty for their husbands.
Lofty, celestial, all-impelling Portals, admit the Gods and give them easy entrance.

6. Pouring sweet dews let holy Night and Morning, each close to each, he seated at their station,
Lofty, celestial Dames with gold to deck them. assuming all their fair and radiant beauty.

7. Come the two first celestial sweet-voiced Hotars, arranging sacrifice for man to worship,
As singers who inspire us in assemblies, showing the eastward light with their direction.

8. Let Bharati come quickly to our worship, and Ila showing like a human being.
So let Sarasvati and both her fellows, deft Goddesses, on this fair grass be seated.

9. Hotar more skilled in sacrifice, bring hither with speed today God Tvastar, thou who knowest.
Even him who formed these two, the Earth and Heaven the Parents, with their forms, and every creature.

10. Send to our offerings which thyself thou balmest the Companies of Gods in ordered season.
Agni, Vanaspati the Immolator sweeten our offered gift with meath and butter.

11. Agni, as soon as he was born, made ready the sacrifice, and was the Gods’ preceder.
May the Gods cat our offering consecrated according to this true Priest's voice and guidance.


iLA = iDA

bhAratI = piÑgalA

sarasvatI = suSumNA

See also: notes from Gita Satsang thread (http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showpost.php?p=6159&postcount=48).

sarabhanga
08 July 2006, 10:02 PM
bhRgu is the name of a race of beings who are closely connected with fire, which they found and secreted in various places ~ e.g. inside wood.

bhRgu RSi is the progenitor of the bhRgavaH (or bhArgava), and his own patronym is vAruNi. ;)

And bhRgu is the father of cyavAna RSi (and shukra, the daitya guru).

bhRgu is derived from bhrAj, which means “to shine, beam, or sparkle” and indicates “light, lustre, or splendour”.

Gill Harley
10 July 2006, 04:20 PM
Namaste Sarabhanga

On your first post - thank you for posting such a beautiful hymn. I really enjoyed it - and I read it several times. I think it's one of the loveliest pieces of writing that I've ever read. Unfortunately, though, I did not understand it's relevance to our topic here. I'm sure it's probably just me being dense. But I would be grateful if you could clarify why you've posted it here and it's relevance to our discussion.

On your second post - according to Talegeri, Book 10 (from which you quote this hymn) was the latest book of the Rig-veda, and most of its hymns were composed by the Bhrigus, who were the priests of the Anu tribe. He says that the Bhrigus were very much outside the pale of Vedic practice during the composition of the earlier books by the Angirasa rishis (of the Puru tribe). But after one of their members married into the the Purus, Jamadagni, they were more accepted. He says that it was the Bhrigus who invented the fire ceremony and passed it on to the Purus.

One family of Bhrigu priests were the Spitamas, and it was they who went on to produce Zoroaster. The Bhrigus were also responsible for much of the later literature including the Puranas and even the Ramayana (Valmiki was a Bhrigu).

sarabhanga
10 July 2006, 07:43 PM
Aurora’s three fairy godmothers, Freda, Almeida and Breda.

What it’s about should be fairly obvious to students of Vedic mythology.

In the Norse sagas, the three fairy godmothers are known as the three Sisters of Wyrd, or the Norns, who sit at spinning wheels, spinning our destiny at the root of the World Tree, Yggdrasil. They are a favourite staple right through Anglo-Saxon and English literature. Shakespeare used them in Macbeth as the three witches stirring the cauldron and casting the fate of Macbeth.

So it’s my view that the original three witches/sisters/fairy-godmothers were the three Rig-vedic goddesses who are always referred together: Ila, Saraswati and Mahi.
The three Rigvedic Goddesses who are always invoked together, are always invoked together in the Apri mantras, which are traditionally recited at the outset of all Vedic oblations.


Let Bharati come quickly to our worship, and Ila showing like a human being. So let Sarasvati and both her fellows, deft Goddesses, on this fair grass be seated.

iLA = iDA
bhAratI = piÑgalA
sarasvatI = suSumNA

Pingala (Yamuna) Nadi is the solar channel; Ida (Ganga) Nadi is the lunar channel; and between them is Sushumna (Sarasvati) Nadi.

The Rudrayamala Tantra agrees that:

Ganga = Ida = Soma = Puraka,

Yamuna = Pingala = Surya = Recaka,

Sarasvati = Sushumna = Agni = Kumbhaka.

Gill Harley
11 July 2006, 05:16 AM
Oh, I see. Thanks Sarabhanga. Makes sense now.

I thought you might like to hear what Talegeri has to say about the three goddesses, and how you can judge the chronology of the Rig-vedic books from how their names were organised. Anyway, here it is:

2. There are three Great Goddesses invoked in the ten AprI-sUktas. One of them is BhAratI, who, as the very name suggests, was the tutelary deity of the Bharatas. [note from Gill: the Bharatas were the Puru family who Talegeri believes are the responsible for most of the Rig-veda and refer to themselves as "arya"].

An examination of the references to this Goddess in the AprI-sUktas brings out a significant state of affairs: the ten AprI-sUktas fall into three distinct categories in line with our classification of the periods of the Rigveda into Early, Middle and Late.

As per our chronology, five families of RSis originated in the Early Period of the Rigveda: the ANgirases, BhRgus, ViSvAmitras, VasiSThas and Agastyas. All these five families refer to the Three Goddesses in a particular order of reference: BhAratI, ILA, SarasvatI (I.142.9; X.110.8; III.4.8; VII.2.8; I.188.9).

Two families originated in the Middle Period of the Rigveda, when the heyday of the Bharatas was waning, but the Rigveda was still a Bharata book: the KaSyapas and GRtsamadas. Both these families still refer to the same Three Goddesses, but in changed order of reference: The KaSyapas change the order to BhAratI, SarasvatI, ILA, (IX.5.8); and the GRtsamadas to SarasvatI, ILA, BhAratI (II.3.8).

The GRtsamadas reverse the order and place BhAratI last; but, in another hymn, they make amends for it by naming all the Three Goddesses in the original order: BhAratI, ILA, SarasvatI (II.1.11). This, incidentally, is the only hymn, apart from the AprI-sUktas, to refer to the Three Goddesses by name.

Three families originated in the Late Period of the Rigveda, when the predominance of the Bharatas (of the particular branch whose ruling dynasty was descended from DevavAta) was practically a thing of the past: the Atris, KaNvas, and the Bharatas themselves. Not one of the three refers to BhAratI at all.

The Atris and KaNvas replace the suggestive name of the Goddess BhAratI with the more general name MahI (which is an epithet of the Goddesses in I.142.9 and IX.5.8) and change the order to ILA, SarasvatI, MahI (V.5.8; I.13.9).

The Bharatas, caught in a bind, since they can neither refer to the Goddess as BhAratI, nor replace her name with another, follow a safe path: they refer to Three Goddesses, but name only one: ILA. (X.70.8).

All this proves one more thing contrary to general belief: according to the scholars, the AprI-sUktas were late compositions. On the contrary, it becomes clear that each new family of RSis, soon after it came into being and became a party to the performance of ritual sacrifices, composed its own AprI-sUkta. The AprI-sUkta, therefore, depicts the situation prevailing close to the time of the birth of the family (which, of course, does not apply to the two ancient pre-Rigvedic families, the ANgirases and BhRgus, whose antecedents go back deep into the pre-Rigvedic past).

It must be noted that any RSi performing a particular sacrifice was required to chant verses appropriate to that particular sacrifice, regardless of the family identities of the composers of those verses. It is only at the point where an AprI-sUkta was to be chanted, that he had to chant the particular AprI-sUkta of his own family. Hence, the composition of an AprI-sUkta, if no other hymn, was a must for any family, for a RSi belonging to that family to be able to participate in certain sacrifices.

This, incidentally, also explains why the AprI-sUkta of the Agastyas, whose other hymns were certainly composed in the Middle and Late periods of the Rigveda, clearly shows that it was composed in the Early period of the Rigveda.

The Bharata-PUru factor is vital to an understanding of the very presence of the different families of RSis in the corpus of the Rigveda:

1. The ANgirases and VasiSThas are two families which are fully and militantly affiliated to the Bharatas throughout the Rigveda.

2. The ViSvAmitras are a partially affiliated family: they were fully and militantly affiliated to the Bharatas in the period of MaNDala III, and, moreover, the ViSvAmitras were themselves descended from a branch of PUrus (a different branch from that of DivodAsa and SudAs, but possibly descended from DevavAta) who also called themselves Bharatas.

However, their close affiliation with the Bharatas of the Rigveda ceased after the ViSvAmitras were replaced by the VasiSThas as the priests of SudAs.

3. The KaSyapas and GRtsamadas are two families which are associated with the Bharatas, but not militancy affiliated to them.

Their association is based on the fact that the provenance of these two families was in the Middle Period of the Rigveda, which was still the (albeit late) period of the Bharatas.

The two families were more concerned with religious subjects (nature-myths and rituals), and hardly at all with politics or militancy; but the only kings referred to by the KaSyapas (as patrons) are the PUru or Bharata kings Dhvasra and PuruSanti (IX.58.3), and the only prominent king remembered by the GRtsamadas is DivodAsa (II.19.6).

4. The BhRgus and Agastyas are relatively neutral families in the Rigveda, both being basically aloof from the Vedic mainstream:

The BhRgus were, in fact, the priests of the people (the Anus) who lived to the northwest of the Vedic Aryans, and therefore generally on hostile terms with the Vedic Aryans and their RSis. However, one branch of the BhRgus, consisting of Jamadagni and his descendants, became close to the Vedic RSis; and these are the BhRgus of the Rigveda.

The Agastyas are traditionally a family of RSis whose earliest and most prominent members migrated to the South, away from the area of the Vedic Aryans, at an early point of time in their history.

Both these families owe their presence in the Rigveda to two factors:

a. Agastya and Jamadagni, the founders of these two families, were closely related to, and associated with, two other prominent eponymous RSis: Agastya was VasiSTha’s brother, and Jamadagni was ViSvAmitra’s nephew.

b. The two families were not affiliated to, or even associated with, the Bharatas, but nor were they affiliated to, or associated with, any other tribe or people.

Both the families, nevertheless, gained a late entry into the corpus of the Rigveda: even the oldest hymns of the BhRgus are found in the late MaNDalas; while the hymns of the Agastyas are, anyway, late hymns by RSis belonging to a later branch of the family.

5. The Atris and KaNvas are also relatively neutral families, but in a different sense from the BhRgus and Agastyas.

These two families, in fact, are not only not affiliated to the Bharatas in particular or the PUrus in general, but they are more often associated with non-PUrus (IkSvAkus, Yadus, TurvaSas, Anus). This association is basically mercenary: the Atris and KaNvas appear to have officiated as priests for, and composed dAnastutis in praise of, any king (irrespective of his tribal identity) who showered them with gifts. This more catholic or cosmopolitan nature of these two families is also recognized (in the case of the Atris) in I.117.3, where Atri is characterised as pAñcajanya (belonging to all the five tribes).

The KaNvas are even associated with the Yadus and TurvaSas in the context of a battle, in which the Yadus and TurvaSas came to their aid in response to an appeal by the KaNvas.

All this raises a question: if the PUrus alone, among the five tribes, are to be identified with the Vedic Aryans, and the Rigveda itself is a PUru book, what is the explanation for the presence of these two families in the Rigveda?

The answer is simple:

a. These two families originated in the Late Period of the Rigveda, when the predominance of the Bharatas had ended, and the PUrus in general had become more catholic and cosmopolitan in their attitudes.

b. Tradition testifies that both these priestly families were themselves of PUru origin:
According to the VAyu PurANa (1.59), the earliest Atri RSi was PrabhAkara, who married the ten daughters of a PUru king BhadrASva or RaudrASva, and had ten sons from whom all the Atri clans are descended.
As for the KaNvas, “all the authorities agree that they were an offshoot from the Paurava line”.

c. While the Atris and KaNvas (though descended from PUrus) were generally catholic or cosmopolitan in their associations, the most important Atri and KaNva RSis in the Rigveda are closely associated with the PUrus:
Among the Atris, SyAvASva Atreya is closely associated with the PUrus: according to SAyaNa’s interpretation of V.54.14, SyAvASva was himself a Bharata. He is also the only Atri to pay homage to the memory of SudAs (V.53.2).
Among the KaNvas, PragAtha KANva and Sobhari KANva are closely associated with the PUrus: PragAtha identifies himself as a PUru directly in VIII.64.10, and also indirectly in VIII.10.5 (where he asks the ASvins to abandon the other four tribes, who are named, and come to the PUrus, who are not directly named). Sobhari is the only KaNva RSi to pay homage to the memory of DivodAsa (VIII.103.2) and to call him an Arya.

Sobhari KANva and SyAvASva Atreya are also two RSis associated (VIII.19.32, 36; 36.7; 37.7) with Trasadasyu, whose importance in the Rigveda is due to the help given by him to the PUrus.

It is significant that these three RSis are perhaps the most important Atri and KaNva RSis in the Rigveda:
SyAvASva Atreya has the largest number of hymns and verses (17 hymns, 186 verses) among the Atris in the Rigveda, more than those ascribed to the eponymous Atri Bhauma (13 hymns, 126 verses). Apart from these two Atris, all the other Atri RSis have one, two, three, or at the most four hymns.

PragAtha KANva does not have the largest number of hymns among the KaNvas in the Rigveda, but, MaNDala VIII, associated with the KaNvas, is called the “PragAtha MaNDala”, and the dominant form of metre used in this MaNDala is also named after PragAtha.

These three RSis are the only RSis, belonging to the Atri and KaNva families, whose descendants have a place in the Rigveda: AndhIgu SyAvASvI (IX.101.1-3), Bharga PrAgAtha (VIII.60-61), Kali PrAgAtha (VIII.66), Haryata PrAgAtha (VIII.72) and KuSika Saubhara (X.127).
The presence of the Atris and KaNvas in the Rigveda is therefore fully in keeping with the PUru character of the Rigveda.

sarabhanga
13 July 2006, 06:22 AM
Namaste Gill,

All Dharmas have an essential Trinity, and the particular formulation is certainly an important indicator of the relative connexions of the various sects and religious clans.

The true name of God cannot be spoken, and ancient tradition never publicly revealed the actual name of its most sacred Deity.

Rudra, for example, was originally unnamed, and only ever referred to by euphemisms, such as “Shiva”.

mahi means “great”, and mahI (f.) specifically indicates the earth as “the great world”.

In later language, mahI also refers to “the land or country”.

mahI indicates “space or expanse”, “an army or host”, “a cow”, and the number “one”.

I would suggest that the more explicit term bhAratI (“a female descendent of Bharata”) is actually more likely to represent a later variation on the ancient euphemistic mahI. ;)

iLA (above) and mahI (below) are parallel planes, and sarasvatI spans directly between them. :)

And the dual mahyau indicates iLA and mahI yoked as one, which always assumes sarasvatI.

sarabhanga
14 July 2006, 09:52 AM
Namaste Gill,

The 7th maNDala of Rgveda saMhitA is credited to vasiSTha maitrAvarunI; and from 7:18 to 7:32, the praise is addressed to indra.

vasiSTha (superlative of vasu ~ “excellent, good, or beneficent”) indicates the “most excellent, best, or richest”.

Hymn 7:33 is addressed to the vasiSThaputra (“sons of vasiSTha”), and the title maitrAvarunI is explained:

“Verily, vasiSTha thou art son of mitra and varunNa, brahmA, born of the will of urvashI (‘widely extending’ ~ i.e. the dawn); and as a fallen drop, in heavenly fervor, all the Gods laid thee on a lotus-blossom.” [33.11]

The maitrAvaruNa priest is the first puruSa (assistant) of the hotR (the Rgveda priest).

vasiSTha refers to the best of his generation, and there have been many vasiSThA.

While every vasiSTha is ultimately born of the mitrAvaruNau, the name vasiSTha maitrAvarunI particularly refers to the vasiSTha who was contemporary with king sudAs paijavana of northern pañcAla, the reputed author of the 10th maNDala of Rgveda saMhitA. And sudAs reigned from ahicchattra (modern Ramnagar).

The first RSaya were either mAnava (Aditya) or dAnava (daitya); and the earliest lineages established were those of cyavAna bhArgava in Anarta (northern Gujarat), and vasiSTha in ayodhyA.

“The adorable indra made the renowned flood (of the paruSNI ~ i.e. the modern Ravi) fordable for sudAs, and converted the vehement awakening imprecation of our sacrifice into the calumnation of the waters.” [18.5]

The first king of the solar dynasty at ayodhyA was ikSvAku, and the hereditary priests of the ikSvAkava have always been vasiSTha.

The five progenitors of the lunar race (in order of descent from manu) were iDa, purUravas, Ayu, nahuSa, and yayAti; and the various lunar tribes are descended from the five sons of yayAti ~ yadu, druhyu, turvasha, pUru, and anu. And sudAs was descended from turvasha, in the family of divodAsa and mitrayu.

The hereditary priests of the lunar race were always bhArgava (from cyavAna to vAlmIki), until the time of sudAs, who employed vasiSTha and even vishvAmitra priests.

The first sudAsa praised by the vasiSThA was (more appropriately) the ruler of ayodhyA ~ the grandson of RtuparNa, son of sarvakAma, and father of mitrasaha.

It would appear that sudAs paijavana of ahicchattra and sudAsa sarvakAmya of ayodhyA have been confounded in the praises of vasiSTha maitrAvarunI. And since both noble lords lived long after the firm establishment of vedic culture in India, it is unlikely that this passage from the Rgveda has any bearing on the earliest movements of the aryA.

“Together came the paktha (who prepares the oblation), the bhalAnas (who speak the auspicious words), the alinAs (who humble themselves with austerity), the viSANina (with horns for marking), and the shivA (who are satisfied).” [18.7]

And there is also no reason to assume that this verse has any particular connexion with racial conflict and forced migration to distant lands!

:rolleyes:

Gill Harley
16 July 2006, 09:35 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga

Thank you for such a fulsome reply.

I am amazed and intrigued to hear that you believe that Sudas was a Turvasha, as I cannot find any record of his name in any of the Turvasha family trees that I have from the Puranas. Neither is he named as Turvasha in the Canto 9 of the Srimad Bhagavatham, which describes all the family trees of the sons of Yayati (and more particularly, Chapter 23, The Dynasties of the Sons of Yayati). Nor does he, or Divodasa or Mitrayu, appear in this Turvasha family tree from the highly acclaimed and authoritative Puranic scholar Vettam Mani’s Puranic Encyclopaedia:

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/gillharley/turvasha1.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/gillharley/turvasha2.jpg


However, a Sudasa in the line of Divodasa and Mitreyu is recorded in the house of Bharata, in the line of the Purus, here:



http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/gillharley/Puru1.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/gillharley/Puru2.jpg



http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/gillharley/Puru8.jpg


As you can see, Sudasa appears towards the end as a descendant of Divodasa and Mitreyu, who were in the line of Mugdala, a Puru.

In addition, I have a further reason for being surprised that you believe Sudas to be a Turvasha. It’s because the hymns of Rig-veda, if nothing else, are the hymns of the Arya. I think everyone can agree on that. So the praising of Indra for helping Sudas, a Turvasha, would make the Turvashas Arya. Now, as I understand the Puranas on this, the Turvashus are associated with south-east India – Bengal, Bihar and Orissa - and they are the ancestors of the present-day Dravidians. So if Sudas was a Turvasha, and the Turvashas were Aryans, it would mean the Aryans penetrated much deeper into India, and were much smaller and darker, than is widely believed.

So I would be very interested to see the source of your evidence for Sudas being a Turvashu. I think that the evidence that I have posted here clearly shows that he was a Puru, and a Bharata, and the Bharatas of the Purus continually refer to themselves, in the Rig-veda, as Arya.

Finally I disagree with you that it is clear that the Mandala VII hymn is not about a historical battle. To my understanding, it is an account of a battle on the river Ravi (a long way west from Bihar, incidentally!) and six of the peoples or tribes mentioned in Mandala VII are very much ancestors of races we know today, as follows:

Prthus or Parthavas (VII.83.1) = Parthians
Parsus or Parsavas (VII.83.1) = Persians
Pakthas (VII.18.7) = Pakhtoons
Bhalanas (VII.18.7) = Baluchis
Sivas (VII.18.7) = Khivas
Visanins (VII.18.7) = Pishachas (Dards)
Alinas = (VII.18.7) = Hellenes = GreeksI should add that we if decide that these stories in the Rig-veda are allegorical (as I'm inferring from your last comment) and not historical, then that definitely puts paid to the Aryan Invasion Theory. This is because all the original ideas that there was an invasion of Aryans into India came from the 19th century translation of references to “Arya” and their battles with the “Dasa” in the Rig-veda.

sarabhanga
17 July 2006, 04:38 AM
Namaste Gill,

turvashA yadU (turvasha and yadu) are the “twin” sons of yayAti nAhuSa and devayAnI (daughter of the daitya kAvya ushanas).

From turvasha (turvasu) was born vahni, who was married to svAhA, and their five descendents are named (over five generations) as: garbha, gobhAnu, tribhAnu, karaMdhama, and marutta (maruddatta).

marutta adopted duHSanta (duSyanta) as his own son, and the subsequent turvasava rulers descended from duSyanta, who became the mAruta varUthapa.

duSyanta was himself descended from taMsu, the son of matinAra, who descended from Rceyu, the son of raudrAshva, who was certainly descended from puru (the half-brother of turvashAyadU, born by yayAti from his second wife sharmiSThA, daughter of the dAnava vRsaparvan and mother of druhyu, puru, and anu).

The first lord of ahicchattra was nIla, the son of ajamILha, who descended from bhAradvAja suhotra.

bhArhaspatya bharadvAja (vidatha) was adopted by bharata, the son of duSyanta and shakuntalA, who was the daughter of the apsaras menakA (herself the daughter of vRsaNashva) by vishvAmitra.

shakuntalA was left in a forest, where she was protected by birds until discovered by kaNva, who reared her as his own daughter. While hunting in the forest, duSyanta saw shakuntalA and took her as his wife, and their famous son was rAja bharata.

The region of northern pañcAla (ahikSetra) was commonly known as jAÑgala, and ahicchattra was the first major settlement ~ in a naturally defended fortress just to the west of the Ramganga river, in Bareilly District (UP).

bharata adopted vidatha bharadvAja (an aÑgirasa RSi) as his son, and nIla and divodAsa and sudAsa paijavana are descended from vidatha.

As the lord of ahikSetra, sudAs (just as duSyanta before him) was the lord of the marutas and turvasava of northern pañcAla.

The hereditary priests of the lunar race were always bhArgava, until bharata accepted the atharvaÑgirasa. And vasiSTha and vishvAmitra priests were not used until the time of sudAs paijavana.

The first sudAsa praised by the vasiSThA was (more appropriately) the ruler of ayodhyA ~ the grandson of RtuparNa, son of sarvakAma, and father of mitrasaha ~ whose long line of solar kings had always employed vasiSTha priests.

It is not true that sudAs paijavana was a descendent of turvasha ~ rather, in the context of pañcAla, sudAs was the successor of turvasha.

I have not mentioned Bihar. :confused: And the previously given translation follows the authoritative commentary of sAyaNa:

“Together came the paktha (who prepares the oblation), the bhalAnas (who speak the auspicious words), the alinAs (who humble themselves with austerity), the viSANina (with horns for marking), and the shivA (who are satisfied).” [18.7]

And, if sAyaNa is given any credence, there is no reason to assume that this verse necessarily has any particular connexion with racial conflict and forced migration to distant lands.

pRthu (pRthivI ~ “the wide world”) is the earth.
parshu (parashu) is the “thunderbolt” (i.e. the sacrificial weapon ~ a curved knife).
paktha (from pakva ~ “prepared on a fire”) is the oblation.
bhalAnas (from bhAlanayana ~ “having an eye in the forehead”) chant the mantrA.
viSANina (“having horns” or “holding horns in the hand”) is the wise scribe.
shivA are those who are satisfied (by the sacrifice).
And the alinA (from aliÑga ~ “unmarked”) are those who make the sacrifice.
:)

sarabhanga
17 July 2006, 07:02 AM
Quite simply, the “Aryan Invasion” occurred when the sons of ikSvAku and vasiSTha came down from himavan onto the plains that had long been ruled by the sons of iDa and bhRgu. :1cool:

Gill Harley
17 July 2006, 11:24 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga

So I think what you're saying is that there was a bit of "hows-your-father" going on further up the Puru line, which meant that Sudasa's blood wasn't pure Puru? But I don't think that there's any doubt that the Sudasa was considered to be a Puru. He even dressed like one, with his hair tied in a knot to one side, as the hymn mentions. Also, as I said before, it's unlikely that a so-called Dravidian would be the the star of hymn of the "Aryas". The Turvashas are thought to be the ancestors of the Dravidians, although I'm personally not sure about these labels anyway.

I know you didn't mention Bihar. I did, when I said that the Turvashas are thought to have inhabited that part of India. There is no record of the Turvashas being in the Punjab, which is where the river Ravi is.

But all of this is nit-picking.

Our main disagreement here - and please correct me if you disagree - is whether the hymn which most people accept is a battle between Sudas and other racial groupings,(9 other kings), famously known as the Battle of the 10 Kings, is in fact an allegory for something more spiritual.

I notice you use Sayana for your source on this. Well, that's fine. But even according to Romila Thapar (who is no friend of the Aryans-out movement. Quite the contrary) says in her paper: 1999: The Aryan Question Revisited, "There isn't a single racial connotation in any of Sayana's theories". In other words, you'll find no racial types, or battles between them, in his commentaries. Therefore, you will find no "Arya", as a racial type. The logical conclusion of this, therefore, is that, according to Sayana's understanding of the Rig-veda, there was no Aryan invasion of India.

As I said in my previous post, the only source for any belief in the existence of an "Aryan" race who entered India from the outside comes from an interpretation of the Rig-veda, (although obviously not Sayana's!).

So - and I say this with the greatest respect - I don't believe that one should use Sayana's commentaries when it is convenient to one's own theories, and then discard them when it's not.

If you believe that Sayana's intepretation of the Battle of the Ten Kings is the correct one, then why not his commentary on the whole of the Rig-veda? :1cool:

Gill Harley
17 July 2006, 11:29 AM
Quite simply, the “Aryan Invasion” occurred when the sons of ikSvAku and vasiSTha came down from himavan onto the plains that had long been ruled by the sons of iDa and bhRgu. :1cool:

Namaste Sarabhanga

OK - that's an interesting theory. But it would be good to hear your sources, and also how you've reached that conclusion.

On a personal note, too, I'd also be interested to know if that's a recent conclusion you've come to, and whether your views on the AIT have changed at all in any way as a result our discussion here. :naughty:

sarabhanga
17 July 2006, 07:18 PM
It would appear that sudAs paijavana of ahicchattra and sudAsa sarvakAmya of ayodhyA have been confounded in the praises of vasiSTha maitrAvarunI.

The first sudAsa praised by the vasiSThA was the ruler of ayodhyA ~ the grandson of RtuparNa, son of sarvakAma, and father of mitrasaha.

While every vasiSTha is ultimately derived from the mitrAvaruNau, the name vasiSTha maitrAvarunI particularly refers to the vasiSTha who was contemporary with king sudAs paijavana of northern pañcAla, the reputed author of the 10th maNDala of Rgveda saMhitA. And sudAs reigned from ahicchattra (modern Ramnagar).
To which sudAsa are you referring?



marutta adopted duHSanta (duSyanta) as his own son, and the subsequent turvasava rulers descended from duSyanta, who became the mAruta varUthapa.

It is not true that sudAs paijavana was a descendent of turvasha ~ rather, in the context of pañcAla, sudAs was the successor of turvasha.

duSyanta was himself descended from taMsu, the son of matinAra, who descended from Rceyu, the son of raudrAshva, who was certainly descended from puru (the half-brother of turvashAyadU, born by yayAti from his second wife sharmiSThA, daughter of the dAnava vRsaparvan and mother of druhyu, puru, and anu).

The region of northern pañcAla (ahikSetra) was commonly known as jAÑgala, and ahicchattra was the first major settlement ~ in a naturally defended fortress just to the west of the Ramganga river in Bareilly District (UP).

As the lord of ahikSetra, sudAs (just as duSyanta before him) was the lord of the marutas and turvasava of northern pañcAla.


There is no reason to assume that this verse necessarily has any particular connexion with racial conflict and [especially not] forced migration to distant lands.

Why does this (or any other) verse have to be either spiritual allegory or historical fact?
Surely, there is truth revealed on both levels!

sarabhanga
17 July 2006, 11:21 PM
Quite simply, the “Aryan Invasion” occurred when the sons of ikSvAku and vasiSTha came down from himavan onto the plains that had long been ruled by the sons of iDa and bhRgu.
“An interesting theory” ???

What is the conflict ? ~ The opposition has always been framed as solar (bright) vs. lunar (dark).



The first RSaya were either mAnava (Aditya) or dAnava (daitya).

The first king of the solar dynasty was ikSvAku, and the hereditary priests of the ikSvAkava have always been vasiSTha.

The five progenitors of the lunar race (in order of descent from manu) were iDa, purUravas, Ayu, nahuSa, and yayAti; and the various lunar tribes are descended from the five sons of yayAti ~ yadu, druhyu, turvasha, pUru, and anu.

The hereditary priests of the lunar race were always bhArgava, until bharata accepted the atharvaÑgirasa. And vasiSTha and vishvAmitra priests were not used until the time of sudAs paijavana.

The first sudAsa praised by the vasiSThA was the ruler of ayodhyA ~ the grandson of RtuparNa, son of sarvakAma, and father of mitrasaha ~ whose long line of solar kings had always employed vasiSTha priests.
The mAnva lineage (descended from aditi via manu) began with vasiSTha, and they settled at ayodhyA.

The dAnava lineage (descended from diti via manu) began with bhRgu, and bhArgava cyavAna was anciently based in Anarta (modern Gujarat).

In this discussion I have certainly learned some historical details, but every new detail only tends to confirm the general understanding that I have long held!

Quite simply, the “Aryan Invasion” occurred when the sons of ikSvAku and vasiSTha came down from himavan onto the plains that had long been ruled by the sons of iDa and bhRgu.

Gill Harley
18 July 2006, 02:37 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga

Of course, stories can be both historical and allegorical, and I am a great advocate of that view. But you have said this:




And, if sAyaNa is given any credence, there is no reason to assume that this verse necessarily has any particular connexion with racial conflict and forced migration to distant lands.

pRthu (pRthivI ~ “the wide world”) is the earth.
parshu (parashu) is the “thunderbolt” (i.e. the sacrificial weapon ~ a curved knife).
paktha (from pakva ~ “prepared on a fire”) is the oblation.
bhalAnas (from bhAlanayana ~ “having an eye in the forehead”) chant the mantrA.
viSANina (“having horns” or “holding horns in the hand”) is the wise scribe.
shivA are those who are satisfied (by the sacrifice).
And the alinA (from aliÑga ~ “unmarked”) are those who make the sacrifice.
:)

In other words, you are saying here that Mandala VII, Hymn 18 is purely allegorical.

I believe that the rishis of the Purus, and more particuarly the Bharatas, are very obviously responsible for most of the hymns in the Rig-veda. Talegeri gives a good explanation of this in his chapter Who were the Real Vedic Aryans? I must say, it makes perfect sense to me.

This would lead us to believe that the Sudas of Mandala VII, Hymn 18 is the one listed in the Puranic genealogies as the descendant of Divodasa in the house of Bharata. But even if he wasn't, and/or, he is being confused with another Sudas, it is still logical to believe that the Sudas of Mandala VII was an "Arya" as the Rig-veda contains the hymns of the Arya. They are unlikely to want to celebrate the victory of a non-Arya. But it would be really helpful to me if could name your sources of the confusion over Sudas, so that I can understand this myself.

I like your theory about the solar and lunar dynasties. I think I'll definitely look into it. This is also a subject that fascinates me as there was a similar battle of sun and moon dynasties in Babylon among the Persians during the time that the Jews were there, (the sun won!). So this thinking had been carried into Babylon by tribes (like the Medes/Madras) who migrated from India. Zoroaster (a Mede and Vedic priest) turned it on its head, but he still kept many of its tenets. The Jews (most of the Pentatauch was written straight after the Babylon captivity) took this idea (like a Trojan horse) back to Israel. And the Christians (Gnostics) carried on the idea with the son (sun) of God. That's why Christians worship God on Sunday, the day of the Sun.

sarabhanga
18 July 2006, 07:23 AM
There is no reason to assume that this verse NECESSARILY has (i.e. MUST have) any particular connexion with racial conflict and [especially not] forced migration to distant lands.
And I have certainly NOT said that the verse is “purely allegorical” !




sudAs paijavana of ahicchattra and sudAsa sarvakAmya of ayodhyA have been confounded in the praises of vasiSTha maitrAvarunI.

The first sudAsa praised by the vasiSThA was the ruler of ayodhyA ~ the grandson of RtuparNa, son of sarvakAma, and father of mitrasaha.

While every vasiSTha is ultimately derived from the mitrAvaruNau, the name vasiSTha maitrAvarunI particularly refers to the vasiSTha who was contemporary with king sudAs paijavana of northern pañcAla. And sudAs reigned from ahicchattra.
The first sudAsa (sarvakAmya of ayodhyA) was surely mAnva Aditya and arya (i.e. a bright solar lord) !

Gill Harley
18 July 2006, 01:15 PM
On 14 July, you said this:

"And there is also no reason to assume that this verse has any particular connexion with racial conflict and forced migration to distant lands!"

You don't use the word "necessarily" here.

So in a hymn that most people recognise as giving praise to Indra for his help to the beseiged Sudas in the Battle of the Ten Kings, it lookstto me as if you're saying here that there is no reason to believe that it is about racial conflict, even though the names of the tribes mentioned are remarkably similar to those well-known to historians who specialise in the area.

Here is the general consensus of what's it's about. I don't necessarily agree with all the fine details of the analysis, but I agree that it was about a real battle:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Ten_Kings

The Battle of the Ten Kings (dāśarājñá) is a battle alluded to in Mandala 7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala_7) of the Rigveda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda) (hymns 18, 33 and 83.4-8). It is a battle between Aryas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arya) (an "internecine war", as the 1911 Britannica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1911_Britannica) puts it, as opposed to the more frequent accounts of Aryas fighting Dasyus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasyu)), taking place as Puru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puru) tribes, allied with other tribes of the Punjab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punjab_region) and goaded by the royal sage Vishvamitra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishvamitra)[citation needed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources)], invade the country of the Trtsu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trtsu) (Bharata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharatas_%28tribe%29)) king Sudas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudas), and are defeated in an epic battle through the inspired power of the priestly singer Vasishtha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasishtha), the composer of the hymns. K. F. Geldner in his 1951 translation of the Rigveda considers the hymns as "obviously based on an historical event", even though any details save for what is preserved in the hymns have been lost

http://www.vedanet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=105&Itemid=2

The tribes of Ghandhara [Afghanistan] figure more prominently in the 'Battle of the Ten King's mentioned in the Rig veda. The battle was assisted by two priests of King Suda named Vasishta and Vishwa Mitra leading to their mutual jealousy and was fought on the bank of the river Ravi. Among the frontier tribes who took part in this battle were Alina,Paktha, Bhalanas, Siva, and Vishanin.

http://www.answers.com/topic/sudas (http://www.answers.com/topic/sudas)
The battle of the ten kings was led against the Turvashas (http://www.answers.com/topic/turvashas) (one of the five vedic people of the RV), the Bhrigus (http://www.answers.com/topic/bhrigus) (a family of Vedic seers related to the Angirasas), the Druhyus (http://www.answers.com/topic/druhyus) (one of the five vedic peoples), the Kavashas (a family of Rishis), the Anus (http://www.answers.com/topic/anus-people) (one of the five Vedic peoples) and others (e.g. RV. 7.18.6; 5.13.14; 7.18.12). Rig Veda 7.83.1-6 tells that Sudas defeated both Aryas (http://www.answers.com/topic/arya-1) and Dasyus (http://www.answers.com/topic/dasa).
Part of this battle is also fought on the Parusni river, which according to Yaska (http://www.answers.com/topic/yaska) (nirukta 9.26) refers to the Iravati river (Ravi River (http://www.answers.com/topic/ravi-river)) in the Punjab (http://www.answers.com/topic/punjab-region).


If you look at hymn 83 of Mandala VII, it is even more obvious that there is a real battle:

1. LOOKING to you and your alliance, O ye Men, armed with broad axes they went forward, fain for spoil.
Ye smote and slew his Dasa and his Aryan enemies, and helped Sudas with favour, Indra-Varuna.
2 Where heroes come together with their banners raised, in the encounter where is naught for us to love,
Where all things that behold the light are terrified, there did ye comfort us, O Indra-Varuna.
3 The boundaries of earth were seen all dark with dust: O Indra-Varuna, the shout went up to heaven.
The enmities of the people compassed me about. Ye heard my calling and ye came to me with help.
4 With your resistless weapons, Indra-Varuna, ye conquered Bheda and ye gave Sudas your aid.
Ye heard the prayers of these amid the cries of war: effectual was the service of the Trtsus' priest.
5 O Indra-Varuna, the wickedness of foes and mine assailants' hatred sorely trouble me.
Ye Twain are Lords of riches both of earth and heaven: so grant to us your aid on the decisive day.
6 The men of both the hosts invoked you in the fight, Indra and Varuna, that they might win the wealth,
What time ye helped Sudas, with all the Trtsu folk, when the Ten Kings had pressed him down in their attack.
7 Ten Kings who worshipped not, O Indra-Varuna, confederate, in war prevailed not o'er Sudas.
True was the boast of heroes sitting at the feast: so at their invocations Gods were on their side.
8 O Indra-Varuna, ye gave Sudas your aid when the Ten Kings in battle compassed him about,
There where the white-robed Trtsus with their braided hair, skilled in song worshipped you with homage and with hymn.
9 One of you Twain destroys the Vrtras in the fight, the Other evermore maintains his holy Laws.
We call on you, ye Mighty, with our hymns of praise. Vouchsafe us your protection, Indra-Varuna.
10 May Indra, Varuna, Mitra, and Aryaman vouchsafe us glory and great shelter spreading far.
We think of the beneficent light of Aditi, and Savitar's song of praise, the God who strengthens Law.

sarabhanga
19 July 2006, 08:37 PM
Firstly,


There is also no reason to assume that this verse has any particular connexion with racial conflict and forced migration to distant lands!


If these stories in the Rig-veda are allegorical (as I'm inferring from your last comment) and not historical, then that definitely puts paid to the Aryan Invasion Theory.
I did not intend to suggest that the verse is only allegorical and not at all historical, and by “particular” I had intended “definite” or “necessary”. And I was especially commenting on the idea that any historical truth must be related particularly to racial conflict with subsequent forced migration to distant lands. So I tried to clarify by adding the word “necessarily”.



If sAyaNa is given any credence, there is no reason to assume that this verse necessarily has any particular connexion with racial conflict and forced migration to distant lands.
And by presenting Sayana’s interpretation, I was trying to show that there are very sound interpretations that clearly present the conflict as a dramatization of the eternal sacrificial process of vedic Yajna. And thus, since various interpretations are possible, that we must be very careful in jumping to conclusions about the actual nature of the historical action.



Our main disagreement here ~ and please correct me if you disagree ~ is whether the hymn which most people accept is a battle between Sudas and other racial groupings,(9 other kings), famously known as the Battle of the 10 Kings, is in fact an allegory for something more spiritual.

I don't believe that one should use Sayana’s commentaries when it is convenient to one’s own theories, and then discard them when it’s not.



There is no reason to assume that this verse necessarily has any particular connexion with racial conflict and [especially not] forced migration to distant lands.
Why does this (or any other) verse have to be either spiritual allegory or historical fact?
Surely, there is truth revealed on both levels!
And then I tried to emphasize (by adding “especially not”), that my greatest objection was to the definite assignation of far distant (non-Hindu) racial groups to the various “kings” by extrapolation from imagined historical consequences of the supposed historical battle!



But you have said this:


And, if sAyaNa is given any credence, there is no reason to assume that this verse necessarily has any particular connexion with racial conflict and forced migration to distant lands.

pRthu is the earth …
In other words, you are saying here that Mandala VII, Hymn 18 is purely allegorical.
Since this is NOT what I had intended to imply, I was forced to repeat my previous clarifications.




There is no reason to assume that this verse NECESSARILY has (i.e. MUST have) any particular connexion with racial conflict and [especially not] forced migration to distant lands.
And I have certainly NOT said that the verse is “purely allegorical” !


On 14 July, you said this:

“And there is also no reason to assume that this verse has any particular connexion with racial conflict and forced migration to distant lands!”

You don't use the word “necessarily” here.

So in a hymn that most people recognise as giving praise to Indra for his help to the besieged Sudas in the Battle of the Ten Kings, it looks to me as if you're saying here that there is no reason to believe that it is about racial conflict, even though the names of the tribes mentioned are remarkably similar to those well-known to historians who specialise in the area.
I know that I didn’t begin by using the word “necessarily”, but why not read my subsequent clarifications!

And, without any evidence, I have little interest in the purely speculative opinions of any historian (well-known or otherwise).

I hope that my intended meaning is now clear.

Secondly ... [proper comment on your internet references will follow, but again it will require some time].

sarabhanga
20 July 2006, 01:40 AM
If you look at hymn 83 of Mandala VII, it is even more obvious that there is a real battle.

Rgveda 7.83 is addressed to indrAvaruNa (indra and varuNa).

O indrAvaruNa, the leaders (of rites), contemplating your alliance, and desirous of wealth, the worshippers, armed with the sacrificial implement (for cutting), have proceeded to the east. You destroy your enemies, indrAvaruNa, whether dAsa or Arya, and defend sudAsa with your protection. [1]

Where heroes assemble with uplifted banners, in conflict, where there is only adversity; where all beings are fearful and looking to heaven, indrAvaruNa, there plead for us. [2]

The ends of the earth are beheld laid waste; the shout has ascended, indrAvaruNa, to heaven; the adversities of the people compassed me; having heard my invocation, come for my defense. [3]

indrAvaruNa, you protected sudAsa, overwhelming the irresistable bheda with your fatal weapons; hear the prayers of these tRtsus in time of battle, so that my ministration may have borne them fruit. [4]

O indrAvaruNa, the murderous (weapons) of my enemy distress me; foes among the malignant (assail me); you two are sovereigns over both (celestial and terrestrial) riches; so grant to us your aid on the decisive day. [5]

The men of both the hosts invoked you in the fight, indrAvaruNa, that they might win the wealth, when you helped sudAsa, together with the tRtsus, when the dasharAjAna had pressed him in their attack. [6]

The dasharAjAna, confederate, but without praise, indrAvaruNa, could not prevail against sudAsa. True was the praise of the leaders (of rites), those sharing the sacrifice, and so, at their invocations, the Gods were present. [7]

You gave strength, indrAvaruNa, to sudAsa when surrounded on all sides by the dasharAjAna, there, where the pious tRtsus, walking in whiteness, and wearing braided hair, worshipped you with oblations and praise. [8]

One of you destroys enemies in battle, the other ever protects religious observances; we invoke you, ye Gods, with our praises; bestow your felicity upon us, indrAvaruNa. [9]

May indra, varuNa, mitra, and aryaman, vouchsafe us glory and great shelter spreading far. We recall the beneficent lustre of aditi, and we recite the praise of savitA, who strengthens the Law. [10]

The verse certainly speaks of a great conflict, and its resolution; although I cannot see anything that particularly indicates racial conflict !

sarabhanga
20 July 2006, 10:51 PM
Namaste Gill,

I am not sure that there is much more that I can add to what I have already stated on this matter.

Your quote from Wikipedia (which refers to the Encyclopedia Britannica) notes that “the dAsharAjña is a battle between AryA” ~ i.e. the conflict is unrelated to race!





sudAs paijavana of ahicchattra and sudAsa sarvakAmya of ayodhyA have been confounded in the praises of vasiSTha maitrAvarunI.

The first sudAsa praised by the vasiSThA was the ruler of ayodhyA ~ the grandson of RtuparNa, son of sarvakAma, and father of mitrasaha.

The name vasiSTha maitrAvarunI particularly refers to the vasiSTha who was contemporary with king sudAs paijavana of northern pañcAla. And sudAs reigned from ahicchattra.
The most ancient elements of the airAvatI conflict story (relating to sudAsa sarvakAmya) are perhaps connected with the Aryan Invasion. The elements which relate to sudAs paijavana, however, are connected with later conflict among the Arya.

sarabhanga
22 July 2006, 10:13 PM
Namaste Gill,

If we ignore the later paijavana sudAs of pañcAla, the renowned descendent of paurava duSyanta, then the proper historical context of the dAsharAjña becomes clear.

sudAsa sarvakAmya of ayodhyA, from the solar line of ikSvAku, was contemporary with dasharatha (the son of navaratha, and the father of ekAdasharatha).

dasharatha rAja was descended from dashArha (the son of vidUratha and the grandson of yAdava nivRti, the ekaratha, who was contemporary with the paurava hero bharata rAja).

The battle lines of the historical conflict are drawn, with the solar tribe of Aditya ikSvAku, represented by rAja sudAsa and RSi vasiSTha, set against the lunar (daitya) yAdava clan (the sons of yadu, the eldest son of yayAti), represented by dasharatha rAja and the bhRgavaH.

The opposition is between the yAdava iLAvarSa and the pArthava ikSvAkava (i.e. bhArgava vs vAsiSTha, daitya vs Aditya, and dAsa vs sudAsa). And thus, when the fog created by certain “well-known historians” is lifted, the true nature of the racial conflict recalled in the dAsharAjña of vasiSTha maitrAvaruNi is simply revealed!

Gill Harley
23 July 2006, 09:12 AM
Namaste Sarabhanga

That’s an absolutely fascinating idea. As I mentioned before, I am very interested in the solar and lunar dynasties, and I think it might even be worth opening up a separate thread on them within in this section, the History of Bharatavarsa, at some point.

It would also suit my purposes admirably if it the Dasarajna turned out to be battle between the sun and moon dynasties. I am writing a novel and using this time in India as background. So if this was based upon the solar and lunar dynasties, it would give the story a much deeper textured dimension.

Therefore, I would really like to explore this idea with you. But I wonder if you could first name your sources? I have the highest respect for your learning and wisdom. But I believe that it always good practice in any debate to name your sources. On top of that, I’m just the kind of person who needs to be shown evidence so that I make up my own mind. If God himself manifested before me and told me that there was actually was an invasion of Aryans into India, I would ask him to name his sources!

Firstly, for instance, how do you know that only the Iksvakus used the Viswamitra and Vasistha priests?

Secondly, I cannot find any Dasaratha in any of my Puranic sources who is not the father of Rama and ten generations removed, in the Iksvaku line, from the Iksvaku Sudas. But it does occur to me that Dasaratha means “ten chariots”, Ekadasa (his son), if you turn it around is dasa-eka, which means “eleven”, thus “eleven chariots”. Thus, Navadasa, (his father), following this logic, means “nine chariots”. So “nine chariots” begat “ten chariots” who begat “eleven chariots”. Is Ekadasaratha’s son, by any chance, called Dvadasaratha? So it looks as though these were not names, but titles, and obvious titles for those who fought using chariots. How many chariots someone had in those days would certainly have been relevant to the power of their kingship. It would be like calling George Bush “one hundred Polaris missiles”. So it’s no wonder we Vedic scholars confused!

So could there be another, proper name for the lunar Dasaratha, that I could check against my genealogies (which, also by the way, don’t mention any “Ekadasas” or “Navadasas” either)?

As I’ve said before, Talegeri also makes a very good case for most of the hymns in the Rig-veda family being composed by the Bharata family, of the Purus. But I haven’t yet reproduced this argument here because it’s complex and long, and so hardly worth the effort for either of us since you don’t trust his premise, the Anukranamis. But for the record, he also states that the Trtsus, mentioned in verses 4, 6 and 8 of hymn 83 of Mandala VII, were Iksvakus and allies of the Purus:

4 With your resistless weapons, Indra-Varuna, ye conquered Bheda and ye gave Sudas your aid.
Ye heard the prayers of these amid the cries of war: Effectual was the service of the Trtsus' priests...
.....6 The men of both the hosts invoked you in the fight, Indra and Varuna, that they might win the wealth,
What time ye helped Sudas, with all the Trtsu folk, when the Ten Kings had pressed him down in their attack...
...8 O Indra-Varuna, ye gave Sudas your aid when the Ten Kings in battle compassed him about,
There where the white-robed Trtsus with their braided hair, skilled in song worshipped you with homage and with hymn.

Here is what Talegeri has to say about the Trtsus:

“The only other prominent dynasty in the Rigveda is the TRkSi dynasty of MandhAtA, identifiable as a branch of the IkSvAkus of the PurANas.
“The kings of this dynasty, as we have already seen, are:

MandhAtA
Purukutsa
Trasadasyu

“These kings are not PUrus; but they are accorded a special position in the Rigveda only because of the special aid given by them to the PUrus.
“According to the PurANas, MandhAtA’s father was an IkSvAku king, but his mother was a PUru, being the daughter of a PUru king MatInAra. Moreover, the PurANas record that the Druhyus, who, in the earliest pre-Rigvedic period, were inhabitants of the Punjab, were pressing eastwards onto the PUrus. In this context, MandhAtA moved westwards, confronted the invading hordes of Druhyus, defeated them, and drove them out into Afghanistan and beyond.

“The Rigveda itself records (I.63.7; VI.20.10) that Indra, through Purukutsa, rendered help to the PUrus in a war against the DAsa tribes; and VII.19.3 refers to Indra aiding the PUrus, through Trasadasyu, in “winning land and slaying foemen”. IV.38.1, likewise, thanks Mitra and Varuna for the help which Trasadasyu, “the winner of our fields and ploughlands, and the strong smiter who subdued the Dasyus”, rendered to the PUrus.

“It may be noted that most scholars, on the basis of these references, even go so far as to classify Purukutsa and Trasadasyu themselves as PUrus. “

I should perhaps mention, to avoid any confusion, that the battle referred to above by Talegeri is what is thought to be the first migration (of lunar Druhyus, north into Afghanistan and beyond after another similar battle, i.e. the Purus with the aid of Trtsus or Iksvakus). But we are primarily concerned here, in this part of the discussion, with the proposed second migration (of Anus, west into Iran and beyond). I merely cite it here to demonstrate Talageri’s view that the Trtsus were allies of the Purus.

However, following this to its logical conclusion, if the Trtsus were the Iksvakus, then the fact that they are mentioned separately in this hymn would imply to me that the hymn cannot have been written by the Trtsus (i.e. the Iksvakus), as they are unlikely to refer to themselves in the third person.

The idea, too, that the composers of the Rig-veda, or the Aryans, were in fact the members of the Iksvaku dynasty leads one to many tricky questions. For example, if they defeated the Yadavas so roundly, why were the Yadus and Krishna, (descendants of the Yadavas) so in the ascendant not so long after that? I have my doubts that the stories about Krishna are true. I believe that they are mythological teaching stories. However, it would seem unlikely that the conquerers from the sun dynasty would mythologise in the Puranas, in such heroic terms, a member of the moon dynasty.

And finally, yes I know that Wikipedia says that the Dasharajna is a fight between Aryans. But if you remember, I also said this just before posting the links (my bolding):

“Here is the general consensus of what's it's about. I don't necessarily agree with all the fine details of the analysis, but I agree that it was about a real battle.”

In other words, I posted these links within the context our discussion about whether the battle was real or allegorical, not who was the battle was between, which many disagree on, and who can blame them? For example, what about this in verse one of hymn 83 of Mandala VII (my bolding)?

LOOKING to you and your alliance, O ye Men, armed with broad axes they went forward, fain for spoil.
Ye smote and slew his Dasa and his Aryan enemies, and helped Sudas with favour, Indra-Varuna
So we would also need to consider, if the Rig-veda consists of the hymns of the Arya, then why are they celebrating the defeat of Aryans? I think this is possibly either a mistranslation or misprint — or heaven’s knows what! :headscratch:

But I look forward to hearing your views on all of this – and your sources!

sarabhanga
23 July 2006, 06:56 PM
I wonder if you could first name your sources?
Firstly, for instance, how do you know that only the Iksvakus used the Visvamitra and Vasistha priests?





The first RSaya were either Aditya or daitya; and the earliest lineages established were those of cyavAna bhArgava in Anarta (northern Gujarat), and vasiSTha in ayodhyA.

The hereditary priests of the ikSvAkava have always been vasiSTha.

The hereditary priests of the lunar race were always bhArgava, until bharata accepted the atharvaÑgirasa. And vasiSTha and vishvAmitra priests were not used until the time of sudAs paijavana.

While every vasiSTha is ultimately born of the mitrAvaruNau, the name vasiSTha maitrAvarunI particularly refers to the vasiSTha who was contemporary with king sudAs paijavana of northern pañcAla, the reputed author of the 10th maNDala of Rgveda saMhitA. And sudAs reigned from ahicchattra

The first sudAsa praised by the vasiSThA was (more appropriately) the ruler of ayodhyA ~ the grandson of RtuparNa, son of sarvakAma, and father of mitrasaha ~ whose long line of solar kings had always employed vasiSTha priests.
Since I do not recall ever suggesting that only the Iksvakus used Visvamitra and Vasistha priests, I wonder if you could provide some reference to my supposed statement?

sarabhanga
23 July 2006, 10:18 PM
dasharatha is the son of navaratha,
navaratha is the son of rathavara aSTAratha,
aSTAratha is the son of bhImaratha saptaratha,
saptaratha is the son of vikRti SaDratha,
vikRti is the son of jImUta pañcaratha,
jImUta is the son of vyoma turIyaratha,
vyoman is the son of dashArha triratha,
dashArha is the son of vidUratha dviratha,
vidUratha is the son of nivRtta ekaratha (suratha),
nivRtti is the son of dhRSTa,
dhRSTa is the son of kunti,
kunti is the son of kratha yAdava,
kratha is the son of vidarbha,
vidarbha is descended from jyAmagha,
jyAmagha is descended from citraratha,
citraratha is descended from uSadgu,
uSadgu is decended from svAhi,
svAhi is descended from vRjinavat,
vRjinavat is descended from kroSTu, and
kroSTu is the son of yadu.

Most of this information may be found in the harivaMsha.

sarabhanga
24 July 2006, 05:28 AM
Namaste Gill,

The tRtsu are the students of vasiSTha, and the hereditary priests of the ikSvAkava have always been vasiSTha ~ so that tRtsu and ikSvAku are identical terms

mAndhAtR (not mandhAtA) was the son of yuvanAzva II ~ can you please give a reference for the marriage of ikSvAku yuvanAzva with the sister of paurava taMsu ???

The son of mAndhAtR was purukutsa (“puru thunderbolt” ~ note that kuts means “to despise or revile” and kutsA indicates “reproach or contempt”). ;)

The son of purukutsa was trasadasyu; the son of trasadasyu was sambhUta; the son of sambhUta was anaraNya ~ and all of these kings ruled from ayodhyA, and the succession of ikSvAkava (tRtsu) kings of ayodhyA continues on from there!



the TRkSi dynasty of MandhAtA, identifiable as a branch of the IkSvAkus
Can you please explain how the continuous lineage described above could possibly be identified as a “branch” of the ikSvAku?

Perhaps Talageri has confused the ikSvAku rAja mAndhatR of ayodhyA with the haihaya yAdava rAja mahiSmat who founded mAndhAttAtripura (mAndhAtapura, or simply mAndhAtA) on the narmadA (“pleasure-giver”) river ~ which (in some later texts) is personified as the wife of purukutsa and the mother of trasadasyu. :rolleyes:


O indrAvaruNa, the leaders (of rites), contemplating your alliance, and desirous of wealth, the worshippers, armed with the sacrificial implement (for cutting), have proceeded to the east. You destroy your enemies, indrAvaruNa, whether dAsa or Arya, and defend sudAsa with your protection. [7.83.1]
:1cool:

Gill Harley
26 July 2006, 12:16 PM
Namaste Sarabhanga

Oh dear! I’m having some difficulty in understanding why you believe that the Sudas of hymn 83, Mandala VII, is of the solar dynasty, and that the Battle of the Ten Kings was a battle between the solar and lunar dynasties. :headscratch: It’s because I’m finding it hard to identify the rationale behind your argument and, without understanding that, it’s impossible for understand and therefore accept your view. It’s not as if I’m against what you’re saying. As I said before, I would love to believe that the Battle of the 10 Kings was about a battle between the solar and lunar dynasties. But at the moment, if someone else asked me why I believe it to be the case, I would only be able to reply: “Because Sarabhanga Giri says so.” :(

Anyway, just to give it one more go, I printed off all of our posts and went through them all with a fine toothcomb, to try to understand the rationale behind your thinking. By that process, I’ve identified at least one source of total confusion – to me, anyway! – and a number of apparent anomalies:

The main source of my confusion is this. (I’ve read it at least 10 times and it’s beginning to give me a migraine!)

You said on 14 July:

1. “It would appear that SudAs paiijavana of ahiccahattra and sudAsa sarvakAmya of ayodhya have been confounded in the praises of VasiSTa maitrAvaruni.” [so far, so good!]

2. “The first sudAsa, praised by VasiSTha, was the ruler of ayodhyA ~ the grandson of RtuparNa, son of sarvakAma and father of mitrasaha.” [still good]

3. “While every vasiSTha is ultimately derived from the mitrAvaruNau, the name VasiSTha maitrAvaruni particularly refers to the vasiSTha who was contemporary with king sudAs paiijavana of northern pancala, the reputed author of the 10th mandala of Rig-veda samhitA. And sudAs reigned from ahiccattra (modern Ramnagar).”

But as the dating of the Rig-veda (which is a whole other subject and probably a good candidate for another thread) is based upon Max Mueller’s faulty assessment (which he himself refuted in his later years), how can we assume that the late Mandala X was written at the time of sudas paiijavana of northern pancala? There may be a good explanation for this, but it’s not apparent to me at the moment!

It’s true that you didn’t say that the only the VasiSTas were used by the Iksvakus. But you did say this on 14 July:

“The first king of the solar dynasty as Ayodhya was IkSvAku, and the hereditary priests of the IkSvaku have always been the VasiSTa”

In the same post, you say:

“The hereditary priests of the lunar race where always BhArgava until the time of Sudas, who employed VasiSTa and VishvAmitra priests.”

So that says to me, both the Puru Sudas and the Iksvaku Sudas employed VasiSTa and VishvAmitra priests. However, on Monday this week, you said:

“The tRtsu are the students of VasiSTha, and the hereditary priests of the IkSvAkava have always been vasiSTha ~ so that tRtsu and IsSvaKu are identical terms. “

So, apart from the fact that you don’t name your sources for this piece of information, it also appears to contradict what you said earlier. How can tRtus and IkSvaKu be identical terms when the tRtus are the students of the VasiSTha and, by your own admission, a) the VasiSTha were not exclusively used by the IkSvaKu and b) according to your post of 14 July, “The hereditary priests of the lunar race where always BhArgava until the time of Sudas, who employed VasiSTa and VishvAmitra priests.” In other words, according to your own words, the Trtsu are just as likely to have been with the lunar tribes as much as IkSvAkava, after a certain time.

Here is another post of yours that I’m finding problematical. On 17th July, and at least one other time since, you’ve said:

“Quite simply, the “Aryan invasion” occurred when the sons of IkSvAku and vasiSTha came down from the himavan onto the plains that had been ruled by the sons of iDa and BhRgu”

Well, it’s not at all “simple” to me. :confused: How do you know this? What information are you basing this conclusion upon? What is your source for this information?

There’s a further point of yours that I’d like to discuss with you. On 19 July, in a discussion about the Battle of the 10 Kings, you said this:

“And then I tried to emphasise (by adding “especially not”) that my greatest objection was to the definite assignation of far distant (non-Hindu) racial groups to the various “kings” by extrapolation from imagined historical consequences of the supposed historical battle!”

My response to that is as follows: They are only “non-Hindu” (not that anyone was called “Hindu” then) if you don’t accept the evidence of the Anukranamis. According to Talegeri’s rationale (which I beg you to read before we go any further with this), Mandala VII is one of the oldest books. Therefore, according to this rationale, these tribal groupings were all from the Indian subcontinent and only later became “far distant racial groups”. However, you appear to have accepted the Western academic orthodox chronology of the Rig-veda without saying why, or making a case for it, when everyone who is close to this debate knows that there are many holes in it that theory that the “Aryans-in” historians either cannot, or at least do not, explain. Then when historians identify racial groupings in Mandala VII, you dismiss them but without saying why.

Here is another source of my confusion. On 20th July, you said:

“The most ancient elements of the airAvatI conflict story (relating to sudAsa sarvakAmya) are perhaps connected with the Aryan Invasion. The elements which relate to sudas paiijavana, however, are connected with later conflict among the Arya.”

So, at the risk of being boring, how do you know? Please explain your rationale for stating this so unequivocably. Secondly, what do you mean by the “airAvatI conflict”? What is that? Which hymn refers to it? It is my humble opinion that we have enough of a muddle going on without changing the terms of things halfway through, or bringing in new terms without explaining them.

You also said on Monday:

“mAndhAtR (not mandhAta) was the son of yuvanAzva II ~ can you please give a reference for the marriage of IkSvAku yuvanAzva with the sister of paurava TaMsu??”

Well, firstly I cannot give such a reference, because this comes from an extract from Talegeri’s book and I don’t know where he got his information from on this. Secondly, I think asking for a reference is a bit rich coming from someone who never gives any reference for his views unless it's dragged out of him! :Roll: And thirdly, knowing how Indian spellings morph and mutate, is it really worth making such a big deal over whether it’s “mAndhAtR” or “mandhata”? Your own name is often subject to this strange quirk. At the top of your posts, the name is Sarabhanga while your sign-off is Sharabanga Giri. Nobody queries it because we know that it is just the Indian way.

I really do feel that if you could explain your rationale and your sources more, instead of just stating things and expecting me to accept them, I would have more chance of understanding what you are talking about. As it is, I sometimes infer things wrongly because I am looking for a rationale and, not finding one, grabbing at straws.

I’m also at a loss to understand why you happily accept the evidence of the 8th century AD Harivamsha which gives so-called extra details about Krishna’s childhood thousands of years after he was supposed to have lived ( I say “supposed” advisedly ). But you won’t accept the evidence of the Anukranamis that Talegeri has used for his dating of the Rig-veda because you say that they are “too late”, repeating Michael Witzel’s assertion “garbage in equals garbage out”.

So as it is, I cannot help believing that you are trying to interpret the scriptures to make them fit your own hypothesis and cherry picking which bits fit best. This is where the British Raj went wrong in the first place, trying to get the Vedas stories to fit a Christian perspective. It’s what Western academia has continued to do, ever since. And it’s no better, imho, trying to get them to fit a Hindu religious perspective. Both of the aforementioned religions (and even the birth of the great Sri Sankacarya) came thousands of years after the composition of the Vedas. Sayana was writing his commentaries in the 14th century AD – in other words, at the time that India was under Islamic rule. So he was hardly likely to come up with a theory that the Islamists were all the descendants of “kafirs”, unless he was tired of life.


All this is coming from someone who wants to believe that you’re right, that there was a battle between the solar and lunar dynasties. So heaven knows how you’d fare with someone who didn’t want to believe it!:1cool:

sarabhanga
26 July 2006, 06:36 PM
Namaste Gill,

Why do you consider the mere statement “S.G. Talageri” as a valid reference, while you regard “Sarabhanga Giri” as an insufficient authority requiring additional support?

शरभङ्ग गिरि = śarabhaṅga giri = sharabhanga giri

There is no mysterious “morphing” involved in this simple case of transliteration ~ e.g. śiva vs shiva !


mAndhAtR was the son of yuvanAzva II ~ can you please give a reference for the marriage of ikSvAku yuvanAzva with the sister of paurava taMsu ?
I only asked for a reference because I am fairly sure that such a reference does not exist, and I wanted to show you that unsupported statements taken from internet extracts of Talageri are not necessarily statements of fact !

sarabhanga
26 July 2006, 07:23 PM
mAndhAtR was the son of yuvanAzva II;
the son of mAndhAtR was purukutsa;
the son of purukutsa was trasadasyu;
the son of trasadasyu was sambhUta;
the son of sambhUta was anaraNya;
and all of these kings ruled from ayodhyA, and the succession of ikSvAkava (tRtsu) kings of ayodhyA continues on from there!
And I have already explained how this continuous lineage could possibly be misidentified as a “branch” of the ikSvAku.



Perhaps Talageri has confused the ikSvAku rAja mAndhatR of ayodhyA with the haihaya yAdava rAja mahiSmat who founded mAndhAttAtripura (mAndhAtapura, or simply mAndhAtA) on the narmadA (“pleasure-giver”) river ~ which (in some later texts) is personified as the wife of purukutsa and the mother of trasadasyu.
If trasasdasyu was actually the love-child of ikSvAku purukutsa and a woman from mAndhAtA (the haihaya yAdava capital), then the union was between the ikSvAku and haihaya (and NOT puru) clans. :rolleyes:

sarabhanga
26 July 2006, 09:38 PM
The main source of my confusion is this:

“While every vasiSTha is ultimately derived from the mitrAvaruNau, the name VasiSTha maitrAvaruni particularly refers to the vasiSTha who was contemporary with king sudAs paijavana of northern pancala, the reputed author of the 10th mandala of Rig-veda samhitA. And sudAs reigned from ahicchattra.”

But as the dating of the Rig-veda is based upon Max Mueller’s faulty assessment (which he himself refuted in his later years), how can we assume that the late Mandala X was written at the time of Sudas Paijavana of northern Pancala?
It is mentioned in the Grihya and Shrauta Sutras that Sudas Paijavana was the “author” of the 10th Mandala of the Rigveda.

I have not considered any of Max Mueller’s supposedly self-refuted assessments of anything !!

And, if you deny Professor Mueller’s views on the later date of RV 10, how can you then assume that the 10th Mandala is a later addition ??




The Yati ‘priests’ were known as Vratya or Yatuvidah (those skilled in Yatu ~ Sorcery), and their wisdom found expression in the Atharva-Veda, which incorporates popular and indigenous chants and charms, and provides the earliest literary source (albeit Sanskritic) for the religion of pre-Aryan India.

This fourth Veda is actually known as Atharvangirasah, having both Atharvan and Angiras components, the former characterized as Shantam (Holy) and the latter as Ghoram (Terrible). Atharvan includes auspicious and remedial charms (Bheshagam), while Angiras ritual has aggressive intent and was distinguished as Abhikarikam (unholy Sorcery).

The Yatuvidah were Agni (Fire) priests, whose ritual had primarily domestic concern. Their sorcery involved the magical and medicinal use of indigenous flora, which remained largely mysterious to the Aryan immigrants. The Atharva-Veda provides a manual of pre-Aryan medical lore, although the identity of most herbs is no longer clear. Orthodox priests did not accept the Atharvan as a true Brahma-Veda.

The Atharva-Veda emphasized the underlying transcendent principle that was always implied in the Trayi-Vidya, but only truly appreciated in profound contemplation. In Aryan cosmogony, the inceptive power of creation was originally held in Mantra (as Brih), and was gradually transferred to the sacrificial process of Yajna (as Purusha or Soma); but, for the Yati, Yogi, and Jnani, the process is involutional, with Tapas as the efficient cause. Self-generated creative heat and illumination indicate the nature of this pure metaphysical Brahman, who is essentially related to the fourth dimension of time.

The Atharva-Veda established, in addition to the Hotar, Udgatar, and Adhvaryu, an essential function for the Atharvan Purohita, who adopted the supreme title of Brahman. The Brahman in Atharvan Yajna undertakes a less active, supervisory role, accounting for faults and inadequacies in the ritual performance with Bheshagam, and protecting against malefic influences with Abhikarikam.

A fourth Ashrama, known as Yati, completed the Atharvan (3+1) vision, which was prefigured in the ancient Aryan Adityas ~ the unfathomed darkness of Varuna supporting the all illuminating Mitra who, with Bhaga (Womb, or Prosperity), begot the brilliant Aryaman and the entire solar race.

sarabhanga
26 July 2006, 11:18 PM
The Trtsus were Iksvakus (sun dynasty of Rama)




However, if the Trtsus were the Iksvakus, then the fact that they are mentioned separately in this hymn would imply to me that the hymn cannot have been written by the Trtsus (i.e. the Iksvakus), as they are unlikely to refer to themselves in the third person.




The tRtsu are the students of vasiSTha, and the hereditary priests of the ikSvAkava have always been vasiSTha ~ so that tRtsu and ikSvAku are [virtually] identical terms.




The 7th maNDala of Rgveda saMhitA is credited to vasiSTha maitrAvarunI; and from 7:18 to 7:32, the praise is addressed to indra
So that the hymns which were spoken by vasiSTha RSi to indra were surely heard and remembered by his followers (i.e. the tRtsu), who are naturally referred to in the third person !!

sarabhanga
27 July 2006, 12:38 AM
It’s true that you didn’t say that the only the Vasishthas were used by the Iksvakus. But you did say this on 14 July:

“The first king of the solar dynasty of ayodhyA was ikSvAku, and the hereditary priests of the ikSvAku have always been the vasiSTha.”

In the same post, you say:

“The hereditary priests of the lunar race where always bhArgava until the time of sudAs, who employed vasiSTha and vishvAmitra priests.”

So that says to me, both the Puru Sudas and the Iksvaku Sudas employed Vasishtha and Vishvamitra priests.





The first RSaya were either Aditya or daitya; and the earliest lineages established were those of cyavAna bhArgava in Anarta, and vasiSTha in ayodhyA.

The hereditary priests of the ikSvAkava have always been vasiSTha.

The hereditary priests of the lunar race were always bhArgava, until bharata accepted the atharvaÑgirasa. And vasiSTha and vishvAmitra priests were not used until the time of sudAs paijavana.

While every vasiSTha is ultimately born of the mitrAvaruNau, the name vasiSTha maitrAvarunI particularly refers to the vasiSTha who was contemporary with king sudAs paijavana of northern pañcAla, the reputed author of the 10th maNDala of Rgveda saMhitA. And sudAs reigned from ahicchattra.

The first sudAsa praised by the vasiSThA was (more appropriately) the ruler of ayodhyA ~ the grandson of RtuparNa, son of sarvakAma, and father of mitrasaha ~ whose long line of solar kings had always employed vasiSTha priests.
In other words, only from the time of sudAs, the tRtsu may be genetically descended either from pRthu (as always) or from yayAti (as the result of sudAsharAjña) !!!

sarabhanga
27 July 2006, 02:15 AM
What is the conflict ???

The opposition has ALWAYS been framed as solar (bright) vs. lunar (dark).




Quite simply, the “Aryan Invasion” occurred when the sons of ikSvAku and vasiSTha came down from himavan onto the plains that had long been ruled by the sons of iDa and bhRgu.
If “lunar” vs “solar” is not your own understanding of the ancient Indo-Aryan opposition, then I really have no idea of the conflict that you have been imagining !!

Next time your Guru appears in a dream, you should ask him something about Yoga ! ;)

sarabhanga
27 July 2006, 03:17 AM
You won’t accept the evidence of the Anukranamis that Talegeri has used for his dating of the Rig-veda because you say that they are “too late”, repeating Michael Witzel’s assertion “garbage in equals garbage out”.
It is now two months since I noted that Talageri has denied that his conclusions are based on any anukramaNI, and yet you keep referring to these rather late indices as if they are actually required to establish Talageri’s chronology for the Rgveda saMhitA !


“Talageri does not say which Anukramani he used and how he reached the conclusion that it is coeval with the RV. Instead, and rather surprisingly, he now tells us that he did not use any Anukramani at all, but instead, the names of Rsis, deities and meters printed in the various RV editions before each hymn. Also, he does not want to take notice of the fact that his (now, indirect) source of the Rsi ascription in the editions, the Sarvanukramani, was not even fixed by 500 AD ~ as was its counterpart, the Brhaddevata. In addition, Talageri simply neglects all other Anukramanis, Rgvedic or other.”

sarabhanga
27 July 2006, 05:01 AM
“What though the floods spread widely, Indra made them shallow and easy for Sudas to traverse” ~ a reference to the battle on the river Ravi.

“Fools, in their folly fain to waste her waters, they parted inexhaustible Parusni” ~ the river that is now called the Ravi.
paruSNI is another name for irAvatI or airAvatI, and since YOU have introduced the modern abbreviation “rAvI” it is quite ridiculous for you to accuse me of adding confusion by using the proper name airAvatI !!!


What do you mean by the “airAvatI conflict”? What is that?
That famous battle over the airAvatI IS the very dAsharAjña ! :rolleyes:

In the face of such a basic lack of comprehension of the whole subject (and determined mistrust and doubt about the validity of my well-considered comments), there is probably little more that I can add at this time.

sarabhanga
27 July 2006, 09:56 PM
Witzel has done such a good job of discrediting Talegeri.

And with so many unanswered holes in his “interesting theory” it should be clear that Talageri’s work deserves little academic credit.




Witzel has this disgusting habit, when he can’t disprove the message, of shooting the messenger.

On the contrary, that seems to be the favorite tactic of Talageri’s ardent apologists!




I am planning to start hitting Western “Indologists” over the head with Talageri’s theory very soon!

I hope that now you can see that this course of action is quite premature and unjustified.




Witzel’s criticism of Talageri’s book was petty and insubstantial, mainly attacking the man rather than his theory.

Have you actually read Witzel’s review of Talageri’s book?




I agree that Witzel’s tone is rather dismissive and arrogant.

And, after months of circular discussion with just one zealot, I can appreciate Prof. Witzel’s frustration in dealing with Talageri and all of his misguided cronies!

I urge you to re-read all of my posts in this thread, without any pre-conceptions, and using a reputable dictionary as required.

Gill Harley
29 July 2006, 02:45 PM
Namaste Gill,

Why do you consider the mere statement “S.G. Talageri” as a valid reference, while you regard “Sarabhanga Giri” as an insufficient authority requiring additional support?

शरभङ्ग गिरि = śarabhaṅga giri = sharabhanga giri

There is no mysterious “morphing” involved in this simple case of transliteration ~ e.g. śiva vs shiva !


I only asked for a reference because I am fairly sure that such a reference does not exist, and I wanted to show you that unsupported statements taken from internet extracts of Talageri are not necessarily statements of fact !

Namaste Sarabhanga

I am very well aware that what Talegeri says may not necessarily be true. That is why I have presenting his case here, and asking others to comment on it/refute it. I would like to see you make a case against. So far you haven't (although I haven't read your posts following this one yet). You've just made a series of statements.

Of course Sarabhanga Giri cannot be accepted as an authority without any supporting references. He would have to be God for me to allow that, and even then, I'm not so sure! Come on, you know how this works, Sarabhanga! You were, I believe, a scientist at one time in the West. Surely you haven't forgotten the correct way to take part in a debate. This is a discussion board. It's not a madras.

:)

sarabhanga
29 July 2006, 06:29 PM
Of course Sarabhanga Giri cannot be accepted as an authority without any supporting references.

In which case, S.G. Talageri cannot be accepted as an authority without any supporting references!

Ref: Sri Panca Dasanama Juna Akhada Avadhuta Sarabhanga Giri ( pers. comm.)

Gill Harley
30 July 2006, 03:17 AM
In which case, S.G. Talageri cannot be accepted as an authority without any supporting references!

Ref: Sri Panca Dasanama Juna Akhada Avadhuta Sarabhanga Giri ( pers. com.)

Namaste Sarabhanga

Of course. At last we are in agreement on something.

But to answer, your question: yes, I have read Michael Witzel's review of Talegeri's book. I have also read Talegeri's reply to Michael Witzel's review of his book. And after that, I read Michael Witzel's reply to Talegeri's reply to his review of Talegeri's book. I've also read many papers of Witzel's on the "Aryan invasion". If you want to read more, he has a website, and here's the link: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm

But I hadn't read anywhere in all of that that Talegeri backtracked on his claim that he used the Anukranamis.

However, I notice from your posts just previous to this one that you have resorted to insulting me personally and denigrating my guru and my relationship with him. In my experience, a contributor to a debate will only descend to hurling such personal insults when he feels that he is losing the argument. Michael Witzel also uses to this strategem.

I'm sorry to see you doing this, Sarabhanga. I don't mind a bit of joking or banter, but in my view, in this case, you have gone too far and the behaviour is unworthy of you.

In the light of that, I don't want to continue this thread with you. So I won't be replying to any more of your posts. But I thank you for your input and for journeying with me thus far.

sarabhanga
30 July 2006, 06:09 AM
I hadn't read anywhere in all of that that Talegeri backtracked on his claim that he used the Anukranamis.
Since I was quoting directly from Witzel’s published replies to Talegeri, I am surprised that you missed it! But then again, you also ignored the comment when I first quoted it months ago.

Indeed you are a zealous supporter of Talegeri’s views, and as such there can be no insult in naming you an “ardent apologist” or a “zealot”.

I have certainly NOT denigrated your Guru! I simply advised you to consult your Guru about Yoga, which is another subject that you don’t seem to quite understand. And I would advise EVERYONE to consult their Guru regarding Yoga.

I do actually thank you for the discussion, which has prompted me to further investigations that have revealed a myriad of extra details, filling in all of the spaces in the basic scheme that I have understood for some time. My previously held beliefs are now held with even greater conviction! :)

sarabhanga
30 July 2006, 06:36 AM
My understanding of the “Aryan Invasion” and the “10 Kings Battle” is due entirely to the inherited wisdom of my own Gurus, made firm by my own readings of original scripture and my own meditations. I have read very little of either Talegeri or Witzel (except as forced by this discussion) and I really don’t care much about what either of them has to say. I thought that I had made it quite clear at the start of this discussion that I did NOT want to get involved in the whole ugly Talegeri vs Witzel debate, but you have repeatedly forced the issue!

TatTvamAsi
22 January 2008, 04:51 PM
My understanding of the “Aryan Invasion” and the “10 Kings Battle” is due entirely to the inherited wisdom of my own Gurus, made firm by my own readings of original scripture and my own meditations. I have read very little of either Talegeri or Witzel (except as forced by this discussion) and I really don’t care much about what either of them has to say. I thought that I had made it quite clear at the start of this discussion that I did NOT want to get involved in the whole ugly Talegeri vs Witzel debate, but you have repeatedly forced the issue!


Sarabhanga,

In clear and simple words, can you explain your position on the AIT?

Meaning, do you support the idea that Vedic culture including Sanskrit etc. came from OUTSIDE India?

I also get the jist that you are a westerner that has read a lot of Indian scriptures and perhaps even taken the time to learn Sanskrit.

sarabhanga
22 January 2008, 05:26 PM
Do you support the idea that Vedic culture including Sanskrit etc. came from OUTSIDE India?

Namaste TTA,

Please read this thread, where I have clearly expressed my understanding.

But firstly, your question is impossible to answer unless I know exactly what you mean by "India".




I also get the jist that you are a westerner that has read a lot of Indian scriptures and perhaps even taken the time to learn Sanskrit.

What does this have to do with anything in this thread?

Agnideva
22 January 2008, 05:38 PM
Meaning, do you support the idea that Vedic culture including Sanskrit etc. came from OUTSIDE India?

Namaste TatTvamAsi,

Sort of related to your above question ... I watched with some interest the BBC documentary video (the link (http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?p=20032#post20032) to which was posted by Soul yesterday -- it's the first link). What was interesting to me was that no mention of AIT was made, but something akin to AMT was mentioned. The documentary also showed some archaeological finds in the Black Desert of Turkmenistan, which was new and interesting (to me at least). In fact, the commentator suggests that Aryan migration into Iran and India occurred after the rise and fall of the Indus civilization.

I'm not saying I necessarily buy into everything being said in the documentary, but definitely worth the watch.

Aum.

TatTvamAsi
22 January 2008, 05:53 PM
Namaste TTA,

Please read this thread, where I have clearly expressed my understanding.


Is it hard to restate it? In simple English words, what is your position on the AIT? Do you believe that Vedic culture is indigenous to the people of Bharat or not?



But firstly, your question is impossible to answer unless I know exactly what you mean by "India".

:rolleyes: When I say India, I mean the ENTIRE subcontinent including present day Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tibet, Nepal, some parts of Eastern Iran, and some parts of Afghanistan.



What does this have to do with anything in this thread?

Actually it has a lot to do with it. Your predisposition on such topics such as the AIT, history of India etc. are heavily influenced by your upbringing, education, and well, your race as well. Being a westerner, rajas is your presiding guna so it would take a tremendous amount of awareness and lack of ego to look at certain topics dispassionately and come to a conclusive opinion. Also, whatever you, I, or others say here on this forum on anywhere else, are but trifling opinions. I hope you don't think otherwise. ;)

TatTvamAsi
22 January 2008, 06:01 PM
Namaste TatTvamAsi,

Sort of related to your above question ... I watched with some interest the BBC documentary video (the link (http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?p=20032#post20032) to which was posted by Soul yesterday -- it's the first link). What was interesting to me was that no mention of AIT was made, but something akin to AMT was mentioned. The documentary also showed some archaeological finds in the Black Desert of Turkmenistan, which was new and interesting (to me at least). In fact, the commentator suggests that Aryan migration into Iran and India occurred after the rise and fall of the Indus civilization.

I'm not saying I necessarily buy into everything being said in the documentary, but definitely worth the watch.

Aum.

Namaste Agnideva,

Thanks for the link. I'll be sure to check it out.

satay
22 January 2008, 06:22 PM
namaste TatTvamAsi,

It would interesting to read the discussion on AIT, however, please consider keeping focus on the topic of the thread and not on personal attributes of members.

Opinions are welcomed on HDF, especially and when they are backed up by facts.

TatTvamAsi
22 January 2008, 08:16 PM
namaste TatTvamAsi,

It would interesting to read the discussion on AIT, however, please consider keeping focus on the topic of the thread and not on personal attributes of members.

Opinions are welcomed on HDF, especially and when they are backed up by facts.

Namaste Satay,

I wanted to clarify that my remark towards Sarabangha was totally inocuous in nature and pertinent to the topic. I did not mean to offend anyone and if I did so I apologize.

Subham.

sarabhanga
22 January 2008, 11:27 PM
TatTvamAsi,




Please read this thread, where I have clearly expressed my understanding.

Is it so hard to actually read a thread before demanding a summary of it?
See: http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showpost.php?p=17306&postcount=8




I watched with some interest the BBC documentary video. What was interesting to me was that no mention of AIT was made, but something akin to AMT was mentioned. The documentary also showed some archaeological finds in the Black Desert of Turkmenistan, which was new and interesting (to me at least). In fact, the commentator suggests that Aryan migration into Iran and India occurred after the rise and fall of the Indus civilization.

Exactly as I have presented in this thread.




Being a westerner, rajas is your presiding guna

And, I suppose every “easterner” has either tamas or sattva as their “presiding guna” (or are all “easterners” perfectly balanced?). And what about “northerners” and “southerners”? What other sweeping generalizations would you like to make about humanity (based only on your impression of race or nationality)??

TatTvamAsi
23 January 2008, 02:26 AM
TatTvamAsi,


Is it so hard to actually read a thread before demanding a summary of it?
See: http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showpost.php?p=17306&postcount=8


Exactly as I have presented in this thread.

And, as the documentary suggests, a 'migration'/invasion (let's not split hairs here) into India (as I've explained in geographical terms earlier) from outside is downright silly and a fairy-tale created by the western pseudo indologists... That documentary also suggests that after hominids from Africa migrated to South India around 80,000 years ago, people from India migrated outward, hence supporting the OIT. Do you adhere to that? The bottom line is that there just isn't enough 'proof', as a modern 'scientist' would say, to decisively state anything regarding the history of civilization in Aryavarta. According to the Puranas, it certainly is the oldest of them all..and even according to modern archeologists, it is one of the oldest. So, the MYTH of the Aryan Invasion Theory is just that, a myth! Furthermore, can you point to any Hindu Scripture that mentions anything about an 'Aryan race'? Never does it mention that a race of Aryans exists/existed. Mostly Brahmins are Aryans by birth and by character/action.



And, I suppose every “easterner” has either tamas or sattva as their “presiding guna” (or are all “easterners” perfectly balanced?). And what about “northerners” and “southerners”? What other sweeping generalizations would you like to make about humanity (based only on your impression of race or nationality)??

Sarabhanga, no offense meant. However, you seem to be quite sensitive and defensive about your origin and identity as a Westerner. You have to realize that when an OUTSIDER comes to India and learns Vedanta among other things and then turns around and claims that this knowledge came from somewhere else, it will raise a few eyebrows! This is the same garbage that the British colonialists and other Eurocentric 'scholars' foisted upon the unsuspecting Indian hoi polloi for which they fell hook line and sinker! Anti-Hindu/Anti-Indian elements such as that clown Witzel continue to actively denigrate the validity of Aryavarta, its scholars (even in the modern day), and its origins.

Sanathana Dharma was, is, and always will be identified with INDIA and India alone! Its application is universal, literally, however its origins certainly are NOT!

And your comment about 'easterners and gunas'.. well.. funny.. but that's it. "Hindus" are definitely sattvic in nature and if you're a muslim, well, tamas is your best friend. Do you deny that westerners are rajasic in nature? Even Ramana Maharishi, who hardly talked much (unlike some others I know :rolleyes:), mentioned that!

sarabhanga
23 January 2008, 05:44 AM
Namaste TTA,

I have suggested a movement of people over the himAlaya, a migration, an influx, an invasion, call it what you will. But I have made my opinion quite explicit in this thread ~ which you have apparently still not had the courtesy to actually read!

I have not watched ANY documentary on this subject, and I was only referring to the explicit comments of Agnideva. OIT, AIT, AMT, its all meaningless jargon to me. Please read the thread!!

An Arya is an inhabitant of AryAvarta (the sacred land of the Arya) and especially one who is faithful to the Aryavrata (the bond of yama). And an Arya is an inhabitant of Aryadesha, and who displays the Aryavesha.

The AryAs are the vaidika pañcakRSTayas, the five Arya races, descended from the five sons of yayAti. So it would also appear that you have not fully investigated the veda before declaring that “Hindu scripture never mentions anything about an Aryan race”.

And AryA is another name for pArvatI himajA, the true origin of sanAtana dharma.




You have to realize that when an OUTSIDER comes to India and learns Vedanta among other things and then turns around and claims that this knowledge came from somewhere else, it will raise a few eyebrows!

Perhaps. But what does that have to do with any of my comments in this thread? Have you actually read this thread??



I have read very little of either Talegeri or Witzel (except as forced by this discussion) and I really don’t care much about what either of them has to say. I thought that I had made it quite clear at the start of this discussion that I did NOT want to get involved in the whole ugly Talegeri vs Witzel debate, but you have repeatedly forced the issue!


If we assume that all humanity originated in the region of India, then any human now living outside of India must be excessively rAjasika (overly active) by nature. For if they were more sAttvika or more tAmasika (inert) by inherited nature they would still be living in India! :rolleyes:

TatTvamAsi
23 January 2008, 12:20 PM
Namaste TTA,

I have suggested a movement of people over the himAlaya, a migration, an influx, an invasion, call it what you will. But I have made my opinion quite explicit in this thread ~ which you have apparently still not had the courtesy to actually read!

I have not watched ANY documentary on this subject, and I was only referring to the explicit comments of Agnideva. OIT, AIT, AMT, its all meaningless jargon to me. Please read the thread!!

An Arya is an inhabitant of AryAvarta (the sacred land of the Arya) and especially one who is faithful to the Aryavrata (the bond of yama). And an Arya is an inhabitant of Aryadesha, and who displays the Aryavesha.

The AryAs are the vaidika pañcakRSTayas, the five Arya races, descended from the five sons of yayAti. So it would also appear that you have not fully investigated the veda before declaring that “Hindu scripture never mentions anything about an Aryan race”.

And AryA is another name for pArvatI himajA, the true origin of sanAtana dharma.


Perhaps. But what does that have to do with any of my comments in this thread? Have you actually read this thread??



If we assume that all humanity originated in the region of India, then any human now living outside of India must be excessively rAjasika (overly active) by nature. For if they were more sAttvika or more tAmasika (inert) by inherited nature they would still be living in India! :rolleyes:

Sarabhanga,

You still have not stated your position on the AIT although I can clearly tell what it is. Obfuscation does not allow one to hide the truth. The "five Arya tribes" meant people who were of "Aryan" qualities--NOTHING to do with race! You seem to be suggesting that these 'Arya' tribes were from outside India and brought Vedic culture with them? Can you answer 'yes/no' to this?

Sri Aurobindo clearly states that there is no such thing as 'Aryan' race. You clearly don't understand the scriptures when assuming that there was an 'Aryan race'.

"The true origin of Sanathana Dharma"? hahah. Sanathana Dharma by nature is eternal!

Again, you have dodged the simple question and not clearly given your position. You have repeated what I've stated saying that "Aryans are inhabitants of Aryavarta". Old news buddy.

Do you believe Sanskrit and Vedic culture is indigenous to India or not? YES or NO? If you cannot answer this, well, there is no point in continuing this 'discussion'.

sarabhanga
23 January 2008, 07:30 PM
I firmly believe that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganga.




AryA is another name for pArvatI himajA, the true origin of sanAtana dharma.




"The true origin of Sanathana Dharma"? hahah.

This is no laughing matter! You consider that sanAtana dharma comes down to us only by the flow of gaÑgA. But the wise ones know gaÑgA as iLA (or iDA), and they understand that the eternal flow from pArvatI himajA radiates in ALL directions from the himAlaya to the seas. And even those who only know the literal gaÑgA understand that she is most pure when found flowing northwards! This rarely occurs, but when it does (e.g. at vAraNasI, and of course the flow from gomukha itself runs northwards) the site is recognized as particularly sacred.




You still have not stated your position on the AIT although I can clearly tell what it is.

I have clearly stated my position, but you have steadfastly refused to read it!




You seem to be suggesting that these 'Arya' tribes were from outside India and brought Vedic culture with them.

And what is it that makes you think that??

The AryAs are the vaidika pañcakRSTayas, the five Arya races, descended from the five sons of yayAti.

Sudas Paijavana
01 August 2013, 09:02 PM
delete

Jetavan
01 August 2013, 09:57 PM
Only Ancient China can rival India in history.

Greetings,

I think Jamaica cannot be underestimated.

Sudas Paijavana
01 August 2013, 10:33 PM
delete

Jetavan
01 August 2013, 11:23 PM
Are you trolling me?

Greetings,

A mild attempt at failed humour.

Sudas Paijavana
05 October 2013, 05:55 PM
Namaste,



Skin color is the least important part of the theory and it could be completely discarded without affecting the argument ~ although the Vedas are quite clear about the lightness and fairness of the Aryan appearance, which would make sense if the Aryans originated in Afghanistan rather than in Harayana!

Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, Biologist, in "The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia", concedes "with embarrassment" that he has "neither knowingly exhumed an "Aryan" (in the Europid sense, eugenics-wise) nor, having done so unwittingly, been able to identify the skeleton as such" (p. 32).

http://books.google.com/books?id=A6ZRShEIFwMC&pg=PA382&lpg=PA382&dq=The+Problem+of+the+Aryans+and+the+Soma:+The+Botanical+Evidence+In+the+Indo-Aryans+of+Ancient+South+Asia&source=bl&ots=2t6bSHPQDv&sig=Zec1yTGmdnDTmyW1Nq5KYIzNFWg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jsYmUv27AdWpsQSd4gE&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=The%20Problem%20of%20the%20Aryans%20and%20the%20Soma%3A%20The%20Botanical%20Evidence%20In%20the%20 Indo-Aryans%20of%20Ancient%20South%20Asia&f=false