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From: alt.fan.jai-maharaj@googlegroups.com

In alt.usage.english, in article <5de89e1d-697a-4ba3-9e81-b4c504a26e8d@googlegroups.com>,
Arindam Banerjee <banerjeeadda1234@gmail.com> posted:

catching up...

On Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 5:28:54 AM UTC+10, Just Me wrote:

P.S. By the way, Arindam, I am posting this again under new header because

I

forgot to mention this book I'm reading by a highly reputed German scholar of Hinduism, Klaus K. Klostermaier, who studied in India, and by whom I am informed, after all these years of being misinformed, concerning what is now, against considerable odds in academe, being revealed as the Nineteenth Century *myth* of an "Aryan invasion" of India.

Klostermaier exposes this damnable old nonsense as having been never anything more than a substance of pure speculation based on an arrogant (if not racist) Colonial prejudice that the greatness of India could have

arisen

by no other means than that it had come as the result of some mythical so-called, "Aryan-European" migration into India. It must have been an invasion of racial stock which was the same as had given rise to Greece and Rome. How else to explain the greatness of India, other than it was the greatness of somebody other than the Indians?

How else! The case he makes is to establish what ought otherwise to have been obvious, that Hindu culture is the production of the indigenous people of India--and nothing else! This is backed by a strength of archeological research and dating of astronomical events from the Vedas which indicate that they are much older than the date previously given circa 1,500, and that the Rgveda may go back so far as to 4,500 B.C., giving reason to

reveal

India for the original cradle of Civilization from which an Indian racial stock, the "Aryan" went forth north and eastward into Asia, Mesopotamia and Europe carrying linguistic characteristics which later evolved in the

Indian

subcontinent as Sanskrit; Greek and Latin around Mediterranean Europe.

As the "Negro" race evolved from Australo-Melanesian racial stock out of Indonesia and Africa, the "Aryan" arose of the Hindu peoples of the Indian subcontinent. In Mesopotamia, the racial strains mixed to produce the Semitic stock, and the great civilizations of Egypt, Babylon, and Israel/Judea. Some Aryan/Indian tribes wandered northwest rather than due west into the steppes of Russia to become the Slavic, "Caucasian" stock which migrated into Scandinavia and Northern Europe, while others went due north through Tibet to become the great civilization of China--and that's all she wrote.

But this is of course my take on it, which though it seems implied by the facts revealed in Klostermaier's writing, is not made explicit.

No doubt you, Arindam have long been hip to the butt-backwardness of the "Indo-European" Aryan myth, which is only now news to me--because why

should

I know anything more than I did in '68 when I graduated from college?

In school we were also taught the Aryan Invasion Theory. Apparently Europeans came from Europe and called the locals "Dasyus" and as they were so they

could

be killed off. Indians are still taught this Aryan Invasion Theory. As per the history taught to my children in Australia, there was nothing of significance in India prior to Buddha.

On Jul 7, 6:53 am, Arindam Banerjee <adda1...@bigpond.com> wrote:

Note the semantics - Vedantas or Veda-anta. The Vedantas (philosophy) begin where the Vedas (mystery) end. Thus while the Vedas are sufficient, the Vedantas are necessary as supplements. Knowledge of
the Puranas combine the two romantically, and as a consequence they provide infallible insights into the subtlest workings of Nature and man's place in it.

Intriguing that you should have been thinking along lines of the "romantic" here in relation to religion, as it was no more than 8 hours previous to my finding this post from you that I was having this to say (if you can bear with an enormous amount of preliminary verbosity) . . .

"There is no way on earth that man can ever think his way toward any Close Encounter, as it were, of the Divine Kind. Any hope of getting at it by thought can be no less obtuse than to be piling up, a la Spielberg, huge heaps of dirt, grass and brush on a dining room table. Just such a profanation would it be: dirty heaps of abstract analyses on the altar of the divine.

Or paradoxically it would be much to the contrary, if only for the Dreyfus film character because what he does is quite beyond any mere potentiality

of

thought; his act is a meditation; a highly reverent sort of non-verbal yoga of mud-pie mandala making from the sand and dirt of his wife's flower bed; an appropriately concrete, wordless sort of Zen rock garden art that worked to express what had otherwise been impossibly inexpressible. In the East, this has long been understood, how that thought is the first barrier to be removed from the path toward the mysteries of supra-mundane experience.

I often wonder, what do these mediation chaps really get out of their meditation practices.

If you do not get what you want from the Divine, as you do not believe in the Divine, then I suppose you have to go for meditations and then hope for the best.

This does not by any means make the oriental religious/philosophical traditions anti-intellectual because once the limitations of thought are admitted and recognized, learning of a far higher sort can begin, as a

finer

use for the mind stands to be uncovered--and not at all after the fashion

of

Hannibal Lechter, as he would 'uncover' it; at table with a good Chardonnay and the fava beans.

If by intellectual we mean e=mcc=hv class blah and baloney then yes it may be that pure meditation can help to escape from the clutches of intellectualism.

No! We of the West have always been wrong to think that thought is the finest activity that the human mind can engage. No gargantuan mental struggle with the metaphysics of a Kant or Heidegger has ever been higher nor finer than listening to great music, enjoying the romance of great

love,

being made witness to the ecstatic expression of great art."

Great Western thinkers we may have here in aue, unfortunately not much in the nature of gargantuan mental struggle is to be found here.

As I comprehend, the mature Hindu is a spirit
among loving and kindly spirits, manifesting themselves as various aspects of Nature (Sun, Wind, Fire, Earth, Stars).

My comment that I'd hoped to have time to make on that will have to wait, alas, for a new rising of the sun as I see by my handy clock on the quick launch bar that it's nearly half-past midnight. It pertains, in short, to something that I saw in the faces of some "loving and kindly spirits" that had manifested themselves to me one morning early, circa 1970, through a waning flame of LSD that had been all night engulfing the tissues of my brain--very costly Mephistophelian bargain that, by the way, where billions of brain cells are exchanged for "knowledge". And what's worse? For most everyone but myself, the knowledge can never be anything other than

suspect.

It is simply such that I may say in reply to your comment that I *know*

just

what you are talking about, having once had at great hazard, the

opportunity

to glimpse it, and be astonished to the point of . . . well, never mind.

Sounds like the TV character "Frasier", an intellectual and fathead.

The evil and the
harshness of the world is the result of its being a break or change
from Heaven, the perfection of which is our natural place and our goal while alive. The more spiritual a society, less the evil and
harshness of the world.

Well of course on that we couldn't be more thoroughly agreed.

I am in no position to talk about Hindu scripture. I need to master Sanskrit, and that should take me at least 5-10 years. Then I have to spend several years in deep cogitation. Hopefully when I am 80+ I may
be recognised as a master.

I once had an acid trip in which I hallucinated that I was recognized as Barbara Streisand being applauded for a curtain call; it was such a masterful feeling, of standing at the very cosmic center of the universe, loved and adored by all the devas, gandharvas, apsaras, the stage hands and especially the guy up there manning the big baby blue spot.

Damn! that was something, so fleeting as it was, couldn't have lasted

longer

than about five seconds, before I was falling through the realm of Wrathful Deities, crashing through membranes of hell after hell, until . . . never mind.

I have read the writings of the Dalai Lama, when he was a very young
man. I was deeply impressed by his clear and precise writing style. I found that book in the library of my father's uncle, Sir U N
Brahmachari, around 1973. I was most struck by his views on the
Chinese, who had expelled him. What was remarkable is how much he admired the true Chinese culture. Indeed, that book made me have a
very positive view of Buddhism, which lasted till you know when.

Well, no one knows the transitory nature of things better than a Buddhist, nor would any better understand the necessity of walking according to the Dharma which would seem to choose you: that is the Middle Way, and if it means remaining on the grandly flowered, incense misted path of the Hindu, that cannot be contrary to the Buddhas.

Buddhism is the reaction to Brahmanism, or the traditional worship of deities manifesting as Nature. It is essentially the story of the animosity between the Brahmins (austere priests, scholars) and the Kshatriyas (warriors,
rulers).
This animosity is very old - one of the oldest Shiva Puranas thus describes the battle between Kshup and Dadhichi. Then the case of Parasurama is well known to all. When the Brahmins and Kshatriyas unite for the common good, there is peace and prosperity in abundance; when not, not.

Plain fact is, that prior to their becoming non-violent Buddhists 1000 years ago, the Tibetans (a very tough people, even tougher than the Mongols) beat the hell out of the Chinese or anyone. So what is
better - beating up your neighbours or getting beaten up by them?

Again, as the Great Soul Gandhi walked his middle road, he found a most astonishing way to beat up his British neighbors by way of getting beaten

up

by them--so . . . was it not Gautama Buddha who once said, "Different strokes for different folks?"

Gandhi - Gad!

--
JM
http://whosenose.blogspot.com
http://jesusexegesis.blogspot.com-
--
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AYRAN INVASION THEORY IS A HOAX: History Revisited
Times of India, August 22, 1993

[Courtesy of Dinesh Agrawal]

N. S. Rajaram, an aerospace engineer by profession
explains his startling theory with regard to the Indus
Valley Civilization to Mr R. Edwin Sudhir:

IT is an interest that could not be ignored. To the
extent that it became a dominant force, compelling him to
take a breather from the routine of aerospace engineering
and devote himself full-time to the exploration of the
vistas of Indian history and test the very foundation of
theories long held to be sacred.

The man is Dr N. S. Rajaram. The interest is
history. And the theory is the Aryan invasion of the
Indus valley.

"Nothing could be farther from the truth," Dr
Rajaram emphasises, speaking of the prevailing theory
which outlines the movement of the Aryans from Central
Asia across northwest India, resulting in the settlements
in the Indus valley.

He feels this theory has its origins in the attempts
by 18th century European linguists to account for
similarities in their native and Indian tongues. Based on
linguistic and literary factors, one account pegs the
invasion to about 1500 BC. Archaeological digs at Harappa
and Mohenjadaro during the early part of this century
threw up material which was seen to corroborate this
theory.

Dr Rajaram feels the most important consequence of
the Aryan invasion is fixing the period in which the
Vedic literature came to be composed. According to the
invasion theory, this would have to be placed at the end
of the Indus civilization. But this, Dr Rajaram stresses,
leads to many inconsistencies, going by evidence coming
to the fore from diverse disciplines like ancient
mathematics, astronomy, computer science and archaeology.

The Saraswati, he explains, was the most important
river of Vedic times, adding that the focus shifted to
the Ganga after the Saraswati dried up. He says that
extensive work recently has shown that there were more
than a thou- sand settlements along the Saraswati and not
along the Indus as has been popu-larly believed. He cites
the work done by Dr V. S. Wakankar, which indicates that
the holy river altered course several times and dried up
around 1900 BC. The Yamuna and the Sutlej, the two main
tributaries were lost to Ganga and the Indus
respectively, he surmises, attributing the death of the
river to this phenomenon. It was then that the attention
shifted to the Ganga. Landsat photo-graphs confirm these
archaeological findings, adds Dr Rajaram.

Other confirmation has come from a class of work in
ancient mathematics, he adds. Known as the Sulba-sutras
or the Sulbas, these were originally devised to assist in
building sacrificial altars in temple architecture.
According to the work of the late American historian and
mathematician A. Seidenberg, a profess- or at the
University of California-Berkeley, a comparison of the
Vedic mathema- tics with the mathematics of Old Babylonia
(1700 BC) and Egyptian Middle King- dom (2000 to 1800 BC)
has revealed that these Sulba-sutras have been the font
of inspiration. Vedic altars, built according to these
calculations, have been found at sites such as Lothal and
Kalibagan going back to 2500 BC.

He enthusiastically points out that, in essence, the
Mastaba, the Egyptian flat-topped pyramid is nothing but
the turned-around version of the Smashana-cit, the

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Continues:

4. Presence of Horse at Indus-Saraswati sites

It is argued that the Aryans were horse riding, used
chariots for transport, and since no signs of horse was
found at the sites of Harappa and Mohanjo-daro, the
habitants of Indus valley cannot be Aryans. Well, this
was the case in the 1930-40 when the excavation of many
sites were not completed. Now numerous excavated sites
along Indus valley and along the dried Saraswati river
have produced bones of domesticated horses. Dr. SR Rao,
the world renowned scholar of archeology, informs us that
horse bones have been found both from the 'Mature
Harappan' and 'Late Harappan' levels. Many other scholars
since then have also unearthed numerous bones of horses:
both domesticated and combat types. This simply debunks
the non-Aryan nature of the habitants of the Indus valley
and also identifies the Vedic culture with the Indus
valley civilization.

5. Origin of Siva-worship

The advocates of AIT argue that the inhabitants of Indus
valley were Siva worshippers and since Siva cult is more
prevalent among the South Indian Dravidians, therefore
the habitants of Indus valley were Dravidians. But Shiva
worship is not alien to Vedic culture, and not confined
to South India only. The words Siva and Shambhu are not
derived from the Tamil words civa (to redden, to become
angry) and cembu (copper, the red metal), but from the
Sanskrit roots si (therefore meaning "auspicious,
gracious, benevolent, helpful kind") and sam (therefore
meaning "being or existing for happiness or welfare,
granting or causing happiness, benevolent, helpful,
kind"), and the words are used in this sense only, right
from their very first occurrence. (Sanskrit- English
Dictionary by Sir M. Monier-Williams).

Moreover, most important symbols of Shaivites are located
in North India: Kashi is the most revered and auspicious
seat of Shaivism which is in the north, the traditional
holy abode of Shiva is Kailash mountain which is in the
far-north, there are passages in Rigvada which mention
Siva and Rudra and consider him an important deity. Indra
himself is called Shiva several times in Rig Veda
(2:20:3, 6:45:17, 8:93:3). So Siva is not a Dravidian god
only, and by no means a non-Vedic god. The proponents of
AIT also present terra-cotta lumps found in the fire-
alters at the Harappan and other sites as an evidence of
Shiva linga, implying the Shiva cult was prevalent among
the Indus valley people. But these terra-cotta lumps have
been proved to be the measures for weighing the
commodities by the shopkeepers and merchants. Their
weights have been found in perfect integral ratios, in
the manner like 1 gm, 2 gms, 5 gms, 10 gms etc. They were
not used as the Shiva lingas for worship, but as the
weight measurements.

6. Discovery of the Submerged city of Krishna's Dwaraka

The discovery of this city is very significant and a kind
of clinching evidence in discarding the Aryan invasion as
well as its proposed date of 1500BC. Its discovery not
only establishes the authenticity of Mahabharat war and
the main events described in the epic, but clinches the
traditional antiquity of Mahabharat and Ramayana periods.
So far the AIT advocates used to either dismiss the
Mahabharat epic as a fictional work of a highly talented
poet or would place it around 1000 BC. But the remains of
this submerged city along the coast of Gujarat were dated
3000BC to 1500BC. In Mahabharat's Musal Parva, the Dwarka
is mentioned as being gradually swallowed by the ocean.
Krishna had forewarned the residents of Dwaraka to vacate
the city before the sea submerged it. The Sabha Parva
gives a detailed account of Krishna's flight from Mathura
with his followers to Dwaraka to escape continuous
attacks of Jarasandh's on Mathura and save the lives of
its subjects. For this reason, Krishna is also known as
RANCHHOR (one who runs away from the battle-field). Dr.
SR Rao and his team in 1984-88 (Marine Archaeology Unit)
undertook an extensive search of this city along the
coast of Gujarat where the Dwarikadeesh temple stands
now, and finally they succeeded in unearthing the ruins
of this submerged city off the Gujarat coast.

7. Saraswati River Discovered

It is well known that in the Rig Veda, the honor of the
greatest and the holiest of rivers was not bestowed upon
the Ganga, but upon Saraswati, now a dry river, but once
a mighty flowing river all the way from the Himalayas to
the ocean across the Rajasthan desert. The Ganga is
mentioned only once while the Saraswati is mentioned at
least 60 times. Extensive research by the late Dr.
Wakankar has shown that the Saraswati changed her course
several times, going completely dry around 1900 BC. The
latest satellite data combined with field archaeological
studies have shown that the Rig Vedic Saraswati had
stopped being a perennial river long before 3000 BC.

As Paul-Henri Francfort of CNRS, Paris recently observed,
"...we now know, thanks to the field work of the Indo-
French expedition that when the proto-historic people
settled in this area, no large river had flowed there for
a long time."

The proto-historic people he refers to are the early
Harappans of 3000 BC. But satellite 'photos show that a
great prehistoric river that was over 7 kilometers wide
did indeed flow through the area at one time. This was
the Saraswati described in the Rig Veda. Numerous
archaeological sites have also been located along the
course of this great prehistoric river thereby confirming
Vedic accounts. The great Saraswati that flowed "from the
mountain to the sea" is now seen to belong to a date long
an terior to 3000 BC. This means that the Rig Veda
describes the geography of North India long before 3000
BC. All this shows that the Rig Veda must have been in
existence no later than 3500 BC. (Aryan Invasion of
India: The Myth and the Truth By N.S. Rajaram)

River Saraswati IN RIGVEDA

The river called Saraswati is the most important of the
rivers mentioned in the Rig Veda. The image of this
'great goddess stream' dominates the text. It is not only
the most sacred river but the Goddess of wisdom. She is
said to be the Mother of the Veda.

A few Rig Vedic hymns which mention Saraswati river are
presented below:

ambitame naditame devitame sarasvati (II.41.16)

(The best mother, the best river, the best Goddess,
Saraswati)

maho arnah saraswati pra cetayati ketuna dhiyo visva
virajati (I.3.12)

(Saraswati like a great ocean appears with her ray, she
rules all inspirations)

ni tva dadhe vara a prthivya ilayspade sudinatve ahnam:

drsadvatyam manuse apayayam sarasvatyam revad agne didhi
(III.23.4)

(We set you down, oh sacred fire, at the most holy place
on Earth, in the land of Ila, in the clear brightness of
the days. On the Drishadvati, the Apaya and the Saraswati
rivers, shine out brilliantly for men)

citra id raja rajaka id anyake sarasvatim anu;

parjanya iva tatanadhi vrstya sahasram ayuta dadat
(VIII.21.18)

(Splendor is the king, all others are princes, who dwell
along the Saraswati river. Like the Rain God extending
with rain he grants a thousand times ten thousand cattle)

Saraswati like a bronze city: ayasi puh;

surpassing all other rivers and waters: visva apo mahina
sindhur anyah;

pure in her course from the mountains to the sea: sucir
yati girbhya a samudrat (VII.95.1-2)

All this indicates that the composers of the Vedic
literature were quite familiar with the Saraswati river,
and were inspired by its beauty and its vasteness that
they composed several hymns in her praise and
glorification. This also indicates that the Vedas are
much older than Mahabharat period which mentions
Saraswati as a dying river.

8. Decipherment of Indus Script

Dr. SR Rao, who has deciphered the Indus script, is an
ex-head of Archaeological Survey of India, a renowned
Marine archaeologist, has been studying archeology since
1948 and has discovered and excavated numerous Indus
sites. He has authored several monumental works on
Harappan civilization and Indus script. To summarize his
method of decipherment of Indus script, he assigned to
each Indus basic letter the same sound-value as the West
Asian letter which closely resembled it. After assigning
these values to the Indus letters, he proceeded to try to
read the inscriptions on the Indus seals. The language
that emerged turned out to be an "Aryan" one belonging to
Sanskrit family. The people who resided at Harappa,
Mohenjo-Daro, and other sites were culturally Aryan is
thus confirmed by the decipherment of the Harappan script
and its identity with Sanskrit family. The Harappa
culture was a part of a continuing evolution of the Vedic
culture which had developed on the banks of Saraswati
river. And it should be rightly termed as Vedic-Saraswati
civilization.

Among the many words yielded by Dr. Rao's decipherment
are the numerals aeka, tra, chatus, panta, happta/sapta,
dasa, dvadasa and sata (1,3,4,5,7, 10,100) and the names
of Vedic personalities like Atri, Kasyapa, Gara, Manu,
Sara, Trita, Daksa, Druhu, Kasu, and many common Sanskrit
words like, apa (water), gatha, tar (savior), trika, da,
dyau (heaven), dashada, anna (food), pa(protector), para
(supreme), maha, mahat, moks, etc.

While the direct connection between the late Indus script
(1600 BC) and the Brahmi script could not be definitely
established earlier, more and more inscriptions have been
found all over the country in the last few years, dating
1000 BC, 700 BC, and so on, which have bridged the gap
between the two. Now it is evident that the Brahmi script
evolved directly from the Indus script. (Sources:
Decipherment of the Indus Script, Dawn and Development of
Indus Civilization, Lothal and the Indus Civilization,
all by S. R. Rao)

9 New Archaeological findings

Since the first discovery of buried townships of Harappa
and Mohenjo-Daro on the Ravi and Sindhu rivers in 1922,
respectively, numerous other settlements, now number over
2500 stretching from Baluchistan to the Ganga and beyond
and down to Tapti valley, covering nearly a million and
half square kilometers, have been unearthed by various
archaeologists. And, the fact which was not known 70
years ago, but archaeologists now know, is that about 75%
of these settlements are concentrated not along the
Sindhu or even the Ganga, but along the now dried up
Saraswati river. This calamity - the drying up of the
Saraswati - and not any invasion was what led to the
disruption and abandonment of the settlements along
Saraswati river by the people who lived a Vedic life. The
drying up of the Saraswati river was a catastrophe of the
vast magnitude, which led to a massive outflow of people,
especially the elite, went into Iran, Mesopotamia and
other neighboring regions. Around the same time (2000-
1900 BC), there were constant floods or/and prolonged
draughts along the Sindhu river and its tributaries which
forced the inhabitants of the Indus valley to move to
other safer and greener locations, and hence a slow but
continuous migration of these highly civilized and
prosperous Vedic people took place. Some of them moved to
south east, and some to north west, and even towards
European regions. For the next thousand years and more,
dynasties and rulers with Indian names appear and
disappear all over the West Asia confirming the migration
of people from East towards West. There was no
destruction of an existing civilization or invasion by
any racial nomads of any kind to cause the destruction or
abandonment of these settlements.

10. Chronology of the pre-historic period of India

According to the invasionists, the Indian civilization or
the Indus Valley civilization is only 4000-5000 years
old. They place the end of this civilization around
1900BC, and invasion of Aryans around 1500BC. There is
also no plausible explanation from these invasion
advocates for a gap of 400 years between the end of the
Indus Valley civilization (IVC) and the appearance of
Aryans on the Indian scene if Aryans were responsible for
the destruction of the IVC. They propose the period of
1400-1300 BC as the beginning of the Vedic age when the
Vedas were composed and Aryans began to impose their
culture and religion on the indigenous population of the
northern India. The Ramayana and Mahabharat, if
considered as real events, must be according to them
arbitr- arily be dated in the period 1200-1000BC. And
only after 1000BC, the historic accounts of empire
building, Buddha's birth etc. have to be dated. This
chronology first proposed by Max Muller was primarily
based on his firm belief in the Biblical date of the
creation of the world, i.e. October 23, 4004 BC. Such
chronology contradicts all the archaeological evidences,
scriptural testimonies, traditional beliefs, and most
importantly defies the commonsense and scientific method.
Therefore, based on Vedic testimonies, Puranic
references, archaeological evidences, and all the
accounts presented here above, the most realistic and
accurate chronological events of the pre-historic period
of India should be fixed as follows:

o Vedic Age - 7000-4000 BC

o End of Rig Vedic Age - 3750 BC

o End of Ramayana - Mahabharat Period - 3000 BC

o Development of Saraswati-Indus Civilization - 3000-
2000 BC

o Decline of Indus and Saraswati Civilization - 2200-
1900 BC

o Period of Complete chaos and migration - 2000-1500 BC

o Period of evolution of syncretic Hindu culture - 1400
- 250 BC

David Frawley's Paradox

The Harappans of the Indus Valley have left profuse
archaeological records over a vast region - from the
borders of Iran and beyond Afghanistan to eastern UP and
Tapti valley, and must have supported over 30 million
people and believed to be living an advanced
civilization. And yet these people have left absolutely
no literary records. Sounds incredible! The Vedic Aryans
and their successors on the other hand have left us a
literature that is probably the largest and most profound
in the world. But according to the AIT there is
absolutely no archaeological record that they ever
existed. Either on the Indian soil or outside its
boundaries. So we have concrete history and archeology of
a vast civilization of 'Dravidians' lasting thousands of
years that left no literature, and a huge literature by
the Vedic Aryans who left no history and no
archaeological records. The situation gets more absurd
when we consider that there is profuse archaeological and
literary records indicating a substantial movement of
Indian Aryans out of India into Iran and West Asia around
2000 BC.

So, how can all these obvious anomalies and serious flaws
be reconciled? By accepting the truth that the so-called
Aryans were the original people habitants of the
townships along the Indus, Ravi, Saraswati and other
rivers of the vast northern region of the Indian
subcontinent. And no invasion by nomadic hordes from
outside India ever occurred and the civilization was not

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Forwarded post:

The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India

By David Frawley
Honored by the President of India with the Padma Bhushan,
the third highest civilian award granted by the
Government of India for "distinguished service of a high
order to the nation."

One of the main ideas used to interpret and generally
devalue the ancient history of India is the theory of the
Aryan invasion. According to this account, India was
invaded and conquered by nomadic light-skinned Indo-
European tribes from Central Asia around 1500-100 BC, who
overthrew an earlier and more advanced dark-skinned
Dravidian civilization from which they took most of what
later became Hindu culture. This so-called pre-Aryan
civilization is said to be evidenced by the large urban
ruins of what has been called the "Indus valley culture"
(as most of its initial sites were on the Indus river).
The war between the powers of light and darkness, a
prevalent idea in ancient Aryan Vedic scriptures, was
thus interpreted to refer to this war between light and
dark skinned peoples. The Aryan invasion theory thus
turned the "Vedas", the original scriptures of ancient
India and the Indo-Aryans, into little more than
primitive poems of uncivilized plunderers.

This idea totally foreign to the history of India,
whether north or south has become almost an unquestioned
truth in the interpretation of ancient history Today,
after nearly all the reasons for its supposed validity
have been refuted, even major Western scholars are at
last beginning to call it in question.

In this article we will summarize the main points that
have arisen. This is a complex subject that I have dealt
with in depth in my book "Gods, Sages and Kings: Vedic
Secrets of Ancient Civilization", for those interested in
further examination of the subject.

The Indus valley culture was pronounced pre-Aryans for
several reasons that were largely part of the cultural
milieu of nineteenth century European thinking As
scholars following Max Mullar had decided that the Aryans
came into India around 1500 BC, since the Indus valley
culture was earlier than this, they concluded that it had
to be preAryan. Yet the rationale behind the late date
for the Vedic culture given by Muller was totally
speculative. Max Muller, like many of the Christian
scholars of his era, believed in Biblical chronology.
This placed the beginning of the world at 400 BC and the
flood around 2500 BC. Assuming to those two dates, it
became difficult to get the Aryans in India before 1500
BC.

Muller therefore assumed that the five layers of the four
'Vedas' & 'Upanishads' were each composed in 200 year
periods before the Buddha at 500 BC. However, there are
more changes of language in Vedic Sanskrit itself than
there are in classical Sanskrit since Panini, also
regarded as a figure of around 500 BC, or a period of
2500 years. Hence it is clear that each of these periods
could have existed for any number of centuries and that
the 200 year figure is totally arbitrary and is likely
too short a figure.

It was assumed by these scholars many of whom were also
Christian missionaries unsympathetic to the 'Vedas' that
the Vedic culture was that of primitive nomads from
Central Asia. Hence they could not have founded any urban
culture like that of the Indus valley. The only basis for
this was a rather questionable interpretation of the 'Rig
Veda' that they made, ignoring the sophisticated nature
of the culture presented within it.

Meanwhile, it was also pointed out that in the middle of
the second millennium BC, a number of Indo-European
invasions apparently occured in the Middle East, wherein
Indo-European peoples the Hittites, Mit tani and Kassites
conquered and ruled Mesopotamia for some centuries. An
Aryan invasion of India would have been another version
of this same movement of Indo-European peoples. On top of
this, excavators of the Indus valley culture, like
Wheeler, thought they found evidence of destruction of
the culture by an outside invasion confirming this.

The Vedic culture was thus said to be that of primitive
nomads who came out of Central Asia with their horse-
drawn chariots and iron weapons and overthrew the cities
of the more advanced Indus valley culture, with their
superior battle tactics. It was pointed out that no
horses, chariots or iron was discovered in Indus valley
sites.

This was how the Aryan invasion theory formed and has
remained since then. Though little has been discovered
that confirms this theory, there has been much hesitancy
to question it, much less to give it up.

Further excavations discovered horses not only in Indus
Valley sites but also in pre-Indus sites. The use of the
horse has thus been proven for the whole range of ancient
Indian history. Evidence of the wheel, and an Indus seal
showing a spoked wheel as used in chariots, has also been
found, suggesting the usage of chariots.

Moreover, the whole idea of nomads with chariots has been
challenged. Chariots are not the vehicles of nomads.
Their usage occured only in ancient urban cultures with
much flat land, of which the river plain of north India
was the most suitable. Chariots are totally unsuitable
for crossing mountains and deserts, as the so-called
Aryan invasion required.

That the Vedic culture used iron & must hence date later
than the introduction of iron around 1500 BC revolves
around the meaning of the Vedic term "ayas", interpreted
as iron. 'Ayas' in other Indo- European languages like
Latin or German usually means copper, bronze or ore
generally, not specially iron. There is no reason to
insist that in such earlier Vedic times, 'ayas' meant
iron, particularly since other metals are not mentioned
in the 'Rig Veda' (except gold that is much more commonly
referred to than ayas). Moreover, the 'Atharva Veda' and
'Yajur Veda' speak of different colors of 'ayas'(such as
red & black), showing that it was a generic term. Hence
it is clear that 'ayas' generally meant metal and not
specifically iron.

Moreover, the enemies of the Vedic people in the 'Rig
Veda' also use ayas, even for making their cities, as do
the Vedic people themselves. Hence there is nothing in
Vedic literture to show that either the Vedic culture was
an ironbased culture or that there enemies were not.

The 'Rig Veda' describes its Gods as 'destroyers of
cities'. This was used also to regard the Vedic as a
primitive non-urban culture that destroys cities and
urban civilization. However, there are also many verses
in the 'Rig Veda' that speak of the Aryans as having
having cities of their own and being protected by cities
upto a hundred in number. Aryan Gods like Indra, Agni,
Saraswati and the Adityas are praised as being like a
city. Many ancient kings, including those of Egypt and
Mesopotamia, had titles like destroyer or conquerer of
cities. This does not turn them into nomads. Destruction
of cities also happens in modern wars; this does not make
those who do this nomads. Hence the idea of Vedic culture
as destroying but not building the cities is based upon
ignoring what the Vedas actually say about their own
cities.

Further excavation revealed that the Indus Valley culture
was not des- troyed by outside invasion, but according to
internal causes and, most likely, floods. Most recently a
new set of cities has been found in India (like the
Dwaraka and Bet Dwaraka sites by S.R. Rao and the
National Institute of Oceanography in India) which are
intermidiate between those of the Indus culture and later
ancient India as visited by the Greeks. This may
eliminate the so-called dark age following the presumed
Aryan invasion and shows a continuous urban occupation in
India back to the beginning of the Indus culture.

The interpretation of the religion of the Indus Valley
culture -made incidentlly by scholars such as Wheeler who
were not religious scholars much less students of
Hinduism was that its religion was different than the
Vedic and more likely the later Shaivite religion.
However, further excavations both in Indus Valley site in
Gujarat, like Lothal, and those in Rajsthan, like
Kalibangan show large number of fire altars like those
used in the Vedic religion, along with bones of oxen,
potsherds, shell jewelry and other items used in the
rituals described in the 'Vedic Brahmanas'. Hence the
Indus Valley culture evidences many Vedic practices that
can not be merely coincidental. That some of its
practices appeared non-Vedic to its excavators may also
be attributed to their misunderstanding or lack of
knowledge of Vedic and Hindu culture generally, wherein
Vedism and Shaivism are the same basic tradition.

We must remember that ruins do not necessarily have one
interpretation. Nor does the ability to discover ruins
necessarily gives the ability to interpret them
correctly.

The Vedic people were thought to have been a fair-skinned
race like the Europeans owing to the Vedic idea of a war
between light and darkness, and the Vedic people being
presented as children of light or children of the sun.
Yet this idea of a war between light and darkness exists
in most ancient cultures, including the Persian and the
Egyptian. Why don't we interpret their scriptures as a
war between light and dark-skinned people? It is purely a
poetic metaphor, not a cultural statement. Moreover, no
real traces of such a race are found in India.

Anthropologists have observed that the present population
of Gujarat is composed of more or less the same ethnic
groups as are noticed at Lothal in 2000 BC. Similarly,
the present population of the Punjab is said to be
ethnically the same as the population of Harappa and
Rupar 4000 years ago. Linguistically the present day
population of Gujrat and Punjab belongs to the Indo-Aryan
language speaking group. The only inference that can be
drawn from the anthropological and linguistic evidences
adduced above is that the Harappan population in the
Indus Valley and Gujrat in 2000 BC was composed of two or
more groups, the more dominent among them having very
close ethnic affinities with the present day Indo-Aryan
speaking population of India.

In other words there is no racial evidence of any such
Indo-Aryan invasion of India but only of a continuity of
the same group of people who traditionally considered
themselves to be Aryans.

There are many points in fact that prove the Vedic nature
of the Indus Valley culture. Further excavation has shown
that the great majority of the sites of the Indus Valley
culture were east, not west of Indus. In fact, the
largest concentration of sites appears in an area of
Punjab and Rajsthan near the dry banks of ancient
Saraswati and Drishadvati rivers. The Vedic culture was
said to have been founded by the sage Manu between the
banks of Saraswati and Drishadvati rivers. The Saraswati
is lauded as the main river (naditama) in the 'Rig Veda'
& is the most frequently mentioned in the text. It is
said to be a great flood and to be wide, even endless in
size. Saraswati is said to be "pure in course from the
mountains to the sea". Hence the Vedic people were well
acquainted with this river and regarded it as their
immemorial hoemland.

The Saraswati, as modern land studies now reveal, was
indeed one of the largest, if not the largest river in
India. In early ancient and pre-historic times, it once
drained the Sutlej, Yamuna and the Ganges, whose courses
were much different than they are today. However, the
Saraswati river went dry at the end of the Indus Valley
culture and before the so-called Aryan invasion or before
1500 BC. In fact this may have caused the ending of the
Indus culture. How could the Vedic Aryans know of this
river and establish their culture on its banks if it
dried up before they arrived? Indeed the Saraswati as
described in the 'Rig Veda' appears to more accurately
show it as it was prior to the Indus Valley culture as in
the Indus era it was already in decline.

Vedic and late Vedic texts also contain interesting
astronomical lore. The Vedic calender was based upon
astronomical sightings of the equinoxes and solstices.
Such texts as 'Vedanga Jyotish' speak of a time when the
vernal equinox was in the middle of the Nakshtra Aslesha
(or about 23 degrees 20 minutes Cancer). This gives a
date of 1300 BC. The 'Yajur Veda' and 'Atharva Veda'
speak of the vernal equinox in the Krittikas (Pleiades;
early Taurus) and the summer solstice (ayana) in Magha
(early Leo). This gives a date about 2400 BC. Yet earlier
eras are mentioned but these two have numerous references
to substantiate them. They prove that the Vedic culture
existed at these periods and already had a sophisticated
system of astronomy. Such references were merely ignored
or pronounced unintelligible by Western scholars because
they yielded too early a date for the 'Vedas' than what
they presumed, not because such references did not exist.

Vedic texts like 'Shatapatha Brahmana' and 'Aitereya
Brahmana' that mention these astronomical references list
a group of 11 Vedic Kings, including a number of figures
of the 'Rig Veda', said to have conquered the region of
India from 'sea to sea'. Lands of the Aryans are
mentioned in them from Gandhara (Afganistan) in the west
to Videha (Nepal) in the east, and south to Vidarbha
(Maharashtra). Hence the Vedic people were in these
regions by the Krittika equinox or before 2400 BC. These
passages were also ignored by Western scholars and it was
said by them that the 'Vedas' had no evidence of large
empires in India in Vedic times. Hence a pattern of
ignoring literary evidence or misinterpreting them to
suit the Aryan invasion idea became prevalent, even to
the point of changing the meaning of Vedic words to suit
this theory.

According to this theory, the Vedic people were nomads in
the Punjab, comming down from Central Asia. However, the
'Rig Veda' itself has nearly 100 references to ocean
(samudra), as well as dozens of references to ships, and
to rivers flowing in to the sea. Vedic ancestors like
Manu, Turvasha, Yadu and Bhujyu are flood figures, saved
from across the sea. The Vedic God of the sea, Varuna, is
the father of many Vedic seers and seer families like
Vasishta, Agastya and the Bhrigu seers. To preserve the
Aryan invasion idea it was assumed that the Vedic (and
later sanskrit) term for ocean, samudra, originally did
not mean the ocean but any large body of water,
especially the Indus river in Punjab. Here the clear
meaning of a term in 'Rig Veda' and later times verified
by rivers like Saraswati mentioned by name as flowing
into the sea was altered to make the Aryan invasion
theory fit. Yet if we look at the index to translation of
the 'Rig Veda' by Griffith for example, who held to this
idea that samudra didn't really mean the ocean, we find
over 70 references to ocean or sea. If samudra does noe
mean ocean why was it traslated as such? It is therefore

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INDIAN IDENTITY IS HINDUTVA, NOT NEHRUVIAN SECULARISM

Presented at the Bharatiya Vichar Manch Seminar on "Hindutva in Present Context" held in Karnavati, Gujarat on September 16-17, 2009

BY DR. SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY

President of Janata Party & Fmr. Cabinet Minister for Commerce, Law &
Justice, Government of India

THE IDENTITY OF AN INDIAN

Every nation must have an identity to be regarded distinct. Even in United States of America, a relatively young nation created by an influx of immigration from diverse countries, scholars have felt the need to define
the identity of an American. Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington has penned
a book titled Who Are We? [Penguin Books, India 2004] to define the
American's identity as a "White Anglo-Saxon Christian who speaks English".
It seems contrived since majority of Americans are not ?White', but
Huntington is emphatic.

However, Huntington's contribution is in seeing the two components of this identity that define it: Salience, which is the importance that the citizen attributes to national identity over the other many sub-identities. Second, Substance, which is what the citizens think they have in common, and which distinguishes them from others of other countries. We in India today do not have to conjure up a contrived identity as Huntington valiantly had to do, because for us Salience is imbedded in the concept of Chakravartin, which Chanakya had spelt out with great clarity, while Substance is what Hindus
have always searched for and found unity in all our diversities in, thanks
our spiritual and religious leaders. And that invariably is the Hindu-ness
of our people, which we now call as Hindutva. The whole world has known our vast territory and millions of the inhabitants for centuries and called us
as ?India' and ?Indians' or ?Hind and Hindi' or as the Chinese know us even today both as nation and people as ?Yindu'. The root word in all these
terms is ?Hindu', which word for the Persians, Arabs and Europeans meant a people living beyond the Sindhu river, and for the Chinese a people living beyond the Himalayas and bounded by the Indu Sagar [Indian Ocean]. The
world knew us in these millenniums not as nomads but as a highly civilized people who produced exotic goods the world had never seen before and who
were hospitable to visitors from abroad. Many travelers such as Fa Hsien,
Yuan Chuang, Marco Polo, Vasco d'Gama, and Mark Twain wrote glowingly about
the behaviourial quality of the Hindus, which can be summarized as the Hindu-ness [i.e., Hindutva] of the Indian people. More recently, Mr.Jonah Blank, an American journalist curious about this Hindutva, took a journey
in 1991-92 from Ayodhya to Sri Lanka on the route taken by Lord Rama. He
then wrote a book about titled: Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God -- Retracing
the Ramayana Through India [published by the well known Houghton Mifflin of Boston USA]. He writes: "India's land may be ruled by aliens from time to
time, but never her mind, never her soul.....In the end, it is always India that does the digesting" [p.217]. He concludes: "But somehow a nebulous
sense of "Indianness" does exist, and it binds together Gujaratis,
Orissans, to Nagas who might seem to have nothing at all in common. Perhaps
it is this elusive, undefinable [yet very real] link that has allowed the sub-continent's multitude of races to live in some rough semblance of
harmony for four thousand years"[p.218]. Despite Blank's unthinking
adherence to "facts" of Indian history as written out by British
colonialists, the reality of his direct experiences from his travels in
India makes him come to the opposite conclusion to the British colonialists viz., India has always existed because of the Indian-ness [read: Hindutva
as Substance] of the people. This Hindu-ness or Hindutva has been our identifying characteristic, by which we have been recognized world-wide.
The territory in which Hindus lived was known as Hindustan, i.e., a
specific area of a collective of persons who are bonded together by this Hindu-ness. The Salience thus was given religious and spiritual
significance by tirth yatra, kumbh mela, common festivals, and in the celebration of events in the Ithihasa, viz., Ramayana and Mahabharata.
Hindu Rashtra thus defined, is our nation that is a modern Republic today, whose roots are also in the long unbroken Hindu civilisational history. Throughout this history we were a Hindu Republic and not a monarchy [a
possible but weak exception being Asoka's reign]. In this ancient
Republican concept, the king did not make policy or proclaim the law. The intellectually accomplished elite in the society, known as Brahmans, framed
the laws and state policy and the King implemented it. Hindutva hence, is
our innate nature, while Hindustan is our territorial body, but Hindu
Rashtra is our republican soul. Hindu panth [religion] is however a
theology of faith. Even if an Indian has a different faith from a Hindu, he
or she can still be possessed of Hindutva. Since India was 100 percent
Hindu a millennium ago, the only way any significant group could have a different faith in today's India is if they were converted from Hindu
faith, or are of those whose ancestors were Hindus. Conversion of faith
does not have to imply conversion to another culture or nature. Therefore, Hindutva can remain to be interred in a non-Hindu in India.

Hence, we can say that Hindustan is a country of Hindus and those others
whose ancestors were Hindus. Acceptance with pride this reality by non-
Hindus is to accept Hindutva. Hindu Rashtra is therefore a republican
nation of Hindus and of those of other faiths who have Hindutva in them.
This formulation settles the question of identity of the Hindustani or
Indian. We Indians have been waffling on the question of identity now for
over six decades. Time is at hand to rectify that waffle by adopting an
Agenda for Action to inculcate Hindutva as the core of our identity. Its implementation requires political action. This is the goal of this essay:
to chart a road map for India that is Hindustan to become a Hindu Rashtra
based on Hindutva. This essay has been inspired by a comment of the
greatest sage and sanyasi of the 20th century, namely Chandashekharendra Sarasvati, the Shankaracharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt at Kanchipuram, TN,
who is reverentially referred to as the Parmacharya. The great sage
counseled the Indian leadership on August 15, 1947 that "having become
free, we must translate that freedom into independence". It is the content
of that independence that should have concerned all thinkers since then,
but did not. Prime Minister Nehru disregarded Parmacharya's advice,
ignorantly perhaps thinking that freedom and independence were synonymous words. These words are however not synonyms, and moreover, without
independence we cannot retain freedom either for long. That is the danger today. Freedom is a physical attribute of a citizen's rights, such as the
right to a livelihood, the freedom of travel etc., while independence of a nation rests on the quality of the citizen's thought such as his or her attitude to duties, morality, inter-personal relations, social commitment,
and nationalism. This requires knowledge of the correct history of
Hindustan a common language and a healthy mindset to act for the benefit of
the nation. Hindutva embodies all these aspects. Hindutva however has to be inculcated in our people from values and norms that emerge out of Hindu renaissance, that is, a Hindu theology which is shorn of the accumulated
but unacceptable baggage of the past as also by co-opting new scientific discoveries, perceptions and by synergizing with modernity. This is the
only way that Hindustan can become a modern Hindu Rashtra, thus achieving independence after having recovered our freedom [in 1947]? as Parmacharya
had wanted.. I shall present such an Agenda here in three parts: First, I
will highlight those parameters of Hindu theology which will circumscribe
any Hindutva Agenda; Second, I will discuss a Five Point Hindutva Agenda as
a road map for political action today; Third, I will raise some issues for consideration in the implementation of this Agenda. I THE PARAMETERS OF
HINDU THEOLOGY Hinduism is not a theology founded on the revelation of a
single prophet or constituted by a single scripture that which all
adherents have to blindly believe in. It is instead accumulated wisdom of
sages through centuries that has been codified as four Vedas, Upanishad, 18 Puranas, two Ithihasas, etc., There is in Hinduism no ?Church' to belong
to, and to obey its dictums, or to believe in a ?Pope' who is held to be infallible, or to regard a ?Bible' as the sole Holy Book to specify what to believe in and what not to. Nor is there the likes of a Koran, Hadith or a
Sura in Hinduism to goad the faithful in the name of submission to God, to commit as His direction violence against unbelievers termed as Kafirs and Dhimmis. Therefore, structurally, there is no scope for a Hindu to be a fundamentalist. For, fundamentalism by definition, requires an
unquestioning commitment to the scripture in its pristine original version.
For Hindus, there is no one scripture to revert to for theological purity
since there are many scriptures which raise a plethora of beliefs and
sustain faith, debates, and profound speculations on basic questions[e.g., Upanishads], such as on advaita, dvaita, astika and nastika. Questioning, debating and synthesizing are an integral part of Hindu theology. Nor does Hinduism have just one prophet to revere, or prohibits holding any other
view of religious experience. But most of all, Hindus are committed to the search for truth [including knowing what is truth], for which incessant
debate is permitted. Fundamentalists on the other hand unquestioningly are committed to ?the Book'. This is why Hindutva can never become
fundamentalist, which Muslims and Christians can. Hindus thus have a vast rainbow spectrum of scriptures and a monumental accumulated wisdom of many sages that is contained in the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas etc., all of
which intellectually hold that the Ultimate Truth is manifested in manifold ways. Culled from these scriptures are nine basic and liberal beliefs that constitute the Hindu-ness [that is, Hindutva] of a believer [see Annexure
1]. In brief it can be said that parameters of Hindu theology are Satyam, Shivam, and Sundaram. Hinduism also formally acknowledges that that there
are many paths to reach God and hence treats other religions with respect
on the principle of Sarva Pantha Sama Bhava even if these paths are not considered equally efficacious for reaching the Divine. That is why in
Hindu civilisational history, there has never been burning of religious
books of others, destructing places of these other religions, crucifying of prophets of other religions, holding of inquisitions, or even disrespecting other schools of thought. Jews and Zoroastrians suffering persecution in
their own countries and elsewhere, found safe refuge only in Hindu India
and were assisted by Hindus to practice their religion freely. No other religion has this track record or proud legacy of accomodation. Hindus
instead have always believed in shashtrarthas[debate] to convert others to their point of view. Hence, even when Buddha challenged the ritualistic practices of Hindus, or Mahavira and Nanak gave fresh perspectives on Hindu concepts, there was never any persecution or denunciation of these great
seers. Indeed these visionary seers are considered Hindu avataras and their teachings were challenged in debates and then synthesized into Hindu
theology itself. That is why the Indian Constitution defines Hindus to
include Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs, and in the crucial theological
precepts, Hinduism of karma vidhi and re-incarnation is accepted by these
other religions. Religious persecution however later came to India with
Islam and Christianity and through their instrumentalities, in which the
Hindus became their targets thereafter.

Even today in a 83% Hindu nation, that reality of targeting of Hindus
exists in new and more camouflaged forms. Hence, the essentiality of
Hinduism, or alternatively the core quality of being a Hindu, which we may
call as our Hindu-ness [i.e., Hindutva], is that theologically there is no danger of Hindutva, or the advocacy of the same, of ever degenerating into fundamentalism. In fact, so liberal, sophisticated, and focused on inward evolution is Hindu theology, that in a series of Supreme Court judgments, various Constitutional Benches found it hard even to define Hinduism and Hindutva as anything but a way of life, as we discover from an useful
review of these judgments by Bal Apte MP [in Supreme Court on Hindutva,
India First Foundation, 2005].

HINDUTVA DEFINED

Hindu-ness of outlook on life had been called Hindutva by Swami
Vivekananda, and Hindutva's political perspective was subsequently
developed by Veer Savarkar. Deendayal Upadhaya briefly dealt with the
concept of Hindutva when he wrote about chiti in his seminal work: Integral Humanism. The focus of all three profound thinkers is the multi-dimensional development of the Hindus as an individuals, and which then have to be aggregated and harmonized to foster a united community on the collective concept of Hindutva. I shall therefore rely on the works of all three visionaries to formulate the Agenda of Hindutva herein. Thus, I shall
address the question of agenda of Hindutva for political action here within
the parameters set by Swami Vivekananda, Veer Savarkar and Deendayal
Upadhyaya. Swami Vivekananda defined Hindutva, upon returning from Chicago
in 1896 in an address in Lahore as follows: "Mark me, then and then alone
you are a Hindu when the very name Hindu sends through you a galvanic shock
of strength. Then and then alone you are a Hindu when every man and woman
who bears the name Hindu, from any country, speaking our language or any
other language, becomes at once the nearest and dearest to you. Then and
then alone you are a Hindu when the distress of anyone bearing the name
Hindu comes to your heart and makes you fell as if your own son or daughter were in distress" [Collected Works, vol 3, page 379]. Paraphrasing what
Veer Savarkar had said, the following is what he said enlightened Hindus
need to tell India's minorities and others: "If you come along with us,
then with you. If you do not, then without you. If you oppose us, then
inspite of you. Hindutva shall prevail". And Deendayal Upadhyaya outlined
how to modernize the concepts of Hindutva as follows: "We have to discard
the status quo mentality and usher in a new era. Indeed our efforts at reconstruction need not be clouded by prejudice or disregard for all that
is inherited from our past. On the other hand, there is no need to cling to

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INDIAN IDENTITY IS HINDUTVA, NOT NEHRUVIAN SECULARISM

Part 2 of 3 parts:

The theory (AIT) was deliberate distortion by British imperialists and propagated by their witting and unwitting mental slaves of India.
Incidentally, the Aryan-Dravidian myth has now been exploded by modern
research on DNA of Indians and Europeans conducted by Professor C.Panse of Newton, Mass. USA, Dr.Ms. Patel of Houston, Texas USA, and other scholars.
Most recently, Dr.Toomas Kivisild of Cambridge University, U.K., and Dr.Gyaneshwar Chaubey of the University of Tartu in Estonia, have concluded after four years of research on 12,000 samples that all Indians "had common genetic traits irrespective of the regions of India to which they
belonged." Thus they rule out the so-called AIT [Aryan Invasion Theory]. In light of such new research, the British Broadcasting Corporation[BBC]
service in it's October 6, 2005 service completely debunked the Aryan -- Dravidian race theory stating that: "Theory was not just wrong, it included unacceptably racist ideas" [www.bbc.co.uk, religion&ethics homepage,
Thursday, 6/10/05]. Modern India is portrayed by foreign interests through school and college curriculum as a discontinuity in history and as a new
entity much as are today's Greece, Egypt or Iraq. That curriculum is
largely intact today. On the contrary efforts are afoot to bolster the disparagement of our past in the new dispensation today. A rudderless
India, disconnected from her past has, as a consequence, becomes a fertile field for religious poachers and neo-imperialists from abroad who paint
India as a mosaic of immigrants, not as a nation, but much like a crowd on
a platform in a railway station. But instead the reality is that today's
India is connected to her hoary past because this India is a nation of
Hindus and those others [such as Muslims and Christians] whose ancestors
were Hindus. That definition applies to Jews and Parsis too because of inter-marriage which is now proved by DNA testing. The identity of Indian
is thus Hindustani, a Hindu Rashtra i.e., a republican nation of Hindus and those others[non-Hindus] who proudly acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus. It is this acknowledgement that remains pending today. We can
accept Muslims and Christians as part of our Hindustani family when they proudly acknowledge this fact and accept that change religion does not
require change of culture. Thus the cultural identity of India is
undeniably, immutably, and obviously its Hindu-ness, that is Hindutva.

It is however being clandestinely propagated that India has belonged to
those who forcibly occupied it. This is the theme around which the Islamic fundamentalists and fraud Christian crusaders are again at work, much as
they were a thousand years ago, but of course in new dispensations, sophistication, and media forms. Thus the concept of intrinsic Hindu unity based on Hindutva, and India's Hindu foundation are dangerously under
challenge by these forces. Tragically most Hindus today are not even
cognizant of it. That is why we need today to campaign today for
inculcation of Hindutva, to wake up our people, for which we need a clear commitment an Agenda. Swami Vivekananda propounded the concept of Hinduness [Hindutva]. The roots of Hindutva are thus in Swami Vivekananda's sermons
and writings, and represent the Vedantic definition of the identity of the modern Hindu. However, Marxist intellectuals and their Macaulayist fellow travelers have deliberately obfuscated the Vedanta roots of Hindutva and
have run a vicious campaign to wrap the concept in Fundamentalism. Hence
before I venture further here, I need first to rebut the premises
underlying this campaign since the renaissance that had begun in the late nineteenth century to redefine the Hindu identity [in contemporary terms
and norms valid in a pluralistic society], was aborted by the confusion
thus created in Hindu minds by a vaguely understood concepts implicit in
the Marxist and neo-Marxist verbiage because of which Indian society became gradually and increasingly fragmented in outlook and of confused
perspective. This is understandable since Vedantic Hindutva is antithetical
to Marxism. Marx had advocated that human history is capable of economic interpretation only and in this one- dimensional society, violent class struggle between the haves and have-nots is the only method of change. It
must lead to the annihilation of the haves by the have-nots, which Marx
termed as "revolutionary violence".

But this challenge today confronting Hindus is much more difficult to meet
than it was ever earlier in history, because the forces at work to erode
and undermine Hindu faith, unlike before, are unseen, clandestine,
pernicious, deceptive but most of all sophisticated and media- savvy. Tragically therefore, a much larger numbers and more educated of Hindus
have been unwittingly co-opted in this sinister conspiracy directed by foreigners who have no love for India and who also see much as Lord
Macaulay did in the nineteenth century, that the hoary Hindu foundation of India is a stumbling block for the furtherance of their nefarious
perfidious game. The concept of a collective Hindu mindset is being
ridiculed as chauvinist and retrograde, even fundamentalist. The BJP is regularly advised by its enemies to purge out Hindutva from its poll plank
to become more "acceptable". This fatuous advice from enemies deserves to thrown into the dustbin where it belongs. There is nothing to debate in
this because such a debate would only be dysfunctional and will disrupt the synergy between voter appeal and cadre morale that is necessary for
electoral success of the Hindutva forces. It should always be remembered
that despite all the wooing of Muslim vote by diluting the Hindutva agenda, even by eschewing any reference to it, the share of total Muslim vote
received by the BJP never exceeded 5%, while the Congress Party received a steady 36%. The future political action for electoral success for Hindutva forces therefore lies in acquiring a USP, which can be achieved only
through Hindu ideological consolidation of the voters. That is why Hindutva
is crucial, because if the Hindus become a vote bank and engage in bloc-
voting in a nation of 83% Hindus, then Muslim and Christian vote banks will become redundant. The corporate Hindu unity and identity based on Hindutva,
is that of a collective mindset that identifies us all, Hindus and others,
with a motherland from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean and it's glorious civilisational past, and the concomitant resolve of it's representative leadership, defined as "chakravartin" by Chanakya, to defend that vision.
It is this concept and resolve that is being sought to be discarded or is
just evaporating under the onslaught of the Nehruvian secularists.

However pious a Hindu becomes, or how many millions come to Kumbh mela, Sabarimala etc., however prosperous Hindu temples and ashrams become from doting devotees' offerings, when the nation is in danger it is this
collective mindset of the people that matters, and not the piety of the individual in that collective. Otherwise we may be numerous like goats and sheep, but will run helter skelter at the sight of just one tiger or hyena.
Or we can be individually strong and well fed like circus lions, but obey
the commands of a physically much weaker circus ring master because of the enslaved mindset. Hindu society today lacking a cohesive corporate
identity, is thus in the process of becoming fragmented, and hence
increasingly in disarray. This fission process is on simultaneously with
the reality of millions of Hindus going to temples regularly. The Hindu consciousness that is needed today therefore is that which encompasses the willingness and determination to collectively defend the faith from the
erosion that is being induced by the disconnect with our glorious past.
That glorious past in aptly summarized in the writings of Dr.Ambedkar, and
his oration in the Constituent Assembly for a strong united country. In his scholarly paper presented in a 1916 Columbia University seminar[and
published in Indian Antiquary, vol. XLI, May 1917 p.81-95] Dr.Ambedkar then
a mere graduate student studying for a Ph.D. in economics, had stated: "It
is the unity of culture that is the basis of homogeneity. Taking this for granted, I venture to say that there is no country that can rival the
Indian Peninsula with respect to the unity of it's culture. It has not only
a geographic unity, but it has over and above all a deeper and much more fundamental unity -- the indubitable cultural unity that covers the land
from end to end". Ambedkar wrote in this vein several such brilliant books,
but alas, Nehru and his cohorts so thoroughly frustrated him and
electorally humiliated him that in the end bitterness drove him to his sad
end. We must honour him now as a great Rajrishi and co-opt his writings as
part of the Hindutva literature.

That is, by a failure to usher a renaissance after 1947 India has lost her opportunity to cleanse the accumulated dirt and unwanted baggage of the
past. The nation missed a chance to demolish the birth-based caste theory
as Ambedkar had wanted to do. The battering that the concept of Hindu unity
and Indian identity has taken at the hands of Nehruvian secularists since
1947 has led to the present social malaise. Thus, even though Hindus are
above 80 percent of the population in India, they have not been able to understand their roots in, and obligations to, the Hindu society in a pluralistic democracy. Today the sacrilege of Hindu concepts and hoary institutions, is being carried out not with the crude brutality of past invasions, but with the sophistication of the constitutional instruments of law. The desecration of Hindu icons, for example the Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt,
is being made to look legal, thereby completely confusing the Hindu people,
and thus making them unable to recognize the danger, or to realize that
Hindus have to unite to defend against the threats to their legacy. We
Hindus are under siege today; and we do not know it !! That is, what is
truly alarming is that Hindu society could be dissembled today without much protest since we have been lulled into loss of self-esteem about our past
or that the capacity to think collectively as Hindus has been grossly
weakened. Hindus are thus being today systematically prepared for
psychological enslavement and conceptual capture by subtle brain-washing. Hindus are being lulled, while Muslims and Christians are being subject to relentless propaganda that they are different, and are citizens of India as would be a shareholder in a company that is run for profit, and not as
those who are descendents of Hindus, and a product of conversion and force,
and that they too have a duty to perform in protecting Hindu culture. But,
if this degeneration and disconnect are not rectified and repaired by a
resolve to unite people, the Indian nation may go into a tail spin and ultimately fade away like other civilizations, like Greece and Egypt, have
for much the same reason. To resist this siege, we need Hindutva. Numbers
[of those claiming to be adherents to Hinduism] do not matter in today's information society. It is the durability and clarity of the 20 Hindu
mindset and quality of commitment to Hinduness of those who unite that
matters in the forging of an instrument to fight this creeping danger.
However, today the Hindu mind suffers from a cognitive dissonance, that is,
a mental disorientation that arises from conflicting modes of thought
because it lacks a framework of consistent beliefs. Today's Hindu suffers
from equivocation and temporization in his mindset in his craze to appear
to be impartial and sound secular. We cannot be impartial or equivocate for example between the fire brigade and the fire. We are under a siege and we
have to break through it and get it lifted. Equivocation and nonchalance at this juncture will destroy us. Nor we Hindus can fight this existential
threat unless we first identify what we have to fight. We cannot
effectively respond unless we understand the nature and complexity of the challenge. What makes the task of defending Hinduism much more difficult
today is that the oppressors are not obvious murderous entities as were
Ghazni, Ghori, or Clive. The means of communication and the supply of funds
in the hands of our enemies are multiples of that available in the past,
for camouflaging their evil purposes. That basic strategy of those who want
to see a weak and pliant India remains the same as before: Making Hindus to lose their self esteem by disparaging their tradition, the strategy of
British imperialists for the conquest of India. Only the tactics have
changed. Now the target is the Hindu institutions and Hindu icons, and the route is not the creation of a comprador class of civil servants and Zamindar-revenue collectors as the British did to subdue the nation, but fostering a psychological milieu to denigrate the heritage and to delink
the Hindu from his past legacy thereby causing a loss of self esteem and a pride in the nation's past, as had been attempted in the Rama Setu issue.
At the same time, the lack of Hindu unity and the determined bloc voting in elections by Muslims and Christians has created a significantly large
leverage for these two religious communities in economic, social and
foreign policy making.

Thus, although uniform civil code is a Directive Principle of state policy
in the Constitution, it is taboo to ask for it because of this leverage. It
is not as if Muslims will not accept uniform laws when it suits them, even
if it is against the Shariat. For example, Muslims accept uniform criminal
code under the IPC even though it infringes the Shariat, but resist uniform civil code because it violates the Shariat. These contradictions are
permitted for Muslims by the Mullahs because India is Darul Harab.
Accordingly Muslim leadership deploys its leverage where it is tactically advantageous. This leverage exists despite the people of India who declare
in the Census that they are adherents of religions which were born on
Indian soil, that is Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains constituted 83.21%
of the total Indian population in last Census in 2001. In 1941, this proportion, adjusted for Partition, was 84.44%. But this figure hides the
fact that Hindus resident in undivided Pakistan have migrated to post- Partition India which is why the share of Hindus and co-religionists have barely reduced since 1941. In the area now called Bangladesh, Hindus were
30% in 1941. In 2001 they are less than 8%. In Pakistan of today, Hindus
were 20% in 1941, and less than 2% in 2001. Such religious cleansing has however not been noticed by anybody in the world! When Hindus do not care,

[continued in next message]

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From: alt.fan.jai-maharaj@googlegroups.com

Sanskrit is a divine language - here's why

By bhattathiri
February 26, 2004

Bhagavad Gita is originally written in Sanskrit.

There are many aspects by which a language can be said as sacred and
how we use it. If a language is used to discover the sacredness,
purity and spirituality of life, it becomes a sacred language.
Whether or not a language is sacred is determined by who is using it.
This in turn has a great deal to do with whether a language is being
used consciously or unconsciously, whether we use language as an
instrument to accomplish our real purpose in life, that is, wake up
and find out who we are; or we are unconsciously programmed by
language, to maintain patterns of a struggle for individual survival established by previous generations.

People are always at the effect of the unconscious operation of any
language. Suppose a group of people listen to some very simple
Sanskrit sounds, sung in a rhythmic sequence, and then individually
duplicate the sounds, based upon what they heard many times.Everybody
will think that in "my turn" that there is little space left to
actually listen and enjoy the sounds. This overriding preoccupation
with getting it right is accompanied by an endless barrage of
strategies, evaluations, comparisons, judgements, expectations,
hopes, rationalizations and fears of consequences. By writing down
this list of what everyone was thinking, the unconscious operation of
language becomes visible. Most people are not aware they are thinking
all this until they see the language of it written on a flip chart.

But this is just peeling away the first layer. There's a still deeper
layer of the unconscious operation of language where we have
predefined who we are, based on whether or not we get it right.

We are given every opportunity to simply have a good time, improvise,
play with sounds. But instead we choose to take it as a test of
survival. In other words, it's more important to prove our capacity
to survive than it is to have a good time. The hidden unconscious
language that we base our lives upon, dictates to us that we must get
it right or we will be dominated by others, and that threatens our
safety, our well being and ultimately our survival. The first sign of
a non-sacred, survival language is that it refers to "getting it
right" as "smart", as "success" etc. Such a language defines a person
by the way he/she performs in a particular circumstance. The person
is always at the effect of the language. If I get it right, I'm
smart. If I get it wrong, I'm stupid.

The problems and conflicts that occur with a survival language are
myriad. To be happy, one must get it right all the time. And his
primary motivation for doing so is to prove that he is brilliant so
others won't control him .. The problem with "getting better" is that
he becomes programmed to always be getting better, but it's never
good enough. Getting better is an endless proposition. This survival
model of language has conflict and suffering woven into its very
fabric.

This particular phenomenon is defined in the Yog Sutras as avidyaa,
the fundamental lack of awareness which is the root klesha, or subtle
cause of all suffering. The definition of avidyaa is: anitya-ashuci- duhkha-anaatmasu nitya-shuci-sukha-aatma-khyaatir avidyaa

"Avidyaa (ignorance) is an identity with a self which is not the
self; with happiness in what is actually suffering; with purity in
what is really impurity; and permanence in what is really
impermanent." Avidyaa perfectly describes the nature of a survival
language. A survival language is steeped in avidyaa. As long as who I
am, is defined by such a language, I remain the victim of an endless
vicious circle.

The question is -- why would we choose a language which keeps us in
perpetual self-judgement. The fact is that we never chose the
language. It has always been around, and as children, we were given
no other options. As long as we do not consciously redesign the way
we use language, we remain at the effect of the past, conditioned by
the very language of the past to repeat the patterns of the past,
again and again.

As long as this survival model of language is in effect, it seems
virtually impossible for people to learn Sanskrit. This is to a large
degree due to the fact that Sanskrit is a perfect model of a sacred
language, and a sacred language cannot be learned by means of a
survival language.

This is not to say that English or any other language could not be
used as a sacred language. In fact, it has to be, to begin the study
of Sanskrit. Conversely, Sanskrit could be used in a survival mode.
It's just that in the design of most languages, there is very little
safeguard against them being used as survival languages. And in the
design of Sanskrit, there is every conceivable feature built in to
keep it operating as a sacred language.

The single most outstanding difference between a sacred and a
survival language is the definition, orientation and usage in the
language of the word "I". "I" or its equivalent is the source of
language. Without I, there is no you, he, she or it. The evolution of
the word "I" into a complex language is a process of creation. In the development of a sacred language, the process is a conscious one;
language is an emanation, a creation, an instrument of "I". In a
survival language, "I" is an effect of the cultural patterns already unconsciously established by the language. In Sanskrit, even the
sounds which make the word for "I" are consciously selected. AHAM.
"A" is the first spoken sound, as well as the first sound of the
Sanskrit alphabet. It can be discovered by breathing, in and with the
mouth slightly open, releasing the breath with sound that requires
the minimal effort. It naturally arises in the throat before the
articulation of all other sounds. "HA" is the last letter of the
Sanskrit alphabet. After all the systematic patterns created by the
movement of the tongue and lips have produced in perfect order all
the other letters of the alphabet, the final sound is "HA". It also
is the only consonant sound that moves by the power of the breath
alone, and the only consonant in exact proximity to "A" . The final
letter "M" is the very last sound produced in the mouth, because it
occurs due to the closing of the lips. In Sanskrit, AHAM is the
beginning, the breath of life which brings forth creation, and the
end. And this is expressed not just symbolically by the letters A-H-
A-M, but physically, based on their location in the mouth.

The other most important attribute of a sacred language is that each
of its individual sounds are regarded as sacred. Anyone can feel this
by getting relaxed and repeating the AHAM, over and over, and while
doing so, feeling a complete all-encompassing expression of self.
Then, becoming silent, continue to feel "A" as the inhalation and HAM
as the exhalation. "A" is the only sound which is truly internal.
"HAM" is the most complete expression possible, arising directly from
"A", and closing after passing through all the positions of all other
existing sounds. The design of a sacred language is such that the
sounds perfectly express the vibrational essence of that which they
describe. In this way, words establish knowledge and understanding
directly.

The next stage of establishing a sacred language is an intimacy with
the other sounds of the language, becoming familiar with their exact
location, savoring their delicacy, feeling their force and power, and
the unique way they vibrate the body and atmosphere. This is simply a
matter of enjoying sound without inhibition, as we did when we were
children. In the process of learning the Sanskrit alphabet, one
discovers that all sounds are encompassed in "AHAM". As other words
are created, the sounds which compose them become the means by which
"I-AHAM" establish my relationship of unity with, rather than
separateness from, all existence.

Important characteristic of a sacred language is that the purpose for
which it's being used is discovering one's own true nature. Sanskrit
is so highly developed and refined as a tool for serving this purpose
that even the task of learning the language seems "difficult" --
unless the motive for learning is aligned with the function of the
language, that is, to know oneself. When Sanskrit is approached with
the humility and one-pointedness that is the trademark of a genuine
search for truth, it becomes revealed. There arises a simple joy in
all aspects of its study. Singing the alphabet is especially
inspiring even when one has become proficient. Shri Brahmananda
Sarasvati, although a master of Sanskrit, with more than 60 years of
study behind him, and his speech impaired by a stroke, still seems to
find his greatest delight in leading a group of students through the
alphabet. Perhaps, this says a much as anything about the nature of a
sacred language.

We seldom hear anyone over seven years of age singing the English
alphabet. Its not that these sounds aren't enjoyable to sing. We do
not have the same relation to the English language that adults and
children alike who have learned Sanskrit have with it. That relation
is a sacred one, based on the energy conveyed through sound, a love
for the unique characteristics of each sound in engaging the mind,
body, the breath, vocal resonance, the mouth, tongue and lips.

Because of the simplicity of life in ancient times, there was an
acute awareness that all changes in life took place as a result of
changes in language. As new discoveries occurred in language, there
was an immediate and very noticeable shift in human beings'
interactions and in the way that they perceived their environment.
The evolution of human awareness was inextricably linked to the
development of language. It was natural that more and more attention
should be given to its development as the single most important
factor in changing the quality of human life. This eventually gave
way to discoveries whose magnitude is inconceivable to us in modern
times, where language tends to be taken for granted.

The discovery, development and refinement of Sanskrit must have taken
place over millennia. Although Sanskrit along with its great power to
elevate human consciousness to sublime heights, is often attributed
to a divine source, we can also hypothesize that its properties were discoveries that took place as a result of human beings actively and intensively engaging in the discovery of their own divine nature. The
most significant question that must have arisen to the ancients was
how to continue optimizing the human instrument, the body and mind,
as a vehicle for the expansion of awareness and happiness. Knowing
that the operation of the instrument depends entirely on the language
with which it is programmed, they worked on the refinement of
language software. They scrutinized and experimented with the vocal
instrument and the structure of the mouth and then selected only
those sounds which had the greatest clarity, purity and power of
resonance. They then organized these sounds in such a way that they
could mutually enhance and brighten one another, and build upon each
other's resonance. They explored the factor of breath in creating
sound, and discovered that by minimizing the breath with certain
sounds and maximizing it with others, the language would induce in
the instrument a state of relaxed alertness that could keep it
operating efficiently and tirelessly for long periods of time, while
expanding and building prana-energy. And as they did this, they
became happier.

Furthermore, by coordinating the factors of purity of sound, enhanced
resonance and breath, there also developed an awareness of the entire
body as a resonating chamber through which sound could be
transmitted. With increased vibratory power, the concept of the body
as solid matter gradually became replaced by one of the body as the
center of an energy field. In the process of transmitting sound
energy, they observed subtle changes in the field and found they
could expand it by following the sound waves. They had discovered
that language has the capacity to convert the body and mind into pure
energy. They began to feel joy.

It was further discovered that certain combinations of sounds would
enhance the expansion of the field more than others, and this was
experimented with, until sound combinations which could bring about
this effect universally were revealed. Their joy expanded. These
particular combinations became useful words for describing as well as
feeling the state of consciousness they induced. In this way the
breadth and depth of all that exists was explored. They looked and
listened and experienced changes in the energy field, to see how the
language could be further refined, what new distinctions could be
made. Eventually, they fathomed creation and found their own identity
at the very source of it all. Their bliss was boundless. When they
spoke with one another in this language they established love and
harmony.

Over millennia, Sanskrit was refined as an instrument of Yog. By 500
B.C. it had reached a point where it was perfected, and ready to be
laid down formally. The genius Panini was born for that purpose. So
masterful, concise and comprehensive was his great work, Ashtadhyayi
in formulating the Sanskrit language, that to this day, two and a
half millennia later, no one has been able to improve upon his
original work. For 25 centuries, the language has not only survived
intact, but thrived through the love of countless enlightened sages,
yogis and scholars, basically unmodified. Just imagine a language
thriving with little change for 2500 years. In each century there
have been spiritual geniuses, who immersed themselves in the blissful
and timeless joy of Sanskrit. Many have elaborated or commented on
Panini's original work, but none have changed it or replaced it. Yog
has thrived side by side with Sanskrit, but through all the practice, experimentation and discovery that has taken place in that science,
there has been little need to develop new language or modify the old
language in order to measure or inspire progress. Sanskrit had been
perfected by 500 B.C. as a tool for defining the ultimate pinnacle of
human aspiration.

Questions tend to come up as to why Sanskrit has not been used more
as a popular language, or why we are not now utilizing it more
widely. The primary obstacle, as I see it, is that we have had
difficulty in accessing Sanskrit in the way that it is designed to be
used. Because of the strong belief we hold that we are our body/mind,
our primary concern is what is going to happen to us individually. We
see the possibility of change, being happy in the future. And we try
to choose and do those things which will most certainly secure our
future happiness or enlightenment. This equation is almost

[continued in next message]

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From: alt.fan.jai-maharaj@googlegroups.com

An Indo-European linguistic doctrine is based on aryan invasion myth

Part 2 of 2 parts

In RV, 'rasA' is the name of a western river. Hence, Klejn finds it
justified to consider 'rasA' as a loanword from Mordovian. But any
Sanskrit scholar will tell that 'rasA' means 'moisture', 'humidity' among
other things in Sanskrit. The RV term 'rasA' for the river is easily
derived from the IA meanings of the term. Moreover, the word 'rasA' has a cognate in Iranian 'ranha'. The Iranian word is also similar in meaning - 'dew', 'moisture' etc. Hence, it is more probable that 'rasA' an IA word
was borrowed by FU and not the other way around. Also, 'rasA' is a
western river in RV. We have already stated that under OIT, the western
tribes left the subcontinent one after another. Then, we can easily
explain the transfer of river name 'rasA' as the emigrating branch of Indo-Aryans gave the name of their homeland river to Volga (a case of historical memory).

Next, we take up the word 'rep'. This is the most ridiculous theory.
Riphean mountains are mythical which are placed in the Urals by Pliny the
Elder while they are located in the Arctic circle by Pomponius Mela.
Other than similar sound, there is nothing in common between the two
terms. Can these scholars explain how RV remembered this single mythical mountain while forgetting to mention any land in between? To 'find' a
mythical foreign mountain in the RV (which does not have any
extraterritorial memory) is nothing but a result of over-eagerness and
faith.

Finally, we take up the issue of '?arabha'(eight footed deer). Klejn
considers it to be a loanword from Ugric which has '?orp' (which
according to him refers to a 'multi footed elk'). The same theory was put forward by Arnaud Fournet during a discussion on 'Indian Archaeology'
yahoo group. The word is found only in late RV (8.100.6) as a personal
name. It is not found in the early or middle books (the Family Books).
Isn't it a wonder that somehow all the 'loanwords' in Sanskrit are found
only in late RV or post RV texts? It requires a case of special pleading
to argue that the only case of FU loanword in RV was never used till late
RV. On the other hand, if we consider the word as a late RV development,
we can easily explain it as yet another borrowing by FU from IA (if at
all it is an actual borrowing). '?arabha' refers to 'locust',
'grasshopper' (also called '?alabha') among other things in Sanskrit. The
word certainly does not appear to have a stand-alone meaning referring to
a mythical deer. The word refers to a multi footed flying deer and some
insects (which are also multi footed and capable of flying). We may
conclude that the word must have meant something relating to 'multi
footed' and 'flying'. We have not been able to identify any proper IA
etymology for the word till now. But as we have stated above, it does not necessarily mean a foreign borrowing. On the other hand, the Ugric word ('?orp') does not refer to any insects. Luk?cs[xv] states that '?orp'
does not mean multi-footed elk. He categorically states that the word
means only 'elk' and that it is derived from 'antlers' (not from 'feet'):

"Kleijn's third etymology is for a mythic multifeet deer-like animal with
the name "sarabha" in Vedic, which reminds him to the Northern "Ugric" multifeet elk "shorp". ...... The problem is that "shorp" is
problematical from several viewpoints.

........ The word "shorp" does not exist, at least not in literary
or majority Manyshi; the "elk" is "sorp" in Manyshi. In addition it does
not mean a multifeet elk; it is simply "elk". And it has a good all-Ugric etymology without any reference to feet. (Indeed this etymology is even
good Finno-Ugric, but that is not important now.) Let us see step by
step.

In Magyar there is a generic animal name "szarvas", denoting 3 animals with antlers: the red deer (simply "szarvas"), the elk
("j?vorszarvas") and the reindeer ("r?nszarvas"). (The smaller deer is
""?z".) The common property is the antler, which is "agancs" in Magyar,
but generally any protuberance on the head is "szarv", so e.g. horns. "Szarv-as" is "of horn, of protuberance", and this is the reason that red
deer, elk & reindeer are all "szarvas".

Now, Manyshi "sorp" is Magyar "szarv" (the initial consonant
is exactly the same, only Magyar orthography is peculiar), and the
etymology is considered excellent by Finno-Ugrists. So "sorp" is simply
"horn, antler, protuberance", so "elk". Without any reference to feet.

However, indeed, there is a Manyshi tale about 7 peculiar
elks. Look at Text 12 of (S?t sorp akw l?gl tarm?l l'?l's?t): the hunter
finds 7 elks in the forest standing on exactly 1 foot. (In Magyar the expression is equivocal: they may stand on 1 foot per animal or on 1 foot altogether. I think the ambiguity would be the same in Manyshi, but you
will see clearer if you read the actual story.) The hunter invents a
tricky scheme and catches all of them.

Now, in this story there is not an elk with multiplicity of
feet, but rather the opposite. So I would argue against a borrowing
(Andronovan or not) sorp~szarv -> sarabha. Sorp is normal elk. "

Thus, we do not have any case of genuine FU loanword in RV. Almost all of
the supposed loanwords (never more than fifteen or twenty in all) are
fanciful attempts by a few linguists and as Misra had pointed out, there
is no single commonly accepted case of FU loanword in RV.

This is a positive evidence for OIT as pointed out earlier. After all, it
is more sensible to accept that a tribe of Indo-Iranians emigrated to the
Urals where they lent their words to the FU people. As the emigrated Indo-Iranians never came back to the subcontinent, we do not find any
genuine FU loanword in IA.

Linguistic Palaeontology and OIT

Linguistic Palaeontology has remained one of the most favourite whips of
the AIT scholars for a long period. According to them, it proves OIT
wrong very thoroughly and is nothing short of a nuke for OIT. We will
consider the writings of Witzel on this issue and determine whether this
much touted 'evidence' really disproves OIT.

Witzel follows Kuiper in identifying the non-IA 'substrate' words:

"Such local (substrate) words can be isolated from Indo-Aryan fairly
easily by linguistic observations. They have unusual sounds and word
structure, and there usually is a lack of a convincing Indo-European etymology....."[xvi]

As Das states "Not being able to find a clear Indo-European etymology
does not automatically imply that an Indo-European origin is
impossible"[xvii]. He has further noted that there has been no common
opinion on the foreign origin of a single RV word.

We oppose this 'hunt' for foreign words in RV as it is more based on the individual scholar's faith on certain 'rules' framed by that individual.
Here, the basic assumption behind Kuiper's identification is that the
only 'true' IA words are those which can be derived as result of linear evolution of PIE forms. All other words are considered as 'foreign' (or
in this case, local 'substrates'). But such a restricting assumption is
neither necessary nor is it the only method of language formation. The so-called 'unusual' sounds are once again based on rigid rules which
ignore the possibility of later innovations. Moreover, as we have already explained that Vedic was but one of the various IE dialects which were
present in the subcontinent and that only the western dialects migrated
out of India, why is it necessary for the emigrating dialects to learn
the words for eastern plants or definitely participate in the innovations
of the eastern dialects? Under AIT, we have an eastern dialect
(Tocharian) sharing isoglosses with a western dialect (Italic) somehow bypassing the dialects in the middle. In the case of OIT, we are simply
stating that some of the eastern innovations did not percolate to the
western dialects. AIT scholars must understand that when judging OIT we
have to consider an outflow in the reverse direction with the Vedic being
one of the languages of the inner territory and the emigrating languages present in the western periphery. If we consider such a scenario, most of
the objections against OIT disappear automatically.

Still, we have a fundamental question for the AIT proponents here: What
exactly do you expect from IA? As Vedic calls elephant as 'hastin'
(animal with a hand), it is claimed that India cannot be the Urheimat as
Vedic uses a non-primitive term for elephant. Then, in the case of those
words with no proper IE etymology, it is claimed that they are borrowed
terms as they do not conform to known IE roots (these words are not
considered as primitive). It is a case of "die if you do, die if you
don't". The argument about 'unusual' form is spurious as primitive words
may indeed contain some unusual form/structure as they are not made from
proper roots. C.D. Buck states that for most of the IE trees and animals
"the root connections are mostly obscure"[xviii]. While Friedrich has
noted: "My painstaking review of the evidence on the PIE tree names has uncovered only three units that are probably or at least cogently
connected etymologically with a verbal root. Two of the names for the
willow, *wyt- and *wrb-, may well be connected with a root for "bend,
twist," although even here the direction of derivation has not been established. A root for "slippery, sticky," and a second for "mild,
soft," may be connected with PIE terms for the "linden." *Perkw-, or at
least many reflexes in the perkw- set, may derive from a root for "to strike."......... I have concluded that the great majority of PIE tree
names were not deverbative nouns, but unanalyzable nominal roots, and
that for their reconstruction the most relevant branches of linguistics
are phonology and semantics"[xix]. Therefore, it is completely wrong on
the part of the AIT proponents to categorise every IA word without clear etymology as foreign loanwords. In fact, Sanskrit 'mayUra'(peacock) is an
IA word which sound unlike normal IE words. Should we decide that the
word is a borrowing from a non-IE language? But then how to describe the
fact that 'mayUra' ('one who bleats') can be clearly explained as
referring to peacock (no folk etymology)? Burrow[xx] seems to think all
such words in Sanskrit (other than those with clear IE etymology) which
are used to refer to local animals should have been borrowed from non-IE
local languages (he includes words like 'ghoTaka', 'ibha' etc. in this
list). If so, then we should conclude that almost all the PIE names for
trees are loanwords and the same will be the case for several animals as
well (since they don't have clear roots as noted by Buck and Friedrich).

Then there are those who argue that any IA plant/animal name derived from
roots have to be new words. But we have words like PIE *ekwo ('fast
animal' - horse) whose etymological roots have definite meaning. Sanskrit 'vrka' (wolf) means 'one who tears'. Shall we decide that IAs came from a
place where there were no wolves (such an assumption will weaken the AIT argument)? Therefore, we can see that some IE words for plants and
animals may have clear etymology (like 'bhUrja', 'hastin' etc) while
others may not. Therefore, any argument based on 'etymology' of plant and animal names will lead us nowhere unless we can point the source from
which the words were borrowed. Only then can we decide whether the said
word was borrowed from a non-IE language or not.

Witzel says that 'busa' (chaff) was borrowed by RV from Burushaski. He
claims that 'ki-lAla' (biestings) is also a loanword from Burushaski. Now
that he has shown two instances where RV has borrowed from a non-IE local language, he shows them to be the evidence for the existence of
'substrates' from local languages which were present before the supposed
Aryan invasion/immigration.

But Witzel himself accepts that cognates of busa are found in the East
Iranian languages as well as Munda: "Sariqoli bus and Waxi bis, cf. also
Munda: Santali busu'b"[xxi]. What we see here is a repeat of Kuiper's
thesis as stated earlier: any word whose form is different from what is expected of an IE word has to be borrowed from somewhere. But a look at
'busa' gives rise to more questions than answers. Is the word borrowed
from Burushaski or Munda or an IA development? We must keep in mind that Burushaski has borrowed a lot of terms from Urdu, Dardic, Balti etc. and
hence, we may expect the language to have borrowed several terms from
other languages in the past as well.

The issue of 'ki-lAla' (which is also found in Dardic and Nuristani) is
even more suspect. IAs were basically cowherds (even according to AIT).
It appears more than a bit implausible to envision them borrowing a term
for 'biestings' from a foreign language; especially when, the supposed
lender is Burushaski which has the habit from borrowing a huge number of
words from nearby languages. A cognate word for 'ki-lAla' is found in
Tamil 'kizAan' (curd). Clearly, Dravidian has borrowed from IA though the meaning has changed.

In both these cases of alleged borrowings, the basic premise is that the
words are not of IA origin as they do not conform to the IE/IIr form. We
have stated time and again that such an 'assumption' is unnecessary and
does not take into account any possible new innovation in language. The
reason why these two words are considered as borrowings from Burushaski
(rather than borrowed by Burushaski) is that they have supposedly 'non-
IE' forms. We know that Burushaski has lot of words from other languages. Hence, there is no reason why these two words could not have been
borrowed from IA. Kuiper and Witzel have to come up with some better
argument than merely stating that any word which do not conform to their 'linear evolution' theory have to be loanwords.

The other argument put forward by Witzel is that the presence of
Burushaski, Kusunda etc. shows that there were several languages present
in the northern India which were superseded by Vedic. Is it necessary
that the presence of two isolated languages in the remote regions of
India refers to a period when these languages were spread throughout
North India? Burushaski is found in the Gilgit region which is a remote
region situated to the south of Pamir knot. Kusunda is found in Western
Nepal mountains. It is very much possible that these languages were
spoken in the remote mountainous regions before they were overrun by the expanding IE dialects. If we assume that these languages were spoken in
the RV homeland, then we must be able to find their traces in the place
or river names of these places. But we do not find a single instance of
non-IE river/place name in the RV land. Non-IE names are found only
outside this land in the eastern and southern areas of the subcontinent.

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From: alt.fan.jai-maharaj@googlegroups.com

An Indo-European linguistic doctrine is based on aryan invasion myth

Part 1 of 2 parts

Forwarded message from S. Kalyanaraman

Sunday, January 24, 2010

http://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97/ie-linguistic-doctrine

An Indo-European linguistic doctrine is based on aryan invasion myth

India as a linguistic area. "At some time in the second millennium BC,
probably comparatively early in the millennium, a band or bands of
speakers of Indo-European language, later to be called Sanskrit, entered
India over the northwest passes. This is our linguistic doctrine which
has been held now for more than a century and a half." (Emeneau, M.B.,
1980, Language and linguistic area: essays by Murray B. Emeneau selected
and introduced by Anwar S. Dil, Stanford University Press, p.85).

This quote by Emeneau summarises and continues to be the framework for Indo-European linguistics. Emeneau goes on to explain how India
constitutes a linguistic area.

Ravilochanan G. (2010) questions the use of the Aryan invasion/migration doctrine and using linguistic arguments, presents a logically-argued case
for a reconsideration of this pseudo-linguistic doctrine.

Read on Ravilochanan's precisely presented arguments (appended below)
against the use of Aryan invasion/migration as a linguistic doctrine.

Dr. S. Kalyanaraman

24 Jan. 2010

Linguistics and OIT: The real situation

Ravilochanan G (January 2010)

Contents

Introduction. 3
Linguistics and OIT. 5
Sanskrit cannot be PIE. 5
Foreign Loans in Vedic. 5
Mitanni 7
Finno-Ugric (FU) 7
Linguistic Palaeontology. 8
PIE in India. 9
Analysis of AIT claims. 10
Mitanni and OIT. 10
Finno-Ugric (FU) and OIT. 11
Linguistic Palaeontology and OIT. 14
Conclusion. 20

Introduction

Ever since the later part of eighteenth century, when William Jones
identified the relationship between Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, scholars
have been looking for the homeland of the Indo-European languages.
Initially, India was considered to be the homeland as Sanskrit is closer
to PIE (Proto-Indo-European: the mother of all IE languages) than any
other language. But somewhere in the middle of the nineteenth century,
scholars began to state that Aryans invaded India from somewhere else
(Europe was suggested by many) and that India was not the homeland
(Urheimat) of PIE. The prevailing political thought heavily influenced
the PIE Urheimat question. European scholars (predominantly German) began
to advocate AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory) where the fair-skinned Aryans
invaded India and captured the land from the black-skinned barbarians. It
was believed that Aryans brought civilisation to India. Vedic hymns were 'interpreted' to suit this model. Max Muller made the famous statement
that RV must belong to 1200 BCE. The date attained the status of a
'revealed truth' in AIT circles.

Later, when Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were discovered, it was found that civilisation existed in India far before the supposed Aryan invasion.
Still, this did not deter our AIT scholars. The only change which
happened now was that Aryans became the nomadic barbarians while the dark-skinned natives became the civilised local population. Wheeler
claimed to have found evidences for massacre at Harappan sites. Later,
Dales proved that there was no evidence of any massacre in the Harappan
sites.

New archaeological excavations at places like Kalibangan showed that
Harappan sites were abandoned around 1900 BCE which is too early for any
Aryan presence according to AIT. Also, it was found that there was
genetic continuity in the region from 4500 BCE to 600 BCE. This ruled out
any major inflow of 'Aryan genes' around 1500 BCE. So, once again the
theory was changed. It became 'Aryan Migration Theory (AMT)' or 'Aryan Immigration Theory' according to which a small number of Aryan nomads
entered the subcontinent peacefully and imposed their language on the
entire population of Northern and Western India. How these small numbers
of nomads managed to dominate and change the culture of such a huge
population which was much civilised is never explained properly. That is because there is no rational explanation for such a theory. But the AIT proponents are not ready to give up their school of thought so easily.
After all, more than century of labour and several 'research'
publications are at stake. Hence, there is a stiff resistance against any attempt to locate the PIE Urheimat in India.

Interestingly, it is not only archaeology which opposes the AIT. Indian literatures are unanimous in stating that some IE tribes migrated out of
India. Even in the RV (7.6.3), it has been stated that the enemies of
Sudas are driven towards the west. It has also specifically stated that
the enemies driven out were 'mrdhravAcaH' (those who spoke in a wrong
manner). It shows that the enemies were speaking a different dialect as compared to the Vedic people. Later texts like BSS, Shatapatha Brahmana
as well as the Puranas recollect that some IE tribes emigrated in the
western direction. So, we have actual literary evidence for a scenario
where India was the Urheimat and IE speakers emigrated to the west from
India. This scenario is called 'Out of India Theory' (OIT). Under OIT RV belongs to the pre-SSC (Sindhu Sarasvati Civilisation) period.

The discovery of Sarasvati was a shot in the arm for OIT proponents. As
it was proved that Sarasvati got desiccated around 1900 BCE and that it
reached the sea only before 3200 BCE, the date of early part of RV was
pushed to 3200 BCE at the latest. RV (7.95.2) clearly states that
Sarasvati was pure in her course from the mountains to the ocean. On the
other hand, Pancavimsa Brahmana (25.10.16) states that Sarasvati got lost
in the desert sands at a distance of forty days' journey on horseback
from its source (a time after 3200 BCE but before 1900 BCE). Also, it is
seen that SSC items like bricks are not mentioned in RV but are mentioned
in Brahmana texts. Thus, we can say that Brahmana texts belong to the SSC period and that RV predates SSC based on the evidence from Vedic
literature.

OIT is supported by astronomy as well. There are certain astronomical references found in the Brahmana, Sutra and Vedanga literature. Scholars
like Narhari Achar, S.B. Dikshit etc. have pointed out the astronomical references belong to 3000 BCE to 1400 BCE (Shatapatha Brahmana to Vedanga Jyotisha). It supports the OIT claim that Brahmanas and Sutras belong to
SSC period.

Thus, we see that a huge mass of evidence from literature to archaeology, hydrology to astronomy support the OIT timeline.

The only counter-argument of AIT proponents against this increasing mass
of pro-OIT evidence is linguistics. Linguistics and OIT

According to many AIT proponents like Witzel, Farmer, Brighenti etc., AIT
is proved beyond any doubt by 'linguistics'. The position of Indo-Aryan
within IE languages and the so-called foreign 'borrowings' into IA are
shown as evidence for AIT and it is even claimed that linguistics has thoroughly rejected any OIT scenario.

The basic arguments of these AIT proponents can be categorised as given
below:

Sanskrit cannot be PIE

One of the basic arguments against OIT is the claim that Vedic Sanskrit
shows some innovations which are not found in certain IE languages (like
the 'satem' pronunciation, 'ai/au'>'e/o', loss of 'z' etc.). As the non-
IA languages have maintained certain archaisms lost by Vedic, it is wrong
to claim that Vedic is the mother of these languages. Hence, they rightly
claim that Vedic cannot be PIE (Proto-Indo-European). But this does not
prove AIT not does it disprove OIT. We do not claim that Sanskrit is PIE. Neither is such a claim necessary for OIT. We claim the homeland of PIE
to be India and that Vedic as well the other branches evolved from PIE.
Thus, the long winded arguments about 'Sanskrit cannot be PIE' do not
affect OIT. Foreign Loans in Vedic

The next claim is that there are many 'foreign' words found in Vedic. AIT proponents have this fanciful hobby of identifying non-IE loans in Vedic.
Their technique is this:

a) Find out a word which does not have cognates in other IE languages.
Such words have to be loanwords. It does not matter that Vedic has
maintained the IE language far more accurately than her sisters and
hence, it is very much probable that such words were originally IE but
lost by the other branches. Unfortunately, R.P.Das (an AIT believer) has
shown that most of these 'supposed borrowings' are based on faith and
that there is no single uncontroversial case of foreign loanwords in the Vedic[i]. In fact, this methodology is nothing more than selective
speculation. One cannot call a word as non-IE loanword just because the
word does not have any cognates in other IE languages.

b) Their second theory is that any word which does not conform to the
form of normal IE words has to be a loanword. The best example for this
rule is 'chAga' (meaning: goat). This word is considered as a loanword
because it does not adhere to the normal IE form. They will never
consider that there could be 'exceptions' to normal rules. Nor do they
even consider that IA could have developed some new features in the later period. It is completely unnecessary and too rigid to assume that only a
linear evolution of PIE forms is possible in IA or any other daughter of
PIE. Such an assumption would be nothing but dogmatism. Interestingly, Schlerath has pointed out that 'chAga' could be derived from PIE root "*(s)keg-"[ii]. Schlerath derives the word 'sheep' from the same root.

Also, almost none of these identified loanwords appear to have roots in
any known language. Hence, the AIT proponents (like Kuiper, Witzel,
Lubotsky etc.) are forced to invent unknown languages from which these
words were borrowed by the Vedic. Lubotsky[iii] and Witzel invent a BMAC language from which certain Vedic words were borrowed. These words
include words like 'gada' (a word which is not found in RV). Now, no one
knows which language was spoken in the BMAC area. Nor do we know whether
these supposed 'loanwords' were even used by the BMAC people. But the AIT linguists do not feel the least bit of hesitation in attributing the
source of these 'loanwords' to this unknown language. Still, Talageri
shows that all such 'BMAC words' belong to late RV and are not found in
early RV[iv]. This cannot be the case if AIT is true. Most of these 'BMAC words' appear to be later developments. It justifies our claim that not
all IA words need to be linearly evolved from PIE forms. Innovations in
IA could explain the new forms found. There is no need to invent a BMAC language from which the IAs borrowed these words. Such an assumption
would require that the IAs borrowed these words but did not put them to
use for a few centuries and then suddenly, they began to use these
loanwords with great frequency in the later texts. Talk about the
impossible!! Mitanni

Recently, Mitanni has become the most favourite piece of evidence for the
AIT proponents. The Vedic is compared with other IE languages attested
from the mid-second millennium BCE. Hittite and Mitanni are two written languages which belong to this period. Both these languages exhibit
certain features which are more archaic than Vedic. Hence, Vedic has to
be younger than these languages. AIT proponents give a lot of weight to
Mitanni evidence. Mitanni is found to have 'ai/au' (which became 'e/o' in Vedic) and Mitanni had not lost 'z' (e.g. 'Priyamazdha' (Mitanni) as
against 'Priyamedha' in Vedic). As Mitanni appears to be a branch of IA (Mitanni deities include Indra, Nasatya, Varuna etc.), this is taken as
an 'unshakeable' proof for their theory that the period of RV (Rg Veda)
is later than 1400 BCE. Not only that, it also supposedly proves that
Mitanni could not have migrated out of India in a late RV period as
Mitanni language is more archaic than even the early part of RV. We will analyse this 'evidence' in detail later.

Finno-Ugric (FU)

It has been proven beyond doubt that FU has lot of borrowings from IA (or
more specifically Vedic) as well as Iranian. The words borrowed by FU are
not PIE; they are IIr (Indo-Iranian) in character but some are uniquely
IA as well. It has borrowed 'sata' (a satem word) and hence, the
borrowings happened after the centum/satem split. Also, FU has borrowed
the term 'dasyu' (in Vogulian 'tas' meaning stranger). That Vogulian has
's' shows that it was not borrowed from Iranian. Also, the term 'dahyu'
meant 'country or people' in Iranian. It was RV that 'dasyu' was used to
refer to the non-Vedic (foreign) people. Hence, it shows that FU borrowed
terms from IA (and not just Indo-Iranian). FU has borrowed heavily from
IA and IIr (and even Iranian). But reverse borrowing by IA appears to be non-existent. Some scholars like Klejn claim: "Aryans knew the names of
the river Volga (ved. Rasa, cf. Mord. Ravo) and the Ural mountains (ved.
Rep, cf. Greek Ripeian ridge). They possessed the notion on a miraculous multifeet deer-like animal (Ved. ?arabha) ressembling the multifeet elk
of the Ugric myths (its Ugric name is ?orp) (Bongard-Levin and Grantovsky 1974)"[v]. Thus, this evidence of a close contact between the IA and FU
is taken to mean that Indo-Aryans arrived from the Urals (where the FU existed). According to the AIT proponents, as the FU were never near
Indian subcontinent, it must be the Indo-Aryans who wandered near FU
before they settled in the subcontinent. This 'evidence' is analysed
later. Linguistic Palaeontology

In this case, the AIT proponents compare the words for plants, animals
and trees found in the various IE families. It is shown that most of the
trees with common PIE ancestry are those found in colder northern regions
and not found in Punjab plains. This is taken to mean that PIE homeland
could not have been India. For example, Witzel repeats the oft-touted
argument about the PIE terms for the trees of colder climate as follows:
"The opposite, a spread of these terms out of India , falls prey not just
to Occam's razor: why did only these early, PIE terms survive, and why
only outside India? For this pseudo-problem, note the well established linguistic data and conclusions, in: Hock 1999, Witzel 2001, 2005. Such
data are habitually disregarded and overlooked, for example by B.B. Lal (2001-2) who neglects the most typical IE tree bhu-rja, the birch tree
(found only in highland Kashmir above 7000 feet) that has a typical IE
name 'the white one'. The climatic conditions make it impossible for the
word to have been exported form the plains of northern India -- unless
one goes back to the glacial maximum of the last Ice Age, much too early
for any IE language. -- In addition to the birch, the IE word for 'oak'
may be contained in parkat.i- > 'ficus infectiora', (EWA II 194 s.v.
plaks.a), and that for 'willow' in vetasa > 'Calamus rotang' (EWA II

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