The Real History of India – Part 8: Parpola Lecture disproves Farmer/Witzel/Sproat
The Real History of India – Part 8: Parpola Lecture disproves Farmer/Witzel/SproatUpdated again March 16, 2008: Varnam.org includes this post in their History Carnival. Thanks a lot Varnam.org. We are honored.
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Updated again March 9, 2008: Steve Farmer sent me an email and was kind enough to explain to me why my post was moderated out. I accepted his explanation. But i told Steve that attacking the person and attacking the argument are 2 different things and that untill the comments that attack me are removed from his group forum, i will keep my retort up over here.
Updated March 9, 2008: This post is being discussed by Witzel, Farmer and others. I have got some new labels from this group of highly accomplished academicians – I am now a Nationalist (read Hindutvavadi) and a Parpola Admirer/Deifier. My response to their discussion on their forum doesn’t seem to get posted possibly because they moderate it. I also didn’y store my post by mistake. I am rewriting my post on that forum here and hence some of the words may have changed but the essence is the same:
1. I am the author of the post all of you are discussing. I object to the nationalist label you assigned to me because that is a proxy for unscientific people. I am a proud Indian National, as proud of my nationality as much as you all are about yours. If you call me a Nationalist, i assume you will also carry that same label with the same negative connotations against your names as well. For the record, I am of the view that Aryans came from outside India and Aryanized the local people (its not Aryan Invasion). You will understand my position if you read post #6 of this series.
2. I find it amusing that you all picked one line in the report about Homer’s epics being in Linear B for your discussion and even setting bounties to be hunted for it. That might have been entirely my mistake in representing what Parpola said. Let me point out to you that this entire Parpola rebuttal disproves the Witzel/Farmer/Sproat beyond reasonable doubt. If you still want to stand by your research, please publish your rebuttal in an open forum like you have done with your original paper. Where is the need for obtaining a personal discussion with Parpola?
3. Witzel, i generally respect and admire your research and your arguments. I have read most of your papers available on the public Internet and also the spats you had with Frawley in the pages of the Hindu newspaper. But this paper of yours that tries to prove that IVC was illiterate is one that i don’t agree with at all. Now Parpola has disproved it.
4. I seem to have gotten another label – Parpola Admirer/Deifier. I think Parpola is extraordinary and I am an admirer, yes. He is a man who has spent 4 decades of his life on Indology in a time when what goes by the name of Indology is arguments around Aryan Invasion Theory. I believe that IVC was a great civilization and in some ways better than or at atleast at a par with Sumer and Egypt. IVC deserves its rightful place in the history of humankind. You can dismiss that as my axe to grind. Maybe. But you can easily make me abandon my position with scientific arguments that is accepted as valid by the general Indology community. Just setting bounty money on irrelevant parts of the argument doesn’t behove of an accomplished academic community that all of you represent.
I rest my case.
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Updated March 8, 2008: NK Sreedhar found the link to the powerpoint Parpola used. He also found a more verbose PDF version where Parpola explains his rebuttal. Thanks a lot Sreedhar.
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Prolog:
After covering the Aryan Invasion Theory debate, we get back to the IVC. Saturday, Feb 16, 2008 was a great day in my life. Thanks to Archana Raghuram’s tip off, myself and Priya Raju got to attend a lecture by Asko Parpola at the Indus Research Centre [Roja Muthiah Reference Library] on saturday from 10.30 AM to 12.30 PM. We had reached the venue at 10 am, so that there would be no scope for missing even one word of the great master. I also managed to get his autograph. After about 15 min, we saw Iravatham Mahadevan coming and sitting in the front seat. I got his autograph as well – he signed his name in the Indus Script! If you are really interested in understanding the IVC people and their script, this lecture notes may be a critically important one to read. I have tried my best to capture everything Parpola said. If you find this lecture difficult to grasp, you may want to first orient yourself to his thoughts by reading this recent interview of Parpola which appeared in the Hindu newspaper.
Welcome Address by V.C. Kulandaiswamy, former Vice Chancellor of Anna University, who chaired the meeting:
This center has been setup in Jan 2007 and is one of the newest centers for Indus Research. It is now operating under Iravatham Mahadevan’s tutelage. We have today Asko Parpola, Professor Emeritus of Indology from Univ of Helsinki today. There have been several Indus researchers but AP is unique. He has dedicated almost 4 decades, one could say, his entire life to Indus Research [Wow!]. Not just him, his brother, his wife and his daughter are all engaged in Indus Research. No other person on the planet can claim this sort of dedication to the cause of deciphering Indus – it is a rather unenviable task because many people think the script is undecipherable.
He got started as student of Sama Vedic rituals [is an expert in Sanskrit, Vedas and Upanishads] and later started working on the IVC Script. He started collecting material for his research in the 1960s and has accumulated a monumental amount of material which he has now published in 2 volumes the Indus Corpus [need the exact name] in 1987 and 1991. 2 more volumes are being worked upon.
Asko Parpola
I presented this paper in July 2007 at a Stanford Univ conference criticizing the Farmer/Witzel/Sproat paper that claimed that IVC was illiterate. I also presented this at a Japanese Conference. I am going to present the same paper with some more material to all of you today. This paper is not yet available in the public domain.
For the record, let me start by saying that the IVC script is a logo-syllabic script. I will present their arguments one by one and offer my rebuttal [starting with a "But" - My addition] for each one of them and then conclude with some more thoughts.
1. There are too few symbols compared to Chinese and other such pictographic scripts. At the same time there are signs repeated in the same seal.
But,
a. they agree themselves in the paper that this point alone is not enough to prove that it is not a script.
b. Kimmo Koskienien, a colleague of mine sent an email to Sproat “does this mean you can’t prove or disprove” – Sproat replied “Yes”.
c. Shows the Narmer Inscription from Egypt showing how Cat Fish [Nr] + Awl [Mr] = Narmer.
d. Shows the famous Cleopatra and Ptolemy Cartouches which have repeating signs within a single cartouche. So repeating signs alone don’t prove or disprove anything.
2. Text is too short and there are too many rare signs (or very infrequently used signs)
But,
a. Indus Seals have an average of 5 signs and that is more than sufficient to convey many things. Given the logo-syllabic nature and the fact these seals may represent religious rituals or trade transactions, we cannot expect long sentences.
b. Shows 2 Akkadian Seals from 2200 BC that shows “Adda the Scribe” and another showing a short poem about King of Akkad.
c. Not all signs are short – shows 2 seals having 14 signs each.
c. Sometimes even a single sign can convey a concept and shows the man + 2 concentric circles + tiger seal.
d. Compound signs that are composed of 2 or more individual signs are present. For examples shows the compound sign having a man carrying bow+arrow and also man and bow+arrow as individual signs.
3. Too many singletons
But,
a. Only 25% of the signs occur only once and even that may change with more seal excavations.
b. All logo-syllabic scripts have many rare signs like Chinese for example.
4. No “random-looking” sign repetitions within any text.
But,
a. points to the ptolemy & cleopatra cartouches with sign repetitions highlighted to show what a “random-looking” sign repitition is.
b. Indus also has this pattern and it occurs in the very same “bar seals” that they talk about. they missed it.
c. Shows many examples of sign repititions using seals M-682 A, M-682a, M-682 a bis; M-634-A, 93; K-10A, K-10a;
Also shows 1 sign repeated in 2 places in an 8-sign bar seal.
d. Then shows an example of a repeating sign that has 2 signs signifying “eye” and says that is “kann” [See in tamil] and “Kaan” [To See in Tamil] . So the repetition must be “KannKaani” meaning “Supervise”. [This is f***ing brilliant.]
5. “Lost” long texts never existed. We need text > 50 signs.
But,
a. Maybe we need more excavations.
b. Rongo Rongo signs from Easter Island have greater than 50 signs. Is it writing?
c. Cites Possehl 2002, Cotton was cultivated and it was a main export of IVC. Yet we find only a few fibers of cotton attached to some vessels. Maybe they wrote text on persihable material like cotton.
d. Neachos, Greek, said that thickly woven cloth was being used for writing in India, he said it in 325 BC
e. Sanskrit sources also mention this.
f. Asoka was the first one to write in stone which is dated to 250 BC.
g. Panini mentions the word Lipi meaning script in 400-350BC so he must have known about writing.
h. There are evidences in Central Asia from 2nd cent A.D talking about palm leaf and birch bark manuscripts.
So they might have written their long texts in such perishable material which might have been lost.
6. No cursive variants found, so no possiblity of scribes, so not a script.
But,
a. Egyptian hieroglyphics existed for 3000 years and their Heiratic cursive system doesn’t differ that much from the hieroglyphics.
b. AP’s sign list from 1994 shows 398 signs with quite a few variants of the same sign which means they had scribes.
7. No writing instrument found.
But,
a. We know Tamils used Thin Metal Rods [Ezhuthaani in Tamil] to incise palm leaf. these might have gotten corroded.
b. they may have used a brush. There are evidences in North India to show they used brushes to paint the palm leaf.
8. Indus signs are non-linguistic
But,
a. There are mesopotamian seals with signs that appear near Gods and also longer rows of signs appearing in limited contexts like their stelae and their boundary stones. Deities that protect their boundary stones were found on them. So it is common for ancients to have both linguistic and non-linguistic things in their writing.
9. Why didn’t they adopt writing from Mesopotamia because like the Celtic Druids and Vedic Brahamanas they wanted to keep their things a secret.
But,
a. Adopting writing doesn’t oblige you to divulge secrets. You can always choose to not write down the secret stuff if that is what you want.
b. Literacy was restricted anyway. So just adopting writing doesn’t make everyone literate as we have seen in Egypt and elsewhere.
c. Incas developed a complex civilization without writing [they used some knotting system called Quipu]. So writing is not essential but at the sametime writing offers many advantages that can’t be denied.
At this point he says he is moving onto some additional thoughts:
1. The script must have been used mainly for administration of their trading system and for religious rituals much like the Ancient Sumerian Script.
2. The Neolithic Phase – 7000-4300BC, Chalcolithic Phase – 4300-3200BC.
3. Early Harappan phase – 3200 BC – 2500 BC due to some changes in flood patterns of the Indus, the common granaries dissappeared and they started using Large Urns but in each home. Irrigation systems started appearing because they couldn’t rely on the floods anymore. Cities with Grid patterns appear. Bullock Carts and Boat Trafficking emerge to enable them to have a cultural unification of a vast area. Harappan had one of the largest areas under its domain of its time.
4. Mid Harappan phase – 2800-2500 BC – Indus Script developed, standardized burnt brick of 1:2:4 standard started appearing everywhere.
5. Mature Harappan phase – 2500-1900 BC – the script is standardized across the board.
Standardized weights and measures created. Large building projects are started. In the city of Mohenjadaro, they build a citadel of 20 hectares size on a 12 meter tall artifical platform. One of the largest constructions of its kind for its time. There are 2 storied houses with individual baths that are unparalleled anywhere in the world at that time. They had 700 wells which have not collapsed even after 5000 years.
6. Shows Indus Tags from Umma in Mesopotamia. Almost 100 such clay tags were found in Kalibangan each of them having 4 0r more seals on them.
7. He said they started using Witnesses to record things [didn't completely understand] and they started recording transactions in probably perishable material like cloth, leaves etc.
8. Many seals show a man kneeling in front of a Jar. I know a south indian village in Kerala where each village brings a jar of paddy to offer [i think this is there in Tamilnadu villages also].
okay, finally, is it a script or not?
Farmer/Witzel/Sproat are inconclusive. they couldn’t prove it is not a script. We also know that there were “potter marks” in the neighboring areas of baluchistan, turkmenistan, iranian plateau etc which clearly show what non-linguistic ones are. Indus is clearly a script.
there are 400 standardized signs and seals. most of them read right to left and most of them are arranged in a row neatly unless they had space constraints when they had to cram the signs like M-12A and M-66a
Shows examples of repeating signs that occur in seal endings as well as in the middle. Shows that such sequences were seen in seals collected from 9 different cities including sites as far away as Turkmenistan (Gonur) and Iraq (kish)
Then he shows examples of megalithic makings from Sanur in Tamilnadu where there are script like symbols. the problem is they have things like a 3 sign symbol which occur in different combinations and permutations, clearly indicating a non-linguistic thing.
The script was uniform everywhere – Sindh or Punjab used the same script.
Cites Godd 1932: No. 17 M – a round stamp seal which contains 5 different Indus signs in a unique combination. Concludes that it is a seal representing a foreign word for Indus people to read – perhaps by the traders.
then talks about Meluhha and that it is IVC very briefly.
Principle of Homophony or Puns or Rebus Principle
Shows a Sumerian Arrow sign standing for “Ti” that could mean one of 3 things – Arrow, Mistress of Life, Rib. It is this one that gave rise to the Biblical myth of Eve’s creation from Adam’s rib because they mistook Mistress of Life as Rib because it is the same word! There are several such homophone examples in the IVC script – meen=star being a famous example.
Backing Out?
Shows Witzel saying in a paper “IVC script may encode puns” and Farmer saying “It may not be a conventional speech-or-writing-encoding system”. He made a joke of their retraction.
But,
Even short noun-phrases and incomplerte sentences qualify as full writing if it uses the Rebus principle.
Then he answered a few questions:
1. What about Mehrgarh? You didn’t mention that site.
It is an important site because it is one of the few that show the contiunuity from neolthic to chalcolithic to post-Indus covering all the developmental phases.
2. Why do we need to decipher the script?
a. Civilization’s definition includes writing.
b. It is one of the oldest writing systems in the world, so it is important for linguistics.
c. We need to know what religion it encodes because that is important to understand south asian religions.
Then he talked about how the Rig Veda was at first very creative but then when they switched to the mode of preserving it via the oral tradition they made it very rigid so that it can’t be changed at all. He said they same thing happened in Greece after Homerian Poems were written down using Linear B script.
He also mentioned that as the Vedic people moved in, the Brahmans from their society because of their knowledge would have immediately become important people in the IVC due to their knowledge of the Vedas. He said this is much similar to what happened when the British came and the Brahmins took to English quickly and became their key people for administering India.
There were a few more not-so-relevant points, and the meeting got over and we left. There was a mob around AP, thankfully i had gotten my autograph before the meeting.
Epilog:
On the whole it was a mind-blowing experience to listen to the grandmaster of IVC research. I was already in awe of Parpola’s work and after this lecture, i became even more convinced of the greatness of his work. Without knowing any of this, in my own small way, i had hypothesized that the IVC seals must have had a collating sequence . I did that entirely based on Farmer/Sproat/Witzel’s repeated insistence that the average length of the inscriptions on the seals was too small. Even though they said many things in their paper, that is the one assertion of theirs that bothered me the most.
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Indian History Carnival – 3…
(Image by backpacker)The Indian History Carnival, published on the 15th of every month, is a collection of posts related to Indian history and archaeology written in the past 30 days.Sukumar attends a lecture by Asko Parpola on the Indus Valley……
Sukumar,
I had read Parpola’s Stanford presentation and his Japanese presentation. Yes, I agree with you that he is amongst the greatest in IVC research.
BTW, his next two publications are going to list all the seals and the script individually for everyone to see and decipher. He has provided everyone with unprecedented information on IVC through his earlier publications and the latest ones will only make the quest that much accessible.
Hats off to the man.
Thanks Sridhar. Do you have the links to his stanford presentation and japan presentation? It will be a great supplement to my notes if i can link to the actual slides he used.
I am planning buy his corpus books – vol1,2 are already there and 3 and 4 are about to be published. don’t know how expensive these will be?
Here’s the stanford one – http://compling.ai.uiuc.edu/2007Workshop/Slides/parpola.ppt
I’ll get you the japan one. My bookmark on that isn’t working.
Okay. Here you go on the japanese one. This is the one that I like and the one I use when I steer away from the main path.
http://www.harappa.com/script/indusscript.pdf
Thank you so much Sreedhar. Looks like i need not have taken down so much notes.
Hi Sukumar,
I have been waiting for this post ever since you attened the lecture. You have done a fantastic job of reproducing the lecture. It was only notes or did you record the lecture!
KannKaani was a brilliant interpretation similar to the vin meen which you sent me. Did you have chance to question AP on that decipherment?
Thanks Archana. I had the whole thing typed down the same day of the lecture, so that i wouldn’t forget anything. The whole thing is based on my notes – i didn’t have the presence of mind to audio-record the lecture.
Yes, KannKaani is f***ing brilliant. No i could not ask questions because there was very little time for questions. I thought i could ask my questions offline, but then he was mobbed by a group of people right after the lecture leaving no opportunity for me to ask questions. I was lucky that i got his autograph before the lecture.
Sukumar,
I thought you did audio record the session. They were 99% accurate with the slide presentation. When I saw your post, I thought you had it recorded and played back. That’s some impressive notes taking.
Thanks Sreedhar. I guess one can muster up the note taking skills when one is really passionate about something. i didn’t want to miss a single word of the master.
I read the ‘Parpola explains his rebuttal’ it was brilliant, especially the last section where he deciphers certain symbols like 6 min, mey min, Saturn etc. What I found interesting was that it was very similar to the link that you had sent long back, which had identical take on most of the symbols.
Thanks to Sridhar for providing the link. I enjoyed reading it.
Thanks Archana. Yes, Archana. the link i sent you a while ago was also from Parpola. That is why you find it familiar. The thing is, i was not, at that time, sure if the IVC was encoding a Dravidian language. Now i am 99% convinced of that.
Thanks Sreedhar.
Good presentation but nothing new. How can anyone talk about the script without identifying the language? Also, how about the archaeology-literature connection? How can Harappan archaeology be separated from the Vedic literature even when they flourished in the same region?
So Parpola and his admirers.followers still want to cling to the the Aryan-Dravidian separation myth. This also means separating archaeology from literature.
Parpola’s one interpretive insight is the rebus built around ‘min’– which means both fish and shine (or star?). But ‘mina’ is fish in Sanskrit also.
So for all their dispute Parpola and Witzel-Farmer are united in making Vedas and Sanskrit foreign. There is ample material in archaeology and literature, especially Harappan iconography to establish a Vedic-Harappan link. This is what both Wotzel and Parpola want to negate. See SARASVATI RIVER AND THE VEDIC CIVILIZATION by N.S. RAJARAM (Aditya Prakashan, Delhi)
Thank you for the report though.
N.S. Rajaram
Sir,
We are honored that you have chosen to visit our blog and comment. We are very familiar with your research on the Indus Valley Civilization and its connection to the Vedic Civilization.
1. The language that the IVC script encodes is Proto-Dravidian, the closest relative of which we have today is Tamil, Gondi and a few other languages spoken by tribals.
2. Harappan archaeology has not yet presented conclusive evidence to prove that it had Vedic content in the Mature Harappan and periods before that. Vedic people did flourish in the IVC region but that is during and after 1700 BC.
3. We are not arguing any separation between Vedic literature and archaeology at all. In fact, it is the reverse. The Rig Veda, which is the most authentic document we have from the Vedic period, we have proven that it could not be about a riverine civilization like the IVC at all. Please review my post no. 6 in this series when you have the time.
4. Yes, Parpola is extraordinarily brilliant and his Meen=Star rebus principle is a breakthrough in IVC decipherment. And Yes, Mina means fish in Sanskrit. But Meena is a loan word from Proto Dravidian to Sanskrit. There are many such loan words from Proto Dravidian, Meena being one of them, perhaps a famous one.
5. Again, all Vedic-Harappan links are from 1700BC or later. Therefore there is no evidence currently available that will prove that the Harappan people were Vedic. Why are we so upset with the word “foreign”? If you look back at human migrational patterns over the years, it will be easy to see that the IVC people were themselves foreigners to India of that time. There is nothing to be ashamed about other people coming and settling and making their home in India and making it the vibrant place that it is today.
Thanks again for stopping by.
Response to Sri Sukumar
You cannot present conclusions based on conjecture as fact. Proto Dravidian, like Proto Indo European is a hypothetical language that is based on a belief and a linguistic model. It cannot be accepted as empirical evidence.
There is ample evidence of Vedic symbolsim in early-mature Harappan archaeology like swasti, om and so forth. Frawley and I are writing a book on that.
How do you know Sanskrit ‘meena’ is a loanword from Proto Dravidian which may never have existed? It is a convenient but hardly convincing argument to attribute such contraditions to ‘loanwords’ and ‘borrowings.’
Why do you think that I am ‘upset’ if IVC is foreign? What has this got do with it? I am myself partly foreign– part Portuguese some generations back. All that is personal and irrelevant. What is ‘foreign’ by the way when it comes to IVC? Political boundaries change all the time, especially over 5000 years.
Going by that, all of us are of foreign origin, African, 40,000 years ago. That is what genetics says. In fact, out latest position is that India in ancient times (post Ice Age) was populated from the south, with coastal people moving northward. This is based on science, natural history and genetics– not the verbal authority of Parpola and Bishop Caldwell brandishing invasions and loan words. One needs to get out of the habit of excessive deference to authority.
The problem is Tamil Nadu scholarship still does not want to challenge Bishop Caldwell’s half-baked theories. He was the Prophet of Dravidianism. A well known Chennai scholar once told me that you cannot criticize Bishop Caldwell and hope to survive in Tamil Nadu. How can you expect to be taken seriously unless you come out of this personality cult-based ‘scholarship’?
Sorry for the longish posting. Will not trouble youagain.
N.S. Rajaram
Mr. Rajaram Sir,
I have a doubt on your agreement with Parpola on ‘min’. As you say, ‘min’ is fish in sanskrit also. However, in dravidian languages, ‘min’ is also used to depict star. In Sanskrit, I didn’t think ‘min’ was a star. Star is ‘sitara’ / ‘tara’ or ‘nakshatra’.
It would be very nice if you could suggest your interpretation of the ‘fish’ symbol. Do you agree that it is trying to denote a star? (half-fish, fish with dot, fish with a roof on it’s head, fish with space || next to it)
Thank you for your comment.
Sreedhar,
I received this response from N.S. Rajaram by email. I have taken his permission to post this on the blog on his behalf.
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The so-called ‘fish symbol’ is the sibilant standing for ‘s’, ‘sh’, shh’
(not distinct in modern Tamil) but distinct in Devanagari, Kannada, Telugu
and others. Parpola makes much of a seal which he reads as consisting of
‘fish’ ||||(top) / |||(bottom).
By using Jha’s approach it is trivial to read it as ‘sh’-'n’+'t’, which
represents SHANTA or SHANTI, which of course means peace or calm in all
Indian languages, ancient and modern.
It is not a fish at all, but simply a phonetic sign for a sibilant. The
seal in question is H-9 given as Figure 10.24 on page 195 of Parpola’s
DECIPHERING THE INDUS SCRIPT.
On page 193 of the same book we have illustrations of fishes on several
Harappan artefacts. They look nothing like the so-called ‘fish sign’. They
are not part of the script.
This is simple and direct and there is no need for a complicated theory.
Jha and I have given hundreds like that in our book THE DECIPHERED INDUS
SCRIPT. Please see also my book SARASVATI RIVER AND THE VEDIC CIVILIZATION
where I have given a more elementary (less technical description) of the
script. Both are published by Aditya Prakashan.
Parpola keeps repeating the falsehood that horses were unknown in India
before the invading (or migrating) Aryans brought them. The truth is that
horses were known in India and Southeast Asia for over a million years.
Even John Marshall, in his classic Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus
Civilization (Volume 2) gives measurements of the horse bones he found. S.R.
Rao and R.S. Bisht and others have found horse remains at Harappan sites.
The problem is their theory has collapsed under the weight of evidence
and they are engaged in diversionary tactics by throwing up a smokescreen of
elaborate theories.
Please see my SARASVATI RIVER… YOU DON’T HAVE TO AGREE WITH ME BUT
IT GIVES A MORE COMPLETE PICTURE.
The whole theory built by Parpola is anthropology model which uses signs
as support. His ‘readings’ of which he has none, is not a decipherment but
used to support his anthropology.
Best wishes,
Rajaram
Rajaram Sir,
Thanks for your response to my points.
1. Proto-Dravidian is a placeholder you are right. but that doesn’t make it hypothetical. It will be fairly easy to carry on with our research using Tamil as it is the closest to Proto-Dravidian. We can say Tamil instead of saying Proto-Dravidian but that may not explain the existence of tribal languages that don’t seem to be a derivative of Tamil. Proto-Indo-European is also a place holder and it has been proven pretty conclusively that Sanskrit is an Indo-European language. We don’t need to even construct Proto-Indo-European because there is no script in Central Asia from the that time for us to decipher.
2. I am sure you will find Vedic symbols in the IVC like swastik, om etc but that is because the process of Aryanization involved adopting IVC symbols. this is a standard technique used for acculturating people into the new culture/religion. This per se doesn’t prove that IVC was Vedic.
3. We know Meena is a loan word because as Sreedhar says Meena was never used as a synonym for Star in Sanskrit. Meen=Star is one of the best interpretations we have today for the fish symbol. I am not able to agree with your Shanti interpretation for fish and neither do i agree with you that the script needs to read left to right. Hope we can agree to disagree.
4. Well, if you read my statement carefully, i am saying we seem to be upset about the idea that Vedic was foreign not IVC was foreign. In fact, several tomes have been written expressly opposing the idea that Vedic people came from outside India. This is the reason for that statement. I am glad that is not the basis for your opposition to the Aryans coming from the outside theory (please note the terms Aryan Invasion are invalid, it was Aryanization, please read my post #6 to know why).
5. Well, we are not relying on any one’s position or power or religious orientation or nationality for our position. It is fairly clear to us based on the evidence that Tamil and the other Dravidian languages are different from Sanskrit and the Indo European languages. If we have to prove that Tamil and Sanskrit are from the same language family we need proof. Just getting upset about Caldwell’s religious background is not enough to counter that.
6. I may have come across as a Parpola admirer/deifier – Witzel/Farmer/Sproat have labelled me as such. I do admire Parpola’s work but i have several disagreements with him. In sum, this blog doesn’t support personality-cult based theories which are dependent on the theorist’s charisma or whatever. If i have given that impression, that is incorrect. The only thing that matters is scientific evidence. Whoever can produce that and can construct a scientifically consistent model generally accepted by practiioners of history/anthropology wins the argument. There is no room for rhetoric.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond to our comments.
Last point and I quit. You have still not learnt to distinguish between hypothesis and fact. I don’t believe in comparative linguistics (philology) at all.
Meen-star type readings can be given by the dozen. It is like doing a puzzle like sukodu.
I see that your mind is made up so I won’t waste any of more of your time. You are not prepared to give up the Tamil-Dravidian dogma. no wonder Parpola is not taken seriously outside Tamil Nadu. After all, he has long enjoyed the patronage of TN politicians.
Thanks Rajaram Sir.
1. I see, you don’t believe comparative linguistics is a valid field of research? Interesting viewpoint. I respectfully disagree.
2. Sure. If Fish=Shanti type interpretations can be done, Fish=Star can also be done. Your research is based on the view that IVC Script encodes Sanskrit and Parpola/Mahadevan’s research is based on the view that it encodes Proto Dravidian. As of now, i support Parpola and Mahadevan. Which is correct, only time will tell.
3. Yes, as of now i support the view that the IVC script is Proto-Dravidian. I don’t agree that it is a dogma. It is as valid a theory as the IVC Script=Sanskrit theory. If that is not Dogma then this is not either.
Frankly, i don’t see this as a waste of time because we are just exchanging views. However, I understand that you may be busy with your research and may not want to continue on this thread. That is fine.
Thanks a lot for stopping by and leaving your views here.
Farmer, Witzel & co – I thought they were reputed historians? They should spend more time in finding evidence to support ther theories, than in ugly mud-slinging.
Their entire retort to Parpola is a gold-mine of logical fallacies. They’ll do well in future to be less strident & more factual.
They should also try to understand Carl Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit”, because some of their arguments reek of baloney. Calling someone a “Nationalist” is the well-worn “Ad Hominem” fallacy in argument. People attack the arguer instead of the argument, when they are illogical or when their theories have no leg to stand on. Desperate people who can’t argue with data resort to smearing.
Another funny thing is, how Messrs Farmer & Witzel ridicule the “Linear B in Mycenea”. Poking holes in another theory doesn’t automatically prove yours. “Linear B” is a tangential point. Parpola has raised several valid questions. They have to be answered in a public forum if Farmer/Witzel want their theories to be accepted.
Oh, and they can see how Parpola’s theories appeal to Tamil Nadu? This is another logical fallacy – “Demolishing the Straw-man”. By insinuating that peope of Tamil Nadu don’t care about history, are “nationalists” about to build a temple for Parpola – they just show us how clueless they are about the intelligentsia in India. We are all idiots who’ll fall for someone that feeds us what we want? And Farmer/Witzel & co are smarter than us 3rd world types? This sneering uppityness is aggravating.
I have news for Messrs Farmer/Witzel & co. “There are people in India like us, who love history & we are not interested in taking any sides. We’ve read your books too – some of them with great pleasure. But, we don’t find your particular argument that Indus Valley Civilization was illiterate convincing. You are deluding yourself if you think we disagree because we are Indians. That’s a petty thing to say about perfect strangers whom you won’t know from Adam. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
If this is how rapidly they’ll generalize & jump to conclusions, I have no illusions about their quality of research.
Mr Rajaram Sir,
I have bought both your books and I will definitely read it thoroughly. On your comment about the horse, I beg to disagree with you.
There is not enough evidence to prove that Equus caballus Linn was available in Indus valley. There is disagreement even amongst scientists on distinguishing bones of Equus asinus (onagers) from Equus caballus (horse). I disagree that horse were tamed by IVC and were used in chariots. There is no evidence to prove it.
Archeologists were able to uncover over 4000+ seals from IVC sites. Why didn’t the civilization leave any signs of horse in any of the seals when they left bull, buffalo, cow, elephant, tiger and other animals. And no sir, I don’t agree with your interpretation of seal Mackay 453 as the horse.
Thanks Priya. Yes, they seem to have concluded that if you respect and appreciate Parpola, you are a nationalist and by extension everything one says must be incorrect. I don’t understand why respecting anyone matters. It is the argument that matters and not what the arguers background is or who the arguer respects.
Steve has told me that if i can produce a rebuttal of my own with proper scientific evidence, he and his group will review it. I will make an attempt and you and Sreedhar can review it and if it passes muster with you both, i will submit it to Steve’s group.
Sukumar – You know what, I’ll review the post, but honestly – I don’t care much for Farmer & his colleagues’ tactics. Unless he takes off the mis-guided, ill-educated comment that states we are “Nationalists”, I’ll continue to pity Farmer & co for their boorishness.
What is this, a conversation between educated, civilized people – or a fight between the Crips & the Bloods? If not, why is Farmer/Witzel & co resorting to personal attacks on people they think are Papola’s side-kicks?
I had high regards for Farmer & Witzel. That was before I saw their clumsy attempt at smearing opposition of any kind. What entitles them to shoot their mouths off? Seriously now. The 1 thing worse than an uneducated churl is a highly educated one.
Sukumar,
I didn’t see the comment about discussing your post in the yahoo group that you listed. I went through a few previous posts, but I couldn’t find it. Am I missing something?
Well they didn’t call my name out. But they refer to me as a nationalist and that i am deifying Parpola. Do you want the actual post references?
Sukumar,
I think your hard work and determination about finding truth might annoying somebody, that’s why, all name calling and personal attack happening. We are early waiting for your next post. At least we can try to achieve some break through here, other than simply declare that IVC people were uneducated but they built majestic cities, trade far away western countries and top notch supply chain management etc…
Subba
Thanks a lot for your kind words Subba. I am working on the next post. The research is taking more time than expected.
Can we draw a parallel with USA and how migration made different native American cultures being submerged. Of course there is force as well. It is recent history, well documented and completely wiped out Native American heritage. (we may not call it civilization)
Vamsi,
I received this response from N.S. Rajaram via email for your question.
—
You cannot argue from analogy and call it proof. We can draw the
analogies of the Parsis migrating to India from Persia after the Islamic
conquest of their homeland. They didn’t wipe out the native culture of
India.
Look to Southeast Asia– Thailand, Indonesia, especially Cambodia.
Indian culture influenced it without destroying them. In the region, only
the Philippines has no identity, except as a colony of the Spanish. Even its
name is from King Philip of Spain. It is the aggressive nature of
Christianity that led to the destruction of native cultures both in the
Philippines and the Americas.
We must not confuse between assimilation and annihilation. But first, we
need to provide evidence of large scale intrusion of people. It can be from
the theory itself to be used as proof.
N.S. Rajaram
Thank you for your time and effort to think of my point – Sukumar and Rajaram sirs.
Parsis have self imposed conditional migration into the Sindhi/Gujarathi area as per legend. They could not intermarry the locals, that also allows them not to influence.
Christianity – I beg to differ. It is not an isolationist religion unlike Islam. We dont need to go far to understand influence of Islam. There is a very good proof of how Wahaabi form of Islam is being a threat to the local culture in Bangladesh. There is an increase in learning Arabic and less tolerance. But Christianity usually assimilates unless during the time of colonial powers using religion as a tool to old their grip on the local populace.
Regarding IVC influence – since the subcontinent is a single land mass, all religions – IVC or Aryan vedic religion should have equal opportunities to spread. We know that these east asian region including Thailand, Cambodia etc are influenced by Hinduism. But is there any evidence that pre-vedic IVC religion has spread/influenced any of these countries.
Rajaram Sir and Vamsi,
Interesting discussion. In my view, all religions when faced with acculturating or assimilating people into their fold use a variety of techniques including violence. Rare is the circumstance in history where one population was invaded and by force the entire population was converted. Even the marauding spanish conquistadors had to still acculturate the Latin American people. They couldn’t simply force convert everyone. Violence was definitely used much more by the Spanish than anyone else.
Americans also used a variety of techniques including violence.
Great Indian Kings Raja Raja Chola and Rajendra Chola, to whom, the Hindu influence in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia could be attributed to, did use violence. While they may not have used violence as the predominant option, violence was a part of the repertoire.
When the Hindus in Tamilnadu exterminated the Jains (Samanas), a lot of violence including some horrendous things like impaling were used.
People moving around and the more powerful people, overcoming local people and assimilating them to the new culture/religion by hook or crook is a given in History.
No major national or political or ethnic or religious group of modern day can claim the “holier-than-thou” attitude saying “we never used violence etc.” it is an argument not supported by facts.
Sukumar, Thank you for giving a different perspective. I see it clear now.
Hi Sukumar
At the outset, this is a fantastic blog .I just discovered this goldmine of knowledge courtesy Varnam.The research that goes in to your posts is awe-inspiring. The vibrant exchange in comments section makes it real learning experience.While tend to consider myself a cultural ‘nationalist’ , I am making an earnest attempt to broaden my horizon by refraining from taking reductionist view of history.I think your blog is a great place to start
Thanks for the kind words Prasanna. You made our day here at this blog.
Sukumar,
/** I am sure you will find Vedic symbols in the IVC like swastik, om etc but that is because the process of Aryanization involved adopting IVC symbols. this is a standard technique used for acculturating people into the new culture/religion. **/
So far, The presence of swastic and Om symbols are interpreted in two extreme ways, as either native or through aryanisation..
I would like to take a middle path.. These symbols could have been the result of communications & contacts b/w aryans and IVC people.. in that case, it can be mutual influence.. Just like Buddhism influenced Tibetan cultures (it has been found that IVC traded with mesapotamia and sumerian cultures)
Similarly, the western historians approach is that when two languages have similarities, both should have come from common ancestry.. why cant it be that two laguages could have simultaneously evolved, with mutual influence? I dont have enough evidence, but, i just mentioned this to explore alternate views.. Probably, some of the similarities in greek and sanskrit languages could have been through mutual influences..
Secondly, considering that IVC people had mastered in agriculture, its more probably that they could have predominantly migrated and indulged in farming in gangetic plain… In that case, both aryans and IVC people could have co-habitated taking different roles in the evolving society, unlike the theory of aryanisation and aryan dominance..
Thirdly, as i said in my earlier comments, the present of large elephatic fleets, is a significant and unique feature, that’s absent in western and central asian civilizations.
fourthly, after reading N.S. Rajaram sir’s comments, i feel, we need to take evidences as it is.. For example, instead of seeing finding such as “min==star, fish signs, saptha kannigas == seven women in IVC seals, and other things, as mere archeological, material & linguistic evidences, we have been attempting to arrive at two extreme definitive conclusion as either aryanisation or out of india concept.. we can keep options open taking inputs 7 evidences from both theories, and wait for future findings/ discoveries across multitude dimensions..
Part-6 of this series is titled as “Aryan Invasion Theory”.. but you have agreed in that post that invasion doesnt happen.. I feel, the title is misleading, and influences the reader more…
And your agreement that violence did not happen negates max-mullers theory itself..
considering the fact that with few signs and linguistic similarities, we cannot come to such elaborated history, that too of invasion type, there are enough reasons, that constructing such violent historic theory could not be proper..
Also, i have noted that you have dealt with the concept of violence, in wrong context.. Violence is too generic term to give a negative connotation.. waging a war is violence, but it was a must on the part of nation still now.., Even IVC people could have waged wars.. so, sensitising violence, could distract our views..
——————————————————————————————-
Lastly, the historian’s societal and religious background plays a vital role.. Unlike Indian subcontinent, which is exposed to numerous cultures and philosophies, much of Europe was confined only to christian theory and religion, for thousand years.. the nearby religions like judaism and islam are also semitic which shares the similar character..
Considering this, and also the immense white supremacy racism that existed till 19th century, historian like max muller could have indirectly affected by these cultural and ideological implications.. (Just as you said in earlier posts, that it has been difficult to see history out of vedic culture)..
some of the Key point i observed are:
1. Aryans are group of tribes.. as per wikipedia, more than 10 tribes were present in central asia.. generalising everything under single name is not proper.. this may be due to the fact of homogenety of christianity, that made them think, all people can exist as one single race..
2. There could have been numerous communities that could have existied in IVC.. Yet, we are seeing them as one homogenous sect..
3. Max muller has adopted racist view instead of seeing them as another tribe…, and his conclusion of aryan invasion concept could have been influenced by his christian belief and background.. it may not be intentional, but his thoughts and approach could have been indirectly influenced.
Senthil,
1. What i am offering via Aryanization is the middle path. All religions when they acculturate local people,, adopt local symbols. And yes, they do that due to local influence and also to do change management better. You can never rip out the existing symbols of a culture and replace them by new ones however powerful the new people and the new religion is. There is nothing new here nor anything to be ashamed of. Several Hindu ideas are incorporated from Buddhism and Jainism.
2. Common ancestry is often used when you find variations of a single theme. For instance, Avestan and RV Indra is Zeus in Greece and the Storm God in Hittite. In case of India, we have clear evidence of a local religious substrate and the new religion modifying itself. For instance, Siva & Vishnu & Brahma are not important in the RV but later became important because they had to amalgamate a local trinity. The common origin argument does not arise here.
3. IVC cities are in the North West. We have not found any IVC city in the Indogangetic plains. Even if we find one later it is not highly relevant because the Aryans entered the Northwest and their first encounters are with the IVC people in the North West.
4. As i said before, elephant fleets appear in 325 BC. Why is that relevant to what happened in 1700 BC and in 3200 BC the start of the IVC?
5. Senthil, you can keep as many options open as you want. My position is clear to me – Aryans came from the outside and Aryanized the local people. This is the only view that is supported by currently available evidence and i stand by that conclusion.
6. I never said there was no violence. In fact, i argued that there was violence involved and additionally it is corroborated by the RV people talking about how they destroyed the local people. However small these destructions maybe, it is violence all the same. At the sametime, there is no evidence of a large scale war. This is why i called it Aryanization and not Aryan Invasion. I titled the post “Aryan Invasion Theory” because that is the subject matter. If that title prevented you from reading the post it is not my problem. Most other commenters read the post and commented on it.
7. Violence is negative. There is no connotation here. Violence was used by the Aryans against the local people. If you don’t agree with that, you are welcome to have that view. As i said before the evidence for violence is present in the RV. There is no evidence of IVC people waging wars. In fact, it is one of the surprising things about IVC in that they were non-militaristic.
8. Max Mueller’s theories about Aryans and Aryan Invasion fell out of favor a long time ago. Please don’t argue with me about Max Mueller. I am sick and tired of it. None of what i have said in my posts is based on anything Max Mueller said. And also human race based theories are also outdated. It is only the genetic markers that are relevant. So to your argument about multiple tribes, you are right, but those that came to India carried the R1A1 genetic marker which was prevalent in Central Asia at that time. You are also right in that IVC people belonged to multiple groups, but they carried M* genetic marker. So if you don’t like the words Aryan and Dravidian you can use the words R1A1 people and M* people if that will help you. It is a well known fact that homogeneity is a function of people using same religion, culture and not racial similarities. Again you can call the Aryans by any name you want, they were homogeneous because they used the same culture and religion (those that came to India). In the same way, IVC people used the same religion and culture even if they were speaking different languages.
In fact, you in your posts paint the entire Islamic community as one eventhough you know that there are multiple genetic markers, nationalities, languages involved, but you treat all Islamic people as one. Why do you do that? You are okay with doing that, but here we are grouping people based on a single genetic marker R1A1 and you don’t like that?
I have said this many time before. First, make up your mind on your position – one of the first things is, did the Aryans (or whatever name) come from outside or not? Arguing with me and trying to disprove what i have said does not prove your point that Aryans are indigenous. You need to come up with your own proof for that.
Sukumar – Well said!
Senthil – I am not sure where you are going with this “Swastik, om symbols, IVC from gangetic plains etc” – Before you start re-writing where IVC flourished, it would make sense for you to say what your position is – On second thoughts, may be not!
You are suggesting that IVC was having trade relations with Aryans and that Aryans were in the northwest and IVC was in the gangetic plains. Any reason why you think that IVC was trading with Aryans. Indo-Europeans were pastoral and were moving from place to place where water and other natural resources were available. What is your theory on what they were trading with IVC?
You make the characterization that Historians all have a theological axe to grind (as they all have Christian background) – you seem to be going to Rajaram’s school a lot. Isn’t what you are suggesting a little below the belt – can’t argue with the points that they are making, so let me argue against them and paint them all as western historians with Christian theological background. So, that leaves only Asians and especially Indians to come up with theories / proof of IVC. Even in them, if someone sides with the western historians, they must be left-leaning and belonging to marxist school of thought and hence need to be discounted, not based on the proof of what they are saying, but based on characterizing them on religious / social belief. Perfect! that will help History.
Please leave your bias out. That might help you see things in a new light. If that doesn’t work, you have to figure out how to publish a history book that suits your taste. Good luck!
Sukumar,
Your post title, made me take sides, but did not prevent me from reading your posts.
I realised, that locking in to this either or may not help me.. i want to take a middle path, exploring other possibilites.
I am presenting few of my views here , for the relevance of the subject.. Its not to counter any theory..
* IVC gods accepted by Aryans means, IVC people might be strong and hence aryans could have accepted their gods.. This can be a possibility.
* The presence of elephant fleet as far as 525 BC (asper wikipedia), is an important factor, that i feel is ignored. Particularly, if we look at the location where alexander waged war, it falls in and around IVC area. (the unified punjab region, where porus ruled).. Considering the timeline, to tame, and master the skill of training them, its possible, that this may go back to few centuries or even Millenuim
* Horse was said to be brought from central asia by aryans.. In that case, what was the mode of transport of IVC people before that.. Considering the large building built by them, we can assume, atleast Elephants might have been tamed, for use in transport of big materials..
* The new discovery of Dry River Bed along rajasthan, and around 1500 Harappan sites along this dry river bed..
* Considering such large area of civilization, there should have been diverse people and tribes living in IVC.. and there is enough possibility that wars could have taken place… Also, the IVC people who used mathematcis, geometry, to design cities and buildings, should have been very well mastered the war tactics..
To project IVC people as non-warring group seems to be an attempt to demonize aryans, by projecting them to have subjugated a peaceful people.. (an agenda, wished by those colonial britishers)
——————————————–
The above points are not to support or reject either aryanisation of saraswathi civilization.. just a small attempt to alternate opinions.
.
Even Bala gangadhar Tilak attributed aryans to have come from arctic region.. so, there is no point in hindutva people sticking to nativity of aryans to IVC..
Sridhar,
So far, only 2% of the identified IVC sites have been excavated.. So, why should we come to any conclusion prematurely? That too to conclude that aryans subjugated dravidians..- a theory used for psychological attack .. Comparing the amount of excavations done in Egypt, its only part of that effort put in iVC which was larger than egytian civilization.
I dont say IVC existed in Gangetic plains.. Rather, i said, that its the IVC people, who should have moved to gangetic plains later..
When IVC people were trading with mesopotamia, there is possibility that they might have traded with other people, including aryans.. I dont have enough evidence on items traded.. probably, even horses could have been traded.. another thing is that existence of trade was found through IVC seals in mesopotamia..
This is also a probability.. IVC people who build such large buildings might have built chariots also, using their technical expertise and traded this with others.. This may not be true.. but, it can be a possibility..
Regarding western historians, do you feel, we should never doubt them and all were authentic? Whatever they wrote, we should accept as it is..
my point is this.. Most of us have rejected thet Aryan Invasion theory.. Now, the question is how come Max Muller come with such absurd theory, and many others supporting it… It can be an error by them, or may be part of conspiracy..
If its conspiracy, then we can easily trace it to british authorities of that time..
If it is unintentional, then i could only trace to their religious and social backgrounds..
If you have any reason, on why max muller proposed such wrong theory, please let me know.
Even in present cirucumstances, we could see heavy ideological leanings.. the communists & marxists supporting chinese.. the Hindu & NDTV, becoming chinese voice..
So, there is every reason to doubt historians….
Senthil,
Sometimes, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry after reading your comments. In this case, I’ll use laughter. This is regarding your comment http://www.sastwingees.org/2008/03/07/the-real-history-of-india-part-8-parpola-lecture-disproves-farmerwitzelsproat/#comment-2760
You say “i want to take a middle path, exploring other possibilites” – Ahh! the age-old approach. I see you’re learning from the right-wing approaches – theory of evolution, Pagan civilization, holocaust etc have all had/have alternative theories. Nice going!
You say “IVC gods accepted by Aryans means, IVC people might be strong” – I don’t think you understand the context. If I come to live with you in your house, and you are used to eating dinner at 8:00 and I am used to eating at 6:00pm, I am not going to insist that we eat dinner at 6:00pm. That doesn’t make me necessarily weak! I want to blend in. There’s a difference between blending in because you’re a minority, vs. being weak. When the british came and ruled india, they accepted the native rules and let them rule as long as they paid taxes. We were also allowed to go to our places of worship and pray to whoever we wanted. Does that mean that the britishers were weak?
You say “elephant fleet as far as 525 BC” – I am assuming that you’re implying that IVC had elephants tamed and so would have been stronger compared to Aryans – Yes, there are seals depicting domestication of elephants in IVC, but there’s no evidence that they were used in war. In fact, there’s no evidence of war in IVC. Even today, of the 60,000 elephants in India, only 14,000 of them are domesticated. Refer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant
You say “what was the mode of transport of IVC people ” – Have you heard of this concept called Bullock-cart. It’s the one where they put two bulls in the front of a cart. There are bull-carts in terracotta in IVC. Who says that you need elephants for building houses. How many elephants do you see walking around building sites. You see a lot of people, right!
You say “The new discovery of Dry River Bed along rajasthan” – I have said this before and I’ll say it again – don’t read too much into N.Rajaram. First of all, there’s no clear proof that Saraswati existed. Avesta also talks about Harahwati. It’s a possibility that the river is a mythical river. The proof that people use to say that Gagghar hakra (a monsoon river in Rajasthan) is saraswati is to use the description given in Rig Veda – We are supposed to look at the rivers given in Rig veda from east to west (god knows who or why that’s the case) and assume that the writers didn’t use any poetic license. The fallacy in this argument is this – there’s no physical proof of Aryans existing in India prior to 1700BC. So, the hindutvas want to create that proof matching gaggar hakra to saraswati river. Why do you think there’s a dispute in accepting this if there’s scientific evidence to match the river to saraswati – don’t tell me it’s a conspiracy.
You say “Considering such large area of civilization, there should have been diverse people and tribes living in IVC.. and there is enough possibility that wars could have taken place” – Yes, you are right. There is evidence that IVC was fighting with people from Mars and some from Pluto as well
Nice conjecture, and your proof, my dear sir is….
You say “reject either aryanisation of saraswathi civilization” – Ahhhh! there comes your bias. No sane person calls IVC as Saraswathi civilization. No where in IVC is saraswathi covered, unless you’ve already deciphered the script and figured it out for yourself. By calling IVC as saraswathi civilization, you’re doing what the Hindutvas do – recast history to suit your needs because you don’t like the history that’s staring you in your face.
Senthil,
This is in response to your comment http://www.sastwingees.org/2008/03/07/the-real-history-of-india-part-8-parpola-lecture-disproves-farmerwitzelsproat/#comment-2761
Dear fellow, whatever your perceived weaknesses could be, I see that tenacity is not one of them.
You say “So, why should we come to any conclusion prematurely? That too to conclude that aryans subjugated dravidians..- a theory used for psychological attack” – didn’t realize that your psyche is that weak. Neither did I realize that you have tested yourself to be an Aryan and one of your forefathers was Indra. Come on! We have to be careful in these days. Next thing you know, there might be claims from “Western Historians” that the British ruled India! We have such a weak psyche and a complex growing, we might fall apart anytime. Boooo! Hooo!
You say “When IVC people were trading with mesopotamia, there is possibility that they might have traded with other people, including aryans” – Yes, yes, I agree. They were also trading with people from Mars and Pluto. I keep telling that to the so called “western historians”, but they are asking me for this stupid thing called “proof”. I am thinking about starting a “Indian historian” society to write history the way Indians can feel proud about. Looks like you’re interested in joining. I asked you a simple question – Where were the aryans living and what were they trading with IVC? If you have theories on that, please publish.
You say “This is also a probability.. IVC people who build such large buildings might have built chariots also” – Yes, I agree with you on this as well. They even had space shuttle, well, it’s a possibility. Again, there seems to be some conspiracy by “western historians” – they keep saying that we didn’t have microwaves or we didn’t have flights. Look at Ramayana – Ravana used a flight to take Sita, Nala used a microwave to cook food without fire. Why aren’t these guys understanding this proof. Booohooo!
You say “Regarding western historians, do you feel, we should never doubt them and all were authentic” – No, we shouldn’t. Many of them, however, seem to be interested in truth – unless that bothers you. I can ask you the same question – Do you think you should never doubt so called “historians” coming from India – ex: Rajaram and Jha – they don’t claim that they are even historians, but are preaching history.
You say “how come Max Muller come with such absurd theory” – Give the dead guy a break, will you! He lived from 1823 – 1900. I am sure you do realize that the first excavation of IVC was done in 1920s (yes, there was talks about lost city before that in 1840s and 1850s, but no excavation). I don’t think Max Muller proposed AIT over IVC. He didn’t even knew IVC existed. Let’s get our theories right, shall we. He saw resemblance between Sanskrit and other european languages. He proposed that there’s commonality between IE and sanskrit speaking people. Take what you think is worth in what he has given and stop spitting on a dead man. Again, don’t read too much into what Hindutvas say Muller’s work was – Read it first hand for yourself.
You say “Even in present cirucumstances, we could see heavy ideological leanings.. the communists & marxists supporting chinese” – Wow! Do you use the “Saraswati river civilization” book as bible. You seem to be quoting a lot from the book. My dear fellow – You are too quick to throw sh.t on everyone and everything around you – be careful though – you don’t realize that you and your hands would soon start stinking.
Sreedhar,
Thanks for responding to Senthil with 2 insightful comments. You saved me a lot of effort.
Senthil,
I am only responding to those points Sreedhar has not already covered or if i have an additional point.
1. Your prior comments clearly indicated that you had not read my post but were still commenting. Maybe now you have turned around and actually read my post, but your comments still don’t talk anything about what i wrote.
2. Saraswathi was not important to the Rig Vedic people. Please read my Aryan Invasion theory post again for data points on that. As Sreedhar says, Saraswati is Harahvati which is Helmund flowing still in Afghanistan. Ghaggar hakra could not be Saraswathi if you go by Saraswati’s description in the RV. I would suggest you read a RV translation.
As Sreedhar says, you seem to paint anyone opposed to your views as having a ideological or conspiratorial bias. But somehow you and the Hindutvavadis don’t have any ideological bias? Don’t throw stones when you live in a glass house – Old jungle saying.
Sridhar,
Sarcasm is not a reply.. you have cleverly evaded direct answer to my questions.. I did not say, our psyche is weak, or muller proposed his theory on IVC.. please read my comments again..
/** you seem to have lived during Alexander period and you seem to know what the army feared and what they thought **/
You have made the above comment in the previous post.. it applies to your own comment made in this post .. you have written as though, “You lived on those days and have guided those aryans all the way to come and subjugate IVC people.. probably, you might have taught them, how to impose aryan religion on IVC people.. great..
i am again saying sarcasm is not the reply.. your whole response, was just as similar as my above sarcastic lines…
I already made it clear.. I am not for locking myself in to either or theory.. i decided to treat evidence as evidence, and not form any theory on it.. the evidence can be interpreted in various ways.. and i am just sharing my points..
I clearly mentioned, that due to the relevance of the post with the subject, i am commenting my points here..
/*** Give the dead guy a break, will you! **/
Never.. he is the source of all problems so far.. and his ghost still remains in the title of part-6 of this series.. Will you ever acknowledge, that his theory has been used for all wrong purposes and used as psychological blow.. his theory has been used to project that india did not have anything in its country, and all that is great in it is brought by the nomadic aryans..
my point on his background is still valid.. ie, his coming from racist society, and from a monotheist, exclusive religion, which could have influenced him propose this theory..
I found yet another instance on how racism incluenced biased history of nubia..
http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi1/1_retel1.htm
Regarding marxists, communsts.. i have given examples.. the hindu, ndtv, and the barking communists and maoists, who say china & russia is ok, and america is NOT.. there cannot be better example of their biasness than this stance.. and their anti-Hindu stance is open secret..
So, no point in opposing each other.. and i am sure, i will get another sarcastic reply from you, portraying me in cheaper tone.. all the best..
Senthil,
You revel in labelling and attacking people who have opposing views, but you get very upset with sarcasm. Have i cited Max Mueller in any of my posts? Please stop attacking people. If you want to do that, please be prepared to receive attacks as well. You can find flaws in Mueller’s theories. Nothing wrong with that. but to call him a racist is a personal attack. If you attack people you will get some yourself.
I think Sreedhar has adequately answered your points. But instead of reading his response, you got offended by his sarcasm. Which question of yours has been unanswered? Please point out, and we will answer it for you.
You are yet to write a single comment that concerns the subject matter of my AIT post. did you read it besides the title which seems to offend you so much, although right in the prolog i explain why Aryan Invasion is not accurate? The post also clearly shows why the RV could not be about the IVC. I am yet to see a comment on that. Instead you want to pick very old theories to just argue over and over the same point or some irrelevant point about elephants in the Battle of Hadapses. It does not appear you are interested in the truth unless it suits your political views. Unfortunately (for you), history is a scientific pursuit and it does not have room for accomodating your political views. If you need to read a view of Indian history that matches your political views, please stick to reading the books by Hindutvavadis.
You keep pointing out irrelevant things. This pbs link you cite has nothing to do with IVC. How many instances of racism practiced by Indians you want me to show you? Does that make all Indians racist? The caste system is the greatest example of systemic racism in the history of humankind. We have no right to be talking down to anyone about racism.
Senthil,
I went through your original comment addressed to me again. I didn’t see a question of yours that I missed. If you can point it out, there’ll definitely be a response. I take your point about sarcasm. You have tried sarcasm in your response – I like it, but I am missing the point that you are making with your sarcasm.
I promise to avoid sarcasm with you if you promise to avoid below-the-belt character assassination. Deal!
You claim that you’re neutral and you haven’t locked yourself into any one theory. That’s news to me. For an unbiased person, all your “points” seem to side with Vedic civilization. You don’t care to read the post and the points that Sukumar is making for IVC. I’d like you to quote one point you’ve made for what Sukumar is proposing in this post. Then, I’ll agree that you’re unbiased and logical. Ranting and raving about marxist, communist, muller, china, russia etc doesn’t make your point relevant.
I am sorry that you feel that “i will get another sarcastic reply from you, portraying me in cheaper tone”. I haven’t tried to ridicule you, I’ve tried to ridicule the “logic” or lack thereof in the points you’re making.
/**
When the british came and ruled india, they accepted the native rules and let them rule as long as they paid taxes. We were also allowed to go to our places of worship and pray to whoever we wanted. Does that mean that the britishers were weak?
**/
There cannot be a great lie than this.. do you believe, that british created paradise for this.. There cannot be better insult to our nation than this..
This is the core problem with us.. They came, and fought with our kings for 100 years.. yet, we tell, that only we allowed them to occupy..
They destroyed the entire political class of our country, and unsurped total control of the kingdom from them.. yet we tell, they accepted native rulers..
They destroyed the agriculture backbone of india, and forced bengal farmers to cultivate opium.. yet, we are not concerned with those.. we hail they build dams for us..
They built, railways, for transporting the looted wealth to their country.. and we hail them, that they gave us extensive railway network..
they created first class seating exclusive for britishers, and did not allow indians.. they publicly displayed boards “Indians and dogs are not allowed”.. yet we never mention those, and in turn praise they brought equality.
Most important is, that still there are many who believe, We are extremely poor, backward, and even barbaric, and did not have much wealth or knowledge, forgetting the facts, that the very purpose of british invasion is towards our amazing wealth, and that such large amount of wealth is not possible, without education or knowledge..
They are just convinced, “Britishers came and enlightened us..”
————————————————————————————–
Why i am mentioning all these.. its for two reasons..
1. The extremely biased positive opinion of yours, made you believe they were right, thus ignoring their racism, and white supremacy tendency.
2. When there is so much of biased view of very recent history, it need not be said, how much inconsistency, would be the concept of aryanisation or aryan subjugation, or for the same reason, even the OUT of India concept & saraswati civilization, could not be held authentic or concrete right..
————————————————————————
I will just conclude with my points..
The very starting of this series started with contering the hindutvavadis, and hence, i felt, sukumar has taken the side of supporting the other side.. i initially took the opposite position. But later, i realised, that we are fitting evidences to our theories, rather than attempting to understand it as it is. Like, instead of finding a solution to a problem, we are imposing a solution to a problem.
So i felt, we need an all inclusive approach, to understand this history, as opposed to ideological leanings.
Sridhar,
let me add more fodder to your sarcasm.. keep your spirit going in denouncing me..
The RV people are NOT idol worshippers (because they are nomadic and not settled one).. but, later, they embraced idol worship from IVC..
None of their gods, like indra are worshipped in India.. This aspect is completely sidelined..
God Muruga is an IVC god.. and yet, as per purana, he fought against asuras.. from this, it can be interpreted that the RV people would have sought the help of IVC chiefs to fight against asuras. the war most probably could have happened in IVC area..
The IVC seals which contained figures of Bulls, did not contain, any cow.. Does it mean, there was no cow there in IVC?
And your concept, that IVC people built such great cities & buildings, just by using Bullock carts.. great.. you could have seen many tamil films.. those who have mastered mathematics, geometry, arts and crafts, miserably did not know anything other than bullock cart.. Probably, they could have travelled all the way to mesopotamia, through this cart..
Senthil,
I don’t quite understand the language of “ranting and raving”. You have to start typing in English or Tamil or Hindi.
Are you out of your mind – What do you mean by “The extremely biased positive opinion of yours, made you believe they were right, thus ignoring their racism, and white supremacy tendency” – I don’t construct my opinions based on who is giving the theory. I base it on what they are saying. What has any of this got to do with this post, anyway.
If you’re expecting me to agree with you, you have to make an argument and it has to be logical. You can’t have a brain fart and type what comes to your mind and attribute it to me and expect me to nod. And if this is your veiled attempt at bullying me, sorry pal, you picked the wrong guy – I don’t go down that easy.
I am glad you are concluding. BTW, you haven’t offered a single shred of evidence for “your side”. Conjectures and off-hand opinions are not evidence.
Senthil,
From here on, I am going to respond to your comment only if a) it contains a logical point b) if it is relevant to the post. Your comment http://www.sastwingees.org/2008/03/07/the-real-history-of-india-part-8-parpola-lecture-disproves-farmerwitzelsproat/#comment-2782 doesn’t meet either of these criteria.
Sridhar.. thanks.. i did not take your sarcasm seriously, as its part of the game..
.. only thing is that i raised those points without taking sides, with a view that why cant there be any other alternate way to those two extreme sides.. It just striked me, when i again reread this subject, during my medical rest for 2 weeks,
Still, i am seen from the opposite camp.. I am not defending any one..
let me consolidate the discussions so far on my side..
—————————————————————–
Where i go with sukuamar..
-> Point 4 in the starting of the post, on the point, that IVC is advanced.
-> avestans as asuras,
Where i dont go.
-> IVC did not wage wars
-> Aryanisation or aryan subjugating IVC.
-> Dravidian/Aryan divide
-> Too much importance on Parpola.
Middle Path:
-> Aryans coming from outside. – depends on the border we define for india.
-> Saraswathi Civilization – Possibility, as the dry river bed is recently confirmed by BARC..
-> Taming of horses.. but, horses could have been present all over..
Deviation from two extremes:
-> Possibility of earlier contacts of IVC with Northern tribals, (who might be grouped as Aryans).
-> Elephants as important aspect, thats so far neglected. Time line for evolving of use of elephants in war.
-> no continuity of aryanisation concept with later day history.
-> Aryans/IVC co-existing or co-habitating.
-> RV adopting idol worship from IVC.
-> RV ignoring their own god, and adopting IVC’s shiva,vishnu, brahma & skanda.
-> Possibility of Later day agamas by RV, for IVC gods.
-> Possibility that Horses could have spread all over the continent, before humans attempted to tame it.
———————————————————————-
This is my position so far.
I think, i again started commenting in this post, following Rajaram sir’s comment here.. His argument that an analogy is not a proof is quite convincing.. particularly, the following point of Rajaram sir’s seems to be acceptable to me.
“You cannot present conclusions based on conjecture as fact. Proto Dravidian, like Proto Indo European is a hypothetical language that is based on a belief and a linguistic model. It cannot be accepted as empirical evidence.”
Proto-Indo european language is a proposed or assumed one, .. this is where, i suspected, that the concept of mankind’s root to adam & eve who in turn from a single father, in christianity would have influenced the historians, to propose a hierarchial structure for languages.
On sukumar’s side, the most convincing point to me is the following..
Yes, as of now i support the view that the IVC script is Proto-Dravidian. I don’t agree that it is a dogma. It is as valid a theory as the IVC Script=Sanskrit theory. If that is not Dogma then this is not either.
Both are not dogma.. it would be only beneficial, if research is done on both..
And the following is NOT accepetable to me, and this is also one of the reason, for me to comment again.
I am sure you will find Vedic symbols in the IVC like swastik, om etc but that is because the process of Aryanization involved adopting IVC symbols. this is a standard technique used for acculturating people into the new culture/religion. This per se doesn’t prove that IVC was Vedic.
IVC need not be RV.. But, sukumar’s conclusion of aryanisation, is what i am disagreeing here.. rest in my earlier comments..
———————————————————
Barring few sensitive issues, other interpretations as given in this post are very informative. I did not have any disagreement with that, although i felt, there may be other interpretations possible.. so i did not comment on those..
———————————————-
Thanks for the opportunity given to me so far..
Sreedhar,
Many many hearty congratulations on this historical event on this blog – Senthil actually commented something about the subject matter of my posts after what is likely to be a discussion that spans over 100s of comments from Senthil and our responses to Senthil.
Senthil,
I am very pleased that you finally have decided to actually talk about my post. No sarcasm intended.
Senthil,
I am responding to this comment http://www.sastwingees.org/2008/03/07/the-real-history-of-india-part-8-parpola-lecture-disproves-farmerwitzelsproat/#comment-2786
1. I never said Avestans are Asuras. Where did i say that?
2. What do you mean by too much importance to Parpola? I support Parpola/Mahadevan that the IVC language was proto-dravidian. Right in my post i have disagreed with many things Parpola said.
3. Aryans coming from outside depends on how India is defined. Please make up your mind on one thing first. Are the Aryans and the IVC people the same or different? Where they came from is the next question. There is no country called India in the shape and form we see it today until we became Independent. Ashoka who is arguably the king with the most of current day India under his rule did not rule the Chera, Chola, Pandya kingdoms of Tamilnadu/Kerala. Even the British ruled only about 60% of present day India, the other 40% were princely states which Sardar Patel annexed into India in a masterstroke of inspired nation building efforts just after independence.
4. IVC people having contact with Northern Aryan Tribals. This is definitely a possibility. How does that affect the fact that IVC people’s culture was amalgamated into the Aryan culture?
5. Saraswathi as Ghaggar Hakra. This argument is useless even if it is true. The RV, the oldest Aryan document doesn’t even mention Saraswati enough number of times. I also proved why RV could not be about a riverine civilization like IVC. This is a deadend which the Hindutvavadis are promoting to extend the date of RV to pre-IVC days.
6. Horses could have been present all over. That may be the case, but they were not present in the IVC. You need to show evidence of Horses, Chariots and spoked wheels being used in tandem in the IVC. This is another deadend being pursued by Hindutvavadis to revise the RV dates.
7. We have already covered elephants ad nauseum. This is another deadend. if you believe otherwise, please do some research on your own.
8. How do you know what my position is on the Aryanization in medieval India? My series is now at 1700 BC or so. I do plan and will write about Medieval and Modern India sometime in the future. In fact i chose the term Aryanization because it fits very well with what happened later as well.
9. RV adopting idol worship. I don’t know how you are sure about this? All the Indo European people worshipped idols wherever they went.
10. The Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Skanda being adopted from IVC? That is not what i said. you didn’t read my post. Brahma, Vishnu are RV Gods, Shiva was equated to Rudra who is also a RV God. Skanda is not part of the holy trinity of Hinduism. Whereas Skanda whose IVC name was Murugan was part of the IVC trinity. The only IVC god to make it to the RV trinity was Siva who was actually a god of love but it was distroted to mean god of destruction. This is how subjugation happens, taking the native gods and symbols and incorporating them to form the new modified conquerors’s religion. this is what christianity did, islam did. The evidence of Hinduism’s absorptive nature still continues with the absorption of Jain and Buddha concepts as well.
11. Again the taming of horses.
12. Once the IVC people were assimilated what is the big deal with the Agamas?
13. You only quoted part of my response to rajaram. Proto Indo European is a hypothetical construct to talk about how Sanskrit, Greek and the other Indo European languages evolved from the mother language which is being called as proto indo european by the historians. It remains hypothetical because there is no script in central asia to decipher. Whereas since the IVC has a script we need to decipher by actually using proto dravidian (tamil being the closest we have to that language). Rajaram doesn’t believe in comparative linguistics as he said in his comment in response to my comment. The fact that he doesn’t believe in that field where numerous linguists are working even as we speak is just his opinion.
14. The above discussion has nothing to do with Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve is a concept from the Bible as you know. No responsible historian uses the Bible as a historical document to take dates etc from. It does give a lot of clues to what might have happened. Interestingly, genography researchers have found the Adam and Eve all of humanity has descended from and traced it to Africa. You can goto the National Geographic project and check it out. The link is in my Gond post.
15. On the last point about Swastik etc. What is your position? If you don’t agree with something, you need to say why you are disagreeing? IVC was Vedic is the only other position that could explain Swastik in IVC, right? Please read my posts again and this comment again to understand why the IVC could not have been Vedic.
Sukumar,
I read your post earlier.. Since i focussed on few things, it might appear, i havent read..
I will take some days to explore your comment..
ok. thanks.
A LETTER TO RAJARAM AND HIS INDUS HORSE
The Mythology of the Vedic Horse
The discovery of the ruins of the Indus Civilization in northern India remained
virtually unknown for decades until Indian writers and historians realized that they
were overlooking something of historical importance for their country’s history. The
gradual archaeological evidence from the exposed ruins excited Indian academia so
much so that they began to formulate a new history for India’s history to equate it
with Rig Vedic Civilization, a latecomer to the Indian subcontinent. The rush to bind
the suburban Indus with the pages of Vedic steppe life ran into a brick wall literally,
with the total archaeological absence of the horse and chariot in its ruins, the two
most central innovations brought by the Indo-Europeans from the vast steppes of
Russia and together with the rite of cremation as the central focus of their religion.
Since then, Indian writers and historians have been stumbling among themselves in
a desperate effort to absorb the two distinct entities as a continuity of their history.
Unfortunately, these efforts have been unsuccessful due to several factors but the
most powerful of these are the horse and chariot that characterize so much of the
pages of the Rig Veda. The massive efforts by writers and historians to conceptualize
the pages of the Rig Vedaas part of the Indus has brought forth bitterness and
indeed some bad blood. Books and literature has been reprinted to cast it as
indigenous despite the glaring evidence that the horse and chariot did not exist in the
Neolithic period in Indian history. But historians and their surrogate writers are
going to make sure one way or the other that Vedic and Indus history are one and
the same, despite the deep varying contradictions that stare them in its ruins.
Ah, the Rig Veda, it is so unique with its vibrant life from the steppes of Russia and
its bards and seers singing and chanting the praises of Indra and the sky gods and
the new found, fertile land of rivers and forests of northern India. Here the Aryan
tribes, fascinated with their new surroundings brought a new type of burial, the rite
of cremation and the innovations that would cause such contention, the horse and
chariot. This central focus of horse and chariot played an important role in their
religion, the mythology of the horse, a mythology that never existed or seen before
in Neolithic India.
THE NEOLITHIC INDUS CIVILIZATION
The enigma of the Indus remains exactly what it is today, from its date of discovery.
The Indus civilization with its vast population and cities with modern conveniences as
we enjoy today, still baffles archaeologists, historians and writers with its absence of
the horse and chariot. Its writing and imagery of seals do not portray any pictures
of the horse and chariot but its supporters insist to this day that the horse and
chariot did and do exist in its history. This persistence, at times vehement
encounters embarrassment and raised tempers from those who support an Aryan
Indus. But to begin to write about anything historical, one must begin with periods or
dates. There is no doubt that the Indus civilization began in 2600 and ended in 1900
BCE, a time when although huge cities and roads were built and trade prospered,
the horse and chariot was nowhere in sight. The seals and script of the Indus
provided an intellectual use for trade and commerce and although trade was far
and wide, nowhere in the records of the Indus are the existence of horse trade.
Everything else under the sun was traded with Sumer, Mesopotamia and Babylon
and those are very faraway places. The taboo to portray the horse in writing as
suggested by some writers , I cannot buy. Why should an advanced
civilization with such high intelligence, if it possessed the horse and chariot consider
it taboo to expose it images? This, I think is an excuse by some in academia to
account for its absence and which they can’t produce any evidence whatsoever.
Some writers see horse finds and remains in some cities of the Indus and even
illustrate such figures in their writings. None of these scarcely resemble the horse
and I can tell a horse when I see one. No doubt the Indus was heavily populated
with asses and onagers which was used to pull heavy wooden carts and these
scarcely resembled chariots. The eolithic Age in India have not produced any horses
or chariots and the people of India had to wait for the advent of the Bronze Age for
the horse. Horse remains and finds in the Indus as written by certain writers are
just that. There are no justifiable evidence that they can produce simply because
compared to the pages of the Rig Veda, the Indus was not blessed with a mythology
of the horse. That is only found in the Rig Veda. The Greeks had one, the Trojans
had one and the Hittites had one. We see in all these civilizations the populace
interacted and integrated with the horse and chariot, in wars, horseback riding and
social interaction. This is completely absent from the civilization of the Indus and we
read in the pages of the Rig Veda the vibrant horse trade and breeding between the
Aryan tribes. In substitute, what the people of the Indus did was make use of the
vast herds of asses and onagers for transport from the feeding grounds of the
Rann of Kutch. It had a plentiful supply of asses. There is no depiction of the true
horse or chariot in the ruins of the Indus civilization irrespective of what is written or
what is read by Indian scholars and historians. The attempt to do so otherwise
makes one suspicious of their true intentions. Now, why should some writers and
historians attempt to include the horse and chariot in the Indus and give it an Aryan
character? Whatever the motive is only exposes the agenda or angle from which
the writer or historian is coming from. Whatever that is does not concern me. What
concerns me is the point that the Indus is not an Aryan entity and had never been
one. Here, I will enunciate several points and arguments that the Indus was just the
Indus and nothing else. As I said before, the Indus has never possessed a
mythology of the horse nor of the chariot. We have not seen any images of the
chariot or horse in the seals of the Indus nor in its writing , however much has been
deciphered. We have not seen people of the Indus interacting with the horse and
chariot as illustrated in other civilizations, nor have we seen any evidence of horse
trading on the seals with other countries. A high civilization such as the Indus with
writing and no mention of the horse nor its images is very, very baffling. In the
archaeological record of other civilizations there are depictions of the horse and
chariot either in battle, riding postures, or simply interacting with its citizens. This
lack of integration in the Indus, the lack of evidence of breeding, the lack of
describing of the colors of horses and lack of training is preponderant and the Indus
either did not receive horses from the Aryans or their civilization collapsed before
the Aryans moved in.
THE BRONZE AGE HORSE
Book Two, the oldest book of the Rig Veda first mention the horse in Hymn I, Verse
5 and give a description as a steed and we all know that the Rig Veda is full of such
descriptions of this animal. As a nomadic tribe or tribes, the Aryans came from the
steppes and we read of their nomadic life on the banks of the northern rivers of
India. How they worship the horse, revere it, care for it and ultimately sacrifice it
according to their religion. The horse is the main pillar of the lifestyle of the Aryan
tribes and their daily life and activities is centered around it. Those writers who
expound so loftily about horse and faunal remains of these animals in the cities of
the Indus are forgetting one central point. The writings and seals of the Indus so far
have not uttered one word of horses existing in the civilization nor have the seals
and language of the Indus depicted any horse strappings as saddles, bits and
bridles. Nor have there been depictions of authentic parts of chariots such as
yokes, six-spoked wheels, fellies or any such parts. All this is known in the pages of
the Rig Veda. The fact is that the Aryans worshipped a religion dominated by the
horse and every Indo-European religion is similar to that of the Aryans of India.
The horse first made it appearance in Greece around 2100BC with a well developed
mythology and so do Troy with its famous Trojan horse around 1900 BC. Later on,
Egypt possessed the horse due to the invasion of the Hyksos in 1700BC. Although,
every stone has been literally overturned in the Indus in quest of the horse, nothing
has been found. So much so in some quarters, much ado about nothing is being
made of about the very name of the horse in India. Doubts are being cast about the
very existence of the horse in the pages of the Rig Veda as various writers are now
suggesting that the word for horse is being used as a symbol in its pages. Decades
of failure to find this animal in the ruins of the Indus, its maddening existence in the
Rig Veda and its stumbling block as an obstacle to prove that the Indus was Aryan ,
has taken hold the obsession of writers and historians to now obliterate its very
name in Indian history. The denial that the horse existed as something real and only
as a symbol is now accepted by Indian scholars in an effort to clear the way for an
Aryan Indus. It was only recently, that an effort was made through fraudulent
means to concoct a picture of a horse in a sordid display of attempted forgery to put
the horse in the Indus. This attempt is how far some zealous scholars are prepared
to go to achieve what they cannot achieve by legal means. Why is it that other great
civilizations have shown the existence of the horse and chariot in its everyday life of
war and peace but the Indus cannot produce any evidence of this in its history?
There can be but one answer to this question and that is by the time the Aryans
reached the cities of the Indus, they were already abandoned and the inhabitants
more or less had deserted the cities due to geographical and climate changes. It
was a time of chaos and confusion which its unsettled people neither had the time
and place to practice its culture and normal way of life. Strange newcomers with
stranger animals and vehicles together with climate change gave no time to the
Harappans to include the horse and chariot in its culture and history.
THE HORSE EVIDENCE
So many writers and scholars have analyzed the horse evidence with varying
degreesof their opinions on the absence of the horse at the Indus. Horse evidence
by various historians and scholars have written volumes that remains of horses have
been found at various places as Rupnagar, Kalibangan, Lothal, Mohenjo-Daro and
other areas and terracotta images of this animal has also been found in its ruins.
None of these finds have stood the test of true horses and a glance at these bones
and figures shows the uncanny resemblance to asses and onagers and hemiones,
found in such numbers in the Rann of Kutch. Even if for argument sake, that horses
were part of the culture of the Indus, why is there not a mythology in its culture ,
why is there no images or mention in its writings and seals? Why are there no
evidence of interaction or integration of the Indus people with this animal? The far
fetched idea that a taboo was the reason is preposterous and at the same time
humorous. How more serious can you get? The play with words such as the term
as ‘the linguistic horse’ is another instance where writers in imagined scenarios
stated that Indians emigrated from India and settled in Central Asia where they
acquainted themselves with horses. If this is so then, Central Asia was not the place
to know horses but around the foothills of the Ural Mountains in the deep steppes of
Russia’s Sintashta, over thousands of miles away to the north. There they would
have witnessed the same sacrificial rites practiced by the Rig Vedic Aryans of later
India. So much for this scenario and its linguistic term and its suppositions the
archaeological record of India does not have enough horse remains in the in the
Aryan civilization. It is all well and correct to use the taboo to find an excuse for the
absence of the horse in the Indus, so why can’t the climate be used to accommodate
the reason why only a few places in India has horse remains. The fact is that the
Indus has NO remains of the true horse but the Gandhara Grave culture among a
few other places do exist with horse remains. The symbolic argument by some
authors to deny that the Rig Veda of the true existence of the horse in India is a very
weak one, for as days go by , the Indus is not yielding any evidence of the horse
and chariot. This fear is gripping Indian academia and new arguments with weak intonation are constantly being trumphed up to bolster sagging egos.
VEDIC HORSE MYTHOLOGY
When the Aryans came into India riding horses and chariot, it was a new
phenomenon never before seen by the indigenous people for these were not wild
horses but domesticated ones. Those who deny this have only to sift through the
Gandhara Grave culture in the Swat Valley around 1600 BC. This evidence of
horse remains on the Indian subcontinent is not disputed and confirms the existence
of horses in Aryan settlements in northern India. The Rig Vedic attestation of
horses and chariots are written in the earliest verses of their intrusions into the
plains and river valleys of ancient India. There are also clear attestation of horse
riding in the Rig Veda in the form of Maruts in their journeys on horseback. We read
of reins, bits and bridles being used for riding in other instances in their history.
Now, a nomadic people who are always on the move would not chant and sing and
compile experiences if they had not encounter such things in the past. The horse
which was central to their religion was sacred to their entire life and the argument
that these things were symbols and not tangible is a weak and stupid and
intellectually dishonest. The opening pages of the Rig Veda describes the
flames and the sacrifice of the horse or the Ashvamedha as it is known in our history.
Some writers should be ashamed to play with the word ashva or horse for this is the
correct word for the horse and not an intangible or symbolic entity to substitute for
the horse. The horse sacrifice is real in Rig Vedic practice and the attempt to
abolish the horse as flesh and blood from the pages of the Rig Veda is vicious and is
an effort to equate the sleepy , metropolitan Indus society to the fresh vigorous and
vibrant nomadic clans from the steppes of Russia. Indian horse mythology and
legend also describes the flying horse, similar to the Greek Pegasus, emerging from
the churning of the ocean. It’s a white horse with two wings which Indra took to his
heavenly abode Svarga and chopped off its wings to let it remain on earth.
This richness of Indian mythologic horse lore corresponds to other Indo-European
horse mythologies which is absent in the Indus civilization for without such
mythology, the Indus could not experience the horse in its environs. The absence of
a horse mythology contributes to the absence of the horse and its image among its
people. The Indus Civilization built in the Neolithic Age is one of the wonders of the
ancient world, peering through the mists of time with its magnificient buildings,
toiletry, baths and network of roads through which one expects to see a motor car
swerving through its path. This civilization with its vast network of irrigation, docks
and trading vessels ranged far and wide beyond India to trade its products.
Overland it used the plentifulsupply of asses and onagers and heavy wooden wagons
to trade with its neighbors but it did not have the horse. Why? Because the horse
did not reach these trading empires but were on the fringes of their borders of
Central Asia. The trading ships and companies do not have any records of lists of
horses traded between Mesopotamia, Sumer and Bablyon. Trade apart from sailing
vessels was carried on in heavy wooden wagons hauled by hemiones and onagers
and even these were used by the kings and emperors to fight in battles as imaged
on seals. The advent of the horse changed everything in these countries but by that
time the Indus civilization had declined and its inhabitants scattered to the four
winds. Nature had taken its toll. The Indus Civilization would never experience the
beauty of horseback riding nor the grooming of horses and their domestication at the
hands of humans. That would be left to the empires that traded with Vedic India for
the horse was a relative late comer to the rich empires of the south,arriving on the
fringes of India from the vast steppes of Russia in the form of Aryan nomadic
tribes, with a new way of life and philosophy and religion and a new art of war. The
Aryans were notorious cattle rustlers and superb horse breeders. There is not an
instance where any Indian writer could point with a clarity of mind that he or she
could identify that the Indus Civilization knew the horse. The variety of reasons for
this is that the limitless number of arguments concerning the horse has been lost by
those who are busy with the obsession of the Aryan Invasion thus, overlooking
important areas of Indus history which could not accommodate the presence of the
horse in its civilization. All the arguments, all the bitter acrimony of those who wrote
with such gusto and glowing richness of purpose that the Indus is Aryan may have
India at heart and that is admirable. But to argue for something and present papers
to further such a purpose without any foundation to build upon such arguments is not
worth the while. To argue for the presence of horses in the Indus Civilization at a
time and period in its history when such an age does not present archaeological
evidence is stretching Indian history to the limit. Other civilizations have left us with
their history of the horse and its mythological lore it played in the lives of men.
Pegasus, the winged steed flew in Greek history, Homer sang of the horses on the
plains of Troy and of the Trojan horse, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse foretold
of the pestilences of the earth and yes, the Vedic horsemen drove their chariots
across the Indian sky. And the Indus mythology? I see no horses or horsemen
flashing across the Indus sky. The Indus people have not left us any written word or
images that would tell us that their history also contained such animals of
mythological lore. There is hardly a paper or book that does not imply or describe
that the Indus possessed horses, horse bones, or remains of horse evidence in its
excavations. As one person puts it, “ No archaeological evidence from Harappan
India has been presented that would indicate anything comparable to the cultural
and religious significance or the horse…” (Hans Hock) The sweeping suggestions by
Indian writers and historians of numerous versions of Indus expertise that most of
the cities of the Indus and its surroundings areareas of excavated horse bones and
remains, is just a stretch of the imagination. Even Prof. Bokonyi could not identify a
horse from an ass and he is the most quoted being among those who feverishly look
for a vestige of this animal in the ruins of the Indus.They should pay attention to the
astronomical symbols of the Indus with its telling absence of the horse on its
calendar. This is in contrast with the Vedic one which has the horse’s head and
even this part of the horse ,putting aside its whole body is not even illustrated
nowhere in the Indus civilization and its cultural history.
THE HORSE- A CHARACTERISTIC OF STEPPE LIFE IN INDIA
The rousing denial of those who do not believe in an Aryan Indus and that India
is noof Indian historians who are trying to rewrite its history. Such a ritual as practiced by Vedic Aryans from wherever they came from with this animal tells us that they tamed and domesticated the horse, was accustomed to the vastness of the steppes to let the animal wander for years and that the ritual was done among the warrior caste in its homage. Further, this was not done in isolation but among Indo-European peoples in dedication to this powerful animal. The horse and chariot are steppe innovations brought to India among other places by migration or invasion whichever you chose to believe. It is very strange that one writer stated that why the horse is not found in the seals of the Indus is because it is considered taboo by either the ruling class or its people. Stranger still, if that is so, writing its name is taboo too? That is silly. But some people use their writing to confuse, obfuscate and mystify others who believe in the dark arts and probably, that is why we see so much vehemence and acrimony from readers coming out from India who fervently believe in an Aryan Indus. No one has stopped to think that the ritual of the Ashvamedha by the Vedic Aryans is a steppe culture brought by them to India and its part of the mythology of the horse, a mythology that is absent from the Indus. As one writer puts it, “It would be very difficult case made by the great Ashvamedhahymn of dirghatam A auchathya of the clan of the gotamas that reeks so strongly of the steppes and not the riverine valleys of the Then, there is the suggestion that the Indus with its nearness to the BMAC and Afghanistan could have had the horse in its history. Then, what about the large bone and faunal findings in the cities of the Indus? It that not evidence of the existence of this animal in this civilization? Several writers gone to great lengths describing the existence of the horse and chariot at the Indus with illustrations of pictures and depictions of bones of horses and chariots. Who do they think they are fooling? Those illustrations appearing in articles written by those who believe that horses and chariots existed at the Indus are fooling themselves. Those pictures of horse remains and bones are nothing but remains of onagers and hemiones or half ass that roams the fields of the Indus. They look nothing like the real horse that the Aryans brought to India. Much emphasis is placed on Surkotada where Indus historians and writers are placing their hopes that the horse existed there but they seem not to realize that without a mythology , the horse cannot just appear in a primitive society without some historical attachment to its power, virility and its ability for speed.
Ancient people are not like us, they were very primitive in their thinking and perception of things around them, they were cautious and put a cause and reason for everything that happens in the world that surrounds them. The animals that the Indus people etched on their seals proves that they worshipped and adored them and had the horse existed there, surely something in writing would have remained in its ruins. We have not seen any interaction with this animal nor its integrative image with the people. For example, in other civilizations nearby to the Indus there are evidence that the horse was there after it was introduced by Aryan tribes. We see etchings and depictions of people riding horses as a method of interaction and its integration in its society and it would gather some mythologic accretion to this newly introduced animal. The Indus has not provide this kind factual existence nor its mythologic beginnings to warrant a prehistoric Indus horse. It has not left any depictions nor imagery of the horse. Then, why do the writers and historians persist in this endeavor to prove something that never existed in ancient times? This I cannot answer, but nearby civilizations of Sumer, Mesopotamia and Bablyon did obtain the horse at a time when Aryan tribes were pouring and over-running the rich southern empires of the south but the Indus was apparently left out.
This is baffling, since as a civilization it traded far and wide and the absence of the
horse and chariot in its archaeological ruins should not be surprising, since most likely
it was already in ruins due to some ecological and geographical disaster. The massive effort to provide a horse for the Indus, even by fraud is surprisingly taken lightly by intellectuals and their supporters and this does not bode well for Indian history. Even horse trade did not make it any easier for the Indus to have a horse and this great trading civilization with its mystifying seals and scripts still have brilliant linguists and historians puzzled even today in their attempts to decipher them. The writings of the Indus like the horse seem to elude the searchers of that piece of evidence that will clinch it for posterity.
THE HORSE IN INDIA BUT NOT AT THE INDUS
The myth that there are horse bones and remains in the Indus Valley sites and that
excavations have also found such remains in pre-Indus areas are just what they are-
a myth. The claim that chariots have also been used in the cities of the Indus are
also a myth and the writers and historians who compose these writings have not
been able to provide evidence to prove their points. These claims are the jumping
off points from the case of the supposedly dead theory of the Aryan Invasion which
is now being used to marshal and stitch together a patchwork for an Aryan Indus. This theory now being propagated by writers and historians can only fail because of
historical circumstances which when laid out here will show that it is impossible
for the Indus to become Aryan. An ancient seal of Abbakalla UR III around
2050-2040 BC images of people riding horses, BMAC seal impression also shows
around 2100- 1700 BC riders of horses. These are two of the oldest images of
people riding horses .( The Horse, the Wheel and Language – David ,W. Anthony)
The expansion of the Aryans into Mesopotamia and Syria introduced the horse and
chariot culture to these areas. Sumerian texts from ED IIIb Ngirsu (2500-2350 BC )
already mention the chariot (gigir) and Ur III texts (2150-2000 BC) mention the
horse (anshe-zi-zi) (Wikipedia –Indo-Iranians) It is strange is it not that these civilizations have a word for the horse and chariot and for the Indus our writers are desperately searching for a horse which does not have a name for it. But they are searching for the animal. The other civilizations have the horse and chariot and rides horses at a time when the Indus is at its peak and is able and has the ability to write in its records and carvings of humans riding horse but not so the Indus. But the reason that is given for the absence of the horse is that of a taboo as one writer puts it. How is it that the Indus Aryanists are searching for an Indus horse and its neighbors are already riding horses but these Aryanist writers are telling us that horse bones exist in the cities of the Indus. How is it that the Sumerians and Akkadians are using chariots and riding horses in the same time period and all that the Indus Aryanists could come up with nothing but bones of asses
and hemiones and onagers? How is it that the Sumerians and the Akkadians are
enjoying horse rides and in this same time period there are no horses or chariots in
the streets of the Indus? How is it that a proven archaeological fact that stratified
finds of horse bones and remains are found in the Kachi and Swat valleys of India on
the border of Sindh / E. Baluchistan around (1700 BC )? Isn’t it possible that the Indus could not have the horse because their civilization had already disintegrated? (Witzel EJVS) Unsubstantiated reports and writings by Indian writers and historians are kept churning out to keep the controversy growing. Already, the Indus has yielded a lot of archaeological evidence but so far nothing about the horse. And it will not ever yield such remains simply because the horse was never at the Indus. Keep on dreaming.
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