Re: Mitanni and Matsya

----- Original Message -----
From: "david_russell_watson" <liberty@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 11:31 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Mitanni and Matsya


--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:
>
> David, one must first have an original thought before someone
> like yourself can characterize it as "irrational".

Are telling us now that your claims on this topic aren't
original?

If anybody else shares the ideas you've expressed about
'Varuna' and comparative mythology, I'd be very much be
surprised. Can you provide some names?

***

I guess English is a problem for you, too.

You characterized MY ideas as "irrational"; not 'wrong' but 'irrational'.

I claim most of the thoughts I have been expressing are original, at least
to my knowledge.

***

> The development of Varuna after the period of the Rig Veda
> points the way to a better understanding of what he might
> have been before the Rig Veda.

Development involves change, and so, if we are trying
to determine the _original_ meaning of a god's name,
then no, we do not place greater value on late sources
than on the earliest ones available which are closer
to the time and circumstances in which he received that
name.

That is, again, simple logic.

***

Simple, yes. Logic, no.

Who would suspect from the size and shape of an acorn, a loft oak would
grow?

In the case of Varuna, this means that his core function, though obscured by
the syncretism of the Rig Veda, was allowed to re-assert itself after that
period.

Development often means bring the unobvious potential inside something to
mature exhibition.

***

> > Where do you find evidence of Varuna earlier than the Vedas,
> > that you can claim he existed so long before?

***

In his name.

***

> Ancient peoples worshiped the same divine entities for thousands
> of years.

Not a fact, but merely an assertion of your faith, and
obviously illogical, because every god started somewhere
and at some point in time, and there's no agency working
in our universe to prevent one from being documented as
soon as he is invented.

***

Tell that to the Egyptians, David. Horus was around for perhaps 4000 years
of which we have records - and how long before that?

Of course, every divinity started someplace, sometime - thousands of years
ago for some like the Mother Earth goddess or the Lord of the Wild.

***

> The cult developed, rituals changed, and sometimes a later epithet
> took the place of an earlier one, but the divinities remained, at
> the core, the same.

Ah yes, just as I suspected. It's still more personal
speculation of yours being presented as if it were fact.

You have no real idea at all, and not a shred of actual
evidence for how long Varuna has existed, but regardless
have no shame at all about throwing such claims about in
an argument as if facts.

You're dishonest.

David

***

And you are doing a splendid job of revealing just who you are, David.


Patrick

***