Re: Horses in South India

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Kishore patnaik"
<kishorepatnaik09@...> wrote:

>
> Fr. Br., who earlier threatened to ( kill me and) examine my skull,

Francesco didn't really threaten to kill you, did he? No
more than you really threatened to kill Torsten.

> had to eat an unceremonious humble pie, with a foot in his mouth,
> in the latest discussions on Ind-Arch group. He had to concede
> that he had ulterior motives in rejecting the well established
> fact that South India did have presence of horse prior to 1500
> bce.

Nothing could ever compel him to admit to ulterior motives
if he really had such motives, could it, and since surely
it wouldn't serve him to do so, why would he?

If Francesco conceded he was wrong about something, which
is not the same thing as admitting ulterior motives, then
that's only to his credit and shows that he's honest, and
thus nothing by itself inclining one to suspect ulterior
motives.

> It won;t be long before the pseudo scholars like these will be
> consigned to the dust bin of the History, left to examine their
> own empty skulls.

I don't think that Francesco Brighenti can by any means be
called a pseudo-scholar. No offense, but he gives every
indication of knowing much more about India, both past and
present, than yourself.

> Now Let us move to academics from skull-drudgery.
>
> It has been established as long as ago as 1992 that South India
> had equid remains dating prior to 1500 bce (K.R. Alur's paper
> "Aryan Invasion of India, Indo-Gangetic Valley Cultures" (in
> B.U. Nayak and N.C. Ghosh,eds., _New Trends in Indian Art and
> Archaeology: S.R. Rao's 70th Birthday Felicitation Volume_, New
> Delhi, Aditya Prakashan, 1992, vol. 2, pp. 561-62)). Further,
> the rock art at Karikkiyur (Tamil Nadu),the largest rock art
> site in South India is dated to prior to 1500 bce, depicts horse
> riders. In fact, the inner limit is 2000 bce for this rock art
> center.
>
> This proves that the tamed horse was quite prevalent in South
> India in pre 1500 bce times.

Are we truly to believe it's been proven that horses were
tamed and ridden in South India before they were on the
steppes?

Anybody who knows even a little about horses isn't likely
going to take such a suggestion seriously.

What would you think of someone who claimed that rice was
first cultivated in Scandinavia?

> The law makers of India have granted exemption to South Indian
> merchants from the prohibition on horse trading. This goes on
> to prove that the horse population was quite heavy in South
> India and hence, the law makers were under pressure to grant
> such an exemption.

When were these exemptions granted? Surely we don't have
records of laws in South India even as early as the time
during which Aryans are supposed to have first entered the
subcontinent, much less from before?

> In fact, the very word Aswa comes from the Sea, Aswat, the
> expanse.

Well that's simply not true. The cognates of 'asva-' from
other languages can't be derived from 'Aswat'. You're not
a linguist so you don't get to say things like "Aswa comes
from X, Y, or Z". What you're doing here with 'asva-' is
no more than what's called "look-alike linguistics", which
of course isn't a legitimate method.

> Saindhava , another name for horse, is directly connected to
> sea (sindhu)

'Saindhava-' referred originally to a particular breed of
horse from the Sindh region, not just any horse, and the
word could apply equally to any other animal, plant, thing,
or even human being especially associated with the region.

> This again shows that horses owe their origin to south India.

No, it shows quite clearly that this one kind of horse was
associated with Sindh, which is in the North.

> The above archaeological and liturgical/linguistic proof goes
> onto support my hypothesis that Mitannis have learned horse
> sciences from South India.

If they learned it from tropical South India instead of from
the much closer steppes, which are a natural habitat of the
horse, then why did the borrowed equestrian terminology come
from an Indo-Iranian language rather than a Dravidian one?

There is no trace of Dravidian anywhere near Mitanni during
the period in question or any time after, whereas dialects of
Indo-Iranian are spoken nearby and have been for a good long
time.

> It was already an established fact that Mitannis were on trading
> terms with Ceylone and hence, this again proves that they have
> connections with South India also.

This is the first I've ever read about Mitannis trading with
Ceylon. Where did you come across the suggestion?

> This will make the models of AIT (that ancient Indians were pushed
> to South India from sindhu area by incoming Aryans) tupsy turvy,
> in the sense, it is South Indians who moved to North India.

All Indians came to India originally from Africa, and much
much later, all that is supposed, is that features of the
Aryan culture of Central Asia spread to the people of North
India, and then later, to a lesser degree, to the South as
well.

Even among those who insist that the Aryans were indigenous
to the subcontinent few, if any, would ever try to pretend
that Sanskrit and the Vedic religion spread from the South
to the North. It was quite clearly the other way around.

David