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Vedic Horse Demolishes Witzel's Theory

Author: N.S.  Rajaram
Publication: Organiser
Date: December 10, 2000

The Rig Veda and ‘horse science’ show there was no invasion from Central Asia
 

No horse at Harappa Michael Witzel, the Wales Professor of Sanskrit, is now the leading spokesman for the scientifically discredited theory known as the Aryan Invasion Theory of India (AIT), though of late it is being called ‘migration’ instead of ‘invasion’ (AMT).  Central to this is the claim that the horse was unknown in India until the invading Aryans brought it from Central Asia in the second millennium.  As a corollary, any suggestion that the horse was known to the Harappans is seen as a threat to the theory and fiercely resisted.

This is what is behind Witzel's extraordinary propaganda blitz claiming that the horse seal printed in the book The Deciphered Indus Script by N.  Jha and N.S.  Rajaram (Aditya Prakashan) must be a fake.  (We may leave out Steve Farmer, who has no locus standi.) In his attempts to demolish any suggestion of horses in the Harappan Civilization, Witzel is obfuscating an important point: what is at issue is not the Harappan horse, but whether or not the invading Aryans brought horses into India in the second millennium.  As neither Witzel (nor anyone else) can produce any archaeological trail of horses into India in the second millennium, he is holding up the negative statement of ‘No horse at Harappa' as positive evidence for his theory that otherwise has no evidence! The fact is that horse bones have been found at all levels at Harappan sites.  Jha and I mention this is in a footnote, the same one that mentions the horse seal.  But Witzel refers only to the seal part, while ignoring the part of the footnote referring to horse bones.  This is typical of the kind of ‘scholarship’ that pervades the work of those trying to save the Aryan Invasion Theory from sinking.

Be as it may.  Leaving that subterfuge aside, I will next demonstrate that there is in fact positive evidence in the Rig Veda to show that horses were known in Vedic India that were not brought from Central Asia.  In fact, the Rig Veda, far from supporting any invasion from Central Asia, actually demolishes his horse argument.  The Rig Vedic horse Let us first understand what is involved in this ‘no horse’ logic.  Witzel seems to think that the survivability of the Aryan invasion rests on the ‘no horse at Harappa’ doctrine.  With all his eggs in the ‘no horse basket’ he simply cannot affort to acknowledge the existence of the Harappan horse.  This accounts for his near hysterical reaction to our identification of the horse seal.  Therein lies his great fallacy: in his obsession with the horse seal, Witzel overlooked a very simple scientific fact that the Rig Vedic horse is not the Centra Asian horse.  This is clear from the horse anatomy described in the Rig Veda itself.  Evidence for this comes from verse I.162.18 of the Rig Veda describing the Ashvamedha horse: “The horse of victory has thirty-four ribs on the two sides that face threat in the battle.  O skilled men, treat these uninjured parts with skill, so they may recover their energy!” (RV, I.  162.18) This clearly states that it has 34 ribs on two sides (or 17 on each side).

In contrast, the Central Asian horse, which according to Witzel (and others) was brought into India by the invading Aryans, had 36 ribs (18 on each side)! What does this mean? The horse of Vedic India like that of South-East Asia is a distinct variety and not the Central Asian horse.  So the Rig Vedic horse could not have been brought into India by any invading people from the northwest.  The Harappan horse is irrelevant—on the seal or in anatomical remains.  What is relevant is that the horse described by the Rig Veda is not the Central Asian horse.  Then which horse is the Rig Veda describing? Where did it come from? Here is how one expert (Paul Kekai Manansala) puts it: “Deep in the specialized literature on horse classification, we can find that Indian and other horses extending to insular South-East Asia were peculiar from other breed.  All showed anatomical traces of admixture with the ancient equid known as Equus Sivalensis.  ...  However, like that equid, the horse of South-Eastern Asia has peculiar zebra-like dentition.  Also both were distinguished by a pre-orbital depression.  The orbital region is important because it has been demonstrated as useful in classifying different species of equids.  Finally, and most importantly in relation to the Vedic literature, the Indian horse has, like Equus Sivalensis, only 17 pairs of ribs.” The seventeen-ribbed Equus Sivalensis is the scientific name for ‘Horse of the Siwaliks’.  The Siwaliks of course are the Himalayan foothills adjacent to Haryana and Punjab—the original Vedic heartland.

So the horse described in the Rig Veda is in all probability this Siwalik horse or a close relative, and certainly not the Central Asian horse.  This is a fruitful area of research, but what we can definitely say is that the Central Asian horse, descended from the Equus Przevaalskii (with 18 pairs of ribs) was not the one described by the Rig Veda.  This means the Vedic Aryans knew the horse long before anyone brought the larger Central Asiatic breed into India.  So where does all this leave Witzel (and others) of the ‘no Harappan horse’ theory? Nowhere.  First, the Harappan horse is irrelevant—seal or no seal.  Second, their ‘No horse’ doctrine becomes: ‘No Central Asian horse’.  To sustain their invasion scenario they must produce an archaeological trail of Central Asian horses coming into India in the second millennium, which went on to become the Rig Vedic horse.  This is demolished by the anatomical description given in the Rig Veda.  Their theory has crashed, and they better accept this reality.  To sum up: the Aryan invasion theory (or the Aryan migration theory) represents one of the great intellectual blunders in the history of scholarship.  This was supplemented and sustained by shoddy scholarship as evidenced by Witzel's own blunders in Sanskrit grammar and his confusion in the horse debate.  A major theory cannot be built on negative evidence like ‘No horse at Harappa’.  It is time to give up this theory—and this methodology—and rebuild history on a solid foundation of positive evidence and multidisciplinary research.  A drowning man may grasp at straws to save himself, but he cannot save the ship from sinking.
 

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