From: vishalagarwal@...
Message: 11007
Date: 2001-11-05
--- In IndianCivilization@..., vishalagarwal@... wrote:
Below, I append a summary of Parpola's views on AIT. The summary is
present in his own work (see reference) and as the listmembers will
note (even those who have an indepth knowledge of his writings), they
are a combination of a multiple invasions, fantasy, conspiracy
theories and plain leaps of faith.
Vishal
*******
PARPOLA Asko. 1998. Savitri and Resurrection: The Ideal of Devoted
Wife, Her Forehead Mark, Sati, and Human Sacrifice in Epic-Puranic,
Vedic, Harappan-Dravidian and Near Eastern Perspectives. Pp. 167
312 in PARPOLA Asko and TENHUNEN Sirpa. 1998. Changing Patterns of
Family and Kinship in South Asia. Studia Orientalia, vol. 84. Finnish
Oriental Society: Helsinki
Page 215: "It seems to me that immediately before the coming of the
Brahmanical conquerors from the north (through Swat) with their gods
called Deva, the earlier population residing in the Punjab and
worshipping gods called Asura had basically a twofold division of the
society, the nobility (rajanya) versus the subjects. Such a dualism
is reflected in the old pattern of the agnihotra ritual, which was
take over from the `Asuras', for they too practiced it, but in
a `diminishing way' (cf. Taittiriya-Brahmana 2.1.4.1, Bodewitz
1976:93). In the propagation of the (initially) threefold
classification of the society introduced by the Brahmins,
the `mystical utterances' seem to have played a central role."
Page 215: "The speakers of the Aryan languages did not come to South
Asia all at once, but in several waves and through different routes.
Although the epic Sanskrit is attested later than the Vedic Sanskrit,
it represents in certain respects a more archaic dialect than the
Vedic Sanskrit. For example, it has preserved the Indo-European
lateral *l, e.g. in the name of the epic metre sloka from the root
*slu- `to hear', which corresponds to Greek klu-, Slavonic `shlu-,
and so on, while in the Rgvedic dialect Indo-European *l had merged
with *r , so that the corresponding word is sru-. The epic word
cannot be derived from the Rgvedic dialect, and proves that epic
Sanskrit has entered South Asia independently from the Rgvedic group.
The Rgveda enumerates with great detail the rivers in Afghanistan and
northernmost Pakistan including the Swat Valley, and some forms
peculiar to the Rgvedic dialect have counterparts only in the Dardic
group of languages spoken nowadays around this area. The epic
traditions, on the other hand, are spread in the plains of North
India, the Mahabharata (c. 400 BC to AD 400) in the western and
central parts, the Ramayana (c. 400 BC AD 100 AD) in the eastern
parts."
Page 216: "The Rgveda tells of Indra and other Devas, who were
worshipped by singing hymns and offering them a drink called Soma,
and of kings who under their protection fought battles in the plains
of the Punjab. From the Punjab, the Vedic culture then moved
eastwards. The Kuru and Pancala tribes of the upper Gangetic Valley
formed the center of the Vedic culture in the period of the Brahmana
texts. While this Vedic culture submerged a part of the plains area
in their middle, the pre-Vedic traditions of the plains continued
putside the Vedic area both in the west, in the Greater Indus Valley
(which comprises also Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra), and in the
east, where the Indo-Aryan developed into Magadhi Prakrit.
The Rgvedic Aryans coming from the north with their relatively simple
Soma cult were probably not too numerous. They quickly fused
thoroughly with the elite of the earlier population, whose ritual
specialists now became Brahmins and not only adopted the Soma cult
but also continued the local rituals, yet developing them in new
directions. Oversimplifying the matter in order to matter simple .I
would assert that the pre-Vedic cults of the plains were
largely `Proto-Sakta-Tantric'. They were basically royal cults of the
plains in which the goddesses Durga and Kali with their human and
animal sacrifices and sexual orgies played a major role."
Page 216-217: "The Rgvedic Brahmins disliked both the bloodshed and
the open sexuality, and they changed the local rituals to some extend
by substituting the real acts with symbolic acts or mere ritual or
verbal symbols. The method of killing animal victims changed from
decapatition to suffocation, and human sacrifice as well as sati
practice were abolished. Han Heesterman has done much to elucidate
this `purification' process. The man adopted local rites were
combined with the Soma sacrifice or at least provided with Vedic
mantras (Rgvedic hymns instead of the local prose formulae) to give
them a `Vedic' stamp. Especially in the beginning, the Brahmins could
not change everything overnight, and for reasons of popular pressure
they had to adopt some major rites with relatively little change.
Among such rites are the horse sacrifice, the Mahavrata, the
vratyastomas, and some others. At the same time they started a
massive ideological campaign to secure the position of Brahmins at
the top of the society. Prajapati, the precessor of Hindu Brahma, the
divine counterpart of the Brahmins, rises to the highest rank of
Vedic deities.
Page 217: "The change started taking place in the late Rgvedic period
(c. 1300 1000 BC). Words with the epic lateral sound l and new
ideologies including that of the sacrificed primeval man (purusa) and
ritual practices like the very complex `fire altar' (agnicayana) make
their entrance in the Vedic tradition. With the Brahmana texts of the
Yajurveda, composed partly in prose, which is a completely new
medium, the fusion has already been completed.
The Rgvedic arrival from the Swat valley in the north to the plains
of the Punjab to represent the second encounter between Deva
worshippers (calling themselves Arya) and Asura worshippers (calling
themselves Dasa). The first encounter took place earlier (c. 1700
BC), in Afghanistan, before the Rgvedic Aryans entered South Asia,
and resulted in the adoption of the principal Asura, i.e., Varuna,
into the Vedic pantheon of the Devas. Both Asura traditions, in the
north Afghanistan (the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological complex, c.
2200-1700 BC) as well as in the Indus Valley (the Jhukar culture in
Sind and the Cemetery H culture in the Panjab, c. 1900-1300 BC), had
by that time absorbed the earlier local traditions inherited from the
Indus Civilization." [Footnotes appended in the original passage are
deleted here Vishal].
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