There are certainly some other errors as well. For instance, in his
1993 book, he matches the 'Sivas' with 'Khivas' in Central Asia when
actually Sivas are attested in Greek records as well as Indian
epigraphy quite well, as residents of Sivapura (later Shorkot, on the
banks of Apaga - a tributary of Ravi on W Panjab).
His identification of Ailanas as Albanians/Alinas is also fanciful,
being contradicted by the Indian tradition itself.
His central thesis - that in the Dasarajna war the attack of Sudas was
from the EASTERN side however is well founded, and so is his criticism
of the Indological premise that the Bharatas crossed the Indus from
the west (when it was the other way round).
Incidently, the Pakthas, Bhalanas and Parsuvas in RV are where the
similar sounding peoples are located presently.
BTW, on Albanians in India, we have the following intrihuing
statements - perhaps you could throw more light from a linguistic
perspective:
pages 180-181: "Pliny says, "when Alexander the Great was on his
Indian expedition he was presented by the king of Albania with a dog
of unusual size," which successfully attacked both a lion and an
elephant in his presence. The same story is repeated by his copyist,
Solinus, without any change in the name of the country. Now, we know
from the united testimony of Strabo, Diodorus, and Curtius, that the
Indian king who presented Alexander with these fighting dogs was
Sophites, and he, therefore, must have been the king of Albania. For
this name, I propose to read Labania, by the simple transposition of
the first two letters. Alban would, therefore, become Laban which at
once suggests the Sanskrit word lavana, or 'salt', as the original of
this hitherto puzzling name. The mountain itself is named Oromenus by
Pliny, who notes that the kings of the country derived a greater
revenue from the rock salt than either gold or pearls. This name is
probably intended for the Sanskrit Raumaka, which according to the
Pandits, is the name of the salt brought from the hill country of
Ruma
"
Reference:
Sastri, Surendranath Majumdar. 1924. Cunningham's Ancient Geography of
India. Chuckervertty, Chatterjee & Co. Ltd. Calcutta.
PS: European scholars have often seen 'Romans' wherever 'Rumakas' are
mentioned in texts like Ramayana and Mahabharata. This seems to be an
error.
***************
--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> There can be little doubt that Hoffmann is right here. The use of
archaic <paktHa-> with the meaning "fifth" is documented in the RV
itself (x.61.1) in the phrase <paktHe ahan> 'on the fifth day'. The
personal name Paktha- mirrors Lat. Quintus, and is actually its
cognate. The Indo-Iranian ordinal was *pak-tHa-, with the vocalism of
PIE *pnkW-to-; it is also reflected in Avestan puxDa- < Proto-Iranian
*paxTa-. Indo-Aryan <pan'ca-tHa-/pan'ca-ma-> are new analogical forms
modelled on the full form of the cardinal. Talageri does not analyse
the names he is comparing; he merely matches them impressionistically
with similar-sounding historical ethnonyms. This is a sure recipe for
being wrong most of the time.
>
> Regards,
>
> Piotr
>