--- In cybalist@..., "vishalsagarwal" <vishalagarwal@...> wrote:
>
> VA: Apparently you are ignorant of the vast literature on
> astronomical data in Vedic texts and on Saraswati. As for
> Witzel, he is aware of the literature, but chooses to use
> it selectively, set up straw men and ignore inconvenient
> evidence.
>
> Take Saraswati for example. The ONLY significant arguments
> he presents for denying the primacy of Sarasvati river in
> RV are:
> . . .
But Vishal, there's nothing at all to stop a speaker of
an Indo-Aryan language from passing on stories passed down
to him from his non-Indo-Aryan-speaking ancestors, about
events that took place before the Indo-Aryan languages
entered India. There are English speaking Americans who
tell their children stories that were passed down to them
from a native American great-grandparent, and which
describe events that took place before European settlers
(invaders ?) came west. Does this prove that English was
spoken in the New World earlier than thought? Many Mexican
families pass down both stories of events that happened
in Spain, by way of a European ancestor, as well as pre-
Columbian Aztec tales, that came by way of a native ancestor.
If indeed a literal Sarasvati once flowed into the literal
sea, then undoubtedly most, if not all of the composers of
the Rig Veda had ancestors who could have seen it do so.
All that's being suggested is that those ancestors from
whom those composers inherited their stories about the
Sarasvati, are not the same ancestors from whom they
inherited their language. Everyone has 4 grandparents,
8 great-grandparents, 16 great-great-grandparents, and
so on, and each of those 16 great-great-grandparents
could potentially have spoken a language different
from the other 15, and you or I might have ended up
speaking only one of those languages, or even a
completely different one, but yet inheriting the house
and land of one, the furniture of another, the photo-
collection of a third, the antique silver pocket watch
of a fourth, etc. The earliest speakers of Indo-Aryan
in India are not supposed to have entered a cultural
and linguistic vacuum, nor are they supposed to have
completely displaced or exterminated those cultures
already present in India. What they are supposed to
have done is to have combined with them. So it wouldn't
be unusual, but rather to be expected that the Vedic,
post-Indo-Aryan culture would be heir to most, if not
all of the local lore and folk-history of the area,
including some about events that took place prior to
the entry of the Indo-Aryan languages. If those
composers also mixed actual historical figures, events
and places in an anachronistic fashion and/or with myth,
and/or exercised creative license to alter details,
then they were no different from the rest of the world's
early composers of folk-history, epics and myths. There
is also the fact that if I write a story and set it in
the year in which Haley's Comet was last visible from
Earth, and include a description of that event in the
story, then it can be proven that the story was written
no EARLIER than that year, but not that it wasn't written
any time later, and as late as there was still a memory
of seeing the comet.
David