Re: [tied] Re: Why India?

I can only add that the idea of the Indo-Aryans merging their own reminiscences of the River Helmand and its symbolic importance with local Indian tales and traditions concerning a by-then-defunct but formerly big and important river (and using the name Sarasvati to refer to the latter), is neither absurd not easy to dismiss. The etymological identity or <sarasvati:> and <xaraxWaiti:> is remarkable in itself, as is the fact that nearly all the major rivers of Afghanistan flow into Hamun-e Helmand, which therefore fully deserves the designation <samudrá-> 'the meeting of waters' (*som-udró-). Even before the Indo-Aryans first saw a real ocean, <samudrá-> was surely an appropriate term for any landlocked "sea", lake or cluster of lakes at the bottom of an internal basin receiving waters from several rivers.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: wtsdv

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 9:31 PM

Subject: [tied] Re: Why India?

--- 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