Re: [tied] Re: This Whole Indian Horse Thing [obiter]

--- vishalsagarwal <vishalagarwal@...> wrote:

> VA: The notion that the Indus citadels were
> 'attacked' by Aryans is
> primitive, to say the least. Nobody accepts it now.

*****GK: Are you suggesting that there are no "Vedic
hymns [which] commemorate or invoke divine support
for the destruction of their enemies and the storming
of their citadels." ?? In other words Mallory is
fibbing? And the next sentence he wrote viz., "This is
to be accomplished with the assistance of their horses
and chariots, a technique of warfare apparently
unknown to the Indus civilization..." is meaningless
and also with no backing in the Vedic texts?*****

> (VA)We know nothing about warfare in the IVC area
> because we have not
> found any murals or carvings depicting warfare
> although many major
> towns excavated show a 'citadel'. Some have
> therefore proposed that
> the citadels were meant for keeping wild animals
> away!
> As you might know, the latest book on IVC (by Jane
> MacIntosh:2002) is
> actually titled - "Indus - A Peaceful Realm".
> A pottery sherd from Early Harappan levels has been
> unearthed from
> Kunal and it shows a chariot with a canopy,
> according to the
> excavator. No other evidence for chariots exists
> archaeologically in
> India till about 280 BCE.

*****GK: But given the Vedic texts does this
matter?****

>(VA) In the RV, the chariot BTW seems to play mostly

a

> ceremonial role,
> and is primarily meant for the Gods and for Rajas.
> Some interpret
> even the Hymn VI.75 as reflecting a SYMBOLIC warfare
> (there is a
> learned article on this and on 'gavishti' by S. A.
> Dange, a noted
> Vedicist in India).

*****GK: Does this, in your view, rule out the
likelihood of the chariot's use in actual warfare? The
prime reference to Gods and Kings does not seem to me
unusual. Saxo, for instance is filled with the
exploits of Gods and Kings. And other texts, much
younger than the Vedas of course, also seem to be very
"aristocratic" in orientation. Like the Primary
Chronicle of Kyiv for instance. Or the Scythian
Foundation Legend.*****

>
>
>[MALLORY] ...although [the horse] has
> > occasionally been recovered from Harappan sites...
> no
> > one would credit the earlier Harappan culture as
> > exemplifying the horse-centred culture of the
> Vedic
> > Aryans.../// ...
>
> VA: RV appears horse centric to those who want to
> see it thus. Horse
> and its various synonymns/derivates occur 215 times
> in the RV,

*****GK: Are these "war" contexts?****

>(VA) whereas cow and its related words occur 700

times.

****GK: Are these "trade" contexts or something else?

>(VA) Note that the RV
> is associated with 10 families of Rishis, ALL of
> whom were 'Royal
> Sages' in the sense that they were associated with
> ruling elite as
> their priests. So it is a HIGHLY elitist document,
> where the
> importance of the horse will doubtlessly get
> magnified.

*****GK: There is nothing strange about "aristocratic"
orientations. But what about Mallory's point that the
aristocracy would be incoming Aryan rather than
Harappan?****

>(VA) Out of the 1028 hymns, only 2 are devoted to the
> Ashvamedha ritual,
> and even these are very late.

*****GK: But is the horse and war chariot stuff only
mentioned in those two hymns?****

>
>(VA) If the RV were to have inherited the Horse

sacrifice

> from its IE
> background, these rituals would form the core or the
> text and would
> be found in the oldest parts. On the contrary, they
> are found to
> belong to the later layers of RV AND EVEN the
> Yajurvedic tradition.
> For a detailed study of the Vedic Ashvamedha, see
>
> BHAWE Shrikrishna. 1939. Die Yajus' des Asvamedha.
> Verlag W.
> Kohlhammer: Stuttgart

*****GK: Perhaps more discussion is warranted about
the meaning and importance of "horse sacrifices" in
the IE tradition as a whole.******

>
>
>[MALLORY] the very character of Indian society
> > reflected in the earliest Vedic literature renders
> it
> > highly unlikely that the Indus civilization was
> the
> > product of Indo-Aryans... It is illiterate,
> non-urban,
> > non-maritime, basically uninterested in exchange
> other
> > than that involving cattle, and lacking in any
> forms
> > of political complexity beyond that of a king
> whose
> > primary function seems to be concerned with
> warfare
> > and ritual."******
>
> VA: Let us take these points one by one -
>
> 1. POLITICAL COMPLEXITY - We really do not know
> ANYTHING about the
> political complexity of the IVC. In fact we do not
> know much about
> the political organization of IVC as such! For a
> detailed and a
> reasonable study however, see
> Ratnagar, Shireen; 1991; Enquiries into the
> Political Organization of
> Harappan Soceity; Ravish Publishers; Pune
> There are some recent papers by Possehl and Kenoyer
> but I will have
> to search them before posting the references.

****GK: Please do. This will be interesting.*****

>(VA) In any case, the RV is not a manual of politics,

*****GK: I don't believe this touches on the point
made by Mallory who tries to deduce a political setup
from intimations within the text, which is an entirely
legitimate procedure.*****
(VA)and

> for a better
> source of information, we are forced to consult the
> YV and AV
> Samhitas, which clearly pre-suppose a complex
> political set up, and
> have coronation rituals et al. This would be odd if
> these texts are
> dated conventionally between 1000-650 BCE as they
> are by linguists,
> because this period does not give any definite proof
> of monarchies
> archaeology. Historically, it is assumed that state
> formation was at
> its nascent stage during the the later part of this
> period.

*****GK: There are of course, "monarchies" and
"monarchies". The "rule of one" can be as simple as
leadership of a warband, and as complex as the
ritualized set up of highly complex court systems.
With much "in between". I take it that Mallory
contends that the Vedic monarchy was a relatively
simple affair.*****

>
> 2. MARITIME: This is contradicted by many references
> to the oceans
> and ships etc.

*****GK: If this is so in what Mallory calls "the
earliest Vedas" then this particular point of his
would be defective. Is that in fact the case?*****

(VA) In any case, this is an argument

> which cuts both ways.
> Some linguists argue that the presence of an oceanic
> imagery does not
> imply maritime trade, while others would give a
> different meaning to
> words like 'samudra' etc. At best, the issue can be
> said to be
> unresolved. The maritime aspect of the IVC is also
> often exaggerated,
> at the expense of overland trade. See the following
> reference:
> CHAKRABARTI, Dileep. 1991. The External Trade of the
> Indus
> Civilization. Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers: Delhi
> The 'non-maritime' RV Aryan paradigm is refuted in a
> recent paper by
> R. S.Bisht (Director, Archaeological Survey of
> India; and also a
> Vedic scholar) in the volume
> PANDE, G. C. 1999. The Dawn of Indian
> Civilization.Project of History
> of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture, Centre
> for Studies in
> Civilizations: Delhi
>
> 3. NON-URBAN: Indian Subcontinent has NEVER been
> predominantly Urban,
> and it is a fantasy that IVC was predominatly urban.

*****GK: But is Mallory's point not that the Vedic
society is not oriented AT ALL towards "urban" living?
And therefore that, whatever the over all picture of
the Indus civilization (more rural than urban as you
say) the simple fact that there existed major urban
and quasi-urban agglomerations in it would be
significant as an indicator that the Vedas were not a
product of this society?*****

>(VA) Many of the so
> called urban sites were less than a hectare in size
> and an
> overhwleming majority were under 10 hectares and
> might as well be
> temed as villages. In any case, it is commonly held
> (and Possehl has
> now written several papers on this) that the large
> interstices
> between the urban centres were filled with rural
> population residing
> in what we would called rural villages, or by
> pastoralists. Some
> scholars on the other hand (e.g. Bisht mentioned
> above, and Bhagawan
> Singh) clearly read an urban culture in the RV.
>
> 4. Pastoral/Urban?
> FAIRSERVIS [1997:171] remarks that we cannot treat
> the IVC as a
> predominantly agricultural society �
> "Economics: a heavy emphasis upon cattle-raising as
> a source of
> wealth in the Indus core area; minimal sedentary
> village farming in
> that area and significantly a shift to greater
> importance in regions (message truncated)

VA:The world has gone around the sun
13 times since Mallory wrote his book.

*****GK: And 73 times since Bhawe wrote his. But I
think the questions put above are still
pertinent.*****



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