Re: [tied] The insufficiency of OIT (was:Re: Of cows and living)

From: george knysh
Message: 43552
Date: 2006-02-23

--- mkelkar2003 <smykelkar@...> wrote:

you are over looking the
> fact
> > > that the text of
> > > the Rig Veda does not provide any evidence of
> > > presummed "invasions"
> > > "migrations," "trickles" what ever one choses to
> > > call them.
> >
> > GK: Neither does the Scythian Foundation
> Legend
> > for the Scythians. So the absence of any such
> > reference in the Rig Veda does not prove that the
> > Indo-Aryans developed as an autochthonous group.
>
> The absence in Scythia foundation legend does not
> mean the
> "Indo-Aryans" were not an authchtonous group!

****GK:The Scythian example PROVES that absence of
reference to in-migration in a text DOES NOT ESTABLISH
autochtony on the basis of the intimations of that
text. The same principle holds with respect to the Rig
Veda.*****
>
> > We have to use other indicators. Those mentioned
> by Klejn
> > are pretty good (a combination of indubitable
> > archaeological and linguistic facts).
>
> Use astronomy, geology, and mathmatics for instance.
> The Rig Veda
> refers to the River Sarasvati which geologists say
> dried up around
> 1900 BCE long before the supposed invisble trickles.

*****GK: Presumably the locals who interacted with
incoming Indo-Aryans contributed a great deal of
information subsequently incorporated into the extant
Rig Veda. As did the locals who interacted with the
incoming Royal Scythians in the comparative context.
Unfortunately the Scythian equivalent of the "Rig
Veda" has not been preserved.*****
>
> >
> >
> > The Rig
> > > Veda and Vedic civilization is *perfectly
> > > compatible* with Indus
> > > Sarasvati Civilization i.e "Harrapa."
> >
> > GK: I don't think so. Where is the military
> > war-chariot Harappan aristocracy? Where are the
> > prototypes of latter-day temples for the worship
> of
> > Vedic deities?
> As for chariots Agarwal (2006),
>
> "Archaeologists B. K. Thapar and Rafique Mughal
> mention that a sherd
> depicting a canopied cart with spoked wheels was
> unearthed from
> pre-Harappan levels at Banawali. R.S. Bisht reports
> that at Banawali,
> a pot sherd depicting a canopied cart with spoked
> wheels was found at
> pre-Indus levels. Bisht is the excavator of the
> site. This shows that
> the Harappans apparently possessed the relevant
> technology to fashion
> light vehicles with spoked wheels.

*****GK: This, whatever the "this" is, shows nothing
at all. When there is accepted identification and
verification, then and only then conclusions may be
drawn. This seems for the moment to be in the same
category as previous blah about decipherment of the
Indus script.*****

Chariots as such
> are not attested
> in the archaeological record of the Indian
> subcontinent till about the
> middle of first millennium BCE,"

****GK: Could I and others be mistaken about the time
of the infiltration? In any case the time frame for
the composition of the Rig Veda seems sufficiently
plausible.*****
>
> If the chariots were brought in by the trickling
> "Indo-Aryans" then
> why are they not attested for a full 1000 years
> after their supposed
> arrival? In any case the introduction of a new
> technology does not
> mean sweeping linguistic and cultural changes.

****GK: The technology would have arrived along with
the new language and the new religion.*****
>
>
>
>
>
> Harappa was a brilliant "middle class
> > type" civilization, speaking and writing an
> unknown
> > language (pehaps Dravidian, perhaps Munda, perhaps
> X)
> > which imploded for a variety of reasons.
>
> That is correct. The language is *unknown*; and
> "unknown" includes
> Indo-Aryan! See Subhash Kak's work on the Indus
> script as cited by
> Bryant (2001)

*****GK: The Indus script has not been deciphered, and
it is certainly not Indo-Aryan except for kooks.*****
>
>
>
> Its physical
> > heirs (the Late Harappans) were reorganized as a
> > "Vedic" society under the religious and political
> > influence of incoming Indo-Aryans. The notion of a
> > mass religious conversion (with political and
> > linguistic implications) seems quite
> plausible.

> Let us review the facts.
>
> 1. A very ancient text Rig Veda is in an
> "Indo-European" language.

****GK: Yawn... Does anyone question this?****
>
> 2. The text itself does not say its composers are
> foreign or were once
> foreign to their present locations.

****GK: Which does not prove that its fundamentals
were not imported.*****
>
> 3. The text has been preserved faithfuly for
> thousands of years like a
> tape recording by the people of the Indian
> Subcontinent.

****GK: For which we are all most grateful.*****
>
> 4. Every single flora and fauna mentioned in the
> text occur in the
> Indian subcontinent, all the rivers are still
> present except the
> Sarasvati which has dried up.

*****GK: Fine and dandy.*****
>
> 5. The one and only ancient grammarian of any
> "Indo-European"
> language, the legendary Panini once lived in South
> Asia,

*****GK: Good for him.******
>
> 6. There is no evidence of any other language ever
> been spoken in
> North Western South Asia except the "Indo-Aryan."

*****GK: That is not true except in a trivial
way.*****

> There is a clear
> religious,

*****GK: Religious? Where is the proof the classical
Harappans worshipped Vedic Gods?*****

genetic, archaeological continuity in the
> region from very
> ancient times (Kenoyer, McIntosh, Lal, Schaffer,
> Litchentstein and a
> host of other archaeologist have repeatedly
> confirmed this.)
>
> May I ask, what then disqualifies the people of the
> INDIAN

*****GK: The rest was truncated. But really, what is
your problem? Who denies the Indo-European
languages-speakers in India appurtenance to the
Indo-European family? I certainly don't.*****
>
=== message truncated ===


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