Re: a discussion on OIT

On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 8:11 PM, fournet.arnaud <fournet.arnaud@...> wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: "kishore patnaik" <kishorepatnaik09@...>

> *Introduction
>*Tacitus, the classical Roman writer, claimed to have described past events
> and personalities in his works *sine ira et studio*, free from hostility
> and
> bias. This motto has guided serious historians through the ages, and it
>became their highest ambition to write history 'objectively', distancing
> themselves from opinions held by interested parties.

> The ideal was not always followed, as we know.

=====
Indeed.
Arnaud
=========

>The situation is slowly changing.

========
Indeed
For the worse.
Arnaud
========

>While not buying into the more sinister version of this revision, which
>accuses the inventors of the Aryan invasion theory of malice and cynicism,
>there is no doubt that early European attempts to explain the presence of
>Indians in India had much to with the commonly held Biblical belief that
>humankind originated from one pair of humans- Adam and Eve to be precise
>(their common birth date was believed to be c.4005 BCE)-and that all
>peoples
>on earth descended from one of the sons of Noah, the only human to survive
>the Great Flood (dated at 2500 BCE). The only problem seemed to be to
>connect peoples not mentioned in Chapter 10 of Genesis ['The Peopling of
>the
>Earth'] with one of the Biblical genealogical lists.

>One such example of a Christian historian attempting to explain the
>presence
>of Indians in India is the famous Abbé Dubois (1770-1848), whose long
>sojourn in India (1792-1823) enabled him to collect a large amount of
>interesting materials concerning the customs and traditions of the Hindus.

============
Leibniz (1646-1716) formulated the theory of
an expansion of "scythic" (the old word for PIE)
much earlier Than this Abbé Dubois
who is a complete unknown.

"On peut conjecturer que cela vient de l'origine commune de tous ces peuples
descendus des Scythes, venus de la mer Noire, qui ont passé le Danube et la
Vistule, dont une partie pourrait être allée en Grèce, et l'autre aura
rempli la Germanie et les Gaules."

Arnaud
============

>Rejecting other scholars' opinions which linked the Indians to Egyptian or
>Arabic origins, he ventured to suggest them 'to be descendents not of Shem,
>as many argue, but of Japhet'. He explains: 'According to my theory they
>reached India from the north, and I should place the first abode of their
>ancestors in the neighborhood of the Caucasus.' The reasons he provides to
>substantiate his theory are utterly unconvincing-but he goes on to build
>the
>rest of his migration theory (not yet an 'Aryan' migration theory) on this
>shaky foundation.

>Max Müller (1823-1903), who was largely responsible for the 'Aryan invasion
>theory' and the 'old chronology', was too close in spirit and time to this
>kind of thinking, not to have adopted it fairly unquestioningly. In his
>Prefatory Note he praises the work of Abbé Dubois as a 'trustworthy
>authority. . .which will always retain its value.'

========
No,
Leibniz theorized that much earlier.

And the next point is what do these Genesis Chapter X fancies
have to do with the expansion of PIE ?

Arnaud
========
> 1. The Aryan invasion model is largely based on linguistic conjectures

> which are unjustified (and wrong). Languages develop much more slowly
> than
> assumed by nineteenth century scholars. According to Renfrew speakers of
> Indo-European languages may have lived in Anatolia as early as 7000 BCE

=========
Irrelevant
Arnaud
=====
2. The supposed large-scale migrations of Aryan people in the second

millennium BCE first into Western Asia and then into northern India (by
1500
BCE) cannot be maintained in view of the fact that the Hittites were in
Anatolia already by 2200 BCE and the Kassites and Mitanni had kings and
dynasties by 1600 BCE

=======
Irrelevant
Arnaud
==========
> 3. There is no memory of an invasion or of large-scale migration in the

> records of Ancient India-neither in the Vedas, Buddhist or Jain
> writings,
> nor in Tamil literature.

======
Irrelevant
The constitution of the USA does not bear any trace of a large-scale
migration or invasion.
Arnaud
==========

> The fauna and flora, the geography and the climate
> described in the *Rigveda* are that of Northern India.

=========
Wrong.
Arnaud
========
> 4. There is a striking cultural continuity between the archaeological

> artefacts of the Indus-Saraswati civilisation and subsequent Indian
> society
> and culture: a continuity of religious ideas, arts, crafts,
> architecture,
> system of weights and measures.

=======
Irrelevant
Arnaud
=======
> 5. The archaeological finds of Mehrgarh (copper, cattle, barley) reveal

> a
> culture similar to that of the Vedic Indians. Contrary to former
> interpretations, the *Rigveda* shows not a nomadic but an urban culture
> (purusa as derived from pur vasa = town-dweller).

=======
Wrong
Arnaud
=====
> 6. The Aryan invasion theory was based on the assumption that a nomadic

> people in possession of horses and chariots defeated an urban
> civilisation
> that did not know horses, and that horses are depicted only from the
> middle
> of the second millennium onwards. Meanwhile archaeological evidence for
> horses has been found in Harappan and pre-Harappan sites; drawings of
> horses
> have been found in paleolithic caves in India; drawings of riders on
> horses
> dated c. 4300 BCE have been found in Ukraina. Horsedrawn war chariots
> are
> not typical for nomadic breeders but for urban civilisations.

==========
Irrelevant
ARnaud
========

> 7. The racial diversity found in skeletons in the cities of the Indus

> civilisation is the same as in India today; there is no evidence of the
> coming of a new race.

=========

A new variety of language came.
Indo-European Indic
Arnaud
========

13. A continuity in the morphology of scripts: Harappan, Brahmi,
Devanagari.
=========
Absurd
Anti-Science
Arnaud
========

> There is no hint in the Veda of a migration of the people that considered
> it
> its own sacred tradition. It would be strange indeed if the Vedic Indians
> had lost all recollection of such a momentous event in supposedly
> relatively
> recent times- much more recent, for instance,

========
It was not an invasion
but a slow process of ethnogenesis.
Arnaud
=======

> Based on this type of evidence and extrapolating from the Vedic texts, a
> new
> story of the origins of Hinduism is emerging that reflects the
> self-consciousness of Hindus and which attempts to replace the
> 'colonial-missionary Aryan invasion theory' by a vision of 'India as the
> Cradle of Civilisation.'

========
Scaring.
ARnaud
========

> 1. The (emotionally) most important question is that of the original

> home
> of Vedic civilisation, identified with the question: where was the
> (*Rig-
> *)*Veda* composed? India's indigenous answer to that question had always
> been 'India', more precisely 'the Punjab'. The European, 'colonial
> missionary' assumption, was 'outside India'. (Kishore's note: While many
> scholars may agree that the Rg Veda has been composed in India or at
> worst,
> in Afganistan, they still want to stick to Aryan Immigration theory
> which
> holds no archaeological or other evidence

=======
It's supported by linguistic overwhelming evidence.
Precisely what you want to destroy
because it thwarts your crazy theories.
Arnaud
==========

> The linguistics have been
> developed on the premise that the Aryans have moved from west to east
> and
> not vice versa. The direction of borrowings is dependent upon this
> subjective conjecture and it simply means that there would be no
> contradiction if the assumption were to be that the movement was from
> east
> to west and accordingly, the linguistics could be refashioned.)

> 2. The next question, not often explicitly asked, is: where did the

> pre-Vedic people, the 'Aryans' come from? This is a problem for
> archeo-anthropologists rather than for historians(or for linguists-
> Kishore)
> . The racial history of India shows influences from many quarters.

==========

You are the one with racial obsessions,
Confusing race and language.
Arnaud
=========

> 4. It is rather strange that the defenders of the 'Aryan invasion

> theory', who have neither archaeological nor literary documents to prove
> their assumption, demand detailed proof for the non-invasion and refuse
> to
> admit the evidence available.

=========
Rg Veda supports the invasion scenario.
Arnaud
=========

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and within the reach of every hand.
~:~ Mother Theresa ~:~