Re: Horses in South India

From: Francesco Brighenti
Message: 59737
Date: 2008-08-03

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Kishore patnaik"
<kishorepatnaik09@...> wrote:

> Today's Leftist Historians

This 'incipit' reveals you're a rightist, as I had long suspected.

> tend to move away from the discussions of origins and chronology
> of archaeological artifacts (The Penguin History of Early India,
> R[omila]T[hapar], 2002).

> Reason for distancing from such debates is, the more the
> discussions go deeper, the more they are forced to refute
> their own models.
>
> Fr. Br.,

Why do you only give the initials of my name and surname? Today you
have posted this same message to other discussion groups and blogs
(e.g. to sulekha.com); do you think that all the readers of those
websites know who "Fr. Br." is?

> who earlier threatened to (kill me and) examine my skull,

I never threatened such a thing, Kishore. I hope you will have a
long, happy and prosperous life, really! What I facetiously wrote in
my message archived at

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/59326

is that "after your death, your skull too (with the brain) will
perhaps be removed to some foreign country for a detailed anatomical
and radiological study." This sentence was meant as a sarcastic
reaction to your delirious assertion, INOPPORTUNELY MADE ON THIS
***LINGUISTIC*** LIST, about ancient Indian skulls showing traces of
nuclear reaction, and consequently providing evidence for the use of
nuclear weapons in prehistoric India.

> had to eat an unceremonious humble pie, with a foot in his mouth,
> in the latest discussions on Ind-Arch group.

Again, why don't you provide the extended name of the group in
question? (For the record, the correct name of that List is "India
Archaeology").

> He had to concede that he had ulterior motives in rejecting the
> well established fact that South India did have presence of horse
> prior to 1500 bce.

The presence of the horse in South India prior to 1500 BCE is not at
all a "well established fact". That's not even a *fact*. However,
since this is a linguistic List, I will omit to give a detailed
reply to this unsubstantiated assertion of yours here. Maybe I'll
reply to you on the other List, where this discussion thread belongs.

> It won't be long before the pseudo scholars like these will be
> consigned to the dust bin of the History, left to examine their own
> empty skulls.

Are you predicting this fate to me by resort to the Hindu
astrological hocus-pocus of which you are a self-declared
practitioner? If this is the case, I can sleep quietly -- indeed,
you must be so bad an astrologer as you have proved to be a bad
researcher! Take, for instance, the two or three final 'pearls' you
have threaded at the end of the message I'm replying to:

> In fact, the very word Aswa comes from the Sea, Aswat, the expanse.

Does 'aswat' here stand for azvat, the aorist of the post-R.gvedic
Sanskrit verb zvayati 'to swell, grow, increase'? If this is so (as
I think), it certainly CANNOT be the etymon the R.gvedic term
azva 'horse' was derived from.

> Saindhava, another name for horse, is directly connected to sea
> (sindhu).

Skt. saindhava simply means 'a horse bred in the Sindh country'. No
etymological connection with sindhu 'river, sea'.

> This again shows that horses owe their origin to south India.

Even if you proved the above two terms designating horses (azva and
saindhava) to derive from terms meaning 'sea' (which is not the
cas), you should still explain why would the sea have been
identified with South India. Aren't, dor instance, Sindh and Gujarat
two ancient north Indian lands bathed by the sea?

> The above archaeological and liturgical/linguistic proof goes onto
> support my hypothesis that Mitannis have learned horse sciences
> from South India.

What hypothesis? This is the first time I hear about that. When did
you formulate it and share it with the other members of this List?
(This must be another 'pearl' of yours...)

> It was already an established fact that Mitannis were on
> trading terms with Ceylone and hence, this again proves that they
> have connections with South India also.

What "established fact"? Mitannis in Ceylon? Are you MAD? Mitanni
was a land-locked kingdom in Syria/northern Iraq. It had no access
to sea trade.

I am horrified by your incompetence in ALL fields! See, today I
enjoyed in retrieving a few of your past 'pearls' posted here on the
cybalist. I will only mention postings relating to linguistics,
without even citing those dealing with your historical fantasies:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/31430
Telugu (a Dravidian language) and the Dardic sub-grouping of Indo-
Aryan languages, including Kashmiri, would both derive from a common
linguistic ancestor, the extinct PaizAcI -- a Prakrit, i.e. Middle
Indo-Aryan language.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/31443
Brahui (whose Dravidian affiliation is certain) turned into a Dardic
(Indo-Aryan) language. The ancient Indus Valley people too are
turned into Dardic speakers.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/51138
Etruscans are stated to be "essentially Lithuanians"; the latter are
stated to have worshipped Vedic gods in ancient times; the origin of
Etruscans is, accordingly, traced back to the Indian subcontinent
(and their language is stated to have some connections with -- guess
what? -- the Dardic sub-grouping of Indo-Aryan languages!)

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/51301
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/51344
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/51825
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/51859
The Mayan civilization of Central America would have branched from
ancient Indian civilization.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/58993
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/58997
The Sanskrit word drAviDa, Pali damila, damiLo and Prakrit dAviDa
would be etymologically unconnected with the Dravidian auto-
ethnonym "tamizh" (which is the etymology adhered to by most of
Indologists); instead, it would derive from the auto-ethnonym of the
Lycians of ancient Anatolia, Trmmili.

Don't ask ME to take you seriously any more, Kishoreji...

Regards,
"Fr. Br."