Thank you for your feedback and critique. It is easy to go astray on such
questions, and we need all the help we can get. I appreciate the need to be
wary of a figure such as Danielou, but why only he? I am not a 'true
believer' in Danielou's theories, and I appreciate the problematic character of
his notions of an Indo-Mediterranean religio-cultural complex'. It is also true
that much conventional, supposedly non-speculative scholarship on Hinduism, is
even worse, and has gone completely astray, terminally muddled, although
taken as normative.
So, however shaky, Danielou's unwitting commentary is a clue, no
more, to a possible solution to at least some of the problems of the
religious traditions here. Hinduism, if not a modern invention, and whatever it
refers to, is a series of bum steers and gross historical fictions, so the
sudden jolt given by Danielou can act like shock treatment, and reorient
one's thinking, hopefully without buying into all his other speculations.
Note however that none of that add on speculation from Danielou was
really implied or needed for my basic point, which was Danielou's, and not only
his, intuitive sense that the Indic stream of religion is far older
than the probable entry point of Indo-European cultural/linguistic influence,
leaving the situation as it conventionally taken equally problematic.
The question of translations from a presumably oral Dravidian tradition in
such instances as the literature of the Puranas is indeed speculative, and,
again, not necessarily the point. We can set that idea aside, and the basic
issue remains. Many of the OIT proponents rightly point out that, as noted,
Indian religion seems very old, almost Neolithic (whatever that means) in its
character, but then go astray in trying to backdate the Aryan wrapper to such
earlier periods. Vedic Sanskrit in the year 5000 BCE is a proposition that can't
be right to me, even given my poor understanding of historical linguistics here.
If I am not mistaken the linguistics point to a cut off of around 2500 BCE at
the absolute outside for Aryan influence, and Vedic is already far
later than that. Vedism in the Neolithic has to be nonsense, blinding us to the
obvious other point that non-Aryan Indic religion might indeed be that old. As a
non-specialist I must nonetheless point to what was always my perspective,
visible in the analog of the Aryan invasion of Greece. The OIT protest against
an Aryan invasion ought to be equally indignant with respect to Homeric
invaders, and bloodthirsty Spartans with their helots. The Greek
case is the other instance of the obvious pattern that would seem hard
to throw out.
Setting that approach of Puranas as translations aside for a
moment (I can take the idea no further and appreciate the suggestion the idea
doesn't work), it makes sense to consider the antecedents of Shavism, with its
yoga/tantra, and putative proto-Jain spinoff in some non-Aryan form going back
to very early times. The discovery of yoga via elements of tantra is a concept
that might almost prediate even the Neolithic and be a Paleolithic brand of
evolutionary psychology, as Danielou suggests. The discovery of some connection
of self-consciousness and sex as cave man stuff sounds right to me!
Again that is speculative. But at the very least it would seem that
Jainism, from which Buddhism is in many ways a side branch and
renovation/reform, had an entire interval going back several millennia or more.
A similar prior record for proto-Shavism makes altogether a lot of sense.
The notion from Danielou of a Mediterranean cultural/linguistic complex is
probably too speculative, I would not waste much time on the otherwise
tantalizing idea of a Shiva/Dionysus collation. But I can't reject out of
hand the existence of a Neolithic 'commons' in the sense of a series related
religious formats in an early oikoumene passed on via oral traditions. Without
more evidence it is hard to proceed, but we should keep in mind the idea put
forth by a recent author of a text on the Neolithic, After The Ice,
that the Neolithic is the real source of all later civilization, in its basic
elements. It makes sense to consider Danielou's suggestion that the great
Indic religious traditions crystallized around the sixth millenniusm BCE,
the onset of the second Neolithic stage, also the probable birth
point of proto-Dynastic Egyptian and proto-Sumerian cultural streams. We should
note the parallel emergence of great temple complexes in the Mesopotamian
field after ca. 5000 BCE in the era prior to what we call the 'rise of
higher civilization' , viz. ca. 3000 BCE. Higher civilization (as opposed to
first Neolithic villages) sources earlier than that, and gets underway more
that two millennia earlier. A parallel religious foundation period in Indian
would make sense. Much of Indian religion still looks Neolithic.
That a tradition or version of Shaivism with its yoga/tantra and/or
proto-Jain spinoff sources at this time is a notion that would explain many
things. Note that this is five thousand years before the Axial Age, the latter
closer to our time than to its antecedents. We see the same in the Occident, as
the earlier sources of the Old Testament come to light.
In any case, there are many minimal versions/variants/ hypotheses as to
Danielou's basic point (and it wasn't his thinking only) that might help toward
a more historically based understanding of Indian religion which
is entirely confusing in its current form because the dogma of Vedism is
clearly grafted onto something that predates its appearance on the Indian scene.
As to the question of Dravidian, my suggestion could be off the wall, but
there aren't very many other candidates for a pre-Aryan linguistic backdrop. I
would note also the puzzling contradictions in the figure of the blue/dark
(dravidian?) Krishna, as if a very much more ancient myth is painted over
with later mythhistory. In any case, South India (which I note in passing has
some of the most ancient genetic strains known to man, standing in the direct
path to the Out of Africa migrations) holds still many archaeological secrets,
no doubt, and the remains of trace elements of primordial Shavism are all
there to be understood.
In any case, the basic streamlined version of Danielou's idea might help
many, especially New Agers sold into slavery in the Neo-Brahminical guru
circuit, to sort out their confusion and entanglement in the so-called
Hindu history of Indian religion here. It comes as a shock to realize that this
history is false, an already ancient brand of propaganda, and makes no
sense for the obvious reasons Danielou points to, minus his other speculations.
Danielou unfortunately compromised with this latter Hinduism even as he seems to
have undermined it, adding another layer to his complicated reasoning.
I might conclude by noting that while I give little credence to Indic
notions of age periods, it is amusing, a real howler of a laugh, to
consider that Hinduism is a concoction of the Kali Yuga, Indic religion in
decline, and that Buddhism (I am not a Buddhist) as a restoration
movement availed itself of much of the stream of Jain religion, trying to evade
the crystallizing Hindu nexus coming into being on its ancient archaeological
site. The orphaned Jain stream was already ancient by the time of
Mahavir/Gautama, speaking of not less than twenty four teertankers. The odd way
Mahavir comes at the end of something, and Gautama at the beginning suggests the
Danielou idea of something very ancient.
If you do the math (??) at a rate of one teertanker per century that puts
us back to ca. 3000 BCE. I find it comical to consider 'Hinduism' a stage of the
decline of Indic religion. In any case, Indian religion was already ancient by
the period of the Axial Age and the formation of Buddhism, Hinduism based on
Vedism, and the rest. In some ways Buddhism would seem closer to our own time
than to the primordial birth of Jainism in the Shaivite complex, whatever
exactly that was, and which is arguably a Neolithic legacy.
Again, Danielou may be wrong at many points, but he points to the
altogether complicated nature of the whole history, especially the way that the
ancient Shavism resurfaces at odd points, the sudden eruption of tantra into
Buddhism being a possible example. It is very hard to make one's way in this
labyrinth, and it is clear that everyone is confused, Hindus most of all.
Looking at Indian religion it is often hard to grasp what one is seeing.
The basic outline of Danielou, stripped to essentials, without any other
embroidery, might help to orient oneself in this succession of mirages.
John Landon
In a message dated 6/13/2010 4:02:53 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
frabrig@... it writes:
The
key word in your summary is "speculative" . The reading of Alain Daniélou's
books (such as _Gods of Love and Ecstasy: The Traditions of Shiva and
Dionysus_, _A History of India_, and especially his magnum opus _Hindu
Polytheism_) constituted my first impact with Indology twenty years ago. At
that time I was greatly fascinated (like you have probably been) by his
theories about the alleged existence of a prehistoric "Indo-Mediterranean "
religio-cultural complex centering round the figure of "Shiva/Dionysus" and,
on the Indian versant, of a (pre-Vedic and pre-Aryan) "Dravidian-speaking
Shaivite civilization" which would have produced a mass of lost oral religious
texts, later on "translated" into Sanskrit in order to be incorporated into
the by then dominant Vedic Aryan religious milieu.
Unfortunately, with
the passing of time I came to realize that Daniélou, who by no means
specialized in linguistics (at least, not in historical linguistics) , could
offer no linguistic evidence whatsoever to support his conjectures, which were
mainly based on the work of an earlier Indologist, F.E. Pargiter (1852-1927),
now regarded as greatly outdated. Though it is probably true that post-Vedic
texts such as the Shaiva Agamas, the Puranas, and the later Shaiva and Shakta
Tantras include mythemes originating from outside the sphere of the Vedic
religion -- namely, "non-Aryan" ones, though not necessarily "Dravidian" ones
only --, Daniélou's speculations about the existence of "pre-Aryan" oral texts
which would have been translated into Sanskrit long after the "Aryan invasion"
of India took place, are simply fantasies.
There is not a shred of
proof of that -- and not even, for what matters, for Daniélou's (and Father
Heras') "prehistoric Indo-Mediterranean Shaivism" and the like. Believe this
poor ex-fan of Daniélou's!
Regards,
Francesco Brighenti,
Ph.D.
VAIS -- Venetian Academy of Indian Studies
Venice,
Italy