lpetrich

HindooHeathen:
1. Max Muller studied Vedas and introduced the term Aryan as a racial term. ...

LP:
Max Muller makes a great villain, doesn't he?

And I note that some of MM's theories are nowadays rejected, such as his tracing of a lot of myths to Sun myths.

HindooHeathen:
2. Throughout her history India has welcomed peoples of different cultures and religions as migrants, refugees and even as invaders and they all got assimilated into India's cultural matrix. ...

LP:
Some of which had taken over. Consider the partial success of Islam in India.

HindooHeathen:
3.As far as the genetic makeup of Indian population here I give the relevant points : [on India being very mixed...]

However, differences in the genetic content of different castes does suggest that different castes have been maintained as separate populations with considerable success.

HindooHeathen:
4.Oldest Tamil songs (like Thol Kappiyam or Pura Nannurru) are estimated at 2000 BCE. They talk of a king whose age they tell belong to an age "unknowingly old". And he the songs say, "has performed Vedic rituals".

LP:
And what is that estimate based on?????

I would not be surprised if they were only 1000 or maybe 2000 years old. And I would not be surprised if this king was about as historical as King Arthur or Agamemnon.

HindooHeathen:
5.Many astronomical data of the Vedas help to date them as belonging to at least 3000 BCE (lowest estimate). In the AIT model Aryans invade India around 1500 BCE, (the date conjured by Max Muller to fit the 4004 BC rtime scale of Biblical creation.) then how could they write the Vedas in which even position of constellations with respect to south of Vindhya mountains are mentioned?

LP:
I'm not sure what astronomical data you have in mind. Are there big lists of eclipses in the Vedas?

lpetrich

phaedrus:
And for that old language "crutch", (linguistic evidence) that they use for an invasion theory, see

Linguistic Aspects of the Indo-European Urheimat Question

LP:
I read that article, and I don't find it very convincing. It does get some of the linguistic comparisons correct, such as how other IE language consistently distinguish vowels that are turned into a in Sanskrit.

However, that article claims that it was India that was the Indo-European homeland, and I believe that there are significant reasons to disagree. Consider the Harappans, who were settled and who had writing; the writers of the Vedas appear to have been nomads without writing. Furthermore, the Harappan script has still not been decoded, though I once saw a half-convincing Dravidian interpretation of it. This would imply that the Aryan presence in India is at most 3500 years old. Hittite and Greek speakers were already in their adopted homelands at that time, meaning that IE must have split a few millennia before.

lpetrich

SRWelch:
From some of their comments, Ipetrich, DMB and Boshko (and others) appear to be confusing some issues here regarding the Aryan Race Theory debate. First, it should be made clear that opponents to ART do not argue against the idea that tribal migrations and invasions occured in India's past, per se. This would be against common sense. However, what ART posits is that Hindu culture is the product of a white-skinned race of outsiders ("Aryans"), and therefore is by implication not indigenous to India. It is this linkage between race and Hindu culture, based upon psuedo-science from the 19th century called Aryan Race Theory, that is so hotly contested.

LP:
I will agree that that extreme position is unsupportable. These invading Aryans contributed *some* culture to India, but certainly not all of it. Here's an example: one important Hindu deity, Shiva, is associated with phallic symbols and is sometimes depicted as a Master of Animals. However, the Vedas do not mention Shiva and they describe fighting wicked phallus-worshippers; this suggests that the locals had had some tradition of phallic symbolism. And some Harappan imagery shows a Master of Animals, though his name is not given. Thus, both Shiva and phallic symbolism are pre-Aryan. Hinduism also contains several later inventions, such as the full-scale caste system, Krishna, and cow worship.

SRWelch:
"Psuedo-science" accurately describes ART. One of ART's creators, Max Muller, tried everything he could to shoehorn Indian history into a 4000--year old timeline that conformed with the Biblical creation myth (so HH's reference to the Bible are not pulled out of thin air). ART fits this bill nicely, but it certainly can't be called science by today's standards, any more than other racial "sciences" of the era.

LP:
Max Muller makes a great villain, doesn't he?

SRWelch:
Also, it's true that race and caste are separate, but understand that ART is an attempt to conflate the two, e.g. "upper caste = white invaders = Hinduism" vs. "lower caste = dark skin = non-Hindu". When one considers the obvious benefits to the European colonizers and missionaries of inventing such distinctions, one again has to question the validity of the theory.

LP:
Very interesting conspiracy theory. However, castes had originally been referred to as _varna_ (literally "color"), which does suggest some skin-color distinction. Invaders from the north would have been light-skinned in comparison with those they invaded, because they had originally been adapted to less sunlight than those they overran. So I don't see how this is any sort of white vs. black issue.

SRWelch:
And just a quick comment regarding the whole topic of the "genetic foundation" for race. I don't believe that there is any genetic foundation for "race". Modern forensic experts can't confidently determine a person's race based on DNA samples alone, and the greater part of genetic differentiation among our species (90%+?) is found between individuals of the same race -- less than 10% accounts for differences across the so-called "race" boundaries. Among the "races," in fact, Caucasians (of which Indians are generally grouped) supposedly express the greatest variety in terms of skin color, hair color, etc. etc. So when someone presents an argument claiming that a genetic basis has been found that substantiates a Dravidian (or any other) "race group," I'm extremely skeptical.

LP:
For an individual, it may be difficult, but if one has samples from several people, one can distinguish populations. It's all a matter of statistics.

SRWelch:
Lastly, the whole topic of race and community is a serious and volatile issue in India, so comparing the rise and fall of the Hitites or the invasions of ancient Germanic tribes to the debate over ART in India displays a lack of appreciation for today's reality in that country. India was under British subjugation until only 50 years ago, and it until this day is being invaded every year by thousands of American and Australian missionaries bent on Christianizing it. The Hitites are long gone, and the Germans and Gauls and everyone else in Europe fell long ago to Christian domination. Hindus prefer not to let that happen to them as well, and are today struggling to prevent it. As a propoganda tool of former colonizers and today's evangelists, ART therefore is taken seriously.

LP:
That's beside the point.

copernicus

Interesting thread. I am a linguist, and I am quite familiar with linguistic methodology and Indo-European. I agree with much of what lpetrich and others have been saying against the view that there was no Aryan invasion. The Elst article attacking linguistic methodology is written by an amateur, who promotes the old discredited idea that northern India was the IE homeland. (Please understand that there has been a lot of research since Max Muller's time. The idea that Sanskrit speakers came from outside of India is not really controversial.)

We can reconstruct something of the Indo-European urheimat by comparing vocabulary for flora, fauna, and other environmental phenomena across languages. To the best of our knowledge, now, the original homeland was somewhere in central or eastern Europe, not northern India, which lacked some of the requisite plants and animals in ancient times.

Let me explain how linguists prove that languages are related. They compare words across candidate languages and attempt to establish regular sound correspondences (e.g. that German "f" often corresponds with Latin "p": e.g. 'fish' vs. 'piscis'). No such correspondences can be established for Dravidian and Indo-European, and those two language families are not known to be related. It is perfectly conceivable that all of the world's languages descended from the same source ultimately, but there is no sound linguistic methodology for proving that.

As for Indus Valley civilization, it may well have been an Indo-European-speaking culture. We just don't know. Moreover, there is no linguistic basis for proving that Indo-Europeans invaded or migrated peacefully (although I somehow doubt the latter, given those times of inter-tribal warfare). We only know that Sanskrit is more closely related to Latin and Greek than to any Dravidian language. And we have the Hindu literature, which seems to describe wars between Aryans and non-Aryans. And we have DMB's evidence of genetic diversity. Also, the Hindu pantheon bears some striking relationships to the Indo-European pantheon (cf. Agni and Vulcan, Cupid and Kama--both with bow and arrows). One of the major differences is that the Hindu religion seems to blend in animism, supposedly from the religion of a conquered people. So the invasion hypothesis still seems to be the most reasonable assumption, although nothing can be established with absolute certainty.

[ July 26, 2001: Message edited by: copernicus ]

hinduwoman

Varna means colour. But it also means lustre, the special lustre of a god and a host of other meanings.

the protest is not against invasion. It is against insistence that caste and race is the same --- simply another stick to beat us with. considering we are surrounded by physical evidence that Brahmins are both black and white, and it is true among lower calsses we don't see why we should accept this.

phaedrus

Before this discussion goes further..

Does everyone here agree that there was no invasion ? (if not, in light of the above discussion and links, briefly point out why). I see lots of repetitions and hence want to establish the status of the discussion beforw going on to discuss the language and the remaining issues.

phaedrus

lpetrich

I read that article, and I don't find it very convincing. It does get some of the linguistic comparisons correct, such as how other IE language consistently distinguish vowels that are turned into a in Sanskrit

Could you give specific reasons for which you find the article not convincing?

However, that article claims that it was India that was the Indo-European homeland, and I believe that there are significant reasons to disagree. Consider the Harappans, who were settled and who had writing; the writers of the Vedas appear to have been nomads without writing. Furthermore, the Harappan script has still not been decoded, though I once saw a half-convincing Dravidian interpretation of it.

How does the harappan writing link to the significant reasons to not believe about the IE homeland?

This would imply that the Aryan presence in India is at most 3500 years old. Hittite and Greek speakers were already in their adopted homelands at that time, meaning that IE must have split a few millennia before.

Aryan presence is 3500 years old??(Are you suggesting 1500bc, just like all those AIT chaps do?) How did you come to the conclusion?

phaedrus

copernicus

. I agree with much of what lpetrich and others have been saying against the view that there was no Aryan invasion.

Err...give your reasons mate

The Elst article attacking linguistic methodology is written by an amateur, who promotes the old discredited idea that northern India was the IE homeland.

By what standards have you come to the conclusion that the author is an amateur?
And what made you think that he is promoting the India as a IE homeland??? If you read the article, he clearly states at the end...
To the best of our knowledge, now, the original homeland was somewhere in central or eastern Europe, not northern India, which lacked some of the requisite plants and animals in ancient times.

That is a sweeping statement, provide links or give some facts

Moreover, there is no linguistic basis for proving that Indo-Europeans invaded or migrated peacefully (although I somehow doubt the latter, given those times of inter-tribal warfare)

Huh so your saying there is no way to prove AIT???? Then the issue is resolved (as far as linguistic evidence is concerned), now AIT proponents can put forward other forms of evidence

For the remainder of your post, would ask you to go through the varioius links provided in the thread above which deal with the issues you have raised

[ July 27, 2001: Message edited by: phaedrus ]

HindooHeathen

There has been no Aryan invasion.

Oldest Tamil literature is Thol Kappiyam written around 2000BCE. [See any basic history book for the life and civilization of Tamils]This is supposed to be the oldest Dravidian language. The question is not the historical reality of the mentioned king but the way of life depicted there, which is Vedic.
In Vedas you find Indra, Rudra, Prajapathi and many other deities who are connected to later day Hindu deities such as Vishnu , Brahma and Shiva. Most deities are composite deities having attributes of different deities. So distinguishing Dravidian and Aryan deities is to say the least ridiculous. For example Harappa and Mohenjadaro (dated 3250 BCE) have a lot of fire altars. Vedas speak of Saraswathi river and more than 100 Harappan like sites have been discovered along its now-dried course.
Saraswathi is estimated to have dried long before the so-called Aryans came and how can
Vedas mention the mighty saraswathi?

I have watched carefully many indological forum and at best what some scholars have is an Aryan migration theory. Even they have conceded the fact that AMT too is only a conjencture.

There have been no "fights between Aryan deities and Dravidian deities". The crude interpretatin of Vedas in the lines of Old Testament has led to this fallacy.

The link to scientific american does not work. It is a site requiring paid subscription I think. Any way here I present an abstract of a genetic study:


Curr Biol 1999 Nov 18;9(22):1331-4

Deep common ancestry of indian and western-Eurasian mitochondrial DNA lineages.

Kivisild T, Bamshad MJ, Kaldma K, Metspalu M, Metspalu E, Reidla M, Laos S, Parik
J, Watkins WS, Dixon ME, Papiha SS, Mastana SS, Mir MR, Ferak V, Villems R

Department of Evolutionary Biology, Tartu University, Tartu, 51010, Estonia.


Recent limited analysis of maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of Indian populations has been interpreted as supporting this concept. Here, this interpretation is questioned. We found an extensive deep late Pleistocene
genetic link between contemporary Europeans and Indians, provided by the mtDNA
haplogroup U, which encompasses roughly a fifth of mtDNA lineages of both
populations. Our estimate for this split is close to the suggested time for the peopling of Asia and the first expansion of anatomically modern humans in Eurasia
and likely pre-dates their spread to Europe. Only a small fraction of the 'Caucasoid-specific' mtDNA lineages found in Indian populations can be ascribed to a
relatively recent admixture.


Curr Biol 1999 Dec 16-30;9(24):R925-8

Human evolution: the southern route to Asia.

Disotell TR

Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York 10003, USA.

Research on human origins has tended to focus on the origins of western Eurasians; only
recently have genetic studies examined south and east Asian populations in depth. Recent
work suggests that the supposed Aryan invasion of India 3,000-4,000 years ago was
much less significant than is generally believed.


Please note the very careful wordings of these academics in which they clearly dissociate themselves from AIT. Also massive amount of archeological and linguistic evidence can be given to disprove the AIT though the burden of proof should be on AIT proponents to prove their claims.

All these decades there has been no standing evidence these people have provided except shifting grounds!

copernicus

Elst is not a professional linguist. He has no research credentials in the field, nor does he appear to have a very deep understanding of the literature that he does cite. His article presents a skewed review of the linguistic literature, and he does his best to promote the idea that northern India could be the homeland, despite strong evidence (not cited by him) to the contrary. If you want to read a well-written linguistic discussion of the original homeland, see Gamkrelidze and Ivanov's Scientific American article, which promotes the view that the homeland was in western Asia and the southern Caucasus rather than Europe. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov challenge the more conventional theory that it was in the plains of central or eastern Europe. I know of nobody with serious credentials in the field who now supports the northern India hypothesis, which was rejected decades ago.

As for the migration/invasion hypothesis, I do not think that the lack of reference to invasion in the Vedic literature provides proof of anything at all. Indo-European tribes have always been a scrappy lot, and they were not shy about invading new territories. I repeat: there is no linguistic evidence one way or the other as to whether there was fighting. It's just that it seems rather implausible that a massive tribal migration of that sort would be peaceful. It also seems implausible to opponents of the invasion theory, and that is why they try their best to argue for a northern India urheimat. The idea that Indo-European and Dravidian languages were somehow related is easily refuted by linguistic evidence.

What puzzles me is why opponents of AIT make such a point about "invasion". The Indian subcontinent does not appear to have been any more peaceful than other areas of the world in recorded history. If Indo-Europeans invaded and conquered the indigenous cultures, so what?

[ July 27, 2001: Message edited by: copernicus ]