Aryans and Dravidians

[SILK at AC.GRIN.EDU]

Rob Mayer raises several interesting issues which it may be worth bringing
to the fore.  I am no expert in the Aryan / Non-aryan controversy, and on
this list and in this company would even hesitate to call myself an
Indologist.  But I want to mention something which is more methodological
than textual.  Mayer seems to suggest that since the Tantric traditions
have formulated several (characteristic?) doctrines in terms of -- even if
in so-to-say counter-terms of -- Brahmanical doctrines this implies the
chronological priority of the latter.  I ask him, as a Tibetologist, to
consider the case of the Bon tradition.  Virtually the entire literature of
the tradition, and almost the complete formulation of its thought, is cast
in what is obviously Buddhist terms (or again, counter-terms).  But there
is strong reason to believe nevertheless that the tradition, in some form
-- even if this is archaeologically unrecoverable -- indeed pre-dates
Buddhism in the Tibetan world.  The overwhelming "high" culture of Buddhism
provided the model for the formulation of Bon thought, but this is far from
proving that Bon is "Buddhist."
        Such a comparison does not, of course, prove that Tantra is
non-Aryan, but it does suggest that simply arguing that Tantric doctrines
are formulated in Dharmasastric terms and are therefore inherently and
originally of Aryan origin is not a sound way of proceeding.
        This may or may not be at all relevant to the so-called Aryan
invasion theory which has been discussed (or has any discussion actually
gotten going?) here over the last few days.  But I thought it worthwhile
pointing out the trouble I saw in Mayer's suggestions.
jonathan silk:  silk at ac.grin.edu