Chaos II (kinimod)

[witzel at HUSC3.HARVARD.EDU]

RE: Kinimod Kytsajuw <dow at wjh12.harvard.edu> on chaos/ Feb 11.1996:
===


As one of the staffed shirts of this hollowed, ivy-overgrown place, I must
protest most vigourously with Kinimod`s spam-like invasion of Harvard`s
email space: 

Obviously he is a fan of Sam Kinnison (see below) and wants to advertize his
videos/records, while, at the same time K. does so by usurping the
copyright brand name of the Dow company (big mistake: their lawyers will
get him/her!), and K. tries to delude us with his/her obviously diversant
remark about the use of the word ``chaos``: 
  >> any other use, for example in describing Bon Jovi fans, is merely a 
  pinko-grey imperialist insult.<<

This insulting description of Bon Jovi fans is obviously meant just to
hide the fact that he/she is a fan of --and named after-- the rock star and
comic Kinnison = Kini-mod (mod = etymologically linked to ``modern``, kind
of like ``hip, cool`` etc., see Dr. Suschiel Gupta`s Indo-germanische
Etymologisches Woerterbuch, Boston, Sverge Publ., Boston 1990 ff., s.v. 
mad), -- a useless attempt to confuse the combined intelligence on this
list:  even though (s)he/it desparately tried to disguise his/her/its
identity by the pseudonyms whose definite explanation I have already given
above.  My conclusion is further supported by the fact that even common
sense and simple logic tells us that this must be a set-up as Kinnison has
been dead for some years... 

The argument also does not hold up to philological scrutiny: as defined 
by my colleague here, Prof. M. Nagatomi some years ago, philology is the 
study of  *a* word, -- a definition I have been teaching here for years 
now, -- and a real slow reading of Kinimod`s description of  ``chaos`` 
just is not up to the level of contemporary, post-modern discourse:  
(s)he/it uses it in various, mutually incompatible ways, something that 
must not be allowed: chaos is chaos, as defined by proper newspeak, and 
therefore very close to s`uunyataa.  

I learnt this already during the 1983 CISHAAN/ICANAAS conference at Tokyo 
(actually, one year too early, before 1984) where, in a lecture on the late 
philosopher Sri Anirvan, it was shown, in my otherwise etymological 
session (see Proceedings of the 31st CISHAAN (Tokyo-Kyoto), ed. by 
T.Yamamoto, Tokyo 1984),  that:   brahman = s`uunyataa.  How much closer 
could you get to a REAL understanding of the concept? I am deeply sorry for 
most of you who have missed this discussion. 

On second thought, I think all of this would also make for a good topic 
of the Hinduja study group on ``conflict resolution`` :  For, of course, 
in brahman (advaitic or other), there won`t  be any conflict, though I am 
not so sure about non-A-nirvan definitions of s`uunyataa... I leave that 
to the Mahayana  specialists among us... And if they don` t know, maybe 
they can ask their (lineage) guru and tell us. Then we`ll finally know. 

Or, instead of the Hinduja group we can ask the Harvard Program for 
Mediation and conflict resolution. Coming to think of it, this one has 
been in place for many years, and has successfully worked in places like 
the Near East (and, if I am not mistaken, Somalia). In this light, the 
Columbia Hinduja working group just seems to be a case of one-upmanship: 
a vain attempt to compete with Harvard...

Actually, surprisingly for this list, nobody has yet discussed the proper
Sanskrit equivalents for ``chaos``!!  Or maybe, (as I suspect), the word
does not exist in the Sanskrit language (any suggestions?) I have checked
all the VEDAS and could find only things like ``tumula-`` which, though it
occurs in a Smriti text, (Latyayana Srautasutra 2.3.3, --outside the
famous pumscali passage) -- probably is due to the interpolation of
Christians like Max Muller or somebody of his ilk (I think it was the
Russo-Finnish Sanskritist Reuter-- who, as the German (!) etymology of his
name, ``rider``, clearly shows, was as Nordic as you can get it, at
Helsinki, and therefore pale-(paaNDu)-white and clearly also one of the
descendents of those horse riding invaders (from the Rasaa/Rahaa= Volga,
near Saratov/Engels (!)) whom the 19th c. linguists mistakenly liked to
have had conquer Vedic India: with tumula- he imitated the Latin word
``tumultus`` -- a real mess that occured during the Roman carnival. He did
that just to drag down the ancient Soma sacrifice where, of course, no
such mess occurs. We leave that to a non-orthodox (Roman?) interpretation
of the mass.

It should be possible, though, to find an Indian equivalent for ``chaos``,
at least in recent, heavily colonialized languages such as Hinglish, where
it exists, of course, as ``keyas``.

In short, this attempt to disrupt our scholarly exchange of the OED 
meaning of the word ``chaos`` must be refuted vigourously and put into 
the waste basket just like other spams (the recent free journal one!), 
emerging from assumed locations. I am only sorry that we have been drawn 
into this one, and I think, I will take it up tomorrow with the proper 
authorities such as the commencement Marshall. 

E.J.M. Witzel
Wales Prof. of Sanskrit


PS.: What does Charles think about this?

PPS. On further thought, maybe the Hinduja Inst. shouldn`t touch the 
topic: otherwise they must dissolve the ``resolution group`` immediately.

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