Tamil words in English

[S Krishna]

I would first of all like to thank Edwin Bryant for his comments
since he is obviously competent to comment upon it...

While I disagree with Lars in terms of the need for acceptance of an
idea in western scholarship, I do agree with him and Jacob Baltuch in
terms of how Rajaram and Subhash Kak( please don't forget the "Bhishma
Pitamaha" of all this fancy stuff) selectively use stuff from WEstern
Scholars and reject it when they find it contradicts their thoughts..


  One very silly point for the rejection of AIT brought up in Kak's
book is: Nowhere do we find in the Tamil texts, any mention of the
Dravidians losing a war....

  I find this downright laughable...has any civilization/culture
talked/sung about about a war which they've lost? In India, we always
talk about the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars because we came out on top,
there is far less discussion of the 1962 Indo-China war where we came
out second best...Likewise, in the Tamil texts we find mention of
incidents (real/imagined) where the Tamils came out on top..the third
canto of the CilappadikAram talks about a king who went up north and
gave the northern kings a thrashing, in the 10th-11th century
Raja Raja Chola took on the title of gaGgaikoNDachOzhan2 for the simpl
e reason that he came out on top(It is a safe bet that one wouldn't find
this in northern texts)...I find it difficult to believe that people can
swallow such reasoning given by Kak and company without questions....

 They quote Aurobindo Ghose because he is a freedom fighter and
therefore tried to debunk British theories; by the same token why can't
they pay attention to the sayings of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, whose
nationalist credentials are above question? Simple, because the former
gives them legitimacy, the later( who talks about an Arctic home) does
n't....


 Prof R.E.Frykenberg(UWisconsin) mentions in his book "Guntur(1788-
1848)" that it was common for the zamindars to cook up tall stories
about descent from ancient kings in order to give themselves respacta
bility, the same also holds true of the king iruGkovEl who claims
descent from the yAdavas of dvAraka and the maharAja of udaipUr who
claims descent from the moon..this kind of story telling was common in
India and it gladdens my heart to see that there are still some Indians
who are holding so steadfastly onto this *ancient tradition* of coming
up with fantastic claims to give themselves a legal standing
as "sons of the soil"...

BEfore I depart, may I request Subrahmanya to back up this claim:
>Also, it is the invasion theorists who are revisionists, because the
>invasion theory started only in the mid 1800's. The indigenous theory
has existed a lot longer and was accepted and still is in many parts of
India, until the Church and the British decided to do something about
it.
>

 I doubt this because in the days of the Mughals, especially Aurangazeb,
discussion was invalid on these topics...they believed that the history
of a country before Islam came there wasn't worth knowing..If you are
refering to the Marathas , I'd be interested in knowing your reference
since V.K.Rajwade,(itihAsAcArya) the noted historian mentions no such
thing....such topics do not seem to have bothered the pEzvAs who were
more interested in proving their own
Brahminness thru the sahyAdri khaND....
so, I'm not sure of how the indigenous theory was believed..
Could you please give us a few references?

Regards,
Krishna

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